New Mars Forums

For kbd512 re #15

SearchTerm:propane part of detailed overview of hydrocarbon fuels use and history

i'm highlighting this detail from your comprehensive overview because I'm intrigued by the implication in the closing paragraph that a synthesis process to make propane does not already exist.

It seems to be generally accepted that methane can be synthesized, but (I gather) there must be something about the propane molecule that makes synthesis more difficult or perhaps more endothermic, or both.

In any case, the production of propane by nuclear power plants would seem to be a useful activity.  In a recent post Calliban suggested production of ammonia from nuclear power plants, and you (and others) have provided support for that idea in the forum.  However, I think that if propane can be produced and distributed for prices that are competitive with fossil fuel extraction techniques, we (humans) might have the ticket to use of nuclear power on a more aggressive scale.

If anyone with posting privileges can add to this discussion please do so.

If someone not currently a member would like to contribute to this discussion, please read Post #2 of Recruiting.

***
for kbd512 re Calliban's work in Nuclear is Safe .... do you have any preference for reactor size, in the context of selling the idea to your fellow Texans?

Is there a size that you think would be particularly interesting, so that it would have a chance of approval by the electorate if policy makers propose it for baseload electricity, for production of fuel, or for other purposes?

Edit at 6:50 local time:

Google went looking for information about synthesis of propane ... the top citation was one I was not expecting ...

About 6,440,000 results (0.79 seconds)
To make the propane, the team “hijacked the assembly line” of the biological process of fatty acid synthesis in E coli, introducing a group of enzymes (Thioesterase) into the bacterium. Two more enyzmes were then added to eventually turn the smelly fatty acid into propane.Sep 2, 2014

Propane made with renewable process for the first time | Gas ...https://www.theguardian.com › environment › sep › prop...
About featured snippets

This process seems to require more complex molecules as input.  It might be worth expanding, since the supply of fat from animal production and from some plants may be sufficient to justify investment in the capability for delivery of heating gas and for fuel.

However, what I'm looking for is a method that takes water and CO2 as input and yields propane.

Edit at 7:01 local time ... my impression after a preliminary search is that kbd512's hint that there may not currently exist a method to make propane from water and CO2 may turn out to be right.

If there ** is ** such a method, it does not rise to the top of Google search results.

(th)

New Engine

Ariane 6 targets new missions with Astris kick stage
https://phys.org/news/2021-07-ariane-mi … stage.html

JWST will launch on the old Ariane 5 which is set to retire

Seems ESA will continue some near term projects like the ISS and missions to Venus and Mars. However as for Manned Transport it seems they will continue using NASA, Russia or the US Private Sector for manned missions, will they also buy from China or buy from India if it gets a space program moving? They continue to study Mars with Orbiters and have Robotic plans for the ISS. ESA will also continue to study Venus and other planets alongside NASA JPL missions.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration … dying_Mars

https://www.universetoday.com/151973/eu … -inchworm/

http://astronomy.com/news/2021/07/esa-j … each-venus

Louis:

The autopilots you cite are closer to hard-wired systems than software-controlled systems.  The recent exception has been the B-737 Max disaster,  which makes my case,  not yours:  Boeing was trying to relay on software to compensate for an otherwise fundamentally non-airworthy design.  That is a matter of the record,  BTW.  It has to do with relocating the thrust axis vs the vertical position of the vehicle cg,  forced by the larger engines they wanted to use,  instead of simply lengthening the landing gear.

You just made my case by citing aircraft autopilots.  I know you did not intend to,  but you did!

About 4 decades ago,  I experienced a rough landing in an early B-737 with a hard-wired autopilot.  About 5 decades ago,  I was in a non-fatal (by the skin of our teeth) air crash in an Lockheed Electra-2.  That one had a hard-wired autopilot.  In both cases conditions occurred that were way outside what the autopilot was expected to cope with.  They were due to violent weather.

In both cases,  the pilots took full manual control. 

In the Lockheed case 5 decades ago,  the craft stalled and fell short,  reaching the concrete by about a yard (which is why I am still here to debate with you),  then bounced like a rubber toy about a mile down the runway until the pilots finally regained control,  striking sparks and dragging wingtips and props on the runway.  My fear of heights today is PTSD from that crash then.  We didn't know what "PTSD" was back when that happened. 

In the early B-737 case,  the pilots managed to stop the stall,  and just made a rough,  bouncy landing.  I knew,  and they knew,  just how close we came to dying,  but no one else on the airplane did.  I could tell,  from their reaction to what I said to them as I left the aircraft. It was "y'all done good",  with a hand gesture showing the radical gust-induced yaw followed by leading wing stall.   

Both cases were precipitated by 45+ degree yaws,  induced by extreme turbulence. 

