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#576 Re: Human missions » RAS says UK should reverse astronaut ban » 2005-10-19 14:48:07
The problem with the UK is that though we have great ideas we just dont back them up with funds and determination. We had a space program a true to god independent one it was cancelled just a few years before the great age of satelites. We invented the silo system to protect nuclear missiles but only built one we cancelled the program. The USA and USSR though copied the idea and theres are still in use. We had designs for super rocket powered fighters but due to bribery and lack of commitment this went away too. Dont get me on about all the planes and designs that came up from TSR to HOTOL all unsupported.
Recently the Beagle was an example of too little funds too late and so it failed. Our commitment to ESA is hardly a solid one. What should we do either hoist our colors up the mast or decide we are not going to be an innovator anymore.
#577 Re: Human missions » China second manned launch coverage; » 2005-10-19 09:36:56
Yes that is one problem with the Chinese space program its inherent secrecy. Still I think the space station that China will fly will certainly be smaller than the pictured one being probably just one cabin living/science area with airlock and power module bolt ons. It does not really need to be more at this stage. Though if I was the Chinese I would also have extremely large solar panels and to make it very visible from Earth. Just so that people can see it going across the night sky.
#578 Re: Single Stage To Orbit » Realistic solutions to the difficulties of SSTO? » 2005-10-19 09:29:04
I fail to see what's so impressive about HyFly. Air-to-Air missiles routinely travel at Mach 3 and Mach 4.
Except we are not talking mach 3. That was just the basics this missile the HiFly will be expected to fly at mach 6 the next time and the eventual aim is for mach 7 to 8. At that speeds a missile would not even need an explosive ordinance its own speed would be enough to do extreme damage. A near miss would be just as bad as a hit. And the future of air war is that the ability to shoot at a target and hit before it can evade is essential to ensure survivability and controlling that sphere of warfare.
The future of air war is having more and more automation in fighters and bombers and as such the limitations imposed on the aircraft in taking evasive manouveres by having human crew will cease. We already have aircraft flying that can do manoeuveres that impose 20G but a human pilot cannot really take more than 10 G before blacking out even before this his reaction time is extremely debilitated. This is one reason so much money is spent on stealth as a modern aircrafts survivability is essentialy dependant on not being seen. If its seen by radar it will struggle to avoid a missile attack. Unmanned aircraft apart from having less of a radar cross section are able to use the aircrafts full capability and as such can survive by avoidance a hostile missile attack.
If aircraft are able to use there full capabilities then modern missiles like the AAMram and sidewinder would struggle to secure a hit simply being dodged out of the way. It will be essential for the future fighter aircraft to be able to fire its missile and to give as little time as possible for the target to be able to take evasive manouveres. And the HyFly will also cluster its ammunition so that if the target evades the main missile it may well be take out by the shotgun effect of the missiles "other" rounds.
#579 Re: Single Stage To Orbit » Realistic solutions to the difficulties of SSTO? » 2005-10-18 04:31:17
I Know it has been posted elsewhere but this refinement of rockets would make TSTO a lot easier and possibly put SSTO back on the table.
Spacedaily Article on new rocket engines
We have basically come to the end of substantial improvements in the fuel but if we can improve the rocket engine itself and gain improvements that actually allow a rocket engine to last longer but actually give more thrust per amount of fuel used then it does give spaceplane advocates a lot of hope.
#580 Re: Martian Politics and Economy » Reduce Government Drag » 2005-10-17 17:14:02
The problem with the idea of getting rid of taxation especially non compulsory is that then totally hinders goverment from functioning. Sad to say but all goverments from good to poor need money to live. People will not give money to there goverment not in the sums it needs to be able to pay for the services people require.
You would by deregulating industry and also privatising the organisations designed to protect people destroy lots of peoples lives. What is to stop a company deciding it needs to put a toxic waste dump next to your home or your childrens school. These regulations and of course the agencies to ensure regulations are carried out. Do not expect the police to be able to stop them as they will need specialised advice and that just wont be in the goverment sector and the Police just will not be able to pay for hiring it. And since more and more power will be going to private security agencies or company police they would hardly even want too. Police would have more important jobs protecting the citizens who do pay for them the companies employees.
