Exploiting the Moon and saving the Earth
Space Cadet
Exploiting the Moon and saving the Earth
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/490/1
by Jeff Foust
Monday, November 7, 2005
There has been a lot of debate in recent months regarding how to return
to the Moon, and especially since the release of NASA's Exploration
Systems Architecture Study (ESAS) in September. Less has been said,
though, about what people and/or robots will do once they get there.
Not that there's any shortage of ideas: from studying lunar geology
and using it as a platform for astronomy to establishing tourist
resorts and a separate home for humanity beyond the Earth. None of
those ideas, though, has managed yet to resonate with the public.
So how about saving the world? The idea of using lunar resources to
prevent or reverse environmental degradation of the Earth is not new:
many have proposed harvesting helium-3 from the Moon for fusion
reactors that don't exist yet; others have suggested manufacturing
and/or establishing solar power facilities there. (See "Review: Gaia
Selene", The Space Review, September 6, 2005.) Now another
innovative, out-of-the-box thinker, astronomer and retired Air Force
general Pete Worden, has a very different idea for how to save the
Earth using the Moon. While his idea may be no less outlandish-or
feasible-than prior ideas, it does demonstrate the brainstorming
going on to try and develop a rationale for lunar exploration and
exploitation.
Building infrastructure
Before unveiling his world-saving proposition during an October 21
speech at the Space Frontier Conference in Los Angeles, Worden first
talked about the roles of the public and private sector. Worden turned
to two key words invoked in the initial announcement of the Vision for
Space Exploration: affordability and sustainability. To help achieve
that, "the private sector must play not just a role, but a dominant
role."
To achieve an affordable and sustainable exploration vision, Worden
believes, "the private sector must play not just a role, but a
dominant role."
The government, Worden believes, is best fit for providing the
infrastructure needed for lunar exploration, what he called the
"roads and commodes" it provides on Earth. "That's a function
that governments to really well," he said. "It doesn't take a lot
of imagination, but it does take persistence." For the Moon, that
infrastructure comes in several forms, including communications, PNT
(position, navigation, and timing, provided on Earth by GPS),
"situational awareness" (maps and other remote sensing techniques),
and power.
Even here there is a role for the private sector. One model for
infrastructure building, Worden noted, is the transcontinental railroad
built in the US in the 1860s: it was built privately, financed by the
large land grants given to the builders by the government. "With
private ownership you can finance just about anything," he noted. The
second approach is government-funded and operated infrastructure, such
as GPS. However, Worden believes GPS hasn't reached its full
potential because there is no private ownership; he sees Europe's
Galileo system, a public-private partnership, as "a move in the right
direction".
That infrastructure, once in place, opens up a number of possible uses
of the Moon, including options for the private sector usually
associated only with the government. One example is astronomy: while
normally linked with government efforts funded by NASA and NSF, Worden
noted that many terrestrial telescopes, even some of the large
next-generation telescopes under development, are privately funded to
the tune of $500 million to $1 billion. A large liquid-mirror telescope
on the Moon, 20 to 30 meters in diameter, could stare at one point in
th e sky and see objects as dim as magnitude 37 or 38-faint enough to
look back to just 100 million years after the Big Bang. Such a
telescope could cost about $1 to 2 billion-within the budgets of
private financiers-if "significant infrastructure" to support the
observatory is in place. (Worden has been studying the development of
such a telescope under a grant from the NASA Institute for Advanced
Concepts.)
The Moon's biggest asset, Worden believes, is what it doesn't have:
an ecosystem. "The Moon is a place where we can do things that are
perhaps too dangerous to do on Earth," he said. This could include
performing nanotechnology research there, thus avoiding concerns about
ecophagy: out-of-control nanobots turning everything into "gray
goo", as some opponents of nanotech fear. The Moon could also be a
quarantine zone for samples returned from Mars, in the event the
discovery of life on Mars precludes a direct return of Martian samples
to the Earth.
Ten billion ways to stop global warming
All those ideas, though, paled in comparison to what Worden described
next: a solution to the problem of global warming. Although not
addressing the causes of global warming-natural, man-made, or some
combination-he saw three solutions to the problem. One is to roll
back technology "and live the way we did a century ago", an
alternative that most, including Worden, would find unpalatable. The
second is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the use of
alternative fuels, nuclear power, and the like. While this has "great
potential", he noted, this approach is also fraught with "political
issues" that could hinder their adoption.
Worden's solution is deceptively simple: erect a shield at the
Earth-Sun L2 point, about 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth in the
direction of the Sun.
The third, as Worden modestly put it, is to change the fundamental
physical constants of the universe. That might seem outlandish at
first-Worden likened it to something that Q, the omnipotent nemesis
from the Star Trek universe, would do-but what he really had in mind
was the solar constant, the amount of sunlight that falls on the Earth.
That value isn't really constant, and has changed over time.
Moreover, Worden believes it's possible for humans to change it.
Worden's solution is deceptively simple: erect a shield at the
Earth-Sun L2 point, about 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth in the
direction of the Sun. A shield about 1,600 kilometers across would be
sufficient to block two percent of the incident solar radiation,
decreasing the solar "constant" and thus solving the global warming
problem.
The general idea itself is not that original: Worden credited a paper
by James Early in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society in
the late 1980s for the concept. Worden's implementation would be a
massive undertaking, featuring 10 billion spacecraft, each 14 by 14
meters across, arrayed in a three-dimensional checkerboard. The heart
of each spacecraft would be a thin block of dispersive glass, weighing
no more than one kilogram, manufactured on the Moon. In reality these
spacecraft would be transparent, Worden explained: rather than blocking
sunlight they would instead disperse it by about one degree, enough to
miss the Earth.
Worden said that such spacecraft could be manufactured on the Moon, but
would require a major industrial base: 1,000 factories on the lunar
surface that each produces 1,000 spacecraft a day for 30 years. He
estimates the total cost for such a system to be in the "few
trillions" of dollars. That cost doesn't assume any significant
decrease in the cost of space access: he estimates that each factory
will require between one and ten tons of material from the Earth, which
could be launched from the Earth for all 1,000 factories for well under
one trillion dollars even at a typical contemporary launch cost of
$20,000 per kilogram.
"We have to start thinking about space as a solution," he said.
"This is an idea whose time has come."
Nonetheless, with costs of that order of magnitude, one might imagine
that such a venture would be solely within the domain of governments.
Worden, though, sees private enterprise taking the lead. In a system
analogous to the land grants awarded to the builders of the
transcontinental railroad, companies that deploy such systems would
qualify to receive "carbon credits" for mitigating the effects of
atmospheric carbon dioxide, such as those proposed under the Kyoto
Protocol. A system of 324 spacecraft alone, Worden estimates, would be
worth 6,000 tons of carbon credits. Those credits could then, in turn,
be sold on the open market. The result is a system that could be, in
Worden's opinion, "self-financing", although how much such carbon
credits will be worth is an open question.
But, as someone asked Worden after his speech, if this system is
privately developed, what's to prevent someone from blocking ten
percent of sunlight, instead of two, and selling-or
ransoming-access to it? "That's where governments have to say
that there has to be some level of regulation," Worden admitted.
"Unlimited capitalism is just as evil as unlimited government."
While the specific concept may seem overwhelming, Worden believes the
underlying idea is valid and critical. "We have to start thinking
about space as a solution," he said. "This is an idea whose time
has come."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Foust (je...@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The
Space Review. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site and the
Space Politics weblog. Views and opinions expressed in this article are
those of the author alone, and do not represent the official positions
of any organization or company, including the Futron Corporation, the
author's employer.
ust my $0.02
Space Cadet
derwetzelsDASHspacecadetATyahooDOTcom
Moon Society - St. Louis Chapter
http://www.moonsociety.org/chapters/stlouis/
The Moon Society is a non-profit educational and
scientific foundation formed to further scientific
study and development of the moon.
John Savard
part:
>Now another
>innovative, out-of-the-box thinker, astronomer and retired Air Force
>general Pete Worden, has a very different idea for how to save the
>Earth using the Moon.
Wasn't he also an astronaut? Or do I have Pete Conrad and Al Worden
mixed up?
>Before unveiling his world-saving proposition during an October 21
>speech at the Space Frontier Conference in Los Angeles, Worden first
>talked about the roles of the public and private sector. Worden turned
>to two key words invoked in the initial announcement of the Vision for
>Space Exploration: affordability and sustainability. To help achieve
>that, "the private sector must play not just a role, but a dominant
>role."
>The government, Worden believes, is best fit for providing the
>infrastructure needed for lunar exploration, what he called the
>"roads and commodes" it provides on Earth. "That's a function
>that governments to really well," he said. "It doesn't take a lot
>of imagination, but it does take persistence." For the Moon, that
>infrastructure comes in several forms, including communications, PNT
>(position, navigation, and timing, provided on Earth by GPS),
>"situational awareness" (maps and other remote sensing techniques),
>and power.
Why do governments do well at providing infrastructure? Is it that
politicians are naturally more persistent than businessmen? Or is it
simply that any public good that cannot efficiently be *directly paid
for by its users as they use it* winds up having to be paid for out of
taxes?
Clearly, it is the latter, which explains why, up to now, stunning
photos of Jupiter and rocks from the Moon have been paid for by taxes.
>That infrastructure, once in place, opens up a number of possible uses
>of the Moon, including options for the private sector usually
>associated only with the government.
Evidently, I missed the part about how having a Lunar Positioning System
would lower the cost of putting payloads on the moon by a factor of 100.
>The Moon's biggest asset, Worden believes, is what it doesn't have:
>an ecosystem. "The Moon is a place where we can do things that are
>perhaps too dangerous to do on Earth," he said. This could include
>performing nanotechnology research there, thus avoiding concerns about
>ecophagy: out-of-control nanobots turning everything into "gray
>goo", as some opponents of nanotech fear. The Moon could also be a
>quarantine zone for samples returned from Mars, in the event the
>discovery of life on Mars precludes a direct return of Martian samples
>to the Earth.
These are good, sensible things to do on the Moon.
>Worden's solution is deceptively simple: erect a shield at the
>Earth-Sun L2 point, about 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth in the
>direction of the Sun. A shield about 1,600 kilometers across would be
>sufficient to block two percent of the incident solar radiation,
>decreasing the solar "constant" and thus solving the global warming
>problem.
And have private enterprise pay for it because of the value of "carbon
credits", as explained below.
Well, in the 19th Century, they laughed at the people who said that
someday people would land on the Moon.
On the other hand, "they also laughed at Bozo the Clown".
This idea may not be utterly preposterous. It may just seem that way.
After all, while it may cost a certain amount of money to send an
initial force of miners and smelters to the Moon, lunar raw materials
have basically no marginal cost. The cost of lunar aluminum is the cost
of making it, so if one could have a labor force that is both unpaid and
self-reproducing, it would work nicely.
Since China and India *already have* The Bomb, a massive change-over to,
say, thorium breeder reactors is far more feasible and less expensive.
Once North America, Australia, Western Europe, Russia, China, India and
Japan are "off the map" when it comes to carbon emissions, we will have
some breathing space before we need to worry about fossil fuel
consumption in Iran, Brazil, and Argentina causing global warming.
I think we'll have thorium breeders before von Neumann machines...
John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
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Alex Terrell
Dennis Wingo in Moonrush advocates platinum group metal mining from
impacted asteroids. Space solar power has huge potential.
As for building the sun shield, seems like a good idea. Though I'd go a
large parasol rather than 10 billion independent spacecraft. That would
be manufactured in orbit, but using lunar materials.
The nice thing about glass is that the force of the light pressure is
much less than it would be with aluminium foil.
IsaacKuo
>>The government, Worden believes, is best fit for providing the
>>infrastructure needed for lunar exploration, what he called the
>>"roads and commodes" it provides on Earth. "That's a function
>>that governments to really well," he said.
>Why do governments do well at providing infrastructure? Is it that
>politicians are naturally more persistent than businessmen? Or is it
>simply that any public good that cannot efficiently be *directly paid
>for by its users as they use it* winds up having to be paid for out of
>taxes?
Not precisely. In some cases, the public good must be maintained
by government regulation. For example, maintaining healthy
levels of pollution in the air may involve government regulation
prohibiting equipment which has very toxic exhaust. In space,
government restrictions may be needed to limit space debris.
The basic principle is whether the good/bad results of an activity
disproportionately benefit/harm the people NOT involved in the
activity. For example, building an efficient (non-tolled) highway
costs a lot but it equally benefits everyone. The people who didn't
participate in financing the construction disproportionately
benefit. Thus, there is an economic disincentive to financing
the highway--it simply doesn't make business sense.
Conversely, dumping toxic chemicals into the environment
is cheap, but it equally harms everyone. It disproportionately
harms the people who aren't dumpting toxic chemicals. Thus,
there is an economic incentive to polluting the environment--it
simply DOES make business sense.
What government can do is change the economic cost/benefit
analysis. One obvious way is directly by funding programs with
taxes. Another obvious way is with penalties for harmful activities.
One less obvious way is by creating virtual markets, like trading
"pollution credits", which worked very well in controlling the acid
rain problem.
> >The Moon's biggest asset, Worden believes, is what it doesn't have:
> >an ecosystem. "The Moon is a place where we can do things that are
> >perhaps too dangerous to do on Earth," he said. This could include
> >performing nanotechnology research there, thus avoiding concerns about
> >ecophagy: out-of-control nanobots turning everything into "gray
> >goo", as some opponents of nanotech fear. The Moon could also be a
> >quarantine zone for samples returned from Mars, in the event the
> >discovery of life on Mars precludes a direct return of Martian samples
> >to the Earth.
> These are good, sensible things to do on the Moon.
Personally, I don't see the advantage of doing these things on the
Moon instead of on a space station. It takes less delta-v to get
something to/from a space station. The Moon could be useful if
we can effectively exploit the local resources, perhaps, but until
a lunar industry is relatively mature I suspect the benefits will
be outweighed by the inconvenient day/night cycle. Even after
there's a mature lunar industry, it might make sense to actually use
the resources largely in Earth orbit rather than on the Moon.
Isaac Kuo
Mike Combs
news:1131462674....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Personally, I don't see the advantage of doing these things on the
> Moon instead of on a space station. It takes less delta-v to get
> something to/from a space station. The Moon could be useful if
> we can effectively exploit the local resources, perhaps, but until
> a lunar industry is relatively mature I suspect the benefits will
> be outweighed by the inconvenient day/night cycle. Even after
> there's a mature lunar industry, it might make sense to actually use
> the resources largely in Earth orbit rather than on the Moon.
Your thinking pretty closely mirrors my own. Someone posted this to the SSI
maillist, and I responded thusly:
Nothing majorly wrong with his proposals, though, like pretty much all space
proposals, there are elements of planetary chauvinism here.
1. He talks about telescopes on the moon. But what's the advantage over
placing them in a high Earth orbit? What benefit is provided by being on
the lunar surface (which after all, blocks 50% of the universe from view)?
He proposes a type of telescope which does depend on lunar gravity for its
function: the liquid mirror telescope. But in the absence of gravity, a
solid mirror can be even bigger. More importantly, it can be pointed in any
direction you like, whenever you like. The liquid mirror telescope would
only be able to look in the direct the moon was currently pointing it.
2. Nanotech research and study of Martian microorganisms. Again, why not a
space station in a high orbit? What benefit to the research is being
provided by the lunar environment? The only requirement is that it be a
location with no physical connection to the biosphere.
3. L-2 sunshield from lunar materials. This is a pretty good proposal, but
even here he seems uninformed regarding the results of the High Frontier
studies. They recommend lifting raw lunar materials only from the moon via
EM launcher, and that all refining and manufacturing take place in HEO where
there's continuous access to solar power. Worden anticipates that his
sunshade spacecraft are going to get manufactured on the lunar surface and
then lifted to Sun-Earth L-2 (presumably by rocket). The spacecraft are
described as 14x14 meter squares massing 1 kg. That's going to be a pretty
delicate structure of glass. Now that's the right direction to go in; it
holds material costs down, and in 0-G, structures can be very flimsy indeed.
But if he's planning for them to get manufactured on the lunar surface, I
wonder how they're going to get rocketed up to L-2 in one piece.
But, there's also much that's good here. His statement that "the private
sector must play not just a role, but a dominant role." is right on the
money.
--
Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Member of the National Non-sequitur Society. We may not make
much sense, but we do like pizza.
Henry Spencer
Space Cadet <kaw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Here is a wild/crazy/out of the box idea, but would it really work?