In both cases,  the autopilot was inadequate to the task,  but the human pilots were capable (again,  that is why I am still here!).  This was very minimal automation,  to boot. Software-controlled is actually worse,  because most software programmers have little or no experience with the real-world things they are trying to control.

Automation is VERY definitely NOT what you (and so many others) crack it up to be!

GW

Louis,

Prior to COVID-19, humanity has never seen another virus that was so perfectly adapted for airborne transmission between humans from the word "go".  In all probability, since to this day there is still no actual evidence for a zoonotic origin for the COVID-19 virus, that the virus was a genetically engineered strain of SARS-CoV that escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) while it was conducting gain-of-function research.  Years ago, according to WIV's own website, that's exactly what they were working on.  Later full-on denials that that's what they were doing there were subsequently proven to be lies.  China's (the world's actually) foremost corona virus researcher (Shi Zhengli) stated that they routinely tested the animal populations around WIV for new strains of corona viruses and found nothing whatsoever.  For someone with her background to completely miss something as significant as COVID-19 beggars belief.

I don't believe that SARS-CoV-2 was a deliberately designed bio weapon, but that has no actual effect on the end result.  If you design something that's more contagious than influenza, more lethal than the plague, more genetically complex and prone to mutation than HIV, and then you accidentally release something like that into the wild, then whatever good intentions you may have had (which nobody else could ever ascertain while you operate behind a wall of government-enforced and sponsored secrecy) behind what you did, doesn't matter in the slightest to humanity.

Here's what most conservatives / Republicans get wrong about science:

The mere fact that there are always data points providing contra-indications to a given rule or principle does not negate the general applicability of the rule or principle.  There are a few indications that the laws of thermodynamics breaks down under incredibly unique circumstances, but that does not mean that the observed behaviors of thermodynamics are not in full effect at all times.  The takeaway should be that even if someone outright hates you or is your sworn enemy, that still doesn't mean that from time to time they're trying to convey information that, due to mutual shared interest, may be incredibly important to take heed of.  While the US and Russia have nuclear weapons pointed at each other, that doesn't mean both countries can't share information about everyone's impending doom, in the form of an inbound planet-killer asteroid headed to Earth, that we should try to knock out with nuclear weapons.

Here's what most liberals / Democrats get wrong about science:

The mere fact that available data seems to fit a general hypothesis does not mean that there are other possible or even probable explanations.  Beyond that, worshiping science as a substitute for some other human brain construct deity confers no morality to the activities undertaken by scientists.  Scientists have researched how to kill or maim people with specific ethnicity, how to murder an entire city full of people using a nuclear weapon, and how to design chemicals or poisons that kill everyone after exposure to incredibly minute quantities of the substance.  As such, while you're busy "following the science", you might want to ask yourself what "the science" has led you into.  While science gave you a vaccine against COVID, in all probability that vaccine wouldn't be needed if human activity had not exposed all of us to COVID through eating wild animals or tinkering with something we had no foolproof mechanism to contain.  The development of nuclear weapons, for example, was a Faustian Bargain.  It solved no existing problems and arguably created an entirely new problem of humanity-ending proportions.

Here's what most conservatives / Republicans get wrong about authority:

Rebellion against authority for lack of trust can work against you when authority has mutual shared interest with you.  Democrat or Republican, everyone is still human.  Disease doesn't care about politics, even if some people try to politicize every issue imaginable.  Nobody I know of wants to drown in their own blood, but that's exactly what COVID causes in the people it kills.  While there's a pattern to the people it kills, that's not a guarantee that it won't come after you after it mutates.  Nature is also a very harsh and unforgiving mother.  She does not care if you failed to protect yourself because you distrust the "other people" who provided the protection.  Beyond that, there's nothing in medicine that is foolproof or 100% effective.  We utterly lack for that level of knowledge of medicine.  That does not mean that we can't use what little we do know to our benefit, despite all of our other human failings (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride).  Even someone who wishes you dead would not normally be willing to kill themselves to accomplish that.  It would be to your benefit to consider that when dealing with what political and ideological opponents are telling you.

Here's what most liberals / Democrats get wrong about authority:

Conformity to the desires of authority figures is not universally a point of virtue.  We need look no further than to ISIS or Nazi Germany or Communist Russia and China to see how frequently blind obedience leads to mass murder and misery.  It would be foolish beyond belief to discount that very real possibility, as so many others have done, and paid the ultimate price in so doing.  It is an indisputable point of fact that those who give blind obedience to authority are frequently brutalized and murdered by those in positions of authority at alarming rates, because those in authority don't feel that they must earn the trust and respect of those they have been elected or appointed over.  Stalin, for example, murdered some of his childhood friends, people who never had any intention or any demonstrated behavior that was the slightest bit disloyal to either him or the Russian Communist Party, merely on the word of some random person who did not know them.  That strikes me as a society living in real fear and misery due to an inability to freely express opinions contrary to popular opinion, without reprisals.  Questioning authority takes real courage and personal integrity, but it's preferable to the alternatives.  Beyond that, in a multi-cultural / multi-religious / multi-national society, the only natural result over obsessing about our differences will be Civil War.  You can always choose to believe in principles versus dogma.  The utility range of dogmatic beliefs is very narrow, and no different than religion, which is definitely not science.

