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I think the chances of an impact are too small to worry about, but protectng from radiation, which is a sure thing, will also protect from impacts.
Some charged particle radiation could, perhaps, be deflected using magnetic or electrical fields, an idea the consequences of which I wouldn't venture to try to figure out. But if such a thing worked, less shielding might be possible. The possibility of an impact shouldn't be a consideration in determining the amount of radiation shielding.
Bob
Earth tons
Bob
If I figured this out right, to provide long term protection from radiation (including solar flares, coronal mass ejections and cosmic rays) equivalent to that provided by the Earth’s atmosphere at 11,000 meter elevation (commercial airline cruising altitude) would require:
> over a ton of material per square meter on the roof of any habitation
> and lesser amounts on the sides if the structure were within a crater or some other depression.
I’m not sure this much radiation protection is really necessary, but the material would also provide protection against essentially all meteors. (How many aircraft are hit by meteors each year?)
This material could be equipment, consumables (assuming they didn’t get consumed), other storage, and regolith or other fill. Equipment could consist of PV cells and communications (probably on the roof), electrical, air handling, plumbing, recycling, and, probably in the walls, food processing and space suits. Consumables could consist of water, compressed air, fuels, and, probably in the walls food, lab and office supplies. Clothes and cookware would probably go in the walls.
A spherical habitation with a diameter of 10 meters would have a surface of about 300 square meters and would probably require less than 300 tons of shielding material. I would think the equipment, consumables and other things for the base might come close to 300 tons.
I don’t see radiation as an insurmountable problem even without the use of regolith. Meteors would certainly not be a problem. Radioactive water or a punctured water tank would be a problem, but not nearly as bad as a radioactive or punctured astronaut. I think those problems could be readily solved. In any case, one would probably have multiple compartment water and other consumable storage.
Radiation issues on Mars would be less of an issue than on the Moon because of the greater distance of Mars from the Sun, and because of its atmosphere. The Martian atmosphere should protect against most meteors.
Bob
“they might as well ‘blame the Jews’ with the same arguments, or accuse old ladies of being witches with the same sort of reasoning”
I think it’s more like blaming the messenger, a tradition going back further than Jews or witches. And about as useful.
Many large oil companies have the equivalent of large stocks of oil. When the price goes up the value of their assets rise, and contemporary accounting requires that that increase in asset value be recognized—hence if oil goes up, their profits rise even if they buy or sell nothing, and engage in no other nefarious activities.
It’s as if I were required to pay taxes on the increase in the value of my house even though I didn’t sell it and didn’t do anything to increase it’s value. And then other people criticized me for gouging, and said that a “windfall profits” tax should be added to the usual taxes. It’s just silly.
I hope and believe that most politicians understand that all this is just theatre; and that they won’t actually do anything except blame the lack of action on the evil influence of wicked “special interests.” To whom, of course, they are all opposed.
The entity that has the greatest opportunity to manipulate the price is the United States, which could easily eliminate all importation of oil within ten years by slightly increasing domestic production and reducing consumption by about half. The diffusing technology of plug-in hybrids alone could accomplish this reduction for gasoline with very small investment and little economic dislocation—except within the oil industry, which would probably be deemed worthy of subsidies at that point—like certain banks today.
One of the reasons this won’t happen is because it could. The possibility will depress oil prices. The current price situation is a bubble based on the idea that oil prices will always rise. Nothing always rises.
For those who doubt this, listen to your bones. If you had the opportunity to invest all of your savings, your retirement benefits and the proceeds of a large loan (backed by Guido’s promise that you would pay) in an investment which would only be profitable as long as the price of oil stayed above $100 a barrel; would you do it? Are you that sure?
I didn’t think so.
Bob
“Interesting reality”
Tom, I don’t feel it’s worth engaging with Stormrage. He appears to have an ideological commitment and a very elaborate interpretation of reality, including history, which appears to be impervious to facts, new or different information, the reasoning of others and any willingness to understand others interests and points of view.
