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No question of the Chinese public being "gung ho" for their national space program!
Not one of you has stated who you mean by "the public." Back in the 1950's that meant "us" as opposed to "them," as far as space research was concerned. But today you have to include more than just "us," because "they" have multiplied and in some cases caught up and passed "us." So what, you say? Well, with India taking over our call centres, medical backlogs, publishing, and now entering space ... China taking our manfactured goods market away from us, and now entering space ... Russia now independently wealthy and continuing to propose one space project after anouther ... Europe and Russia combining forces to pursue joint space programmes ... which "public" do you wish to impress and win their loyalty and support for your proposals? [I've neglected Japan, because I expect they'll supply the interior designs and robotics for all of the spacecraft launched in the future, because that's what they seem to be best at.]
We were drafted, and didn't have a thing to say about it. If Harry Truman had thought the way you do, we'd be fighting Japanese suicide-bombers instead of the ones Bush has stirred up. But that was then, and this is now ... so I intend to leave it and go on to more productive topics. Have fun.
Out of curiosity: do you think there's time to complete it before Bush is out of office? Would it be torn down after he's gone, I wonder? What must the Mexicans think? Could it happen up here along the northern border? Naw--that'd be crazy, right?
Good Lord, Robert--I had no idea that the mexican wall was that extensive! It makes the Berlin Wall look like a picnic in the park! What did you search for to uncover the details of this latest Bush insanity? It's obscene....
Tom, that's damned generous of you to cross off 3,100 lives of your GI's, not to mention the crippling casualties and the economic costs "that are not that high either." You should rush right down now, and join up before those yellow-bellies in Congress vote to pull out of IRAQ and spoil your fun.
Re. "... if we cannot stand to lose 300 of them, does that mean that civilians are more expendable than soldiers? ..."
As a former GI/Dogface infantryman, I remember the shock of disbelief at the death of FDR, and another shock of relief at the Truman approved dropping of the A-bombs. My mind was made up then--having survived the non-invasion of Japan--that war is dumb to the point of insanity, and that noncombatant war-lovers are cowards at heart.
Re. "If Kennedy had not made the national goal to go to the moon, would we have gone to the moon?"
You seem to be forgetting the dreamers. Werner von Braun would've found a way, come hell or high water!
I've been forced to log in differently since your latest changes, as follows:
Google "new mars forums"
Click on NEW MARS FORUMS
Key in "dicktice" and my password to obtain "Log out [dicktice]" enabling me to reply to the forums.
But now, I have to key in twice to obtain the above.
Having just read your suggestion above, to log in at the bottom of the screen, I only have to key in my name and password once.
I'm happy with that, and submit my experience only to aid your mastery of the software.
P.S. I'm not able to figure out the new message system. Can you refer me to step-by-step procedures for sending and receiving messages to-and-from members?
Tom, you're just playing silly buggers with history: I even recognize your sources. The truth is that "WWI" was never concluded, which led to "WWII" and the A-bomb finale. Sorry, kid, but your Georgie is strictly a "bush leaguer" when it comes to running a proper world war. In fact, his administration stands a good chance of being written off as the Nation's worst and crookedest ... with almost two years of it still to go. God help us.
The delightful alternative means of "populating Venus" using bouyant cities floating in the atmosphere just beneath the clouds, springs to mind.
All right, you guys: what makes you think Thermal-fusion Power Generation on a worldwide basis without CO2 emissions won't contribute to Global Warming, and thereby to Climate Change after all? Face it, we're bound to change the ecosphere no matter what we do, simply because there are so many of us. We're not going to reduce population growth on our own, so to avoid the grusome alternatives we have to start planning on populating the Solar System a.s.a.p.
