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Evilcitizen the Ion drive has proven itself incredibly. Slow but persistent.

It is where it gets the energy in this case from the rather hot tempatures of the water and air.

Rita can easily go up to a strength 4 from the power it will gain from the gulf of Mexico.

Does it really require a separation of Mach 6+ as separation at about mach 5 should be possible especially if at a high height with a much reduced air pressure and as such less risk to a TSTO.

This means the lower carrier craft could be using souped up jet engines with a booster either of oxygen or water in the flow through the engines. And using understood engines then maintenance and turn around should be accomplished a lot faster.

The upper stage would have to be a rocket powered vessel and in this case it would need a reusable engine.

And thankfully I have insanely large shoes  8)

What many people howled about had nothing to do with Robots. NASA accumalated a lot of things that came under a science umbrella. Look at all the research that NASA did for Aeronautics and even in computer research. It also did studies in material science and food crops anything that could be called space research NASA was to pay for. This is why NASA's budget was so stretched.

NASA has a lot of science satelites from the HUBBLE down to the probes operating to look at the weather and Ozone depletion. NASA to do the VSE will have to cut a lot of money from all of these. HUBBLE is already doomed but so is replacement ozone and Earth research probes.

If you really look at the VSE it actually increases the money that NASA will spend on Robotics. It will use the Robonaut for the first time and NASA will have to actually start manufacturing them. There is also a lot more money for what is called core research this is the exploration probes to the Moon and Mars and a lot will have robotic elements. We are to see a whole new generation of rovers.

Dont worry publiusr the robotics fanatics are more than pleased with the VSE you see their research has for a long time been considered one of the weakest disciplines and money is often cut or have been given shoestring budgets in the first place of course most Roboticists are engineers and not scientists that probably explains it.

We did ignore the rockets as it really does not matter what they did as in the end it is the payload that matters. What is a rocket but a means to an end that of delivering a payload.

But since the glory apollo days we have been stuck in LEO and we did not need a generation of superpowerful rockets. NASA said we had the shuttle to do everything. So we went nowhere fast.

You may dislike robots and despise those who work on them but then you are so like the old NASA, that Griffin is so determined to replace. And I am so glad that with VSE there is the chance for more roboticists to get further than the workshop. You may call me a robot hugger and actually I smile at that reference then again I know what im talking about.

And Delta wont go away we will still need to send satelites up and for that Delta is perfect. We just dont need to mix the Human spaceflight and satelites launches together to give the appearance of some form of cost savings.

The Old persons home that this tragedy happened at was ordered to be abandoned. A Bus did come but the propieter refused the order saying her charges where too frail to survive the journey.

When the waters came the people where trapped and they could not get out and they did try to save themselves but it was too late. This was someones fault but she stayed with her charges and died too.

The Old lady who passed away in her wheelchair in the dome had a heart attack and though they tried to save her there was no way the poor medical conditions in the dome could anything be done. So they left her in the Chair was this callous NO

There had been a lot of people who died and had been put in a temporary morque in what was the basement of the Dome. It though flooded and so they had no where to put the lady. Do you think anyone would have been as heartless as to push her down the stairs into the flooded cellar.

There was a lot of lawlessness in the Dome/New Orleans but also a lot of people trying to do there best in a situation which was hopeless.

This is what a disaster is do you honestly believe that any country is prepared for a major city to suddenly be completely underwater and to have to evacuate all the citizens. Do you think all the citizens are going to be willing to leave. There where mistakes and organisation was not as good as it should have been but though we may make plans for such events do you really think anyone actually believes its going to happen. Look at Californians and there Cities on major Faults. Look at Italians and there city of Naples under Vesuvius that has already destroyed Roman cities so quickly. Look at London which has just the same problems as New Orleans and will have to raise its flood defences.

We humans are optimists who tend to believe if the worst happens it will not happen to me.