There’s no sense in engaging with an ideologically driven closed mind. You can’t change or influence that mind, and his views are so filtered through his ideology that the information and reasoning he presents won’t enhance your understanding of reality. He won’t change or influence you; and you won’t change or influence him.
It’s all a waste of bits.
Bob
"Absolutionist statements like "its possible" or "there has to be zero risk" and other such anti-rational nonsense grease the rails taking us back to the stone age."
Well said, and as I pointed out, this risk is about the same as getting in your bathtub.
Going to, staying on and coming back from the Moon will have many other far greater risks. For instance, about 1 in 57 shuttle flights have ended with the death of the entire crew. That risk is more than ten thousand times greater than the annual risk of a meteor coming within half a kilometer of any fixed location on the Moon.
If we give equipment reliability ten thousand times more concern than meteors, we're short changing concern about equipment reliability. For every post about meteors there should be more than ten thousand about equipment reliability.
I don't see that many.
Bob
“So the Apollo guys were lucky!”
“With those kind of forces, were really talking about armor. And not just for permanent structures, but for anything exposed. You wouldn't want your accent module turned into swiss cheese.
And we'll probably need an orbital radar system to at least get some warning.“
Let’s get some sense of proportion here. The visible half of the moon measures 19 million square kilometers. One hundred meteor strikes in 2½ years works out to an annual probability per square kilometer of about 1 in 500 thousand. The chance that a meteor would strike within half a kilometer of any fixed location on the Moon is less than 1 in 600 thousand per year.
About the same odds as dying in your bathtub each year.
The Apollo astronauts were on the moon a total of about 12 days; so odds of a meteor striking within half a kilometer during their missions were about 1 in 18 million.
Pretty good odds, I’d say.
Bob
Tom is confusing market efficiency with price elasticities. Markets aren’t going to get much more efficient than stocks, housing or oil. Nonetheless there are huge price swings in all three; especially stocks which have been far much volatile than oil.
To illustrate in a very simplified manner, in a perfectly efficient market, one can approximate the demand and supply curves with these straight line formulas (demand and supply curves more closely resemble exponential curves, but that’s way too complicated):
Y=mD+A
where “Y” is price, “m” the elasticity of demand with respect to price, “D” demand, and “A” a constant.
And
Y=nS+B
where “Y” is price, “n” the elasticity of supply with respect to price, “S” supply, and “B” a constant.
Using these formulas, let’s consider two scenarios:
Price elasticities for both supply and demand are high
m = -.1 (demand drops by 10% for each 1% rise in price)
n = .1 (supply rises by 10% for each 1% rise in price)
A = 100 (demand falls to zero at a price of 100)
B = 0 (supply is zero at a price of zero)
Y=-.1D+100 or D = 1000 -10Y
Y=.1S or S= 10Y
A 1% increase in price would decrease demand by 10%. Thus a 10% decrease in supply would change the price of the commodity by only 1% percent. This increase in price would elicit an increase in supply. The equilibrium price change of less than 1% can be calculated by solving the simultaneous equations for delta Y.
Price elasticities for both supply and demand are low
m = -10 (demand drops by 10% for each 1% rise in price)
n = 10 (supply rises by 10% for each 1% rise in price)
A = 100 (demand falls to zero at a price of 100)
B = 0 (supply is zero at a price of zero)
Y=-.1D+100 or D = 1000 -10Y
Y=.1S or S= 10Y
A 50% increase in price would decrease demand by 5%. Thus a 5% decrease in supply would change the price of the commodity by 50% percent. A 50% increase in price would elicit a 5% increase in supply. The equilibrium price change of less than 50% can be calculated by solving the simultaneous equations for delta Y.
The oil market has considerable inelasticies of both demand and supply. In the past ten years the price per barrel of oil has increased by a factor of about seven. Consumption has actually increased about 20%. Production has increased by a considerably lower factor than 7—actually about .2.
It is really not surprising that oil prices change drastically when the elasticities of supply and demand are so low. But those changes have little (nothing is perfect) to do with inefficiencies in the markets.