>Earth-Sun L2 point, about 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth in the
(Somebody may have goofed in reporting here -- that's normally designated
the L1 point, although there is some disagreement about numbering between
the astronomers and the space engineers.)
While it's a challenging project, it is not ridiculous. The noteworthy
paper "Advanced technology paths to global climate stability: energy for a
greenhouse planet" (Science, 1 Nov 2002), while focused on carbon-neutral
energy production, did suggest that such "planetary engineering" solutions
are worth investigating as a backup strategy.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | he...@spsystems.net
Henry Spencer
John Savard <jsa...@excxn.aNOSPAMb.cdn.invalid> wrote:
>>innovative, out-of-the-box thinker, astronomer and retired Air Force
>
>Wasn't he also an astronaut? Or do I have Pete Conrad and Al Worden
>mixed up?
The latter. Pete Worden was involved with DC-X but was never an astronaut.
>Why do governments do well at providing infrastructure? Is it that
>politicians are naturally more persistent than businessmen?
Not quite, but close: it's because politicians see direct benefits (that
is, votes) from things like employment and prestige, which are of little
importance to business. Infrastructure building is capital-intensive and
the *financial* benefits are often indirect and slow in coming. So it's
more easily undertaken by organizations which have non-financial motives,
and thus can "show a profit" -- get sufficient near-term direct benefits
to justify the effort -- from projects that won't show a monetary return
for a long time (if ever).
Allen Thomson
Henry Spencer wrote:
> The latter. Pete Worden was involved with DC-X but was never an astronaut.
http://www.nss.org/about/bios/worden.html
http://www.af.mil/bios/bio_print.asp?bioID=7661&page=1
John Schilling
>
>"IsaacKuo" <mec...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:1131462674....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> Personally, I don't see the advantage of doing these things on the
>> Moon instead of on a space station. It takes less delta-v to get
>> something to/from a space station. The Moon could be useful if
>> we can effectively exploit the local resources, perhaps, but until
>> a lunar industry is relatively mature I suspect the benefits will
>> be outweighed by the inconvenient day/night cycle. Even after
>> there's a mature lunar industry, it might make sense to actually use
>> the resources largely in Earth orbit rather than on the Moon.
>Your thinking pretty closely mirrors my own. Someone posted this to the SSI
>maillist, and I responded thusly:
>Nothing majorly wrong with his proposals, though, like pretty much all space
>proposals, there are elements of planetary chauvinism here.
>1. He talks about telescopes on the moon. But what's the advantage over
>placing them in a high Earth orbit? What benefit is provided by being on
>the lunar surface (which after all, blocks 50% of the universe from view)?
>He proposes a type of telescope which does depend on lunar gravity for its
>function: the liquid mirror telescope. But in the absence of gravity, a
>solid mirror can be even bigger. More importantly, it can be pointed in any
>direction you like, whenever you like. The liquid mirror telescope would
>only be able to look in the direct the moon was currently pointing it.
The liquid-mirror telescope is pretty lame, yes. But, "in the absence of
gravity, a solid mirror can be even bigger" is the sort of thing the
engineer in me instinctively recoils at. Because there's an awful, awful
lot of engineering that gets swept under the rug in that statement.
In particular, big lightweight structures in microgravity tend to shake,
rattle, and roll. From the moment they are built, and with an extra dose
added every time you do something like "point in any direction you like".
And it's damnably hard to make those vibrations go away, when there is *no*
part of your system that you can point to and say "this doesn't move". Even
harder if you are trying to make all the parts as light as possible for ease
in lifting out of a gravity well.
So it's not at all clear that the optimal environment for a hundred-meter
telescope isn't someplace there is a modicum of gravity, lots of bedrock,
and the makings of concrete and maybe steel. And it may be worth hauling
the fancy parts all the way to the Moon to take advantage of that.
>2. Nanotech research and study of Martian microorganisms. Again, why not a
>space station in a high orbit? What benefit to the research is being
>provided by the lunar environment? The only requirement is that it be a
>location with no physical connection to the biosphere.
See above. The lunar environment may make the engineering easier. Or, for
that matter, the science - an awful lot of laboratory technique depends on
gravity to work, and a simple biological research facility probably isn't
going to be large enough to justify a spin habitat.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Michael Rhino
news:IpnDy...@spsystems.net...
> In article <1131452260.4...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Space Cadet <kaw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Here is a wild/crazy/out of the box idea, but would it really work?
>>...Worden's solution is deceptively simple: erect a shield at the
>>Earth-Sun L2 point, about 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth in the
>>direction of the Sun...
>
> (Somebody may have goofed in reporting here -- that's normally designated
> the L1 point, although there is some disagreement about numbering between
> the astronomers and the space engineers.)
>
> While it's a challenging project, it is not ridiculous. The noteworthy
> paper "Advanced technology paths to global climate stability: energy for a
> greenhouse planet" (Science, 1 Nov 2002), while focused on carbon-neutral
> energy production, did suggest that such "planetary engineering" solutions
> are worth investigating as a backup strategy.
Would millions of hydrogen balloons with the tops painted bright white work
better? It sounds like a quicker, cheaper option.
John Savard
<mike...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote, in part:
>1. He talks about telescopes on the moon. But what's the advantage over
>placing them in a high Earth orbit?
No consumables to use up when your gyroscopes run out of room to spin
even faster.
But for the *other* things - working with Mars microbes or nanotech, I
freely admit a space station seems just as good.
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>In article <43709d7...@news.usenetzone.com>,
>John Savard <jsa...@excxn.aNOSPAMb.cdn.invalid> wrote:
>
>>Why do governments do well at providing infrastructure? Is it that
>>politicians are naturally more persistent than businessmen?
>
>Not quite, but close: it's because politicians see direct benefits (that
>is, votes) from things like employment and prestige, which are of little
>importance to business. Infrastructure building is capital-intensive and
>the *financial* benefits are often indirect and slow in coming. So it's
>more easily undertaken by organizations which have non-financial motives,
>and thus can "show a profit" -- get sufficient near-term direct benefits
>to justify the effort -- from projects that won't show a monetary return
>for a long time (if ever).
No, it's because infrastructure's benefits do not go primarily to the
users (whom private builders could charge for using it) but to the
owners of land nearby. These landowners are able to charge
infrastructure users full market value for access to the
infrastructure, without having to pay anything to the infrastructure's
private builder. This is why we typically see huge increases in land
value when a road is built in a new area, often without the landowners
having to contribute anything directly to the cost of building the
road in order to get that value increase.
So there are two economic relationships at work: major landowners are
often politically influential, and can get infrastructure built at
taxpayer expense that benefits them financially by increasing the
value of their landholdings; and governments are empowered to tax the
value of land, meaning that unlike a private infrastructure builder,
they can recover more of the benefits the infrastructure creates to
defray the costs of building it.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
(John Savard) wrote:
>Well, in the 19th Century, they laughed at the people who said that
>someday people would land on the Moon.
They laughed at the people who said that someday people would fly in
heavier-than-air machines.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
>The basic principle is whether the good/bad results of an activity
>disproportionately benefit/harm the people NOT involved in the
>activity. For example, building an efficient (non-tolled) highway
>costs a lot but it equally benefits everyone.
That is false. Almost all the benefit of building a highway is
captured and retained by those who own the land the highway serves,
because the supply of land is perfectly inelastic. This is a
well-known fact of economics, and is not disputed by any competent
economist. The rightward shift in the demand curve increases local
land rents, but leaves consumer surplus effectively unchanged.
>Conversely, dumping toxic chemicals into the environment
>is cheap, but it equally harms everyone.
Also false, for reasons similar to those described above.
>What government can do is change the economic cost/benefit
>analysis. One obvious way is directly by funding programs with
>taxes. Another obvious way is with penalties for harmful activities.
>One less obvious way is by creating virtual markets, like trading
>"pollution credits", which worked very well in controlling the acid
>rain problem.
Unfortunately, such "Coasian solutions" often effectively reward
people for currently being polluters.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
>1. He talks about telescopes on the moon. But what's the advantage over
>placing them in a high Earth orbit?
Damping vibration. But a small asteroid might do as well for that,
without the Moon's gravity penalty.
-- Roy L
IsaacKuo
> >The basic principle is whether the good/bad results of an activity
> >disproportionately benefit/harm the people NOT involved in the
> >activity. For example, building an efficient (non-tolled) highway
> >costs a lot but it equally benefits everyone.
> That is false. Almost all the benefit of building a highway is
> captured and retained by those who own the land the highway serves,
> because the supply of land is perfectly inelastic.
Which is more or less "everyone", for a reasonable definition
of "everyone" (i.e. everyone who lives in or invests in the area
served by a highway).
Unless you assume a dystopia where there's essentially only
one land owner (e.g. a Communist government), then all it
takes is at least two beneficiaries to demonstrate the principle
of economic disincentive. If some pay for the highway while
the others do not, then the ones who do not are economically
better off for it.
> >Conversely, dumping toxic chemicals into the environment
> >is cheap, but it equally harms everyone.
> Also false, for reasons similar to those described above.
Well, there are a lot of pollutants which do indeed have a
localized harmful effect, but this merely amplifies the
economic disincentive. Unless you assume a dystopia
where there's only one land owner, it's not hard to arrange
local pollutants to harm in someone else's land instead of
your own. For example, dumping toxic chemicals into a
river largely affects those who live downriver.
But there are other forms of pollution which are less
localized. For example, dumping pollutants out a tall
smokestack spreads the effect over a large area.
Isaac Kuo
Paul F. Dietz
> I think we'll have thorium breeders before von Neumann machines...
We can already greatly extend the uranium resource without reprocessing
by adding thorium in a 'once-through thorium cycle' in CANDU reactors.
This doesn't require any significant change to the reactors,
just some fuel shuffling to maximize burnup. And CANDU reactors
should be becoming cheaper, since the new CIRCE/CECE heavy water
production processes should produce heavy water at much lower cost.
We're also likely to get zero-emission coal burning technology
pretty soon. Look up 'Chemical Looping Combustion' -- it promises
to be able to burn fossil fuels and produce a pure CO2 output
stream at little or no extra cost (unlike previous schemes for
separating the CO2, which consumed significant amounts of the
output energy.) There are many ways that CO2 could be sequestered
for long periods, most promisingly, IMO, in layered basalts
where it would react to form magnesium carbonate in a geologic
eyeblink.
Paul
Space Cadet
>freely admit a space station seems just as good.
>John Savard
Two advantages a lunar base has over a space station
(1/6)Gravity & (radiation) shielding
I thinking of terms of crew health more so than doing work in space,
but someone else has pointed out that alot of lab work does best in a
gravity field.
What would be easier to design/build a class 10 lab facility that
works in 1/6 g or 0g?
Given for the for seeable future any station/base will be made from
modules launched on existing (or future)LVs from Earth
So you are going to be limited to how big you can make your station.
Yes you can spin the station, but even to give a station a small g
force say 10% you would still need a long radius.
Radiation, if the station is in LEO, I guess radiation shielding is
not so much of a concern, but things in LEO have a tendency to fall to
Earth so a station filled with Mars bugs/GE Life/Nano greygoo falling
to Earth does not sound like a good idea to me ;^)
So to place it in a higher orbit/beyound LEO then radiation is a
concern. So you are going to need sufficent shielding for the
occuptants of the lab.
Where will the shielding come from?
You got 3 choices: Earth, the Moon & NEOs, Earth is obivously out,
until launch cost get low enough.
NEOs, I've heard and understand that for some NEOs that it would take
less DeltaV to reach them than the Moon, but what is the travel time to
go to & from a given NEO? Granted NEOs from time to time make a close
approach to Earth, but its only for a short time and its year or more
before the next launch window. Where as the Moon is always 3days away.
So if you are going to go all the way to the Moon to haul regolith,
why not just place your lab their and shovel enough regolith over it
for shielding?
I guess if you willing to wait, then NEO resources make sense
But if you want your lab to be up and running quickly setting up on the
Moon would be easier
Just my $0.02
ro...@telus.net
>ro...@telus.net wrote:
>>On 8 Nov 2005 07:11:14 -0800, "IsaacKuo" <mec...@yahoo.com> wrote
>
>> >The basic principle is whether the good/bad results of an activity
>> >disproportionately benefit/harm the people NOT involved in the
>> >activity. For example, building an efficient (non-tolled) highway
>> >costs a lot but it equally benefits everyone.
>
>> That is false. Almost all the benefit of building a highway is
>> captured and retained by those who own the land the highway serves,
>> because the supply of land is perfectly inelastic.
>
>Which is more or less "everyone", for a reasonable definition
>of "everyone" (i.e. everyone who lives in or invests in the area
>served by a highway).
No, it most certainly is not. It has nothing to do with living or
investing in the area, only with owning land in the area. In terms of
value, almost all land other than the land sitting under
owner-occupied dwellings is owned by a small number of wealthy people
and corporations. They are the ones who get net benefits from
infrastructure spending. Not "everyone." Again, this fact is not
disputed by any competent economist.
>Unless you assume a dystopia where there's essentially only
>one land owner (e.g. a Communist government),
Or a feudal one like Saudi Arabia? Before you demonstrate any
additional ignorance of the facts of economics, you should perhaps
know that "dystopias" like Singapore and HK have benefited enormously
from public ownership of their land.
It actually makes no difference if there is one landowner or many.
Unless everyone owns equal land value (as is effectively the case with
public land in Singapore and HK), those who own more benefit more from
infrastructure spending.
>then all it
>takes is at least two beneficiaries to demonstrate the principle
>of economic disincentive.
?? Is that intended to mean something?
>If some pay for the highway while
>the others do not, then the ones who do not are economically
>better off for it.
That is false, as explained in my previous post, and has been known to
be false for nearly 200 years. Only the landowners are better off.
>> >Conversely, dumping toxic chemicals into the environment
>> >is cheap, but it equally harms everyone.
>
>> Also false, for reasons similar to those described above.
>
>Well, there are a lot of pollutants which do indeed have a
>localized harmful effect, but this merely amplifies the
>economic disincentive.
?? Care to explain what economic disincentive there is to polluting?
>Unless you assume a dystopia
>where there's only one land owner,
Please understand that economically, it makes no difference if there
is one landowner, a small class of landowners, or many private
landowners. The landowners will benefit from infrastructure spending
in rough proportion to the value of the land they own, and no one else
will get any net benefit at all because the landowners will be able to
charge them full market value for access to the infrastructure.
-- Roy L
IsaacKuo
>>Which is more or less "everyone", for a reasonable definition
>>of "everyone" (i.e. everyone who lives in or invests in the area
>>served by a highway).
>No, it most certainly is not. It has nothing to do with living or
>investing in the area, only with owning land in the area. In terms of
>value, almost all land other than the land sitting under
>owner-occupied dwellings is owned by a small number of wealthy people
>and corporations.
The land sitting under owner-occupied dwellings is not
insignificant, and "small number" depends upon what
you call "small number". As I explain, the minimum
number that this "small number" needs to be for the
principle I'm explaining is TWO.
>>Unless you assume a dystopia where there's essentially only
>>one land owner (e.g. a Communist government),
>Or a feudal one like Saudi Arabia?
Sure. Saudi Arabia sure counts as a dystopia.
>Before you demonstrate any
>additional ignorance of the facts of economics,
You actually think that something you've said
contradicts the simple and basic principle I've
described. Amazing.
>you should perhaps know that "dystopias" like Singapore
>and HK have benefited enormously from public ownership
>of their land.
Sorry, I believe in "the American Dream", where a person
has a decent chance of owning his own piece of land.
I'd find any place where this is utterly impossible
to be a dystopia.
>It actually makes no difference if there is one landowner or many.
>Unless everyone owns equal land value (as is effectively the case with
>public land in Singapore and HK), those who own more benefit more from
>infrastructure spending.
Whether there are some who benefit more is besides the
point, because someone who doesn't spend anything
on infrastructure has zero investment costs. You just
can't beat the rate of return of getting something
for nothing.
>>then all it
>>takes is at least two beneficiaries to demonstrate the principle
>>of economic disincentive.
>?? Is that intended to mean something?
It's the simple basic point I'm making which you seem
to be entirely missing. That there's an economic
disincentive to supporting freeloaders.
So, let's consider a highway built in land owned by
just TWO landowners--Albert and Bobby. Albert decides
to build the highway; Bobby decides to freeload. Both
Albert and Bobby get benefits; maybe they don't get
equal benefits but that's not the point. The point
is that Bobby got the better deal, compared to if it
were the other way around or if they both shared the
building costs. In all three cases, the benefits
Bobby gets are the same; only his costs differ.