Politics for everyone:

Unless you are the dictator, you will never achieve a dictatorial society whereupon everything is done according to your personal preferences, so advocating for or otherwise helping to create a dictatorship of any variety is very counter-productive.  Even dictators are frequently murdered by the people enforcing their will, so merely becoming a dictator is no guarantee that your grip on power will last, nor that after you eventually die from old age, society doesn't simply reverse every policy you put in place.  I've spoken to an alarming number of both Republicans and Democrats who think society would be "just dandy" if they or someone who agreed with everything they thought was made dictator.  Again, nothing good will ever come from this type of thinking.

The Apollo lunar rover was a simple electric car,  driven by hand.  None failed on the moon.

The X-15 was manually flown with the aid of a hard-wired (NOT software controlled) stability augmentation system.  It was intended to relieve pilot workload,  and that is what it did.  There was 1 fatal crash out of 199 flights.

The Space Shuttle could be "manually" flown during entry and landing,  but was usually flown in autopilot mode.  Its control system was software based,  using the original 8086 chip.  It killed two crews out of about 120-some flights,  not counting the drop test flights with non-space-capable Enterprise.  The fleet was retired for multiple reasons,  but prime among them was unavailability of 8086 chips,  except used,  off Ebay.

Mercury was automatically controlled by hard-wired stuff,  from ground control.  It could be flown manually during entry,  and both Scott Carpenter and Gordon Cooper did that.  Cooper flew manually because the automatic systems had failed,  and I think that might have been true of Carpenter,  too.  6 manned flights,  no fatalities.

The control and track record with Gemini is similar,  that being Mercury Mark 2 with a bigger ICBM for a booster.  The closest thing to a loss was a stuck thruster on Armstrong's Gemini flight with an Agena docking target.  He regained control manually (!!!!),  and landed manually immediately,  due to depleted thruster propellant. 

Apollo flew with a flight control computer that was actually software-controlled.  It was a minimal automatic control,  and worked well,  the biggest issue being the primitive man/machine interface.  The one on Armstrong's lunar lander overloaded and crapped out twice.  Armstrong landed on the moon in manual control mode.

So,  what is the better track record in spacecraft?  Manual control or automation?

Bear in mind,  stability augmentation systems and autopilot systems are OK,  if they are more hard-wired than software-controlled.  The physical parts count with such things are not all that high (hundreds to thousands),  and if there are only thousands of lines of code to debug,  that job can be done well.  But if you try to take it too far,  and automate everything,  you get hundreds of thousands to millions of lines of code,  and the track record with that is quite poor.  It gets back to every line of code being another failure mode.  Too many is just too much!

GW

Michael Flynn Criticizes DeSantis, Hannity for Vaccine Push: 'They Know That They Have Influence'

If a vaccine is 70% effective and you gave it to all of the people 100% you still fall short of herd immunity as the variants are not tested with in that effectiveness and there is nothing to prove that all people will gain the same effectiveness value as claimed as the sample size was to small while in testing to see if it was safe to take.

Reinfection Rates among Patients who Previously Tested

Reinfection Rates among Patients who Previously Tested

The findings showed that 63 of the 9119 patients with severe COVID-19 infection contracted the virus a second time, with an average reinfection period of 116 days.

People with asthma were 90% more likely to have COVID-19 reinfection than those without asthma, and people who used tobacco or other nicotine products were 170% more likely to experience reinfection. During a second episode of COVID-19, people in the study were significantly less likely to develop complications like pneumonia, heart failure, or acute kidney injury

How is the claim staked ex in person on its surface, via email, from a claim deed registry that own none of it but passes out paper claims....

Forcing of the claimant to mark each corner of the claim in order to be able to register the deed for it....

Next is there a currency that proves you are not poor on what economical scale since thats a value of what you have versus not earning enough to afford what you still desire..

Louis,

Per my readings of the materials produced by Peter Zeihan, Africa has several problems
which could make it not such a great story.  But as you have indicated, perhaps
technology, could make the story better.

I have noticed a very nice possibility that Peter Zeihan himself (I think it is a him).
  Now days????

Anyway he has tweeted about an Iron/Air battery, which if real has a vast potential.

https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/ … 0192120835

I think that this is an article that does not demand that you subscribe:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech … -days.html

But there also may be several other things that indicate potential other than that.

And I intend to mention those as well. 

To be continued.....