Bob
I don’t think it is useful to debate whether or not Israel possesses nuclear weapons. Producing nuclear weapons has certainly been within their capability for at least four decades. I think, most Israeli officials over that period (in which Israel has fought four wars of survival) would have regarded the possession of nuclear weapons as in their interests.
It’s hard to understand why they would not have nuclear weapons. Add to that all of the tons of evidence, and I’m convinced a few times over.
In any case, it would be really foolish to act on the belief that they do not have nuclear weapons.
Bob
“It is not an efficient market if the price of the commodity gyrates so vastly”
This is a flawed understanding of how markets work and behave.
I don’t think that one could argue that the US stock market is not efficient. Nonetheless, there have always been wild gyrations in the price of stocks—even the market averages fluctuate very sharply at times. For instance—just three recent examples:
On March 16, 2,000, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 5%--in seven hours!
In January 2000, the DJIA hit 11,750; 33 months later it was at 7,197—a 39% drop.
On October 11, 2007 the DJIA closed at 14,165; it was at 11,635 on January 22, 2008—an 18% drop in 103 days.
The behaviour of individual stocks and commodities is much more volatile.
Nobody alleges “few suppliers;” that “it all depends on the policy of a few corporations or governments;” that “there is something wrong” with the New York Stock Exchange.
Instead, people say things like, “the markets clear every day,” which is a bit of a tautology.
There are a lot of buyers and a lot of sellers in the oil markets; the only entity that produces or consumes more than 20% of the oil supply is the United States, which consumes a little over 20% of world production.
Consider this table:
World Oil Producers & Consumers, 2006 - (millions of barrels per day)
Producers........Production
1 Saudi Arabia 10.72
2. Russia 9.67
3 United States 8.37
4. Iran .. 4.12
5. Mexico 3.71
6. China 3.84
7. Canada 3.23
8. UAEmirates 2.94
9. Venezuela 2.81
10. Norway 2.79
11. Kuwait 2.67
12. Nigeria 2.44
13. Brazil 2.16
14. Iraq ........... 2.01
Includes all countries with total oil production exceeding 2 million barrels per day in 2006. Includes crude oil, natural gas liquids, condensate, refinery gain, and other liquids.
Consumers......Consumption
1 United States 20.59
2. China 7.27
3. Japan 5.22
4. Russia 3.10
5. Germany 2.63
6. India ............ 2.53
7. Canada 2.22
8. Brazil 2.12
9. South Korea 2.12
10 Saudi Arabia 2.07
11. Mexico 2.03
12. France 1.97
13. UK . 1.82
14. Italy 1.71
Includes all countries that consumed more than 2 million barrels per day in 2006.
Source: Energy Information Administration (EIA). www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/ .
It looks as though the only entity with potentially monopolistic market power is the United States, which has the ability to easily flex that market power by reducing its own consumption or increasing its own production.
The current oil markets are responding to new information at it becomes available. Today, for instance, it was reported that oil stocks had unexpectedly declined, and the price of oil rose about 5%.
Commodity prices are subject to bubbles (entirely without evil malefactors; just humans behaving like humans)—tulips, salad oil, coconut oil, silver, gold, housing, and, of course, oil. I suspect the current rise in oil prices is a bubble, which will be pricked within a couple of years.
Not because the market is inefficient because of few suppliers or consumers, but because bubbles burst.
Bob
“there's no substantial evidence that Israel possesses nuclear weapons”
In 1974, Israeli President Ephraim Katzir said that "it has always been our intention to develop a nuclear potential ... We now have that potential."
On September 22, 1979, an American "Vela" satellite detected a distinctive double flash off the southern coast of Africa indicative of a nuclear test.
In 1985 Los Angeles businessman Richard Smyth was indicted for smuggling to Israel 810 krytrons switches used as nuclear weapon detonators
In September 1986, Mordecai Vanunu, an Israeli arms technician who had worked at the secret Dimona site for eight years, provided the London Sunday Times with a detailed account of Israel's nuclear weapon progress. including almost 60 color photographs of what he said was Israel's underground bomb factory.