Of course, if there are only two parties then chances
are good that they can come to some mutually beneficial
arrangement rather than deadlock over waiting for the
other guy to do everything. But if there are a dozen
or more parties, then there's a strong incentive to
just wait for others to do it, or to get a collective
deal started and then weasel out of your part of the
bargain.
Isaac Kuo
Henry Spencer
Michael Rhino <news...@alexanderpics.com> wrote:
>> ...such "planetary engineering" solutions
>> are worth investigating as a backup strategy.
>
>Would millions of hydrogen balloons with the tops painted bright white work
>better? It sounds like a quicker, cheaper option.
Not nearly as good. Hydrogen balloons don't *stay up* all that long in
practice, because hydrogen leaks straight through typical balloon-envelope
materials.
Also, I don't think you've quite grasped the scale of the problem. Say
the balloons are 10m in diameter, which is sizable for a mass-produced
balloon. Credit them with reflecting back into space 50% of the light
that hits them, which seems a bit optimistic (considering that a good bit
of their light-intercepting area is out near the edge, where much of the
light scatters downward rather than upward) but not hopelessly
unrealistic. Consider that the surface area of Earth is roughly half a
billion square kilometers.
To reflect back a mere 1% of the light that hits Earth, you need roughly
32 *billion* of them aloft.
If you must replace 1% of them a day -- which is optimistic, by my limited
knowledge of hydrogen-balloon lifetime -- then you must make, inflate, and
launch 320 million per day.
The hydrogen leakage alone will probably wipe out the ozone layer. (Yes,
hydrogen is an ozone antagonist, indirectly: it can diffuse up through
the "cold trap" that keeps water vapor out of the stratosphere, oxidize
to water at high altitude, and form ice crystals... and much of the
ozone-hostile atmospheric chemistry happens on ice-crystal surfaces.)
(Yes, this is a real concern for hydrogen as fuel, depending on how much
ends up leaking into the atmosphere.)
Oh, and 60-70 of them will come down on every square kilometer of Earth
every day. Assuming they float, it'll only take a year or two to coat
most of Earth's surface with white-painted balloons. I don't know about
you, but *I* sure don't want to have to write the Environmental Impact
Statement for that... :-)
Ed Kyle
> Exploiting the moon is certainly something that should be done ASAP.
> Dennis Wingo in Moonrush advocates platinum group metal mining from
> impacted asteroids. Space solar power has huge potential.
>
> As for building the sun shield, seems like a good idea. Though I'd go a
> large parasol rather than 10 billion independent spacecraft. That would
> be manufactured in orbit, but using lunar materials.
This sun-shield idea should be stopped in its tracks now, IMO.
Monkeying around with the universe in such a clumsy fashion
would almost certainly create unanticipated results. We don't
understand our planet well enough to try stunts like this. If it
must be attempted, try it on another planet first.
- Ed Kyle
Mike Combs
news:dkr95...@drn.newsguy.com...
>
> In particular, big lightweight structures in microgravity tend to shake,
> rattle, and roll. From the moment they are built, and with an extra dose
> added every time you do something like "point in any direction you like".
Granted, slow smooth turns are called for here.
> And it's damnably hard to make those vibrations go away, when there is
*no*
> part of your system that you can point to and say "this doesn't move".
Even
> harder if you are trying to make all the parts as light as possible for
ease
> in lifting out of a gravity well.
There are devices called mass drivers (not to be confused with Gerry
O'Neill's invention) which help dampen out vibrations in tall skyscrapers.
I think something like that, writ small, could come into play here.
Sensitive accelerometers provide the standard of reference.
> So it's not at all clear that the optimal environment for a hundred-meter
> telescope isn't someplace there is a modicum of gravity, lots of bedrock,
> and the makings of concrete and maybe steel. And it may be worth hauling
> the fancy parts all the way to the Moon to take advantage of that.
Maybe, but I have yet to be convinced. I also have yet to be convinced that
the kind of folks who advocate telescopes for the moon started out looking
at telescopes in high orbit, and only got pushed in the direction of the
moon by the kind of concerns you cite. As opposed to beginning with the
moon as a starting assumption and trying to help justify lunar development
desired for its own sake.
> See above. The lunar environment may make the engineering easier. Or,
for
> that matter, the science - an awful lot of laboratory technique depends on
> gravity to work, and a simple biological research facility probably isn't
> going to be large enough to justify a spin habitat.
A spin habitat built in the shape of a baton might still be pretty modest.
If the goal is simply to make things settle or flow as opposed to keeping
astronauts healthy, we could probably get by with only a fraction of Earth's
gravity (and if we're discussing this as an alternative to a lunar surface
laboratory, then that's indeed the assumption we're making). That means we
could get by with a much shorter radius.
Mike Combs
news:43716f87...@news.usenetzone.com...
> On Tue, 8 Nov 2005 13:18:48 -0600, "Mike Combs"
> <mike...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote, in part:
>
> >1. He talks about telescopes on the moon. But what's the advantage over
> >placing them in a high Earth orbit?
>
> No consumables to use up when your gyroscopes run out of room to spin
> even faster.
Fine. But how much more consumable propellant will we use up in descending
the lunar gravity well, hovering, and soft-landing? How much more will be
consumed by each and every servicing flight which has to do the same?
Mike Combs
makes me impatient for the day when we're routinely and economically
bringing lunar materials into high orbits. If we can place manned
facilities in orbits which are easy to reach from Earth, but can still cover
them with lunar material for shielding, then we have the best of both
worlds.
Mike Combs
news:1131555164....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> This sun-shield idea should be stopped in its tracks now, IMO.
> Monkeying around with the universe in such a clumsy fashion
> would almost certainly create unanticipated results. We don't
> understand our planet well enough to try stunts like this. If it
> must be attempted, try it on another planet first.
The problem is that we're already performing a climate modification
experiment on the planet, and one which is unlikely to be reversed any time
soon. It's hard to see how we could make the situation worse by pushing
slightly in the opposite direction.
Mike Combs
news:437179cd...@news1.qc.sympatico.ca...
See my comment elsewhere on "mass drivers" for skyscrapers.
Ed Kyle
Mike Combs wrote:
> "Ed Kyle" <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1131555164....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > This sun-shield idea should be stopped in its tracks now, IMO.
> > Monkeying around with the universe in such a clumsy fashion
> > would almost certainly create unanticipated results. We don't
> > understand our planet well enough to try stunts like this. If it
> > must be attempted, try it on another planet first.
>
> The problem is that we're already performing a climate modification
> experiment on the planet, and one which is unlikely to be reversed any time
> soon. It's hard to see how we could make the situation worse by pushing
> slightly in the opposite direction.
Blocking 2% of the incident solar radiation is not a slight
adjustment. This is a sledgehammer solution to a poorly
understood problem. It would be an even more extreme
act of human arrogance with respect to nature than is
human burning of fossile fuels.
- Ed Kyle
Michael Ash
> In article <uldcf.15$2k...@tornado.socal.rr.com>,
> Michael Rhino <news...@alexanderpics.com> wrote:
>>> ...such "planetary engineering" solutions
>>> are worth investigating as a backup strategy.
>>
>>Would millions of hydrogen balloons with the tops painted bright white work
>>better? It sounds like a quicker, cheaper option.
>
> Not nearly as good. Hydrogen balloons don't *stay up* all that long in
> practice, because hydrogen leaks straight through typical balloon-envelope
> materials.
>
> Also, I don't think you've quite grasped the scale of the problem. Say
> the balloons are 10m in diameter, which is sizable for a mass-produced
> balloon. Credit them with reflecting back into space 50% of the light
> that hits them, which seems a bit optimistic (considering that a good bit
> of their light-intercepting area is out near the edge, where much of the
> light scatters downward rather than upward) but not hopelessly
> unrealistic. Consider that the surface area of Earth is roughly half a
> billion square kilometers.
>
> To reflect back a mere 1% of the light that hits Earth, you need roughly
> 32 *billion* of them aloft.
The original proposal called for 10 billion *spacecraft*.
To me, both are fairly absurd, but putting up 32 billion hydrogen balloons
is vastly less crazy than putting 10 billion spacecraft at L1.
--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software
Logan Kearsley
news:11315720...@nfs-db1.segnet.com...
Except that you have to put up far more than 32 billion balloons. You have
to replace them at a rate that will keep 32 billion of them aloft, at all
times, for whatever duration you want the cooling effect to last. The
spacecraft have a much smaller maintenance cost, even if there have to be so
many more of them operational at once.
-l.
------------------------------------
My inbox is a sacred shrine, none shall enter that are not worthy.
Michael Ash
I do not accept that the spacecraft have a much smaller maintenance cost.
There will be a non-zero attrition rate for the spacecraft solution.
First, there will be malfunctions. In any system with ten billion
individual agents, there will be failures, the only question is the rate.
Second, the spacecraft need to perform stationkeeping. As I understood the
proposal, they wouldn't really be able to use light pressure to do this,
since they're just blocks of glass, so this means consumable fuel for
thrusters, which will eventually run out.
How much does a silvered hydrogen balloon cost to make, fill, and launch,
and how much does a single example of one of these spacecraft cost to
make and launch? By how many orders of magnitude do the reliability rates
need to differ before the net maintenance cost of the hydrogen balloon
"solution" (in quotes because it's still crazy) becomes more expensive
than the maintenance cost of the spacecraft "solution"?
Also, we need to consider the difference in up-front costs. Even if we
say that the spacecraft are all perfect and last forever, whereas the
hydrogen balloon fleet needs to be completely replaced once a year, if the
balloons cost 1000 times less than the spacecraft (seems reasonable, is
it?), then it's still cheaper to go with the balloons if you plan on using
this system for less than a thousand years.
I don't know the answers to the questions I raised above. But my feeling
is that the numbers will come down heavily in favor of the balloons, at
least until you get to the part about covering the planet with the dead
ones.
Pete Lynn
>
> Blocking 2% of the incident solar radiation is not a
> slight adjustment. This is a sledgehammer solution to
> a poorly understood problem. It would be an even
> more extreme act of human arrogance with respect to
> nature than is human burning of fossile fuels.
And a sledge hammer that nature has been using with extreme prejudice
from the very beginning. Atmospheric dust levels are altered
dramatically by a number of natural causes.
I once calculated that global warming mitigation by artificially
regulating atmospheric dust levels should only cost a few billion per
year. From what I can tell this is the cheapest option, (excepting a
quick solution of last resort - nuclear winter).
Long term I would still favour the space based approach - it is more
pure and direct. It will also probably be necessary when our sun starts
getting old.
Pete.
Henry Spencer
Michael Ash <mi...@mikeash.com> wrote:
>> To reflect back a mere 1% of the light that hits Earth, you need roughly
>> 32 *billion* of them aloft.
>
>The original proposal called for 10 billion *spacecraft*.
However, that is *not* the only way to do an in-space sunshade. If you
don't do it in a zillion pieces, the individual pieces have to be
seriously large... but in space, we can do that.
>To me, both are fairly absurd, but putting up 32 billion hydrogen balloons
>is vastly less crazy than putting 10 billion spacecraft at L1.
*Maintaining* 10 billion spacecraft at L1 is actually probably easier than
maintaining 32 billion balloons aloft. Either is a *big* engineering
project, so big that you get to toss out a lot of preconceptions -- for
example, a sufficiently big project can easily afford to build its own
launch systems, so the current exorbitant cost of launches is irrelevant.
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
Actually, the spacecraft make much more sense. They can be far less
massive than the balloons, and they will not need replacing.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
>Alex Terrell wrote:
>>
>> As for building the sun shield, seems like a good idea. Though I'd go a
>> large parasol rather than 10 billion independent spacecraft. That would
>> be manufactured in orbit, but using lunar materials.
>
>This sun-shield idea should be stopped in its tracks now, IMO.
>Monkeying around with the universe in such a clumsy fashion
>would almost certainly create unanticipated results.
So what? So does fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, monoculture
farming, letting organisms hitch rides to places where they are not
native, etc., etc.
>We don't
>understand our planet well enough to try stunts like this.
We'll understand more by doing it. It's not like it couldn't be
stopped if need be.
IMO weather control is likely to be one of the most beneficial results
of a large-scale human presence in space in the medium term, and could
easily pay not only its own cost, but the cost of all space programs.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
>ro...@telus.net wrote:
>>On 8 Nov 2005 21:59:46 -0800, "IsaacKuo" <mec...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>>Which is more or less "everyone", for a reasonable definition
>>>of "everyone" (i.e. everyone who lives in or invests in the area
>>>served by a highway).
>
>>No, it most certainly is not. It has nothing to do with living or
>>investing in the area, only with owning land in the area. In terms of
>>value, almost all land other than the land sitting under
>>owner-occupied dwellings is owned by a small number of wealthy people
>>and corporations.
>
>The land sitting under owner-occupied dwellings is not
>insignificant, and "small number" depends upon what
>you call "small number".
Indeed. land accounts for most of the asset value owned by the middle
class. Is 1% a small enough number to count as "small"?
>As I explain, the minimum
>number that this "small number" needs to be for the
>principle I'm explaining is TWO.
The "principle" you're "explaining" is wrong.
>>Before you demonstrate any
>>additional ignorance of the facts of economics,
>
>You actually think that something you've said
>contradicts the simple and basic principle I've
>described.
Your ignorance of economics was demonstrated by your claim that one
public landowner is dystopic, but many private landowners is not. The
reality is much closer to the opposite.
>>you should perhaps know that "dystopias" like Singapore
>>and HK have benefited enormously from public ownership
>>of their land.
>
>Sorry, I believe in "the American Dream", where a person
>has a decent chance of owning his own piece of land.
>I'd find any place where this is utterly impossible
>to be a dystopia.
Fine. Some people said the same about places where they couldn't own
slaves, and for much the same reasons. For reasons I have already
explained, a private landowner effectively owns part-shares in
millions of part-time slaves called "taxpayers." You want to own some
of those slaves, and get the benefit of their labor without having to
give them anything back. That's easy enough to understand. Not
particularly admirable, perhaps, but certainly understandable.
>>It actually makes no difference if there is one landowner or many.
>>Unless everyone owns equal land value (as is effectively the case with
>>public land in Singapore and HK), those who own more benefit more from
>>infrastructure spending.
>
>Whether there are some who benefit more is besides the
>point, because someone who doesn't spend anything
>on infrastructure has zero investment costs.
And who is it that pays no taxes?
>You just
>can't beat the rate of return of getting something
>for nothing.
Right. It is landowners who get something for nothing, taxpayers who
get the concommitant nothing for something.
>>>then all it
>>>takes is at least two beneficiaries to demonstrate the principle
>>>of economic disincentive.
>
>>?? Is that intended to mean something?
>
>It's the simple basic point I'm making which you seem
>to be entirely missing. That there's an economic
>disincentive to supporting freeloaders.
Like landowners. True.
>So, let's consider a highway built in land owned by
>just TWO landowners--Albert and Bobby. Albert decides
>to build the highway; Bobby decides to freeload. Both
>Albert and Bobby get benefits; maybe they don't get
>equal benefits but that's not the point. The point
>is that Bobby got the better deal, compared to if it
>were the other way around or if they both shared the
>building costs. In all three cases, the benefits
>Bobby gets are the same; only his costs differ.
As long as you understand that he only gets any benefits at all
because he owns the land.
>Of course, if there are only two parties then chances
>are good that they can come to some mutually beneficial
>arrangement rather than deadlock over waiting for the
>other guy to do everything. But if there are a dozen
>or more parties, then there's a strong incentive to
>just wait for others to do it, or to get a collective
>deal started and then weasel out of your part of the
>bargain.
Which is where we came in: the reason why governments are better at
building infrastructure than private business.
-- Roy L
Ed Kyle
ro...@telus.net wrote:
> On 9 Nov 2005 08:52:44 -0800, "Ed Kyle" <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Alex Terrell wrote:
> >>
> >> As for building the sun shield, seems like a good idea. Though I'd go a
> >> large parasol rather than 10 billion independent spacecraft. That would
> >> be manufactured in orbit, but using lunar materials.
> >
> >This sun-shield idea should be stopped in its tracks now, IMO.
> >Monkeying around with the universe in such a clumsy fashion
> >would almost certainly create unanticipated results.
>
> So what? So does fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, monoculture
> farming, letting organisms hitch rides to places where they are not
> native, etc., etc.
