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Thanks.
21 is a good number. :;):
Thanks for pointing out the difference in population and economic clout between our two countries, also. America's GDP is 19.26 times greater than that of Australia, and her population some 14.25 times larger. Treating both ratios as literally mathematical factors, America is 19.26 x 14.25 = 274.46 times the world power Australia is!
On a world-power-for-world-power basis, our troop number of 920 translates into a U.S. equivalent troop number of 274 x 920, or roughly 250,000!!
[There may be a flaw in my logic here somewhere - but gee whiz, it looks damned good on paper, doesn't it?!! ]
Isn't that total GDP, not per capita GDP? In any case, the US spends 26.25 times more on its military than Australia does, and it gets some benefits from having an economy of scale. When you look at it from that perspective Australia’s contribution is still smaller than the US's, but it is a respectable amount.
Secular humanist civilization itself is under attack.
This is true in more ways than one. Whatever you might say about Bush's foreign policy, his domestic policy is definitely not based on secular humanism.
I don't think that Osama is powerful enough to be an effective "proxy alien." In order for a 3rd force to unify countries, the countries have to be more afraid of it than they are of each other, and I don't think that that is the case with Osama.
The water makes it near the surface like the Earths Magma makes it to Earths surface. A simple thermometer will prove it. The mud is muddy water mixed with methane gas. Geothermal, chemical reaction and tidal forces add up to keep it warm just under the surface. The warmth causes the vapor to seep up from the soil thus creating Titans atmosphere.
The mud is liquid methane mixed with water ice and other minerals. Titan is far too cold to have liquid water at the surface. A warm day on Titan is much colder than a cold day on Antarctica.
Another potential problem is that the area with the mouth, nose, ears and eyes really needs to be pressurized. How do they plan on getting a good, airtight seal between the pressurized area and the tension area?
Europa is about half as far from Jupiter as Titan is from Saturn and Jupiter's 'surface' gravitational acceleration is 2.5 times stronger than Saturn's.
This means Saturn's gravitational influence on Titan is less than 10% of Jupiter's influence on Europa, which means tidal heating of Titan is less than 10% that of Europa.
Tidal affects come from the difference in the strength of gravity between different areas of the moon. This means that while Titan has experiences about 10% as much gravity as Europa, the tides are actually only around 5% as strong.
Based on data collected by Huygens' instruments, Sushil Atreya, a professor of planetary science at the University of Michigan in the United States, believes a hydro-geological process between water and rocks deep inside the moon could be producing the methane.
Note the words "deep inside." Liquid water on Titan is like magma on Earth, though it is probably buried even deeper. You will not be able to find liquid water by sticking a little thermometer in the ground.
Saddam never turned any weapons over nor did he provide verification of their destruction.
He turned a lot of weapons over immediately after he lost Gulf War I. He also provided documentation shortly before Gulf War II which claimed that all of the WMDs had been accounted for. Of coarse we should nut just trust his word, but how do you prove that something has been destroyed if it has already been destroyed? It seems that there was no way for Saddam to avoid being invaded no matter what he did.
It's reasonable to assume he was playing the same games he always had. Given that several banned (non-WMD) weapons did turn up that weren't declared we know he was hiding something.
The only banned non-WMD weapons that I remember being banned were the missiles that were slightly over maximum range limit. The Iraqis claimed that the prototype missiles were missing the guidance systems and that the extra weight of adding those would be enough to bring the missiles within the range limit. However, the Iraqis eventually allowed the inspectors to destroy the missiles anyway. Clearly Saddam was willing to stretch the limits of the treaty that was imposed on him when he surrendered, but it does not seem that he was completely disregarding them. It also seems that the inspections did succeed in significantly weakening Iraq’s military.
We didn't sell chemical weapons or any other WMD to Iraq.
The US, UK, France, Russia, etc. all saw Iran as a threat and supplied military assistance to Iraq. This included allowing US companies to sell chemical weapons to Iraq.
Your math/science is good, by the way. I can't remember whether I ever got around to saying so, but your posts on scientific topics are often a joy to read.
Thank you but…
I wonder, though, whether you, among others, are far too ready to swallow the media swill about Iraq instead of standing back and giving it a little bit of objective thought?
From my perspective it is you who is listening to the media without stopping to think. The conservative media have been saying some things over and over so much that you accept them as facts without ever looking for proof. Most of you assertions could be true, but there is not proof that they are true. The key is to treat speculation as speculation rather than as fact.
So, you want the battle back on American soil? How much did it cost to steer those planes into the WTC, I wonder?