He said that Israel had produced 100 to 200 fission bombs by 1986, had mastered a thermonuclear design, and appeared to have a number of thermonuclear bombs ready for use.
In 1998, former Prime Minister Shimon Peres said that Israel "built a nuclear option, not in order to have a Hiroshima but an Oslo." Peres, as Director General of the Ministry of Defense in the early 1950s, was responsible for building Israel's nuclear capability
And on and on. It's not helpful to maintain a delusion.
The Samson Option, to bring down the whole world on our heads. Or, "Never again."
Bob
"we should give them something to lose if they don't... "
If they don't what? Commit suicide?
“They wouldn't able to commit their crimes without enormous US financial and military aid”
An alternative is to put them in a position in which they face national extinction.
What else do you suggest?
But, the Jews won’t go quietly this time. Are you really seeking that radioactive cloud over Europe; sprinkling iodine-131, caesium-137, tellurium, strontium-90, zirconium-95, niobium-95, lanthanum-140, cerium-144, neptunium, plutonium and other pleasantries?
Bob
I think it’s rather pointless to go on and on about how the Israelis should give the Palestinians rights, self-determination, and stop all the awful things they’re doing.
We had an expression in the bad old days of Chicago politics, “Where’s mine?”
Nations on the edge of survival do not play games of should and rights and reason. They struggle for life itself. Most Israelis have relatives who were killed in the Holocaust, and “Never again” is always at the surface.
So they want to know, “Where’s mine?” What do the Israelis get for whatever they give? Land for promises doesn’t seem like a real good deal.
One can identify and vehemently condemn the villain. Or, one can try to identify a path to some kind of accommodation leading to political stability, and the opportunity for fulfilling lives for all of the participants. Between the two, I think the latter has the potential for more productive and interesting results.
You might start with, What are the Israelis capable of giving?
They can’t give much in the way of land or they won’t have a viable state. They can’t allow a significant number of Arabs to return to Israel or they won’t have a viable state. The Israelis are not going to commit suicide.
And their possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons and corresponding delivery systems means that the death of the state will have horrific and dreadful consequences for the whole world. A radioactive cloud floating over Europe and decades of no oil from the Middle East for a start.
I have the feeling that attacking civilians with rockets and suicide bombers is not a good way to encourage offers of just about any kind.
You know, we elected George Bush democratically. That doesn’t mean you have to like what he does, nor that you can’t hope for a prompt change. Hamas was elected democratically. That doesn’t mean they’re not crazy.
Bob
"Calling it anything less is pretty disrespecful to millions of Palestinians who have suffered at the hands of the Israeli regime."
Maybe, but is it an accurate use of the word? And is using words contrary to their plain meaning usually helpful in solving disputes?
Bob
CPA authority expired in June of 2004. Bremmer had been in Iraq for 13 months; most of the rules promulgated had been in effect for considerably less than a year--only a matter of a few months.
But consider some of those rules about which complaints might be lodged of suiting western corporations:
> Permit 100 percent foreign ownership of businesses
> Allow for complete repatriation of profits without tax
> No requirements for reinvestment, hiring local labor, or provisioning public services.
> Foreign banks can enter the Iraqi market and take a 50 percent interest
Just like in the United States—and, for the most part, I believe, in Ireland.
> Drop the corporate tax rate from 40 percent to a flat 15 percent. The income tax is capped at 15 percent.
Not a bad idea for encouraging economic growth, especially when the revenue isn’t needed because of the potential for oil revenue.
> Suspension of tariffs, customs duties, import taxes, licensing fees and similar surcharges for goods entering or leaving Iraq, and all other trade restrictions that may apply to such goods."
Adam Smith and David Ricardo would be smiling. Great idea. If only the rest of the world would participate.