All of these are examples of natural processes. Nature burns
fossil fuels, burns down forests, allows organisms to migrate,
pumps super-massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere via. volcanism, etc.. But Nature does not place
massive sun-blocking objects at the Earth/Sun libration point.
>
> >We don't
> >understand our planet well enough to try stunts like this.
>
> We'll understand more by doing it. It's not like it couldn't be
> stopped if need be.
Earth effects could have a time-lag on the order of decades.
By the time we figured out there was a problem, it would be
too late to fix the problem.
>
> IMO weather control is likely to be one of the most beneficial results
> of a large-scale human presence in space in the medium term, and could
> easily pay not only its own cost, but the cost of all space programs.
Who gets to decide what the weather will be tomorrow? You?
If so, I want to request 53 degrees F, partly sunny and breezy,
with a wind from due north. This weather might not make the
sunbathers happy, but I happen to be a runner.
- Ed Kyle
Henry Spencer
Ed Kyle <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>All of these are examples of natural processes. Nature burns
>fossil fuels, burns down forests, allows organisms to migrate,
>pumps super-massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the
>atmosphere via. volcanism, etc.. But Nature does not place
>massive sun-blocking objects at the Earth/Sun libration point.
"If Nature had meant us to eat cooked food, we'd have stoves in our
throats to cook it on the way down!"
There's nothing inherently extra-risky about doing something just because
it's something that Nature itself doesn't do.
And as has already been noted, reducing the amount of sunlight reaching
the surface *is* something Nature herself does now and then, via dust or
clouds. (One common speculation about giant impacts -- which definitely
have happened -- is that they're followed by an "impact winter" for that
exact reason.)
>> >We don't understand our planet well enough to try stunts like this.
>> We'll understand more by doing it. It's not like it couldn't be
>> stopped if need be.
>
>Earth effects could have a time-lag on the order of decades.
>By the time we figured out there was a problem, it would be
>too late to fix the problem.
The same is true of most any course we could take, including doing
nothing. It's a problem, indeed a worry, but it's not unique to L1
sunshades. Indeed, one reason to pursue the planetary-engineering
technologies as a backup option is precisely because they might give us
enough brute-force clout to *do something* about unexpected irreversible
effects of more subtle interventions... or non-interventions.
>> IMO weather control is likely to be one of the most beneficial results
>> of a large-scale human presence in space in the medium term, and could
>> easily pay not only its own cost, but the cost of all space programs.
>
>Who gets to decide what the weather will be tomorrow? You?
Better than letting Mother Nature throw hurricanes and ice ages at us.
She's *not* our friend.
Alex Terrell
But Ed has a point - it would need to be backed up by very thorough
models and analysis. It would also make sense to start with much less
than 2% and build up gradually. That should enable positive feedback
loops to be identified.
Alex Terrell
Lets say its micro-metre thick translusent glass, (weight: ~10 million
tons), placed on a spiders web of carbon nanotubes cables. (Radial:
6,000 * 1,000km of cable = 1 Million tons if 1cm thick. Cross cables
are a fraction of this.
Around the edge are some 6,000 high power solar electric thrusters
(about 1 every km). The structure rotates very slowly to make about
.001g at the edge. (100m/s at edge, 17 hours to rotate).
Big for us now, but with a civilisation capable of producing solar
power sats in high earth orbit, not too tricky. Total weight is about
the same as a Stamford Torus.
Issues:
Solar light force: Can it be placed nearer the sun to balance the
forces? Probably not if its so light. Perhaps we need to increase the
mass. Transluscent glass will reduce the force significantly, as would
a fresnel lens. The electric thrusters keep it balanced. Refuelling
them is an issue. Anyone compute the force?
Vibrations: Long wave ripples will be an issue, but should eventually
dampen out. The thrusters would create a limited force. "Sail"
structures are fairly resistant to vibration.
Construction: Rolled glass sheet, triangular shape, 1km at the base,
and 1,000km long. 6,000 needed. Robots to attach this to the spiders
web.
Modulation: Any ideas? Rotating part of the structure around would make
it more complex. Rotating the whole structure might create excessive
vibrations.
Bowing due to solar force: Need some of the thrusters near the centre,
and thrusting at angle to keep the web flat.
richard schumacher
Carey Sublette
"Pete Lynn" <pe...@peterlynnkites.com> wrote in message
news:j8wcf.13205$Hj2....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> "Ed Kyle" <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1131571070.4...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> Blocking 2% of the incident solar radiation is not a
>> slight adjustment. This is a sledgehammer solution to
>> a poorly understood problem. It would be an even
>> more extreme act of human arrogance with respect to
>> nature than is human burning of fossile fuels.
>
> And a sledge hammer that nature has been using with extreme prejudice
> from the very beginning. Atmospheric dust levels are altered
> dramatically by a number of natural causes.
>
> I once calculated that global warming mitigation by artificially
> regulating atmospheric dust levels should only cost a few billion per
> year. From what I can tell this is the cheapest option, (excepting a
> quick solution of last resort - nuclear winter).
Here is a link to a report on this very idea:
http://www.llnl.gov/tid/lof/documents/pdf/231636.pdf
authored in part by the (in)famous Edward Teller.
They claim dust-based insolation solutions can cost well under $1 billion a
year with a suitable choice of dust agents.
Seems a much more practical idea for implementation during this century than
space shields or vast balloon fleets.
Carey Sublette
Mike Combs
>
> It would be an even more extreme
> act of human arrogance with respect to nature than is
> human burning of fossile fuels.
I don't know what technical or scientific points I could make against the
argument that a proposal is wrong because it's another example of human
arrogance.
Mike Combs
news:1131621879.5...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> It would also make sense to start with much less
> than 2% and build up gradually. That should enable positive feedback
> loops to be identified.
And in any case, as a practical matter, a sunshield this enormous isn't
going to be built all at once, anyway.
Ed Kyle
> "Ed Kyle" <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1131571070.4...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > It would be an even more extreme
> > act of human arrogance with respect to nature than is
> > human burning of fossile fuels.
>
> I don't know what technical or scientific points I could make against the
> argument that a proposal is wrong because it's another example of human
> arrogance.
Wasn't it Richard Feynman, one of the great scientific minds of
the last century, who said "nature cannot be fooled"?
Humans who ignore the lessons of nature are arrogant.
- Ed Kyle
Ed Kyle
> In article <1131596530.6...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
> Ed Kyle <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >All of these are examples of natural processes. Nature burns
> >fossil fuels, burns down forests, allows organisms to migrate,
> >pumps super-massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the
> >atmosphere via. volcanism, etc.. But Nature does not place
> >massive sun-blocking objects at the Earth/Sun libration point.
>
> "If Nature had meant us to eat cooked food, we'd have stoves in our
> throats to cook it on the way down!"
"Nature cannot be fooled" (Richard Feynman)
"You can't fool Mother Nature" (Common Wisdom)
> There's nothing inherently extra-risky about doing something just because
> it's something that Nature itself doesn't do.
>
> And as has already been noted, reducing the amount of sunlight reaching
> the surface *is* something Nature herself does now and then, via dust or
> clouds. (One common speculation about giant impacts -- which definitely
> have happened -- is that they're followed by an "impact winter" for that
> exact reason.)
Dust/clouds are entirely different than blocking the sun in
space. Clouds don't block the extreme upper reaches of
the atmosphere. A sun-blocker would do things to the
Earth that have never been done before. How can this
possibly be tested? Without testing, how can we know
or think that we know what the effects will be?
> >> IMO weather control is likely to be one of the most beneficial results
> >> of a large-scale human presence in space in the medium term, and could
> >> easily pay not only its own cost, but the cost of all space programs.
> >
> >Who gets to decide what the weather will be tomorrow? You?
>
> Better than letting Mother Nature throw hurricanes and ice ages at us.
> She's *not* our friend.
Hurricanes are a natural process that releases heat stored
in the oceans. What would happen if we tried to prevent
hurricanes? I suspect the result would be similar to what
happened when we tried to prevent forest fires for decades.
We ended up with bigger forest fires.
- Ed Kyle
Paul F. Dietz
> Here is a link to a report on this very idea:
> http://www.llnl.gov/tid/lof/documents/pdf/231636.pdf
> authored in part by the (in)famous Edward Teller.
>
> They claim dust-based insolation solutions can cost well under $1 billion a
> year with a suitable choice of dust agents.
>
> Seems a much more practical idea for implementation during this century than
> space shields or vast balloon fleets.
I'd worry about surface-catalyzed ozone destruction on atmospheric dust.
One idea I'd like to see analyzed would be resonance scattering off
neutral atoms and small molecules released at the Earth-Sun L1 point.
The cross sections on resonance can be enormous. Light pressure would
accelerate them toward earth, broadening the absorption by doppler
shift. You'd need lots of species to block enough of the spectrum,
though.
Paul
Henry Spencer
Ed Kyle <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> I don't know what technical or scientific points I could make against the
>> argument that a proposal is wrong because it's another example of human
>> arrogance.
>
>Wasn't it Richard Feynman, one of the great scientific minds of
>the last century, who said "nature cannot be fooled"?
Yes, and that's relevant... how, exactly?
Feynman's point was that engineering must give physical reality priority
over political pressures, because physical reality can't be annulled by
decree. This has nothing at all to do with what's being discussed, since
all the proposals are well within what physics allows. Just because
nature doesn't provide an example of something doesn't mean it's
physically impossible, as witness the computer you're using.
>Humans who ignore the lessons of nature are arrogant.
The "lessons of nature" as interpreted by who, exactly?
Henry Spencer
Ed Kyle <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> And as has already been noted, reducing the amount of sunlight reaching
>
>Dust/clouds are entirely different than blocking the sun in
>space. Clouds don't block the extreme upper reaches of
>the atmosphere.
That's a little different, yes. "Entirely different" is your interpretation,
not a self-evident fact.
>A sun-blocker would do things to the
>Earth that have never been done before.
Only if you assume that the Sun's output is not itself variable, which is
definitely untrue over billions of years and possibly over much shorter
spans of time.
>How can this possibly be tested? Without testing, how can we know
>or think that we know what the effects will be?
If you jumped off a bridge, do you think you would fall? How do you know?
Have you ever tested it?
It's unlikely that we will be able to predict, any time in the near
future, the *exact* effects of actions affecting the climate, including
those we are already performing. We are going to have to make decisions
based on limited information with considerable uncertainty in it. There
is no alternative; deciding not to do anything is itself a decision, and
not necessarily the best one.
>> >Who gets to decide what the weather will be tomorrow? You?
>> Better than letting Mother Nature throw hurricanes and ice ages at us.
>> She's *not* our friend.
>
>Hurricanes are a natural process that releases heat stored
>in the oceans.
Only a very small fraction of the stored heat comes out that way. It is
very unlikely that hurricanes play any significant overall role in the
heat balance of the ocean; it is vanishingly unlikely that hurricanes
*hitting land* -- which is what we mostly care about -- do.
>What would happen if we tried to prevent
>hurricanes? I suspect the result would be similar to what
>happened when we tried to prevent forest fires for decades.
While superficially plausible, the numbers don't appear to back up your
analogy. Hurricanes aren't the only release for that heat, or even a
particularly important one.
Ed Kyle
> In article <1131665149.5...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
> Ed Kyle <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> And as has already been noted, reducing the amount of sunlight reaching
> >> the surface *is* something Nature herself does now and then...
> >
> >Dust/clouds are entirely different than blocking the sun in
> >space. Clouds don't block the extreme upper reaches of
> >the atmosphere.
>
> That's a little different, yes. "Entirely different" is your interpretation,
> not a self-evident fact.
>
> >A sun-blocker would do things to the
> >Earth that have never been done before.
>
> Only if you assume that the Sun's output is not itself variable, which is
> definitely untrue over billions of years and possibly over much shorter
> spans of time.
We have only been able to monitor solar total radiation with
accuracy from space since about 1979. During that time,
the sun's ouput has varied about 0.3% short term (days to
weeks) and about 0.1% longer term (11 year sunspot
cycle). Mankind has made no measurements of solar
variability that even approach 2%, wihch is the effect
proposed for the sun-blocker. Long-term changes in total
solar energy absorbed by the Earth that were less than 1%,
caused by orbital effects rather than by solar variability, are
believed to have caused the ice ages.
> >How can this possibly be tested? Without testing, how can we know
> >or think that we know what the effects will be?
>
> If you jumped off a bridge, do you think you would fall? How do you know?
> Have you ever tested it?
Are you suggesting that I should jump off a bridge? ;-)
But of course I could test it. I could jump off of something
not so high and then drop test masses from the same
height and compare the results. Then I could drop the
same objects off of the bridge and observe the results.
How could I reliably test the long-term effects of the
construction of a global sunshade on an Earth-size
planet with an Earth-like atmosphere?
- Ed Kyle
Ed Kyle
> In article <1131663658....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> Ed Kyle <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >Humans who ignore the lessons of nature are arrogant.
>
> The "lessons of nature" as interpreted by who, exactly?
By Nature herself, or itself. By the "immutable
physical laws of the universe".
Examples of human engineering arrogance abound.
Titantic. Challenger. Chernobyl. Columbia. New
Orleans. Etc. In each case, man underestimated
nature. In each case nature found and relentlessly
tested each and every underestimation to the point
of catastrophe.
- Ed Kyle
Michael Ash
>
> Examples of human engineering arrogance abound.
> Titantic. Challenger. Chernobyl. Columbia. New
> Orleans. Etc. In each case, man underestimated
> nature. In each case nature found and relentlessly
> tested each and every underestimation to the point
> of catastrophe.
You shouldn't anthropomorphize Mother Nature. She hates that.
Chris Hall
>Henry Spencer wrote:
>
>
>>Only if you assume that the Sun's output is not itself variable, which is
>>definitely untrue over billions of years and possibly over much shorter
>>spans of time.
>>
>>
>
>We have only been able to monitor solar total radiation with
>accuracy from space since about 1979. During that time,
>the sun's ouput has varied about 0.3% short term (days to
>weeks) and about 0.1% longer term (11 year sunspot
>cycle). Mankind has made no measurements of solar
>variability that even approach 2%, wihch is the effect
>proposed for the sun-blocker. Long-term changes in total
>solar energy absorbed by the Earth that were less than 1%,
>caused by orbital effects rather than by solar variability, are
>believed to have caused the ice ages.
>
>
>
>
The variability to which you refer is only a relatively short term (in
the geological sense) signal. The Milankovic cycles have been seen over
many millions of years (they even show up in shale/limestone sequences
in the Paleozoic), but it's only since our current ice age (yes, we are
in a comparative ice age since about 2 Ma - the Earth usually does not
have permanent continental glaciation) that they been the dominant
forcer of glaciation. This, however, is not true solar variability, but
variability of solar irradiance over different parts of the Earth caused
by change in tilt, orbital eccentricity, etc.
What Henry was referring to was the fact that the Sun, over billions of
years, has evolved gradually to be hotter than when it was young. This
drops out of stellar evolution models. The Earth appears to have been
somewhat self-regulating in temperature, dropping greenhouse gas
concentrations to compensate for rising amounts of sunlight. Details are
hard to work out, but it does seem that the variable solar output
experiment has taken place, but over an extremely long period of time.
Chris
Alex Terrell
Ed Kyle wrote:
> > >How can this possibly be tested? Without testing, how can we know
> > >or think that we know what the effects will be?
> >
> > If you jumped off a bridge, do you think you would fall? How do you know?
> > Have you ever tested it?
>
> Are you suggesting that I should jump off a bridge? ;-)
>
> But of course I could test it. I could jump off of something
> not so high and then drop test masses from the same
> height and compare the results. Then I could drop the
> same objects off of the bridge and observe the results.
Like jumping from 2m, you can test it by blocking 0.1% of the
radiation. If the result is in line with models, increase it by another
0.1%. Keep adding 01.% per year for 20 years.
>
> How could I reliably test the long-term effects of the
> construction of a global sunshade on an Earth-size
> planet with an Earth-like atmosphere?
>
If you get undesriable effects, turn it off. It's a lot easier to
control than a volcano.
Ed Kyle
During how many of those billions of years have humans lived
on Earth?
The results of that gradual billions-years-long experiment, which
we of course can only infer with an unknown amount of precision
based on geological evidence, can not be used to design a
deep space sunshade that will apply, in that relative timeframe,
an unprecedented instantaneous change in available solar energy.
- Ed Kyle
Space Cadet
>construction of a global sunshade on an Earth-size
>planet with an Earth-like atmosphere?