As buisness takes over more and more of what goverment did it would then more or less control the country. Education of children would make a society of classes with private security companies patroling those areas that where company towns. The poor unwashed trash that had recieved no education and medical help would be disenfranchised and since they have no money they would have no power in the only type that matters now purchasing power.
This is a future so loved by the writers of the "cyberpunk" genre of SciFi. It is what happens when a goverment becomes but a tool of corporations and at the moment only a decent goverment with power has the strength to stop this happening.
#581 Re: Not So Free Chat » view posts since last visit :WHERE IS THE BUTTON? » 2005-10-16 16:04:37
Falkor at the bottom of the thread lists and above the list of who is on the forum and how many posts and who is our latest member is mark all forums read.
If you tab it before you leave then all forums that where present will be amrked and as such all that are new will be marked.
#582 Re: Not So Free Chat » Katrina and New Orleans » 2005-10-16 15:59:35
There is a British Billionaire and he has decided to rebuild the town of Long Beach in Mississippi which was wrecked by Hurricane Katrina. Long Beach had a population of 17000 but was devastated by Katrina and insurers are refusing to pay for its rebuilding and goverment cash is not going there it having been earmarked for the more important city of New Orleans and other such large cities.
The Billionaire is Lakshmi Mittal a steel tycoon estimated to be worth about £14.8 Billion pounds and he described the effects of the hurricane as "heartbreaking" and he had been moved to get involved. "It will take years to rebuild the shattered communities".
It is expected to cost over £50 million pounds to repair the town of Long Beach but Mittal and his company will not just give a cheque and leave they plan to finish the job themselves and are already in the process of hiring labourers and moving materials to rebuild the town as was.
#583 Re: Human missions » China second manned launch coverage; » 2005-10-16 15:35:50
The second Chinese manned craft has safely made it to the ground. It touched down by parachute at 4:32 am local time in the Gobi desert. Both Yuhangyuan are fine and the commander Fei Junlong stated "We feel good, our work is going smoothly, and our life is happy"
It was also noted that the Chinese would begin traing women soon to crew the space shuttle. I wonder what they mean by that?
#584 Re: Civilization and Culture » A fully developed, mature, and sovereign Mars » 2005-10-16 09:49:07
I fail to see any legitimate reason for human beings to augment thier bodies with cybernetics, because even for war, only a select few would need cybernetic augmentation (the Marines for instance). Because war as a whole would nearly almost always be fought from orbit, because its far cheaper and safer for the attacking force to bombard a planet from orbit than it is to send a ground force. Marines would ussually be limited to diplomatic escort duty or search and rescue ops. Full On war would definately be a Naval affair.
Do you own a watch?
Do you have glasses?
Do you wear clothes?
If you do any of the above your are a technical Cyborg you are using artificial means to improve your life and that is why Cyborgs will happen it will be to make people get on better with there lives and to improve there lives in some way. We use computers and here I am typing by hand. The future may allow a person to store information and to be able to communicate by a permanent link they walk around with. People who have lost limbs or been blind may be cured by the addition of artificial limbs and these will make them cyborgs. Fashion may make people more and more machine persons. We are limited by our bodies we die. If your failing organs can be fixed by replacing with mechanical means is that wrong. People live about 25 years more now than there grandparents and your grandparents 25 more than theres. If you are old would you want a chance to have as normal life as possible and if this means artificial attachements that allow you to act as if you where in your 20s?
Cyborg civilisation would easily happen but what would bring it there is too much individual cases that could make it. In the end we dont really know as the future in a parable of star trek again is the unknown country.