Well, after Googling the mass of mostly commercial info available today by searching the topic "Hybrid Cars" I found the following most entertaining--
[Quote] Hybrid Vehicle Technology: Theory Of Operation Through 5 Driving Modes
Welcome to Hybrid theory 101. Hybrid cars operate differently depending on your current driving modes. We can divide your typical driving into 5 different modes. Your hybrid car acts differently in each of these 5 driving modes, in some modes the electric motor is operating, and some models the gasoline engine is operating, and sometimes both are operating. Knowing how your hybrid vehicle operates under each mode is crucial to getting the most gas mileage, and minimizing emissions output. Of course the car makers don't tell you this, they just make it sound like you always get super high gas mileage like a Bingo free spot, no matter how you drive, but that may not be the case. Here are the 5 hybrid vehicle driving modes and their theory of operation:
1) Full Stop: At a full stop, like at a red traffic light or stop sign, the gas engine usually shuts off to eliminate idling, and reduce emissions. The electric motor is now ready to propel the car when push on the gas pedal. This is usually pretty seamless, and you might not even notice without seeing it on the power monitor indicator. In crowded cities with lots of stop and go traffic like the opening scene of Office Space, this can save you a lot of fuel.
2) Low Speed/Initial acceleration from a stop: First of all, I should point out that being a scofflaw maniac driver, I never drive in this mode. Starting from a stop, and driving in a normal sane, just-like-your-grandmother acceleration from the stop line, the electric motor usually propels your car, powered by the electric motor's battery pack. This type of downtown stop and go traffic is where you save the most fuel with hybrids, counter intuitive to normal gas engines, where you burn the most fuel. The electric motor works up until about 15 MPH without any help from the gas engine. The gas engine turns on and off as needed while you drive. I have zero patience for losers at stoplights. If you have a life to live and a lead foot like me, your hybrid SUV will be less efficient in this mode, because flooring the accelerator will demand extra power, causing the gas engine to kick in. This eliminates the fuel savings potential offered to you by your electric motor during this driving mode. Also, if you spend all day in stop and go traffic, the constantly used electric motor battery may discharge quicker, causing the gas engine to turn back on to charge the battery. So your fuel economy savings for hybrids may really only benefit you in a much more narrower range of operating conditions than the car makers will admit. Moral of the story: If you don't drive your hybrid car like you are supposed to, don't expect to get the advertised fuel economy.
3) Heavy Acceleration: This is my personal favorite mode of operation. This mode quickly puts a lot of forward distance between you and the aforementioned losers at stoplights, stuck there during indecision attacks when the light turns green. Here your power comes from both the gas engine, AND the high torque electric motor, typically through some type of power splitting device. During this mode, you probably will not be saving as much fuel as you expect from all the advertising.
4) Highway Driving: This is where the fuel efficiency of Hybrid cars and SUVs works counter intuitive to what you would expect. The reason is that in this driving mode, the car is typically powered only by the gas engine, which may be charging your electric motor battery pack at the same time. So the electric motor is not typically contributing during highway driving, meaning your hybrid vehicle is just another gas guzzling, car at highway speeds. If you are a highway commuter that drives an hour to work each way on the open highway with no stop and go traffic, a hybrid vehicle will probably offer you little fuel savings.
5) Braking, Coasting and Deceleration: When you brake or coast, forward kinetic energy that in standard car normally gets dissipated as heat is instead converted to electric energy. This is accomplished by using the old reliable spinning electrical motor in it's other role, now as a generator to charge the battery pack. This is why hybrid cars never need to be plugged in, despite old wives tales you might hear. This process of charging the battery is known as regenerative braking.
6) Backing Up: Ok I lied, there's a sixth mode, but who really counts going in reverse as a driving mode? In reverse the gas engine does not operate, the electric motor does all the work. Not that this will add huge amounts of fuel savings for you. I drive about 50 feet max in reverse on a daily basis. Now maybe if you're Burt Reynolds... [Unquote]
If you wish know further, try Googling "Serial" and "Parallel" and "Plug-in" Hybrid systems under Wikipedia. Also, the progress, pros, and cons, of Lithium-ion battery development. It's like 1900-1910 all over again in the automobile industry just now! Back then the motivation was horse-shit piling up in the cities; today it's "air-shit," otherwise known as smog.