Venus?
Its definately Earth sized
Not much of an Earth like atmosphere, but we could at least learn/model
any affects to its atmosphere
Just my $0.02
Space Cadet
Ed Kyle
Alex Terrell wrote:
> Ed Kyle wrote:
> > > >How can this possibly be tested? Without testing, how can we know
> > > >or think that we know what the effects will be?
> > >
> > > If you jumped off a bridge, do you think you would fall? How do you know?
> > > Have you ever tested it?
> >
> > Are you suggesting that I should jump off a bridge? ;-)
> >
> Bungee jumping?
>
> > But of course I could test it. I could jump off of something
> > not so high and then drop test masses from the same
> > height and compare the results. Then I could drop the
> > same objects off of the bridge and observe the results.
>
> Like jumping from 2m, you can test it by blocking 0.1% of the
> radiation. If the result is in line with models, increase it by another
> 0.1%. Keep adding 01.% per year for 20 years.
One year or 20 years isn't enough time, IMO, and 0.1%
is too great a change. A 0.001% change followed by a
100 year wait would be better. Then, if the response is
well understood, further 0.001% changes and 100 year
waits.
> > How could I reliably test the long-term effects of the
> > construction of a global sunshade on an Earth-size
> > planet with an Earth-like atmosphere?
> >
> If you get undesriable effects, turn it off. It's a lot easier to
> control than a volcano.
Turn it on? Turn it off? I don't think it could be that easy.
What unintended environmental consequences might
result? This isn't a dam or a levee. This is a machine
that would affect the entire planet all at once. Imagine
how many human lives could be lost if there were a
miscalculation or an outright screw-up or a hardware
failure that sent part or all of the sunshade adrift.
- Ed Kyle
ro...@telus.net
>ro...@telus.net wrote:
>> On 9 Nov 2005 08:52:44 -0800, "Ed Kyle" <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Alex Terrell wrote:
>> >>
>> >> As for building the sun shield, seems like a good idea. Though I'd go a
>> >> large parasol rather than 10 billion independent spacecraft. That would
>> >> be manufactured in orbit, but using lunar materials.
>> >
>> >This sun-shield idea should be stopped in its tracks now, IMO.
>> >Monkeying around with the universe in such a clumsy fashion
>> >would almost certainly create unanticipated results.
>>
>> So what? So does fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, monoculture
>> farming, letting organisms hitch rides to places where they are not
>> native, etc., etc.
>
>All of these are examples of natural processes.
Nope. Flat wrong.
>Nature burns fossil fuels,
But more slowly than it refixes the carbon. What we are doing is
qualitatively different, because the burning is much faster than the
fixing.
>burns down forests,
A forest burning down is not deforestation, because it grows back up
again. Deforestation means long-term _elimination_ of large forest
ecosystems, something that nature does not do except catastrophically,
by ice age, desertification, asteroid impact, etc. If you want to
include those, the sunshade's effect is derisory by comparison.
>allows organisms to migrate,
There is no comparison between how organisms move naturally and their
movement with human assistance. Technology transports them across
barriers they could not traverse unaided.
>pumps super-massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the
>atmosphere via. volcanism, etc.
Along with ash that has a contrary effect...
> But Nature does not place
>massive sun-blocking objects at the Earth/Sun libration point.
So? It doesn't make a rectangular patchwork of monoculture crops,
either. It doesn't make condensation trails in the stratosphere. If
that's your objection to technological fixes, you're a little late.
>> >We don't
>> >understand our planet well enough to try stunts like this.
>>
>> We'll understand more by doing it. It's not like it couldn't be
>> stopped if need be.
>
>Earth effects could have a time-lag on the order of decades.
>By the time we figured out there was a problem, it would be
>too late to fix the problem.
It might. It might also be in time to permit solution of problems
that would otherwise cause much greater damage.
>> IMO weather control is likely to be one of the most beneficial results
>> of a large-scale human presence in space in the medium term, and could
>> easily pay not only its own cost, but the cost of all space programs.
>
>Who gets to decide what the weather will be tomorrow?
Whoever has the power to change it.
>You?
Not likely.
>If so, I want to request 53 degrees F, partly sunny and breezy,
>with a wind from due north. This weather might not make the
>sunbathers happy, but I happen to be a runner.
Silly comments aside, moving rain from where it is excessive to where
it is needed, delaying killing frost by a week, aborting or weakening
destructive storms before they reach landfall, etc. could yield
economic benefits in the trillions of dollars a year.
-- Roy L
Brad Guth
I agree that we should have accomplished our moon first, then doing
Venus and only then attempt to transfer technology and possibly life
onto Mars.
Our moon and that of whatever Venus has to offer are simply too
nondisclosure/taboo, and/or of such remaining as need-to-know. This is
somewhat unfortunate because, applying intelligent design on our behalf
and/or per our demise is exactly what we humans do best.
We've made all sorts of artificial items that otherwise couldn't
possibly have never existed in billions upon billions of natural
evolutionary years unless we had accomplished those sorts of things.
And in no other way could mother nature have pillaged and so badly
polluted such a nifty world in the way and to the extent by which us
humans have achieved such wide spread collateral damage and even
massive carnage of the innocent, of therefore having exterminated so
much of our own kind in the process.
We've also modified intentionally and accidentally the DNA/RNA of all
sorts of existing life plus having accomplished a few good and bad
microbes as never having existed before, and we seemingly have every
intentions of transferring some of that new and improved life to other
moons and planets. Therefore interplanetary and eventually interstellar
terraforming is our middle name, and certainly intelligent design has
been our game all along.
However, we humans may not be the best terraforming ETs in town but,
I'd still have to bet that we'd be giving the likes of creating and
sustaining other life upon our moon the same degree of accomplishing
Mars and even for a toasty Venus receiving our best effort of a life
giving shot in the dark. At least technically we can accomplish the
likes of Venus so much easier than we can manage our very own
once-upon-a-time icy proto-moon, and though trillion+ dollar spendy, it
seems like Mars is possible even though it's simply too damn far away,
a wee bit TBI, sub-frozen and rather easily pulverised to death, and
it's certainly way out there in the wrong direction as for whomever
wants to return home so that they can summarily infect mother Earth
with whatever forms of robust life from Mars.
Thus the small/micro (non DNA/RNA transferring) satellites as deployed
from whatever robotic mothership seems to offer us a perfectly viable
and affordably renewable alternative for not 0.1% the cost and not 10%
the timeline of us humanly achieving those other planets in person.
The TRACE-VL2 platform has been just one such multi-tasking form of a
station-keeping mothership notion that could deploy dozens if not a
hundred of small/micro craft that would accomplish the likes of
exploring Venus just fine and dandy. We could even deploy a few trial
and error packages of microbes, such as diatoms, if not for introducing
a few substantially larger forms of sufficiently robust life to that
geothermally active planet. What could possibly go wrong?
In a few other words; if it's going to eventually happen anyway, it's
certainly a better off notion for us to be biologically poisoning them
than us. At least upon Earth we haven't given a tinkers damn about any
environment or other life within if it's getting the least bit in our
way of sucking out every last tonne of coal, last barrel of oil and m3
worth of natural gas.
Our social, religious and political butt cracks are so freaking tight
that not even our worse possible flatulence escapes. No wonder we're
getting ourselves so bloated and nasty tempered to boot.
Brad Guth
~
Kurt Vonnegut would have to agree; WAR is WAR, thus "in war there are
no rules" - In fact, war has been the very reason of having to deal
with the likes of others that haven't been playing by whatever rules,
such as GW Bush.
Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
Logan Kearsley
The only one of those that could be reasonably attributed to arrogance,
IMHO, is New Orleans.
Titanic was a lack of materials knowledge. Challenger and Chernobyl were
stupidity. And Columbia was just plain bad luck.
-l.
------------------------------------
My inbox is a sacred shrine, none shall enter that are not worthy.
jonathan
"Pete Lynn" <pe...@peterlynnkites.com> wrote in message
news:j8wcf.13205$Hj2....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> >
> > Blocking 2% of the incident solar radiation is not a
> > slight adjustment. This is a sledgehammer solution to
> > more extreme act of human arrogance with respect to
> > nature than is human burning of fossile fuels.
>
> from the very beginning. Atmospheric dust levels are altered
> dramatically by a number of natural causes.
The idea of blocking some sunlight is insane. How many variables
are dependent on the Sun? There's an infinite number of
dependent variables. Which means predicting the effects are
impossible, it would be guess work. The work of fools
and madmen on a planetary scale.
You're forgetting that the real world is non-linear in character.
Which means the effects often have absolutely NO
relationship to cause.
In addition, the mathematics of systems theory are clear
on this subject. A system driven far from equilibrium by
external forces tends to evolve. One driven to the
edge by internal forces is pushed into chaos.
An internal force is determined by the level of
connectivity or dependent variables. As in the more
dependencies the more internal or primary is the
driving force.
The Sun defines an internal force. Chaos would be
the immediate and obvious result of any change outside
the natural fluctuations life has evolved around.
This just shows the complete backwardness that objective
methods inherently produce. We should be gathering sunlight
and allowing complex adaptive systems....life...to apply it
as it will. Not reducing sunlight for everything and keeping
our finders crossed.
Life will apply the new energy source where it's needed
and in just the right measure.
Man-made or brute force change only destroys.
Jonathan
s
>
> I once calculated that global warming mitigation by artificially
> regulating atmospheric dust levels should only cost a few billion per
> year. From what I can tell this is the cheapest option, (excepting a
> quick solution of last resort - nuclear winter).
>
> Long term I would still favour the space based approach - it is more
> pure and direct. It will also probably be necessary when our sun starts
> getting old.
>
> Pete.
>
>
Pat Flannery
Ed Kyle wrote:
>Examples of human engineering arrogance abound.
>Titantic.
>
I don't think there was anything fundamentally unsound about Titanic.
It needed more lifeboats and more cautious captaining at night and in
fog when icebergs were known to be about, but the ship itself was
probably safer that most of the other liners at sea at the time.
If it had struck the iceberg head-on (as the designers envisioned the
worst case scenario to entail) it probably would have survived...and
been praised as a revolutionary step forward in safe ship design.
The Hindenburg on the other hand was asking for it.
Pat
glbrad01
"Mike Combs" <mike...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote in message
news:dktfda$skd$1...@home.itg.ti.com...
> You make good points about using lunar regolith for shielding. It just
> makes me impatient for the day when we're routinely and economically
> bringing lunar materials into high orbits. If we can place manned
> facilities in orbits which are easy to reach from Earth, but can still
> cover
> them with lunar material for shielding, then we have the best of both
> worlds.
>
>
> --
>
>
> Regards,
> Mike Combs
Too many people try to attach too much to Earth. If we did nothing for
decades but colonize space as just an out flowing river of people and
resources, economic growth here on Earth would begin to double then treble
just about across the board. It is the continuing dam in place that is
steadily, implacably, shrinking the percentages (regarding growth) over time
over almost the whole of this world. Come to think of it, a better
description than "shrinking" would be 'stagnating'. Growing stagnation.
So many times in history have peoples paid out enormous fortunes in money
and kind in getting others to migrate away, only to find in hindsight they
lost nothing at all in the doing; that they actually gained from the
energetic flow of such a manmade river doing away with all stagnant pooling
in place.
Hasn't anyone noticed the mass migrations south to north occurring [on]
the surface of this world? Just the latest of so many mass migrations in
history. The beneficiaries have perpetually been the sources and the
migrations themselves, and all too rarely even the recipients of the
migrations. The only thing that has changed from all history and nature past
is that this present day tidal movement in progress is doing nothing
whatsoever to alleviate the growth of stagnant economic pooling anywhere on
this planet. It is doing no more than fueling and accelerating the already
growing volatility of stagnant pooling (just fueling and accelerating the
growing volatility of growing [world-class] economic stagnation). Tidal
migration today should now be flowing out of this world, not flowing in any
direction on this planet because it does nothing anymore in a time-distance
shrunken world than create destructive circular life tornadic or
hurricane-like vortexes. Such changes nothing concerning the inexorable
growth of stagnation throughout the world except to accelerate that growth.
An infant humanity is now fully (space age) developed and ready to birth
(to expand) from the womb to continue positive growth and development. If it
does not do so, if it cannot or will not do so, it continues development
anyway but an increasingly negative development rather than positive. It has
crested its time on this planet regarding staying on this planet. For that
matter, it has crested its time, regarding its growth in pure
dimensionality, regarding the restrictions of the surface dimensionality of
any planet in the Universe whatsoever. As a whole we grew in our development
of energies and complexity out of living in natural caves, natural caves
period--because we had to. Now--again as a whole--we've reached the limits
and gone beyond into growing negativity of [all] humanity, and by extension
[all] life, living in natural gravity caves (gravity wells). There are not
nearly enough of them, and their universally lower dimensionality is not
nearly enough dimensionality anymore.
To give another analogy of planetary colonization vs. space colonization
just in case anyone has missed the point: We reached the limits of the far
more relativistic dimensioned macro-computers a couple of decades ago,
inspiring the vision of, and the creation and development of, far more
flexibly dynamic and customizable micro-computers. Via almost cellular-like
system clustering and network development of micro-computers we've
discovered a diverse vastness we could not even conceive of before within
that particular scheme of our tools. We've already modeled in a tool here on
Earth a far greater live-in, and a far greater work-in and travel-in, [far
larger and far more dynamic dimensioned] frontier environment as our most
probable and most desirable future.
GLB
Jim Davis
> Too many people try to attach too much to Earth.
Not at all, Brad. They attach the same importance to Earth as you do.
You've chosen to life your life on Earth. How can you hypocritically
lash out at others (ie, everyone) for making the same choice?
Jim Davis
Carey Sublette
"Paul F. Dietz" <di...@dls.net> wrote in message
news:WYidneeoI6D...@dls.net...
> Carey Sublette wrote:
>
>> Here is a link to a report on this very idea:
>> http://www.llnl.gov/tid/lof/documents/pdf/231636.pdf
>> authored in part by the (in)famous Edward Teller.
>>
>> They claim dust-based insolation solutions can cost well under $1 billion
>> a year with a suitable choice of dust agents.
>>
>> Seems a much more practical idea for implementation during this century
>> than space shields or vast balloon fleets.
>
> I'd worry about surface-catalyzed ozone destruction on atmospheric dust.
I'd worry about that too. The paper discusses a number of technical options
for this, among them a non-ozone destroying solution might be found.
I generally don't like the idea of countering inadvertent anthropic global
environmental forcing with advertent anthropic global environmental
counter-forcing, but realistically it is hard to see effective and timely
solutions to halt greenhouse gas release being implemented.
> One idea I'd like to see analyzed would be resonance scattering off
> neutral atoms and small molecules released at the Earth-Sun L1 point.
> The cross sections on resonance can be enormous. Light pressure would
> accelerate them toward earth, broadening the absorption by doppler
> shift. You'd need lots of species to block enough of the spectrum,
> though.
The LLNL paper addresses this possibility briefly as well.
Carey Sublette
glbrad01
"Jim Davis" <jimd...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Xns970C75EA45FEEji...@130.225.247.90...
CHOSEN?!!! For at least the last thirty-years a growing realization of
DICTATED! A growing realization of not being permitted by Big Brother any
choice whatsoever in the matter. Many others in this world sense the same
thing but the vast majority are simply confused as to the why of their
growing sense of living in chains. That things are not right. That the
world -- worldwide -- is growing too stagnant and that they are circling,
just circling, far too much. That they've become serfs, human resources
rather than people free to choose to leave. People do not have to want to
leave the Earth to colonize space to sense they have been walled-in within a
titanic manmade, state made, Iron Curtain. Such a thing in place will reach
to, and reach into, the whole of mankind imprisoned within, no matter what
anyone's individual choice, to effect--to infect--all pestilentially.
GLB
Pat Flannery
glbrad01 wrote:
>>Not at all, Brad. They attach the same importance to Earth as you do.
>>You've chosen to life your life on Earth. How can you hypocritically
>>lash out at others (ie, everyone) for making the same choice?
>>
>>Jim Davis
>>
>>
>
> CHOSEN?!!! For at least the last thirty-years a growing realization of
>DICTATED! A growing realization of not being permitted by Big Brother any
>choice whatsoever in the matter.