#585 Re: Civilization and Culture » A fully developed, mature, and sovereign Mars » 2005-10-16 09:03:19
It is not a question of what society will be and what will dominate Mars in a 1000 years but what will actually be living there. Will we be able to envisage the changes that will have happened to mankind will we even be able to recognise if someone is Human. This I dont know and as such whatever we see society as is immaterial as it comes down to the best society for the needs of the people that populate it and how the changes we have done to ourselves will so change it.
A simple example and something we can do now what if we where to skew the birth ration of humanity into for every male born there are two or more girls born. What would this do for a society?
Then we get to the slightly more exotic in that we could turn into half machine-half biologic creature what society would the equivalent of a borg need?
In short it is how we turn out physically that will decide the society that makes Mars.
#586 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Medical Science Potpourri » 2005-10-15 17:00:34
H5N1
An interesting collection of letters and numbers. Also the greatest threat mankind is currently facing. Many have if you know history heard of the flu that swept the world in 1917-1919. It killed probably 20 million people. It had some interesting names from the spanish lady to the canton epidemic. it too was from the samples we have found in its victims a H5 varient flu.
H5 flu is called bird flu it is there it originates and for most avian species it is guick and very fatal but like all flu's it can pass to humans just not readily as it is a mutation of a mutation it needs to find the right vector.
It started in Asia but has now reached Europe and since it appears to infect but take time to harm birds like Ducks and Geese it moves fast.
Even if it does not transpose to Humans fully it will effect us badly it can destroy the livehoods of farmers and as turkeys and chickens have almost zero immunity they will be the ones to suffer the most and as a result damage a rather fragile industry. Try christmas without turkey or for chickens and there eggs to be unavailable actually for medical science this is a disaster as many cures and treatments are grown in chickens eggs and as such such a virus would stop such manifacture.
#587 Re: Civilization and Culture » Domestic vs Industrial » 2005-10-15 15:51:21
Im what could be best called an advocate for the use of robotics on these forums. But the one thing a robot will not do is replace Humanity. Robots have one purpose to either go where it is unsafe to risk people. Help mankind to work in harsh enviroments and to build things so that we can move in and thrive.
There has always been more than profit motive that drives people to migrate. An example is that increased population in one land has lead to movement of those who would not inherit land to other lands. The Vikings,Scots,Irish are examples. population pressure is not there to result in this but there is one other pressure. An unwillingness to conform. South Africa was colonised by Hugenots(french protestants) the USA by various ethnic groups, Europe by jews dispossesed by the diaspora.
Martian colonisation will get people never doubt it some looking to make a new world some just for the peace from a war ridden world and some for the money they think they can make. In the end they will come.
#588 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Medical Science Potpourri » 2005-10-14 16:56:27
The steady progress that is being made in learning what causes Humans to be and the cures of those diseases that afflict mankind continues.
In Yale they have identified a gene that could well be likely for causing the condition known as tourettes syndrome where a person can have no control over the language they intermittently use. The words used are often obscenities and cause social dificulty for the sufferer.
#589 Re: Human missions » Lunar Carbon? » 2005-10-14 10:40:07
That isn’t as small a concentration of carbon as I thought the moon had. I recall a previous thread where errorist suggested using lunar carbon to build a space elevator and GCNReveneger went on about the futility of it. I might look for the thread in a sec. 100 ppm is 0.01%. Or if we had a method of perfect extraction we would need to process 10 000 pounds of dirt of every pound of carbon. I think the only close to perfect separation is plasma separation and it requires extreme amounts of energy. So it is not really practical to use carbon from just anywhere on the crust. We need to find areas where it is in higher concentration. I am curious though how deep in the crust can you go before those percentages change.
The regolith that covers the Moon is for the upper 5 to 12 inches a loose easily moved surface. After that regolith changes to become highly compacted and very hard to work. I wonder if we will find large areas of carbon that has been deposited by impacts under this loose regolith. Also at what level will we find this carbon. Would piping hot oxygen into the regolith be enough to collect carbon monoxide and can we collect it.