Why not? The “normal” rate at which Americans are killed by terrorism is lower then the rate at which they are being killed in Iraq right now. More importantly, if the battle is taking place here that means that we don’t have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to support military operations on the other side of the world, and battles here do not have the negative diplomatic consequences that battles over there have.
Terrorism is a terrible reason for war. It only makes sense if the government in question is clearly supporting the terrorist groups that we are worried about, and even then it is not always compelling. The current “spreading democracy and human rights” argument makes more sense, though it sounds utopian. What we have to do is balance the spreading of democracy with realpolitik and stop using one reason to justify a war when the real reason is something else.
Diplomacy is war for the timid. They aren't gettin' all warm and snuggley yet, this is most likely one of those momentary shifts that happen whenever a great power starts moving. China and India have growing populations and economies and are reacting, but it doesn't mean they're putting all their differences aside to deal a blow to America. Their economic growth depends largely on America.
China's largest trade partner is the EU, and its second largest trade partner is Japan. India will soon have more trade with China than with the US. As these other countries start becoming more dependent on each other than on the US, we can't assume that they will side with us simply because we consume many of their products.
It followed more than a decade of Saddam playing a cynical game of brinkmanship over his WMD with a corrupt and ineffectual U.N.
In the period leading up to the war, Saddam was allowing the weapons inspectors to operate in Iraq and was cooperating fully.
Iraqi WMDs were believed to exist by almost all intelligence agencies in the 90s and up to late 2002. The U.N. evidently believed it because they had had weapons inspectors in Iraq, off and on, during all or most of that period, looking for them.
The US before 9/11, the US intelligence agencies did not believe that there were WMDs in Iraq. In fact, in 2001 Condi Rice said that there were no WMDs in Iraq.
Those WMDs certainly existed at one stage; Saddam used them on the Kurds. How many or how much of such weaponry he produced and stockpiled is open to debate. But it existed.
The reason we knew that they existed at one stage is because we sold them to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war.
Iraq's Ba'athists and Syria had a cosy relationship, and a common border, during all this WMD fiasco. It's quite probable that weapons and weapons-production facilities were transported not only around Iraq itself in a game of cat-and-mouse, but over the border into Syria also, in trucks. Heavy traffic, most of it trucks, was seen crossing into Syria at the beginning of the war in 2003.
There is no evidence that WMDs were ever transported to Syria. No one ever suggested that they might be transported to Syria until we were sure that there really were not any WMDs in Iraq. The whole "they were shipped to Syria" idea is simply a politically expedient excuse that was made up so that the neocons would not have to admit that they were wrong.
Whether or not Iraq was in high-level contact with Al-Qa'ida is something we may never know for sure, but since each had a common enemy in America, I'd be surprised if some kind of collaboration didn't occur.
Why would the most secular government in the region support a bunch of religious fanatics who hate Saddam and his "apostate regime"? And why would Saddam want to support terrorist attacks on the US when it is obvious that he has nothing to gain by such an action and much to lose?
Iraq was a known supporter of terrorism, as are Iran and Syria to this day.
Iraq contributed to a fund that gave money to the families of Palestinians killed by Israel. So did a lot of other countries, and Saudi Arabia contributed much more than Iraq did.
Iran and Syria, havens for Al-Qa'ida operatives and former Sadaamist leaders, are supplying murderers and explosives to support the carnage in Iraq, resulting in the deaths of our troops as well as ordinary Iraqis.
Is there any evidence to support this? And why would Iran be a haven for Saddamists when they spent many bloody years fighting against Saddam's regime?
Although diplomacy at the moment precludes overt American threats against Syria, despite the distinct possibility that she was complicit in embarrassing the U.S. over WMD, it occurs to me that she may be the next target for America once Iraq is at least partially pacified.
Why should we have to pay for another expensive(in economic, political, and human terms) invasion of a poor Arab country that poses no threat to us?
The Iraq war has already transferred much of Al-Qa'ida's attention, via Iran and Syria, toward killing Americans on Iraqi soil. But at the very least they're American soldiers, armed and able to shoot back, unlike the innocent civilians who died in New York, Bali, and elsewhere.
To this extent, it has carried the front to the heart of the Muslim extremist world, which is better than having it in Manhattan, from our point of view.
Yes, but it is also a lot cheaper for the terrorists to fight in Iraq, and our invasion of Iraq gives a lot more people an incentive to become terrorists.
It's now apparent that terrorism is exacerbated by the existence of totalitarian regimes sympathetic to Muslim extremists because of their anti-Western or anti-Semitic stance. A war against Islamic terrorism has no chance of ultimate success while terrorism is aided and funded by such regimes.