>
>
Okay....now, either there are two of them....or Brad has changed his
posting address.... and I'm hoping it's the latter, as the thought of
two of them on this one small planet would be the best argument I can
think of for an immediate program of space migration. ;-)
Pat
Jim Davis
> CHOSEN?!!! For at least the last thirty-years a growing
> realization of DICTATED! A growing realization of not being
> permitted by Big Brother any choice whatsoever in the matter.
<chuckle>
Right, Brad. You'd be living in that space colony right now if it
hadn't have been for the "man" holding you down all these years.
> Many others in this world sense the same thing but the vast
> majority are simply confused as to the why of their growing
> sense of living in chains. That things are not right. That the
> world -- worldwide -- is growing too stagnant and that they are
> circling, just circling, far too much. That they've become
> serfs, human resources rather than people free to choose to
> leave.
Translation: These serfs would be much happier toiling to build me
a space colony, I just know it.
> People do not have to want to leave the Earth to colonize
> space to sense they have been walled-in within a titanic
> manmade, state made, Iron Curtain. Such a thing in place will
> reach to, and reach into, the whole of mankind imprisoned
> within, no matter what anyone's individual choice, to effect--to
> infect--all pestilentially.
Brad, I'm sure it's a source of great frustration to you that the
unwashed masses have no interest in making sacrifices in order for
you to live in space. Yes, I know you find it hard to believe, but
it's the simple truth.
If you are *really* serious about living in space you're going to
have to do some heavy lifting, Brad. These constant harangues for
others to the dirty work for you aren't going to cut the mustard.
Jim Davis
Brad Guth
robotics can have a rather tough time of it, especially if having to
survive upon our naked and thus highly reactive and extremely dusty
moon, that's not to mention getting easily pulverised from nearly any
direction.
This is what Lord William Mook recently had to offer in his sub-topic
mesage "Developing the Interplanetary Frontier";
usenet original topic: lunar centric orbit?
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.space.policy/browse_frm/thread/845df119fc042b63/4d1d565ce702c89b?lnk=st&q=brad+guth&rnum=3&hl=en#4d1d565ce702c89b
At least this recently accomplished page as having been shared by "Alex
Terrell" offers us some traditional full-scale and thus extremely
massive as well as spendy fly-by-rocket methods worth our considering
as an alternative to using small/micro satellites until the LSE-CM/ISS
is up and running.
Exploiting the Moon (Building on Project Constellation / September
2005)
http://fp.alexterrell.plus.com/web/Constellation/Routemap%20-%20lunar%20option7.htm#_Toc113893191
>William Mook; Here's more about Lagrange points...
Thanks ever so much for these old files that still badly informs us
village idiots, as to providing next to nothing as to the hour by hour
LL1/ME-L1 interactive location as I've previously requested. It's just
MOS wag-the-dog infomercial formulated info as having been re-posted in
order to look a bit different. You and I shouldn't have to run all of
these complex numbers. So, where's the LL1/ME-L1 beef?
http://www.physics.montana.edu/faculty/cornish/lagrange.html
http://www.freemars.org/l5/aboutl5.html
http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/1976.skyhook/1982.articles/elevate.800322
All of these supposed new and improved notions of yours seems to
require that spendy and yet to be R&D CNT stuff. However, your notions
of doing everything the absolute hardest way possible and the most
spendy as well as energy consuming and thus environmentally damaging
way conceivable is rather impressive.
>A space elevator on the moon is an interesting topic. I can wax
>poetic about that.
Please do "wax" away. At least that form of waxing would be on "lunar
centric orbit?" topic.
Those "skyhooks" and other terrestrial notions of getting large masses
of substances delivered into space will likely happen within the next
century after we're dead. Of course, by then China will own the moon
and having 100% authority over the LSE-CM/ISS, and the scant remains of
terrestrial oil will bring $1000/barrel, whereas the only folks that
can afford to buy any of it will be those as already having it or
having some other energy to trade to the highest bidder. Yourself, Dick
Cheney and the likes of "tomcat" should get your thoughts and whatever
agendas together, which shouldn't be all that difficult since you
already think so much alike.
By then it'll only cost $10,000/month for your residential HVAC
demands, and a gallon of gasoline at $100/gal should get your 10 mpg
Hummer down the road just fine and dandy.
By then those nifty CNT terrestrial space elevator and skyhook tethers
should only have been costing us a billion dollars/km. Of course, since
more than half the world is Muslim and they haven't forgotten, chances
are that defending our terrestrial based and thus CNT tether assisted
space explorations and of accomplishing whatever subsequent lunar
extractions via those massive fly-by-rocket landers that still have to
be R&D, whereas we'll have to be continually defended with the likes of
nukes-in-space and having dozens of those GW class of ABLs being kept
in the air 24/7. Thus WW-III, WW-IV and WW-V should manage to keep your
global populations down to something under your 9.2e9 requirement.
Your "Project Orion" is certainly another real Greenpiece killer, but
since the environment of Earth will have already become terminated
beyond the point of no return, we'd have nothing to lose.
Is there some ulterior reasons why the safe and sane Ra-->Rn-->ion
thrust isn't any part of your mad scientist plan of action?
Is there some other reason why you've excluded upon the He3/fusion
alternatives?
Is there some other reason why you've excluded LSE tether dipole
extracted energy?
BTW; start making room for at least twice your "9.2 billion people",
thus 18e9 and still growing strong by the year 2100, that is unless the
incest cloned likes of yourself and Bush/Cheney can manage invent some
additional WMD lies in order in order to exterminate more than half of
them. Remember that at the rate we're going, oceans should soon become
worth 10 meters higher, thus we'll have a whole lot less dry land to
work with and more nasty bugs than anyone can imagine. However, a
nearly ice free Greenland and Antarctica should soon become valuable
properties (buy now while it's still ice covered and cheap).
BTW No.2; the richest will not become any 1/10th of the global
population, it'll become the upper most 0.1%(18e6) of humanity that'll
be considered as rich and powerful. The rest of us will be lucky to
afford toilet paper, much less having dry land to call home.
You certainly have a nifty way of spending other peoples hard earned
dollars, and of causing the absolute most collateral damage and carnage
upon the innocent in the process, just like GW Bush and all of his
incest partners in crimes against humanity, like good old Dick Cheney
and don't ever forget your Dr. Death(Kissinger).
Why can't we just accomplish the LSE-CM/ISS and essentially start
bringing home the He3 bacon?
Even from the initial station-keeping satellite platform that'll be
efficiently coasting along in a halo orbit within the LL1/ME-L1
interactive zone is offering an absolutely terrific spot for
accomplishing all sorts of Earth science and moon science. Even
astronomy improvements from that location isn't exactly a bad thing.
With regard to the radiation that's out there, especially as related to
the LL1/ME-L1 zone and of folks getting any closer to our moon;
The density of lead cuts hard-X-ray dosage by half for every 18 mm.
Ten of those layers = 180 mm = 1024:1 reduction.
Fifty of those layers = 900 mm = 32,768:1 reduction.
Our atmosphere (because of its low density and thus creating the least
amount of its own secondary/recoil impact is roughly equal to a bit
more than those 50 x 18 mm layers of lead. But then we have the vast
70,000 km Van Allen expanse or badlands that's worth at least another
100:1
On a fairly passive sort of solar day, it seems that our full moon as
having been detected from the cruising altitude of ISS is sharing a
good extra millirem/day. However, on a bad solar day and full moon,
make that extra dosage contributed from our naked moon worth 100
mr/day.
ISS isn't the least bit stationary nor is it keeping its position as
situated between Earth and the moon, but if it were there'd certainly
become any number of extra complex problems, including a bit of what
the moon shares in the form of secondary/recoil worth of hard-X-rays.
For argument sake, let us use ISS as our spacecraft that's headed for
becoming our station-keeping patform at LL1/ME-L1, and as a perfectly
good example of subsequently taking those fly-by-rocket EVA trips for
getting ourselves much closer to the surface of our moon.
386,400 -6378 -1738 -384 = 377,900 km that's between ISS as situated
384 km above Earth and remaining directly in alignment with the surface
our moon. We now have roughly 378,000 km to start our dividing in half
in order to fully appreciated the available radiation dosage.
Now we start doing the math from the basis of receiving a 100:1 dosage
increase plus half distance multiplier of 4:1 once getting yourself
through the Van Allen badlands that'll have happened once having
traveled the first half way towards the moon, being 189,000 km as what
gives us our first 400:1 increase in that original dosage from our
previously having been situated roughly 384 km above Earth as having
received that extra 0.001 rem/day.
If going in for the kill, it'll only amount to another 10+ fold of
cutting the distance in half in order to get yourself into actually
orbiting our moon to within 184.5 km of the lunar deck, and that's only
representing an extra 4^10 = 1.048e6:1 radiation multiplier.
Thus by having multiple times cut that distance to the moon in half,
and using the square of the distances as your hard-X-ray dosage
multiplier means that for each haft distance multiplies the lunar
contributed dosage by a factor of 4:1. Of course that's a wee bit testy
if the first half distance having established the radiation influx upon
your spacecraft at 0.4 rad/day, whereas obviously the only thing going
for those NASA/Apollo missions was their smoke and mirrors worth of
need-to-know soft-science and a good amount of their applied
conditional laws of physics.
Gees freaking Louise folks; now you tell me what the situations is all
about as per cruising along at 100 km off that absolutely nasty and
highly reactive lunar deck (especioally reactive if at best there's
only 2e5 atoms/cm3 getting in the way) as your craft is passing itself
directly over whatever that solar illuminated moon has to offer. Then
perhaps divide that hard-X-ray influx in half for being the average
since half the time is spent on the dark side of the moon (of course
it's not ever going to become half dosage because even the dark side of
the moon is still just as if not a bit more reactive, thus sharing a
bit of the secondary/recoil worth of whatever the cosmic influx has to
offer), but then also remembering to contribute a bit of whatever's
directly impacting your spacecraft and lo and behold, what did your
math as based upon the regular laws of physics have tell us?
It seems that even an earthshine environment of our moon is going to
remain as humanly testy if not potentially short-term lethal. If the
much lesser background and foreground radiation still doesn't manage to
get you, then whatever's passing by or God forbid impacting nearby your
nighttime moon surface at 3+km/s is still going to easily nail your
sorry moonsuit butt, especially nasty of whatever's 30+km/s stuff that
isn't slowing down all that much in that thin atmosphere, especially if
that arriving substance is offered as any typically good sort of
density/cm3, and there are certainly bound to being a few of those
head-on 100+km/s encounters that'll remain just as invisible as WMD
until it's too freaking late. Thus earthshine is only at best offering
a partial moonsuit butt saving alternative of being a whole lot less
TBI worthy.
Therefore, the surface of our moon (especially by day) is mostly suited
for robotics. Space travels outside of our Van Allen zone of death is
also of what's best suited for robotics. Fortunately, those sorts of
robotic satellites can actually be extremely small, energy efficient
and as a whole they'll take a rather nasty licking and keep on ticking
for not 0.1% the cost of accomplishing anything that involves humans.
Some of those small/micro satellites may even be configured for
surviving their impact/landing upon our moon, or for their getting into
a rigid airship mode of efficiently accomplishing Venus.
Artificially impacting our moon could easily have improved the lunar
atmosphere from being 1e6/cm3 to becoming something greater than
1e12/cm3. In fact the near surface populations of a Radon, Argon and of
sustaining a much greater CO2 matrix might easily exceed 1e15/cm3
(especially within some of the larger crater basins). It takes next to
nothing for targeting our moon with sufficient solids of CO2 packing a
hefty core of Radium and LRn. Physics-101 stipulates that the surface
impact/vaporising conversion rate of 1e6:1 into becoming a viable lunar
atmosphere has been entirely doable as of more than 4 decades ago.
Please take good notice how I'm not another anti-technology freak. I do
seem to be mindset stuck in the rut of believing that ETs and of their
intelligent design do happen coexist throughout our universe, and as
such I also believe that we're far from being the smartes of the lot.
I'm not even opposed to whatever yourself and the likes of the energy
sucking "tomcat spaceplane" has to offer. I'd even have shared on a
50/50 matching funds basis from my bank accounts that should have been
overflowing as of 5 years ago, with no limits and essentially no
strings other than your haveing to stay the course of such efforts
improving the quality of life for the lower 99.9% of humanity that's
sequestered upon this global warming Earth.
Therefore, I'll need to keep asking folks like yourself;
Good grief almighty. What the freaking sam hell is your sicko problems
that are continually orchestrating disinformation against accomplishing
our moon, or even against our better alternative of establishing the
LSE-CM/ISS?
BTW folks; why the heck do you suppose that your Third Reich
MI6/NSA~CIA and of your GOOGLE/NOVA/NASA mainstream status quo serviced
usenet that sucks and blows big-time is still (absolutely no lie folks)
hard at work delivering their spermware into my PC?
John Schilling
>"Pete Lynn" <pe...@peterlynnkites.com> wrote in message
>news:j8wcf.13205$Hj2....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>> "Ed Kyle" <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1131571070.4...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>> > Blocking 2% of the incident solar radiation is not a
>> > slight adjustment. This is a sledgehammer solution to
>> > a poorly understood problem. It would be an even
>> > more extreme act of human arrogance with respect to
>> > nature than is human burning of fossile fuels.
>> And a sledge hammer that nature has been using with extreme prejudice
>> from the very beginning. Atmospheric dust levels are altered
>> dramatically by a number of natural causes.
>The idea of blocking some sunlight is insane. How many variables
>are dependent on the Sun? There's an infinite number of
>dependent variables. Which means predicting the effects are
>impossible, it would be guess work. The work of fools
>and madmen on a planetary scale.
>You're forgetting that the real world is non-linear in character.
>Which means the effects often have absolutely NO
>relationship to cause.
Yes, yes, and elementary chaos theory says that all robots will
inevitably run amok and kill their creators.
That the real world is non-linear in character does *not* mean
that "effects have absolutely NO relationship to cause". It means
that effects have a non-linear relationship to cause. Non-linear
mathematics has been well understood for quite some time now, and
is quite frequently used to calculate cause and effect by those
engineers who have *not* forgotten that huge chunks of the world
are non-linear. Which is to say, all of them.
You seem to have a vague understanding that this sort of thing is
indeed a hard problem, but you do not understand the language that
needs to be used to discuss just whats sort of a hard problem it
is and how it might be solved. You're just throwing technobabble
at it, revealing your own ignorance. Which is your own, and not
shared by everyone else debating the issue.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Brian Thorn
wrote:
>>Examples of human engineering arrogance abound.
>>Titantic.
>>
>
>I don't think there was anything fundamentally unsound about Titanic.
>It needed more lifeboats
Hence the arrogance.
Anyway, probably half the dead of Titanic could have been saved if the
Captain had simply ordered all the lifeboats to be overloaded. Many
lifeboats left very lightly loaded, despite calm seas and the arrival
of the Carpathia known to be only hours away.
Brian
Pat Flannery
Jim Davis wrote:
>glbrad01 wrote:
>
>
>
>>CHOSEN?!!! For at least the last thirty-years a growing
>>realization of DICTATED! A growing realization of not being
>>permitted by Big Brother any choice whatsoever in the matter.
>>
>>
>
><chuckle>
>
>Right, Brad. You'd be living in that space colony right now if it
>hadn't have been for the "man" holding you down all these years.
>
>
>
>
>
Hey, it happened before!: http://www.negrospaceprogram.com/ :-D
Pat
jonathan
"John Schilling" <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote in message
news:dl86s...@drn.newsguy.com...
> In article <wpidf.13710$Dk....@bignews5.bellsouth.net>, jonathan says...
>
> >"Pete Lynn" <pe...@peterlynnkites.com> wrote in message
> >news:j8wcf.13205$Hj2....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> >> "Ed Kyle" <edky...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >> news:1131571070.4...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
> >> > Blocking 2% of the incident solar radiation is not a
> >> > slight adjustment. This is a sledgehammer solution to
> >> > a poorly understood problem. It would be an even
> >> > more extreme act of human arrogance with respect to
> >> > nature than is human burning of fossile fuels.
>
> >> And a sledge hammer that nature has been using with extreme prejudice
> >> from the very beginning. Atmospheric dust levels are altered
> >> dramatically by a number of natural causes.
>
> >The idea of blocking some sunlight is insane. How many variables
> >are dependent on the Sun? There's an infinite number of
> >dependent variables. Which means predicting the effects are
> >impossible, it would be guess work. The work of fools
> >and madmen on a planetary scale.
>
> >You're forgetting that the real world is non-linear in character.
> >Which means the effects often have absolutely NO
> >relationship to cause.