#590 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Stanford robotic SUV finishes $2 million race » 2005-10-13 17:24:02
They already are, look at your licence it does not say a Robot cannot drive and as such under the law as they are not legislated against then they must be legal. 
#591 Re: Human missions » No immune system....oh crap! » 2005-10-13 17:19:57
Perhapce some pathogen's will contaminate any non-sterile vessle, but the amount will be so vanishingly low that it can probably be ignored. Bacteria and viruses are primarily trasmitted via some sort of infectious material (mucus and what not) or something that was contanimated by the material and not properly cleaned. This should not be an issue on a clean spaceship. And without contact with new inficted people there is little chance of any new pathogen's being introduced into the enviroment. Infectious diseases don't just spring out of nothing or rain down from the sky, they are transmited from person to person (or animal to person). People generaly just don't get sick spontaniously, they catch the infection from someone else.
yes but spaceships in microgravity are really difficult places to keep clean when they are in use the place gets covered in dead skin cells hairclippings and there is the ever present moisture and spilt food. In short a haven for all bugs. And the viruses and germs we will find will be carried on board all right that is aboard inside the astronauts
Then there is the cancer issue, that the combination of radiation and zero-gravity impared immune response may well prove to be a show stopper on its own. Note that nobody has ever spent any appreciable time outside Earth's Van Allen belts and bombarded by cosmic rays.
Cancer doesn't just develop overnight. Rember that the ride out and back aren't very long from that point of view. Also, the concurns with the immune system seem to be confined to T-cells and their roll in fighting infectious disease, not the body's ability to recognize and eliminate cancerous cells, which is seperate. Cancer is not a primary worry of AIDS paitents who suffer similar (although probably more sevear) T-cell deficencies.
We are not talking short durations are we this is 6 months or more in a high radiation enviroment without an immune system. And it is hard to check to see who actually will suffer the effects as people are different and what one person can shrug off another will fall ill too.
And while no one has long term exposure to cosmic radiation, it's not like it is any diffrent than any other sort of radiation of similar magnitude. And the data we have on that shows that the increased risk of cancer is mild (<10%) and the chances of developing it spontaniously during the mission slim to none.
But if this study is proved correct this previous rendering of risk is no longer valid. It is based upon a healthy person with an active immmune system and what the effects of radiation exposure would do to that person. This is from data compiled on Earth from the results of the nuclear tests. But if we then go to space and discover that gravity and its lack causes immune deficiences in a severe scale as this report seems to say then that means simply risk is increased and by a lot more than a factor of 10% over a lifetime. Worse is that it is the immune system that fights the damage radiation exposure does and so the effects of an increased dose is now also magnified.
But in the final thought about this I do not believe that it is as bad as has been made out but this report and the effects of microgravity will be used against the manned space program so it is best if we work out the worst case scenario and find a means to ensure that the effects of too long in micro g are removed. There is a lot of people out there who would like to stop manned spaceflight and im sure they will use this report to try to damage the plans for visits to the Moon and Mars.
#592 Re: Human missions » Lunar Carbon? » 2005-10-13 17:04:22
but hopefully by then they will have been covered by loose regolith. But if we really think about it carbon that survives reasonably intact from an impact is more than likely to have been embedded deep into the regolith. There it should be protected.
#593 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Stanford robotic SUV finishes $2 million race » 2005-10-13 15:02:37
of course dont see no potholes up there, flyings easy for a robot the variables are so simple.
#594 Re: Human missions » Lunar Carbon? » 2005-10-13 15:00:29
Graphite pounded in the ground in a very hot enviroment is not likely to stay as graphite. maybe in the future we can sell genuine Moon Diamonds.
probably by a girl called Lucy 
#595 Re: Unmanned probes » Gromit & K-9 » 2005-10-13 14:58:06
Providing you were to clean out a nice flat road for those Cray-filled VWss. I don't think so. A redneck with a Ford Pick-up could still do a better job of driving than that thing if it got in a rut.