It is apparent that the vast majority of funding for terrorist groups comes from private individuals. A war against terrorism has no chance of success while there are still large numbers of people willing to give up their live in an attempt to get revenge.
Euler, Specific Impulse is the time that 1kg of fuel will give 1kg of thrust in a given engine system in earth's gravity. As I said, read a physics book you stupid moron!
Specific impulse is the amount of impulse produced per unit of fuel. Impulse is the time integral of thrust. Thrust is a type of force, so it is measured in Newtons(not kilograms). So impulse is measured in Newton seconds. Mass is measured in kilograms. That means that specific impulse has units of Newton seconds per kilogram. However, 1 Ns/kg= 1 (kg*m/s^2)s/kg= 1 m/s.
Electromagnets can be as powerful as you have power for them.
No, they can't. If you try to make an electromagnet that is too powerful, its own magnetism will rip it apart. Fortunately, the threshold at which the magnet would destroy itself is sufficiently high to make this sort of application practical.
magnetic based drives have no upper limit...
Again, mass drivers do have an upper limit in terms of Isp based on the energy density of their fuel (unless it is solar powered). The practical limits are also much lower than the absolute limits due to inefficiencies and the very low acceleration that a very high Isp system would have.
Then again you seem to think that engine mass matters, and since you little GCNR engine weighs less than, I'm sure you think it is better!
Engine mass does matter. There is little point in having an engine with a very high Isp if the engine mass far outweighs the reaction mass.
The Daedalus design study had an average acceleration of 0.1mps2. Would you similarly claim that a engine with such a low acceleration is similarly a waste of time?
Daedalus was a design for an interstellar probe whereas your design is supposed to be for traveling inside the solar system. Also, as a pure fusion rocket Daedalus can expect to be more efficient than any electric rocket, so if your rocket tried to get the same Isp as Daedalus you can expect it's acceleration to be even lower.
Read a physics book you moron. Isp has been measured in terms of seconds ever since the term was invented.
Isp is really measured in lb(force)*seconds/lb(mass). Some people then cancel the lb(force) and the lb(mass), despite the fact that they are not the same type of unit. If you reduce it correctly, you end up with a velocity. Many people actually do measure Isp in terms of velocity, especially when they are not particularly worried about Earth's gravity.
The war is ON. It must be WON.
It would be nice if the war was won(though it what it means to "win" this war is not clearly defined), but that does not mean that it "must" be won. Iraq is important, but it would not be the end of the world if Iraq does not end up with the type of government that we would like it to have.
If we want to win it, and we all say we do, then I think we need to avoid using every opportunity to undermine the morale and resolve of our respective countries and their armed forces by disseminating tragic images of appallingly unfortunate incidents and other persistent and scurrilous negative propaganda.
The people in our countries are not all children, and they should be able to make informed choices based on the best information available to them rather than having everything sugarcoated for them. Granted the news media tend to paint a very negative image in their effort to sensationalize the news, but forcing them to do the opposite is not a good option.
We already have Predators which have been armed with ordinance. But though it has been technically possible for a combat ground vehicle to be automated and controlled by teleprescence there seems to have been a reluctance to do so.
Unmanned aerial vehicles make more sense than unmanned ground vehicles right now. I think we will see much more extensive use of UAVs before robots become common on the ground.
For anyone who is interested the Batteries on the SWORDS program armed bomb disposal robots only have a charge of 4 hours. Pity as I would really love a robot with one that could last over 14
Just make it bigger and add an engine.
ISP is measured in seconds, and C is measured in meters per second.
Measuring Isp in terms of seconds only makes sense if you believe that force and mass are measured by the same units. Otherwise it reduced to meters per second.
Ah, no sorry - not making myself clear. I'm not talking of a linear accelerator in terms of high-energy-physics, but rather the bucket launcher design proposed for lunar mining. Used as an engine in orbit it could accelerate raw material in buckets and throw it out the back at speeds unatainable in many nuclear types of propulsion. Including, I'm sorry to say, all forms of nuclear-thermal rockets.
If you want to get a very high Isp with a bucket launcher then you will either need a very big launcher or very small buckets.
It won't improve the gas mileage very much because the engine is not really that hot, and most of the waste heat will escape in other directions. The gas mileage might actually get worse due to the extra weight.
It would be big, heavy, and expensive.