>
> Yes, yes, and elementary chaos theory says that all robots will
> inevitably run amok and kill their creators.
Nonsense.
>
> That the real world is non-linear in character does *not* mean
> that "effects have absolutely NO relationship to cause". It means
> that effects have a non-linear relationship to cause.
No it doesn't. It means that a small disturbance can have huge
and unpredictable results. The French riots are a classic
and current example of this effect.
> Non-linear
> mathematics has been well understood for quite some time now, and
> is quite frequently used to calculate cause and effect by those
> engineers who have *not* forgotten that huge chunks of the world
> are non-linear. Which is to say, all of them.
The Butterfly Effect
"This phenomena is known as sensitivity to initial conditions, or the Butterfly
Effect.
It arises because the errors that accumulate from each collision do not simply add
(as linear analyses assume), but increase exponentially and this geometric
progression rapidly diverges any initial state to one that is unpredictably far
from the estimate. This behaviour is responsible for what we call Chaos, a term
that has a technical meaning but is roughly equivalent to the common notion of
future randomness, except that the states in which the system may be found
are often restricted and known in total - we just don't know which one it will
be in at any future time. The system is unstable, a small change leads to
a massive reaction..."
http://www.calresco.org/nonlin.htm
>
> You seem to have a vague understanding that this sort of thing is
> indeed a hard problem, but you do not understand the language that
> needs to be used to discuss just whats sort of a hard problem it
> is and how it might be solved.
The basic mistake of this idea is that it's looking for a simple
or single answer to a complex problem. That is the definition
of dangerous.
jonathan
Let's put this idea of blocking the sun into an appropriate analogy.
Let's look at the behavior of market systems, a man-made
version of a complex adaptive system, of nature.
Can you think of a primary variable in a market system
analogous to solar input? How about interest rates, or
the price of oil. Such variables are highly connected to
every other variable. A simple solution to controlling a
complex system. Which is what science loves.
If the system is stable, a minor change to such a key
variable will have fairly modest or predictable results.
If the system is NOT stable, if it resides near one unstable
extreme or the other. Near a static or chaotic attractor.
Then a minor change in such a variable can cause massive
and unpredictable changes that cascade out of control.
The butterfly effect.
The system can suddenly collapse and die, or be thrown into
chaotic or wild swings in behavior from that minor
change in a primary driving force.
So this leads to a catch-22 of sorts with this idea.
If the earth's biosphere is stable, it doesn't need such
a grandiose plan. Life will provide the adaptive feedback
mechanisms needed to sustain itself. Increased cloud cover
for instance will maintain stability.
If our biosphere is teetering, and we become desperate for
a quick fix, we're likely to write our own epitaph with
such a simple single point solution.
Look at the riots in France. What do you see?
An unstable system near one extreme, the static of
repression and poverty, experienced a minor accident
of sorts with the tragic deaths of those two kids.
And what happened?
We're on day 17 of uncontrolled chaos that might continue
spreading to other countries.
Before messing with Mother Nature, it's best to understand
her first. This idea of blocking the sun demonstrates a lack
of understanding of even the most basic properties of
nature.
Jonathan
s
>
> - Ed Kyle
>
jonathan
"Pat Flannery" <fla...@daktel.com> wrote in message
news:11nbgut...@corp.supernews.com...
I think the arrogance of the Titanic takes the form of thinking that
the larger and more robust the design, the less likely is a disaster.
So the extra life boats and caution around hazards are less needed.
But the larger and more rigid a system, the less able it is to adapt
to changing circumstances. The more vulnerable it is to the
unexpected.
This is the old conflict between man-made and natural.
Nature is relentless in trying every possible solution simultaneously.
And with non linear strength, in that at times forces will
overlap.
Against the unchanging, nature always wins.
Jonathan
s
>
> Pat
Pat Flannery
Brian Thorn wrote:
>>I don't think there was anything fundamentally unsound about Titanic.
>>It needed more lifeboats
>>
>>
>
>Hence the arrogance.
>
>
I checked, The Board Of Trade required that a ship of Titanic's size
carry lifeboat capacity for 1,060 people; Titanic carried lifeboat
capacity for 1,178.
There was discussion at the time of lifeboats being unnecessary on ocean
liners due to the advances in their design (now that _was_ arrogance)
In the case of Titanic, their ability to float with any two compartments
flooded and the self-closing watertight doors simply gave them an excuse
to equip it with too few lifeboats with an easy conscience.
There's a discussion of the lifeboat situation here:
http://www.historyonthenet.com/Titanic/lifeboats.htm
The loss of the ship wasn't due to its design- it wasn't perfect by a
long shot, but no ship was back then. If Lusitania had hit the berg the
result would have been pretty much the same. In fact, Lusitania might
have sunk far faster given its behavior when it got torpedoed (it went
down inside of twenty minutes) and its lack of the self-closing
watertight doors like Titanic had. Although these couldn't save the
ship, they at least slowed its sinking up considerably.
The fault was with Captain Smith's decision to take his ship at speed
into a area where icebergs had been sighted, at night and in foggy
conditions. That was just plain stupid on his part; and criminally
stupid at that.*
A 747 is a very safe airliner...but if you decide to fly it through
mountain ranges at night and in fog....
>Anyway, probably half the dead of Titanic could have been saved if the
>Captain had simply ordered all the lifeboats to be overloaded. Many
>lifeboats left very lightly loaded, despite calm seas and the arrival
>of the Carpathia known to be only hours away.
>
>
The evacuation was very poorly handled, but most evacuations of ocean
liners in real emergencies have been far from ideal.
There have been cases where the crew took to the lifeboats and left the
passengers behind.
At least not much of that happened on the Titanic.
* There has been speculation over the years that Captain Smith has
trying to beat the crossing time of the Mauretania and wrest the Blue
Riband from Cunard lines for White Star; but this seems unlikely, as
Titanic was designed for comfort more than speed and was an inherently
slower ship than the Cunard greyhounds. Mauretania had made here
Riband-winning crossing at a average speed of 26.06 knots in 1909;
Titanic was moving at only 22.5 knots when she hit the iceberg. It's
more likely that Captain Smith was trying to set the fastest crossing
time for a White Star liner, which makes his risking his ship for this
rather minor honor even less explicable.
I guess they just couldn't afford to have it look slower than their
other ships.
Pat
Michael Ash
>
> I checked, The Board Of Trade required that a ship of Titanic's size
> carry lifeboat capacity for 1,060 people; Titanic carried lifeboat
> capacity for 1,178.
> There was discussion at the time of lifeboats being unnecessary on ocean
> liners due to the advances in their design (now that _was_ arrogance)
> In the case of Titanic, their ability to float with any two compartments
> flooded and the self-closing watertight doors simply gave them an excuse
> to equip it with too few lifeboats with an easy conscience.
I'm curious, what (if any) was the logic behind this decision?
It seems to me that there's really only two choices. Either the ship is
inherently safe, in which case no lifeboats are needed, or the ship still
has a risk of sinking, in which case lifeboats are needed for all
passengers. How does one decide that less risk means fewer lifeboats are
needed?
Brett Paul Dunbar
<mi...@mikeash.com> writes
Actually historically there hadn't been much point having lifeboat
berths for all passengers. Prior to the availability of radio, either
you were close enough to rescue for the lifeboats to make multiple
trips, or you were dead whether you were in a lifeboat or not. In a
lifeboat it just took longer. That is quite apart from whether it was
physically possible to fully evacuate the ship before it sank. With
radio it was possible to alert another ship at a distance and therefore
for rescue to be on the way but not due to arrive for several hours.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Brett Paul Dunbar
To email me, use reply-to address
Brad Guth
extremely brown-nosed and incest cloned borgism of your mainstream
status quo (aka pack of liars),
Sorry "Space Cadet" and other folks; even though I essentially agree
with and would support the broad scope of your entro suggesting that we
should exploit our moon, though I do believe there's an even better
solution that's not based upon this one which begs a human response
because, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
http://www.physorg.com/news6342.html
How much radiation awaits lunar colonists? A new NASA mission aims to
find out
"We really need to know more about the radiation environment on the
Moon, especially if people will be staying there for more than just a
few days,"
Please try to inform us village idiots as to why on Earth is there any
further question whatsoever about the lethal aspects of the lunar
radiation environment?
After all, didn't we send several robotic instruments as satellites and
of those supposed AI/robotic fly-by-rocket landers, each having been
loaded to the gills with our utmost best possible instruments and thus
obtaining months worth of essentially live data prior to even one
supposed moonboot step upon the moon? Didn't each of those Apollo
missions and especially of their moonsuit EVAs include more of the same
TBI recordings as to the nature of such energy spectrums that included
the natural background and of the secondary/recoil worth of them
hard-X-rays? Why apparently NOT folks.
Therefore, why exactly do we even need this "Cosmic Ray Telescope for
the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER)" telling us anything?
I too had once upon a time thought that we(NASA) pretty much had all of
those TBI dosage detections and a good handle upon the various
spectrums worth those energy levels down pat, as in been there and done
that technology way before we ever took that supposed step upon our
rather unusually dust-free and otherwise highly reflective lunar
surface. I'd though that we also had the likes of human hairs and of
their own bodily organs to boot that oddly proved our moon was anything
but reactive, thus proving that much of the regular laws of physics
were bogus, meaning that Einstein and so many others really suckered us
good.
Reverse math simply doesn't work if you must believe all that's within
the NASA/Apollo Koran.
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm
Cosmic Radiation of 27 (mrem)/year hits any given person thus per m2 of
Earth's surface.
That's obviously after having migrated all the way through our nasty
Van Allen expanse that's good for at least a 100:1 factor of radiation
moderation, as well as for the equivalent of having survived the
equivalent of penetrating those 50 x 18 mm layers of lead which our
atmosphere represents as our best hard-X-ray shield. As to how much of
that "Cosmic Radiation of 27 (mrem)/year" is specifically of hard-X-ray
as contributed by way of the secondary/recoil of such X-ray photons
from our moon remains somewhat need-to-know and/or as
taboo/nondisclosure and thus as unknown as it gets because, we seem to
have absolutely no independent hard-science nor of anything as having
been obtained from lunar surface deployed instruments, and of our NASA,
DoD and USAF satellite data is essentially data encrypted so as to mean
anything you'd like to make of it.
It's as though we're having to deal with exactly what liars do best,
they lie.
Generally, once a study has been accepted as published under the
moderation and agenda rules of whatever's our NASA/Apollo Koran
certified is when this same information gets reutilized and republished
in so many other forms as having no other independent research
associated, thus no verification whatsoever as to any of their numbers.
If we attempt reverse engineering as to discover the amount of what 27
mrem/year represents as to what that sort of influx dosage amounts as
per being situated outside of our highly protective atmosphere, as this
is where it gets real interesting.
It takes 18 mm(0.7") of solid lead that's good for a material density
of better than 11.3 g/cm3 in order to cut the hard-X-ray dosage in
half. Whereas if given 50 fold worth of doubling in dosage becomes a
very significant DNA snuffing multiplier factor of 112e12:1
If merely 0.1% of that 27 mrem/year is related to what's having been
derived off our moon, as such that's all the way down to 27
microrem/year which is merely .074 microrem/day, which seems somewhat
insignificant until we apply the math as based upon the surface of
Earth being shielded by a metric tonne/m2 plus our environment having
the Van Allen expanse on top of that, which has certainly become a
whole lot more TBI worthy than I'd been using for my estimates, as
having been based upon starting off at 1 mrem/day worth of moon
contributed dosage while situated at 384 km above Earth, therefore
residing well below the Van Allen badlands. Whereas I'm also especially
conservative since I'm sticking with a basis of what a full-moon
contributes and where the other side of this argument is clearly based
upon their averaging at not more than having a 50% solar illuminated
moon as from the perspective of mother Earth receiving whatever
secondary/recoil worth of such hard-X-rays having been specifically
contributed by our moon. In other words, I'm being the good guy in this
argument.
Of course, other than for those intending upon specifically
accomplishing the moon itself, most if not all of the planned human
space travels are those going away from our nasty sun, as well as for
going far away from our naked moon that's so gosh darn reactive,
especially keeping away from the solar radiated side that's sharing off
such a great deal of hard-X-ray dosage. No kidding folks, it seems the
solar impacted side of our moon is a good thousand fold worse off for
our DNA than is a lunar nighttime or earthshine illuminated moon, yet
there's still no mention nor any other NASA/Apollo certified science
that even so much as mentions that difference.
http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicapollo.html
"We really need to know more about the radiation environment on the
Moon"
No kidding folks;
It seems that we also need an understanding via hard-science as to raw
ice surviving in space, or even for that matter of surviving within any
near vacuum of 1e9 atoms/cm3, as perhaps being the most likely
underground environment upon our moon. Moon air that's populated at 1e9
atoms/cm3 isn't hardly worth much of anything compared to Earth air =
53e18 atoms/cm3, as that's 53 billion fold less to work with, which
isn't exactly a good thing if there's radiation that needs moderation
and/or whatever bits of debris to deflect or at least slow them little
and not so little suckers down prior to their final impact.
At what our NASA/Apollo dead-sea scrolls officially stipulates about
our lunar atmosphere being worth a messily 2e5 atoms/cm3, and if we're
to be going by way of those numbers, we could efficiently sustain
satellite orbits right down to their cruising just a few km off the
lunar deck, that is as long as they somehow managed to miss running
into the vertical terrain features as offered by such a topographic
range as +/- 8 km <http://www.astrosurf.com/avl/UK_download.html>. It
seems that the closer to the moon a satellite gets, the better off
their orbit becomes as nearly circular, thus capable of obtaining so
much better resolution of whatever their instruments are taking in. So,
if there's supposedly such a slight atmosphere, then why the heck is
SMART-1 along with its benefit of having that rather nifty Xenon-->ion
thruster so into keeping it's highly elliptical and thus mission
inefficient distance of transpiring from nearly 11 hours out to nearly
9 days per orbit?
Perhaps the sooner SMART-1 manages to run itself out of Xenon the
better, as at least then we'll get some reasonable data and best images
as it closes in on the moon.
We've also needed something/anything as to appreciating the raw
physical influx that's contributing to the cosmic morgue worth of such
absolutely nifty meteorites and of spore deposits that simply have to
be sequestered upon our 'once upon a time' icy proto-moon, that which
should also coexist along with all of that He3 element. Just like
there's been need for live readings as to the surface population of
Radon, Argon, CO2, Sodium and a good many other heavier elements as
they have managed to survive such a hellacious gauntlet from each hot
day after day throughout each sub-frozen night after night that keeps
cycling again and again, all the while taking a lethal solar and cosmic
licking because of having no magnetosphere of it's own and of
supposedly having such a slight atmosphere that's only long after the
NASA/Apollo mission having been detected as dispersed itself out to
14,000 km worth of such a relatively low density element of what the
likes of boiled off Sodium has to offer, and that's only 36 fold
greater expanse of such atmospheric elements than what mother Earth has
to offer. Of course there's also another taboo/nondisclosure worth of
the lunar sodium trail that extends out past 900,000 km, but whatever
we do, don't tell our NASA because, it seems their Apollo Koran offered
absolutely nothing about any such sodium, nor otherwise hardly anything
mentioned about the amounts of Radon(Rn222) that had to have been
floating right upon the raw solar illuminated surface.
Note that boiled off and thus vaporised sodium offers a damn hot
substance, at one bar melting at just 371 K (208 °F), although boiling
into becoming a suitable lunar atmospheric vapor takes 826 K (1027
°F), whereas obviously within the near vacuum of space that point of a
vapor phase is somewhat of yet another taboo/nondisclosure factor about
our moon. Actually, there's one heck of a lot we seem not to know for
certain about our moon.
BTW folks; - why the heck do you honestly suppose this incest Third
Reich MI6/NSA~CIA and of their GOOGLE/NOVA/NASA mainstream status quo
serviced usenet that's into so badly brown-nose sucking and blowing
big-time is still (absolutely no lie folks) hard at work delivering
their interactive spermware into my PC?
You think I'm kidding? I kid you not.
William Mook
Nuclear Pulse rockets can be built heavy enough to allow even human
cargoes to survive the radiation levels in Interplanetary Space.
Hohmann transfers with chemical rockets and very small human payloads -
are at far greater risk.