Obviously you dont know what terrain the Darpa grand challenge had the vehicles go over. And ruts where the least of the problems these vehicles had to suffer. The principle of the whole grand challenge was to have vehicles which can guide themselves over the roughest terrain.
Why go to all this bother. The reason is simple economy, military economy. Napoleon Bonaparte stated that an Army marches on its stomach. Modern armies and fighting forces rely on a lot of logistics and rear echelon resources. Food medication, tents ammunition all have to be taken to where the soldiers are and that also has a tendency to be where the enemy is too. For every 1 soldier at the front there is 10 behind him especially in high tech modern armies.
In Iraq a lot of the casualties being dealt to the soldiers are too the people driving the lorries and trucks to where the supplies are needed. If these vehicles can be automated then not only can improved armour be installed but they become more politically expendable and also cheap as you dont have to pay a robot wages.
We already have used in the air and ground robot attack planes and tanks the future is that these will be used more and more so that the dynamic will be that rear echelon will be able to support the front and still fight using telerobotics either by air strike or by the generations of robot soldiers now planned.
And in Iraq there already is used robot soldiers on the ground to kill people. The things are so accurate that they take the dangerous position of point and in future wars you will see more and more such machines deployed.
#596 Re: Human missions » No immune system....oh crap! » 2005-10-13 14:37:28
I have to agree with GCNRevenger we have had long duration astronaut missions but these where in LEO and as such they where heavily protected by the Van Allen belt.
So now whatever is decided for missions to Mars we will have to provide a means to copy gravity. But it still leaves the question at what level gravity can a persons immune system be made to work and at what level of protection will it give. I think we will discover that just gravity and not neacassarily terran commen is enough a feeling of up and down. If that is the case then our jobs will be a lot easier and our astronauts safer.
#597 Re: Human missions » Lunar Carbon? » 2005-10-13 14:08:27
C type asteroids certainly have collided with the Moon. A lot of them actually.
Will they have survived in easily accessable forms-not likely C type asteroids are thought to be a lot weaker than Iron or stony irons. We believe that some stony irons and M class will survive but it is too much to ask that a C type will.
Still the likehood is that some carbon will have survived in craters and this we can use.
#598 Re: Human missions » No immune system....oh crap! » 2005-10-13 08:41:53
We do not need artificial gravity. The people within the space ship will already have been exposed to all the diseases present in their ship before their immune systems starts to deteriorate. The trip to Mars is not that long either, and human t-cells have a lifespan of 20 years.
We carry the problem with us and the immune system protects the body from more than just viruses. The immune system stops cancer and the various bugs naturally found in a human body to keep in control. Immune system gets damaged and these can go out of control.
This can lead from constant stomach acid complaints to cancer
So now we just have to ask how much gravity is needed to keep the immune system working and the best way to provide it.
#599 Re: Human missions » Post central for information on CEV IV - Before thread #3 melts down » 2005-10-13 08:30:48
Northrop Grumman-Boeing show there concept for the CEV.
Northrop Grumman-Boeing space systems press release
The CEV that they have devised will though only slightly larger than the Apollo module will be able to hold double the crew in this case 6 instead of Apollos 3. This will be done by the use of advanced materials and it will still be safer with the addition of two seperate safety systems.
#600 Re: Space Policy » Chinese Space Program? - What if they get there first » 2005-10-13 08:23:58
I agree that China would have to use a much larger heavy lifter if it goes ahead with plans to go to the Moon and further afield. And certainly the infrastructure and possibly the construction of such a launch system should be visible to the satelites.
Also saying that it is access to space and the prestige and national pride that goes with it that China really craves. Having the capability to put a load of spy satelites into orbit does not hurt either especially with Chinas aim to be a superpower and to dominate the pacific.
One other point China had a lot of access to the work the Russians did with there space program and one of the reasons the Shenzou modules are larger than Soyuz is lessons learned about it especially the mistakes the USSR had made. This advantage is what has given them the biggest boost but now it is new territory and the true Chinese space program must come forward where everything has to be from China.