Oh No im agreeing with clark...(sound of several thuds as head bangs of desk repeatedly)

I would be a bit hesitant about not refering to the feel good factor. The manned space race has been used as a symbol of national pride and a physical object for people to feel good about. Only recently the president of Russia had to disapoint his people with we have more important things to spend our money on than space missions. Still feel good and patriotism are not tangible features but they do have power for the common person.

If we though really want the common person to feel involved in manned space then we have to give him or her the feeling that they and more importantly there children will get jobs and benefits from space. As an example if we go to a hydrogen economy and we need a lot of platinum and find it easier to gain from the Moon than elsewhere this will be a major step. If that person sees there car with a Moon derived platinum catalyst and there son or daughter getting well paid for there shift in either support of or direct work in space industries.

Manned spaceflight is seen as an elite profession you have to be the creme de la creme and well connected too to ever get a chance to be an astronaut. This paradigm has to change we have to make everyone believe that they have a chance if they work hard. This can only happen if there is more manned spaceflights not less.

So we are in classic dammed if you do or dammed if you dont scenario. There will not be a general public support for spaceflight beyond the gestures we are doing until we have something to engage all the public in space and no support to have a lot of missions. We will not be able to engage all the public till we have a lot more people flying on these missions and a feeling that everyone can be a part (and get paid).

Ophelia is a hurricane again, They sure named this one right what a fickle monster

But robotics are doing just that they are taking leaps and bounds. Though I have to agree that for the forseeable future Human oversight will be essential for a science based Martian/Lunar rover. Still that is due to us asking the rover to do a lot more and it needs human observation to say oh that is interesting. We will not be able to program in a curiosity that we can effectively use for scientific research. If we though task a robot with finding one or a limited numbers of elements then that robot will do it and will happily keep looking as long as it has power and is functional or till we tell it to stop. The Martian Rovers are just too universal things if we wish to use robots more effectively we have to have them specialise a bit. Tell a rover to do a mineral survey scanning for ilmenite and avoid hazards is a lot easier job than telling a robot to look for everything. The first is within our grasp and on October the 8th the grand challenge may show us this.

So build one we will have to anyway when we go to Mars in force as we will need a reasonable series of satelites and observation platforms to ensure communication and "weather" reports. (ps nothing to do with this question but Darpa will give a bonus to the team that completes the grand challenge without access to GPS- probably looking at the long view that and the need to fight a war when you have had your satelites knocked out or had to switch them of)

A robot is as only good as the purpose you want it to do. Currently we are using very small rovers which are doing a great job but are hardly getting a lot of the surface seen and are easily threatened by Dust and terrain hazards. If we wish to travel further afield then we need to send a bigger rover and preferably powered by a nuclear option battery. I have never said that a rover or robot is as good as a man doing the same job but we are not going to have people there for a while so we should wet our appetites with what the robots can do now. Any Mars mission will have a whole load of robots there to support the people anyway.

Tell a robot to look for something and it will very dillegently but it has to "know" what that thing looks like or is expected to look like and as such surprises are not really good for robots. It requires an extremely effective AI to be able to control a rover across an alien world and ignore the mundane and concentrate on the science. We are no where near that capability.

No robots win in the science for dollar route. What they lose in is universal flexibility and reasoning and more importantly the reason to go to space in the first place that of spreading mankind.

Ophelia is moving now 3mph going NE and it is losing a lot of its power. I hope by the time it hits land its only a squall.

Many of the refugees are stating they will be back and that New Orleans will rebuilt. All I can hope is that these statements get Federal backing as courage and determination are only so good as the resources they are given.

Still the first people who need all the help they can get are the red cross who need volunteers and then the Army core of engineers who need to be able to build a lot more superior flood defences.

I can only hope this is the use of nuclear weapons to ensure the destruction of other WMDs

In the case of Biological and Chemical weapons it has been thought that only incredible heat could ensure complete destruction.

Then again it does not sound nice when the principles of MAD are removed especially when it has been the unwritten rule that he who launches the first bomb will be attacked by everyone else in retaliation.