Population levels are rising. They won't rise so fast in a world with
a growing economy. In a world with a stagnant economy - we can't rely
on rising living standards to stop growing populations. This is
primarily determined by availability of energy, but there are a handful
of other strategic materials that could also become an issue. Even so,
reaching out from the center into interplanetary space to tap into
resources far greater than available on Earth is a solution to our
problem. Collecting solar energy, creating practical fusion reactors -
solves the energy problem if done cost efficiently. Capturing rich
asteroids or bringing up rich materials from deep within the Earth is
another.
I don't think our leadership has a clue - but one could reasonably
argue that the US, and every other nation, has plans or ideas of what
they might do in a pinch. This might explain why we go apeshit about
purported Iranian WMDs and do nothing about North Korean WMDs - even
when its clear that China and Korea both helped Pakistan and India
become nuclear states - because a localized war on the Indian
subcontinent would focus China on the effects it has on their food
production, and destroy simultaneously both India's and China's growing
demand for oil and other critical resources - ending the upward
pressure they are putting on prices of these resources. It would be
foolish to say the US engineered this to achieve this end - but it
wouldn't be so foolish to say that the US would take advantage of any
mishap, as long as it stayed localized, to maintain an advantage - any
other nation would do as much.
But I believe we must do our best and hope for the best. And doing our
best is doing those things that will assure us a growing global economy
that gives us a shot at containing population levels below 10 billion.
If we're slower off the mark, that could rise to 20 billion - without
any major die off as you point out. But even so, technology is up to
the task, if we had the will and the vision to do it.
In the end, 2/3 of the population of Earth would live off world by the
middle of the 22nd century - so, Earth populations would be in sharp
decline by then. Human populations too would be stablized, with an
exponentially growing robotic population supporting the humans. But
this won't even start until around 2030-40 time frame, according to the
experts like Hans Moravec.
William Mook
Michael Ash
Thanks. This would be what I hadn't thought of, and it does make sense. It
still seems somewhat mean to deny a big chunk of passengers a place on a
lifeboat in the event that no other ships were in the area, even if their
chances for survival were slim, but I guess it's a rational choice. It
makes particular sense in the cold north Atlantic where lifeboaters are
sure to die fairly quickly.
Were requirements different for other routes? In the tropics, I imagine
that getting everybody onto lifeboats could be useful even if nothing was
in the area.
Brian Thorn
wrote:
>There's a discussion of the lifeboat situation here:
>http://www.historyonthenet.com/Titanic/lifeboats.htm
>The loss of the ship wasn't due to its design- it wasn't perfect by a
>long shot, but no ship was back then. If Lusitania had hit the berg the
>result would have been pretty much the same. In fact, Lusitania might
>have sunk far faster given its behavior when it got torpedoed (it went
>down inside of twenty minutes)
But the Britannic, Titanic's sistership which hit a mine during World
War I while serving as a hospital ship, went down in less than an
hour. This was despite the improvement of watertight doors that went
all the way up instead of Titanic's only 3/4 way up.
Brian
Jim Davis
> But the Britannic, Titanic's sistership which hit a mine
> during World War I while serving as a hospital ship, went down
> in less than an hour. This was despite the improvement of
> watertight doors that went all the way up instead of Titanic's
> only 3/4 way up.
I think you meant to say watertight *bulkheads* not watertight
doors.
Jim Davis
Chris Hall
IIRC, passengers on the Britannic pointed out that water tight doors and
portholes were open because of the heat. In this case, despite being in
a war zone, the ship was not operated as if it might be hit by a
torpedo/mine. It was a hospital ship, no?
Chris
Pat Flannery
Michael Ash wrote:
>I'm curious, what (if any) was the logic behind this decision?
>
>It seems to me that there's really only two choices. Either the ship is
>inherently safe, in which case no lifeboats are needed, or the ship still
>has a risk of sinking, in which case lifeboats are needed for all
>passengers. How does one decide that less risk means fewer lifeboats are
>needed?
>
>
It's hard to get inside the heads of the people of the time, as they had
a completely different world view than we do now.
Mechanical and electrical technology was moving forwards by leaps and
bounds at the time, and it looked like pretty much any problem that
could arise could be worked out mathematically and resolved by having
enough ingenuity and brute force thrown at it.
In the case of the Titanic, the concept that they followed was this:
Divide the entire ship up into sixteen separate subsections, each of
which was small enough that any one of them being compromised would
still permit the ship to easily stay afloat- and she could even stay
afloat with a maximum of four flooded. The only access between
subsections to consist of watertight doors that could be closed via
remote control either locally or from a central control point. Since the
worst that could theoretically happen was something piercing the hull at
the juncture of two compartments, the ship was therefore (theoretically)
incapable of sinking by a factor of two, and would not need lifeboats.
Although this was the case in the designer's view, there was still the
law to contend with; and the Board Of Trade said that it did need
lifeboats (there was also the case of fire, which could cause the ship
to need to be evacuated even if its hull were intact).
The original plan was to outfit it with thirty-two lifeboats, which
meant that pretty much everybody would have had a space on a lifeboat if
all were filled to capacity- but this was seen to clutter the decks and
make easy movement of the passengers fore and aft difficult, as well as
compromising the ship's looks. Since the lifeboats were now superfluous
due to the ship's inability to sink, and since the legal requirements
only demanded that the ship carry around eighteen, provision for twenty
seemed to meet the legal requirements with a couple left over for
unexpected contingencies (in fact, one can now see why she had eighteen
conventional lifeboats and the two collapsible ones- the two collapsible
ones are the spares) to show the passengers that White Star Line left
absolutely nothing to chance when it came to their safety.
Unfortunately, once they had convinced themselves that the ship was
unsinkable, the lifeboats became something of a afterthought. Lifeboat
drills weren't taken very seriously, as there would be no need to use
the lifeboats during the voyage anyway....and of course, being that it
is as safe as an airliner, the Space Shuttle didn't need any escape system.
A very interesting scenario would be if Titanic had hit the iceberg bow
on; she was designed to survive this, and probably would have.
Afterwards she'd limp to New York and be hailed as the wonder of the
age...and the laws would be changed so that ships designed like her
didn't need to carry any lifeboats at all.
Titanic was a very well designed ship and safer than any other liner of
the time; she just managed to run into a improbable situation that her
designers never foresaw due to being operated in an unsafe manner. She
should have either stopped for the night once icebergs were reported or
sailed a more southerly course if they were expected (as they should
have been given the season). Even reducing speed would have helped in
that it would have given more time to turn once the berg had been
spotted and reduced the force of the impact if the collision had still
occurred. Live and learn.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Brian Thorn wrote:
>But the Britannic, Titanic's sistership which hit a mine during World
>War I while serving as a hospital ship, went down in less than an
>hour. This was despite the improvement of watertight doors that went
>all the way up instead of Titanic's only 3/4 way up.
>
>
Article about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMHS_Britannic
Apparently the watertight doors may not have closed, and water might
have come in through open portholes as the ship listed.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Chris Hall wrote:
> IIRC, passengers on the Britannic pointed out that water tight doors
> and portholes were open because of the heat. In this case, despite
> being in a war zone, the ship was not operated as if it might be hit
> by a torpedo/mine. It was a hospital ship, no?
>
Filthy Huns!
They're capable of anything!
http://www.firstworldwar.com/posters/images/pp_uk_01.jpg
Pat
Brian Thorn
John Schilling
The issue isn't "less risk", but "how long does it take for the ship to
sink?"
Ninteenth-century lifeboats were not meant as floating refuges for the
passengers and crew of a sinking ship; indeed, the term "lifeboat" was
originally applied to rescue craft kept in ports and harbors, which are
most unlikely to ever sink. The purpose of a lifeboat, even if it was
kept on board a sinkable ship, was to ferry the survivors to a nearby
safe haven, e.g. one of the aforementioned ports and harbors. Or the
larger ship you just collided with, or the enemey warship that is in
a good mood w/re survivors, etc.
So what you need is for there to be enough lifeboats, in total, on your
ship and at the nearest port/harbor/other ship, to run a ferry service
that will get everyone to safety in the time it takes the stricken vessel
to sink. Titanic's improved design meant that even with a massive gash
in the side, it took several hours to sink - time for plenty of ferrying.
If the ship sinks in the middle of the ocean with no safe haven nearby,
yes, half your passengers are going to go for a swim. But that just means
they die a little sooner than the rest - nobody was under any illusion that
a group of ocean-liner passengers and a junior officer or two were going
to pull off a Bligh-like feat of transoceanic navigation even under the
best of circumstances, and in fact the relevant circumstances are not
"best" but "just sank a big-ass steel ship".
Two things in the twentieth century changed this calculation immensely.
First, the life *raft*, which is rather unlike the life *boat* in that
it can be easily stored in large enough numbers to support all the
passengers and crew of an ocean liner, can be launched and operated
by amateurs, and which can be made relatively unsinkable even w/re
ship-wrecking storms and the like. Second, the marine radio, which
increased the options available to a shipwrecked crew from "sail across
an ocean in a dinky boat", "pray for a miracle", and "die of thirst",
to those plus the vastly preferable "call for help with a reasonable
expectation that it will actually arrive".
Titanic, as it turns out, had both collapsable life rafts and marine
radio. But it was one of the first generation of ships so equipped,
and neither shipbuilders nor regulators had really worked out the
implications. Titanic, per regulation, had more than enough lifeboats
to do anything a ninteenth-century lifeboat could do in the subset of
ninteenth-century shipwrecks where lifeboats could do any good. And
the late-ninteenth-century advances in shipbuilding technique that
made ships take longer to sink, factored into that.
By her loss, she inspired people to figure out how they could do better
using newfangled twentieth-century technology. Which in hindsight was
not terribly difficult.
John Schilling
says...
>
>My dearly snookered and thus dumbfounded fools of your very own
>extremely brown-nosed and incest cloned borgism of your mainstream
>status quo (aka pack of liars),
Out of curiosity,
A: what sort of fool continues reading after an opening line like this?
and
B: what sort of fool imagines anyone *else* will continue reading after
an opening line like this?
Terrell Miller
> In article <11319675...@nfs-db1.segnet.com>, Michael Ash says...
>
>>In rec.arts.sf.science Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
>
>>> I checked, The Board Of Trade required that a ship of Titanic's size
>>> carry lifeboat capacity for 1,060 people; Titanic carried lifeboat
>>> capacity for 1,178.
and indeed, the BBoT regulation was written in the 19th century, to handle a
ship of up to 10,000 register tonnes.
Titanic was built in 1911 and grossed 40,000 register tonnes plus change.
The regulations had simply never been updated in decades, basically.
> So what you need is for there to be enough lifeboats, in total, on your
> ship and at the nearest port/harbor/other ship, to run a ferry service
> that will get everyone to safety in the time it takes the stricken vessel
> to sink. Titanic's improved design meant that even with a massive gash
> in the side, it took several hours to sink - time for plenty of ferrying.
urban myth, I'm afraid. Sonar imaging has revelaed that the total area of
all the little punctures was about the size of a 1-car garage door, not a
massive gash.
> If the ship sinks in the middle of the ocean with no safe haven nearby,
> yes, half your passengers are going to go for a swim. But that just means
> they die a little sooner than the rest - nobody was under any illusion
> that
> a group of ocean-liner passengers and a junior officer or two were going
> to pull off a Bligh-like feat of transoceanic navigation even under the
> best of circumstances, and in fact the relevant circumstances are not
> "best" but "just sank a big-ass steel ship".
hence the term "castaways". People who have been cast away from the ranks of
the living, they just haven't stopped breathing yet.
> Titanic, as it turns out, had both collapsable life rafts and marine
> radio. But it was one of the first generation of ships so equipped,
> and neither shipbuilders nor regulators had really worked out the
> implications. Titanic, per regulation, had more than enough lifeboats
> to do anything a ninteenth-century lifeboat could do in the subset of
> ninteenth-century shipwrecks where lifeboats could do any good. And
> the late-ninteenth-century advances in shipbuilding technique that
> made ships take longer to sink, factored into that.
>
>
> By her loss, she inspired people to figure out how they could do better
> using newfangled twentieth-century technology. Which in hindsight was
> not terribly difficult.
irony department: Charles Pellegrino was a crewman on Ballard's expedition
that discovered Titanic in 1985. Over seventy years after the famous wreck
that supposedly brought about so many safety improvements...the scientific
research vessel they were on only had enough lifeboat capacity for about
half the souls onboard.
John Schilling
>Nonsense.
That was the point of the reference, yes.
>> That the real world is non-linear in character does *not* mean
>> that "effects have absolutely NO relationship to cause". It means
>> that effects have a non-linear relationship to cause.
>No it doesn't. It means that a small disturbance can have huge
>and unpredictable results.
Trivially disproven.
Y = 100 + (2 + cos(X))^0.01
Is a nonlinear function. Both the "cos(X)" and the "^0.01" parts see
to that, by definition.
Yet it turns out that *no* disturbance, even a millionfold increase in
the input, can change the result by more than a hundredth of a percent
or so. And that in a very predictable fashion.
>The French riots are a classic and current example of this effect.
Several of the words that you are using, do not mean what you think they
mean. And while the rest of us can with some effort figure out what you
seem to be trying to say, it's an enormous waste of time for us to do that
when we can just ignore and/or ridicule you and wait until someone who
understands the language shows up to debate the matter.
If, in fact, nobody who understands the language of mathematics cares to
take your side in this debate, that perhaps says something about the merits
of your side's position.
Terrell Miller
"Michael Ash" <mi...@mikeash.com> wrote in message
news:11319941...@nfs-db1.segnet.com...
> Were requirements different for other routes? In the tropics, I imagine
> that getting everybody onto lifeboats could be useful even if nothing was
> in the area.
nope, the reg was strictly based on the gross register tons (not actual
weight, some sort of complex calculation of volume) of the ship, regardless
of which route she sailed.
And the regulations had been made about two decades earlier, when the
biggest liners were 10,000 GRT. Titanic was over 40,000 GRT. The regs had
never been updated.
Erik Max Francis
> "John Schilling" <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote in message
>
>> That the real world is non-linear in character does *not* mean
>> that "effects have absolutely NO relationship to cause". It means
>> that effects have a non-linear relationship to cause.
>
> No it doesn't. It means that a small disturbance can have huge
> and unpredictable results. The French riots are a classic
> and current example of this effect.
Non-linear and chaotic are not synonymous. All chaotic systems are
non-linear, but not all non-linear systems are chaotic.
> The Butterfly Effect
That's chaotic, not non-linear.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known.
-- Walt Disney
Erik Max Francis
> That's chaotic, not non-linear.
Well, chaotic _above and beyond_ non-linear, that is.
Steve Hix
John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
> In article <1131971950.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Brad Guth
> says...
> >
> >My dearly snookered and thus dumbfounded fools of your very own
> >extremely brown-nosed and incest cloned borgism of your mainstream
> >status quo (aka pack of liars),
>
> Out of curiosity,
>
> A: what sort of fool continues reading after an opening line like this?
>
> and
>
> B: what sort of fool imagines anyone *else* will continue reading after
> an opening line like this?
Brad Guth, for question B.
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>In article <1131971950.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Brad Guth
>says...
>>
>>My dearly snookered and thus dumbfounded fools of your very own
>>extremely brown-nosed and incest cloned borgism of your mainstream
>>status quo (aka pack of liars),
>
>Out of curiosity,
>
>A: what sort of fool continues reading after an opening line like this?
>
>and
>
>B: what sort of fool imagines anyone *else* will continue reading after
>an opening line like this?
I see Question B has already been taken, so here's A: Anybody who
finds psychopathology of interest. (Of course, even scientific
curiosity can be taken too far -- anyone who steeped himself in Ed
Conrad, Tony Lance, or ArchiePu would worry me almost as much as those
individuals themselves. There are some things Man Was Not Meant to
Know.)
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Derek Lyons
>> So what you need is for there to be enough lifeboats, in total, on your
>> ship and at the nearest port/harbor/other ship, to run a ferry service
>> that will get everyone to safety in the time it takes the stricken vessel
>> to sink. Titanic's improved design meant that even with a massive gash
>> in the side, it took several hours to sink - time for plenty of ferrying.
>
>urban myth, I'm afraid. Sonar imaging has revelaed that the total area of
>all the little punctures was about the size of a 1-car garage door, not a
>massive gash.
That depends on how you interpret the evidence. A good portion of the
area of interest is buried in mud and clay - and of the remainder it's
difficult to be sure what was iceberg damage amd what was impact
damage.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
Ash Wyllie
>Brian Thorn wrote:
Given how fast it sank, watertight doors /only/ sounds about right to me.
-ash
Cthulhu in 2005!
Why wait for nature?