Speaking of orion alternatives though, linear accelerators in theory beat all other systems hands down in terms of ISP (except antimatter) and it's buildable with todays technology. After all, if atom-smashers can accelerate subatomic particles to .9C, then there's no reason something similar couldn't be built in space.
You still need to get the energy to power the accelerator, and that usually means carrying fissile or fusible fuel with you. As I have explained before in other threads, that limits you to a maximum possible Isp of about .04C for fission and .08C for fusion.
More realistically, throwing significant amounts of matter backwards at 10-100kmps is very possible with todays technology. Though such a ship would be delicate, it could use anything as 'fuel' without the expensive/complex requirements of mining hydrogen.
That is what an Ion Engine does now.
Sino-Indian http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/arti … ]strategic dialogue
"They emphasised the need for making international relations democratic in order to face this challenge. Both sides agreed that the trend towards multi-polarity was conducive to international peace and should be encouraged."
Translation: they agreed to work together to counter US influence.
If the cost of labor goes up, the government's revenue will go up proportionately. This should actually make it easier for the government to afford a space program, rather than making it more difficult.
China’s current PPP GDP is much larger than the GDP of the USSR or US during the space age, so they should not have any problem funding a modest space program.
They are queuing up to use the ground based telescopes. Astronomers have to wait in line to use any large research telescope because there are not enough really good telescopes for everyone to get as much telescope time as they would like.
No sir, you're daydreaming, you can't violate physical laws that say that if you want to double speed, you need 4 times more energy at least, and you need heath resistant quite expansive marerials such as large amounts of titanium so that High speed travels will remain a privilege, but don't worry, MrSerge Dassault of Falcon Jets told on TV that if there was a market for 150 mach++ affair jets, he would rush to build a 30/50 seats supersonic one.
The aerodynamics of a supersonic object are substantially different from the aerodynamics of a subsonic or transonic object. While normally the drag increases in proportion to the square of the speed, when an aircraft gets above about mach 1.2 the drag will actually start decreasing for a while. Lift/drag ratios of most aircraft are lower for most supersonic aircraft, but as the XB-70 showed an aircraft that is designed to get fuel efficiency while supersonic can actually have a better L/D ratio at supersonic speeds than normal aircraft get at subsonic speeds. In addition, the supersonic aircraft will be flying at a much higher height than a subsonic aircraft, so it will get the drag-reducing benefits of flying in much thinner air. Supersonic flight does subject many parts of the aircraft to greater heat and strain, which is why I said that keeping the maintenance costs low would be the key to economical operation.
China is going through a major economic revolution right now, which is similar in many ways to the Industrial Revolution that occurred in Britain around 1800. However, the Chinese economic revolution is in many ways even more dramatic because the Industrial Revolution and the Information Revolution are happening simultaneously. This causes a lot of upheaval and many people will not be able to successfully adapt to the change, but China will end up with the largest economy in the world.
The US economy is doing pretty well overall compared to the rest of the world.
The US is maintaining a high GDP/capita and it is outperforming Europe and Japan, but the US share of the total world economy is steadily dropping due to the rapid growth in developing countries. In 1950, the US had around 30% of the world's GDP (in PPP), but now has only about 20% and this fraction is expected to shrink further.
There is really only one optimal window for going each way. The window lasts for several months if you have a bit more energy than is necessary for the Hohmann, but you still have to wait until Earth and Mars are lined up in the same way before the next good window.
And if anyone is interested in Pakistan the goverment are very pleased with there new main battle tank which they have developed ahead of there rivals the Indians with the Help of the Chinese and the Ukraine. They turned to the Chinese when France refused to sell them components after they started development of nuclear weapons. The other thing about this tank is apparently its hitech optics and control devices are supposed to simply have been developed from western designs they had got hold off.
Does it have the laser self-defense system? I know that the Chinese are putting it on their newest tanks, but it is surprising that they would export such a new technology to Pakistan.
The easiest way(in terms of the amount of energy it takes) is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_tr … it]Hohmann transfer orbit. It takes about 260 days and the launch window only occurs once every 26 months. Using only slightly more energy can shrink the time significantly; a typical mission using conventional rockets will assume a 180 day transit time. There is also an option that uses a Venus flyby. This both takes longer and requires more energy than the direct rout, but the launch window occurs at a different time that might be more convenient for some missions.
Perhaps, but it will still be a daunting technical challenge to make a practical low-noise SST that doesn't break the bank in fuel or maintenance bills. Old design concepts re-hashed probobly won't be enough.
Fuel should not be a big issue. A good SST might even be able to beat subsonic airplanes in terms of fuel efficiency. Getting low maintenance costs is the key.