Sorry, but I thought it was obvious: hybrid cars don't idle in traffic tie-ups. And with the advent of plug-in hybrids--if commute distances permit roundtrips on single overnight charges--no internal combustion at all. The time is ripe, and if the Detroit Three don't drop the plug-in hybrid ball, they might still survive this decade.
Yeah, Tom, and that goes for Harry Truman too. He saved me and a million others on both sides from mutual anilhilation by having the A-bombs dropped in August, 1945, because although we didn't know it we were training to invade Japan in October. As it was, we just walked ashore nice as you please October 31st, a month after the surrender, as guests of the Emperor. Comparing GWB to either of those two presidents shows a lamentable ignorance and lack of imagination on your part. Besides, I was a Depression kid, and you don't know what you're talking about regarding that either.
What makes you so sure that sustained, controlled fusion is even possible--not to mention feasible as a source of domestic electricity--here on Earth? Think how much easier the drilling of deep-well geothermal sources might be with today's know-how redesigned to reach depths of 10 miles (where temperatures adequate to produce super-heated steam are said to be available) anywhere you want on the planet ... to provide the same end result as your hypothetical fusion plant: electricity from steam driven turbo-generators.
Well, I don't know what all this proves, except that everyone has an opinion about the future of Earth's atmospheric condition. Being rather elderly, I take the short term view: if every urban centre presently suffering from inhabitant debilitating smog conditions--caused by commuter automobile puffing out exhaust gases while they idle in traffic tie-ups roughly three times a day with their internal combustion engines running--were magically transformed into gas/electric hybrid cars ... the city smog would be gone.
Hybirds only get 30% better gas milliage.
John, I'm surprised you don't seem to get it. Gas milage is a red herring. It's pollution in traffic tie-ups that hybrids--and later, plug-in hybrids--will eliminate. And,of course, some added fuel economy may even be gained by not idling the gas-burners when stopped, and advancing metre-by-metre in six lanes of parallel gridlock on electric power alone ... but that's only peanuts, compared with the cost savings that the cleaning up of city air will produce worldwide by the simple elimination of engine-idling while stopped in traffic.
Tom, your thin skin is visible for all to see--so why not drop it? Lots of good stuff to discuss as soon as you get a grip, eh?
Cindy, I've got a rotten old shirt just like that!
Well, I don't know what all this proves, except that everyone has an opinion about the future of Earth's atmospheric condition. Being rather elderly, I take the short term view: if every urban centre presently suffering from inhabitant debilitating smog conditions--caused by commuter automobile puffing out exhaust gases while they idle in traffic tie-ups roughly three times a day with their internal combustion engines running--were magically transformed into gas/electric hybrid cars ... the city smog would be gone.
Words have a tendency to come back and haunt you, Tom. That's why you should think before you write your political barbs, which frankly are becoming a bore. Stick to technical arguments regardless nationality, creed, or political affiliation, and you can't go wrong, eh?
By squandering our budget surplus, scarce resources, and irredeemable lost time on the war in Iraq, I wonder if Bush hasn't inadvertantly caused a foreign manned space coalition to spring up in our own backyard? This just out:
"The first Soyuz launch from the Guiana Space Center is slated for November 2008. Arianespace has already signed several launch contracts for Soyuz, which will round out the company’s family of launchers, alongside Ariane 5 and Vega."
The disparate international space interests are finally coalescing at a single, common equatorial launch site. I'd say it's time to pull up our own spacesuit socks and make space, not war!
I know I'll be sorry for bringing this up, Tom, but think of the consequences to the tourist industry of across-the-border measures such as you suggest. In the European Union now, as you must be aware, one can go from one country to another with the same freedom as you can between your states, and we our provinces and territories. Besides, with the increasing risk of "home-grown terrorists" your police-state solution along our thousands of miles of sparcely populated border would be just as impossible to maintain as the Mexican wall scheme. I wonder if you know precisely what the actual threat is that your solution-looking-for-a-problem is meant to prevent? Would it be worth the cost in human and material terms for any security (from what?) gained.
I blush to admit, I didn't know that. What else, I wonder?
You really are a wonder, Tom. Such garbage. I repeat: have you ever visited Canada?