> Privatize the country's 200 state-owned enterprises
I couldn’t think of a better idea, if you want to help an economy that suffered from horrendous state monopolies.
> Security firms get full immunity from Iraq's laws.
Not a good idea, but 7 out of 8 is pretty good.
As for decree: Whether you like the removal of Saddam or not, you really can’t expect a military occupation to take a vote a few months after they arrive. They took a couple of years to have elections, which doesn’t seem terribly oppressive.
In any case, one might disagree with the free market economic policies of the early occupation, but does such disagreement really warrant killing people? I don’t think the precise income tax rate has been a significant motivating factor for much of anything.
Bob
“I'm referring to Israel. They run a de-facto apartheid regime.”
I think that’s rather disrespectful of the tens of millions of Blacks who endured real Apartheid.
It’s easy to cheapen the currency of language, but then, of course, it’s a lot harder to know what we are really talking about. Misunderstanding is not usually a good thing when one seeks accommodation and reconciliation.
Bob
“People in 1953 were afraid of communism because of a concerted effort by those in power (buisness interests) to make the public terrified and attack unions.”
This is a ridiculous mis-statement of the reality.
Just for one example: Walter Reuther, President of the United Auto Workers from 1946, President of the Congress of Industrial Organiazations in 1952. In 1946 he purged the UAW of all Communist elements, in 1947 he helped found the Americans for Democratic Action, and in 1949 he took the lead in expelling eleven Communist-dominated unions from the CIO. As a very powerful union leader, he continued his anti-Communist activities into the 1960s.
Reuther could hardly be described as a tool of business interests. And he was not untypical in American unions of the time.
Bob
"Actually it's been pretty well documented and studied."
In that case maybe you could source the assertion. Some outfit that makes some pretense of objectivity, provides quantitative data from reliable sources, considers alternative competing hypotheses, and uses at least 20th century statistical methods.
A lack of ranting would also be appreciated.
Bob
“Launching coup detat's, overthrowing goverments, supporting dictators and aparteid regimes, threatening wars, bombings, supplying weapons that kill civilians and rewriting tax laws by decree is just not cool.”
I think one could question each of the elements of this sentence, but lets concentrate on one: supporting apartheid regimes. I know of only one apartheid regime, South Africa from 1948 or so to 1994 or so. Nobody invaded South Africa to change their system; perhaps because they weren’t threatening anybody else. But the Western democracies sure did a lot to let South Africa know they disapproved and caused the regime considerable inconvenience:
Cultural and sporting isolation starting in the 1950s
Removal from the Commonwealth in 1961
The 1963 arms embargo
Financial support to the ANC from Western governments and NGOs starting in the 1960s
Increasing trade sanctions and disinvestment in the 1980s culminating in the 1989 US Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act.
This is a record that could have been much better, but not one any fair analysis would conclude was a support of apartheid. Sins of omission are different from sins of commission.
Oh, and what on Earth is “rewriting tax laws by decree?”
Bob
"the sanctions that killed 100 000's of Iraqi were just horrendous."
This is a rather silly myth.
Bob
“Some make work will be provided for real humans just to keep them healthy, happy, and busy, though not work that is too demanding of their time unless they want it.”
How’s this for an idea. Some real human, disgusted with being kept healthy, happy and busy through make work, labors really hard at fomenting the revolution; melts all the damned machines, and becomes Solaris Khan, ruler of the Solar System.
That sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than all that virtual nonsense.
And one can be sure, humans being what they are, that revolt will occur.
Thank God!
"ALL HAIL THE KHAN
Under penalty of death."
And the Khan doesn't do virtual.
Bob
“Makes the math simpler” ???
"A transfer orbit is most economical, but sometimes time saved is more important than energy or reaction mass saved"
A transfer orbit is what optimizes whatever needs to be optimized--time, energy use or some combination.
I find it hard to take these EPs too seriously. Maybe another word for EP could be illusion.
Bob
When selecting a President of the United States, I feel the policies advocated by the candidates are significant elements of determining that choice. But there are others: Leadership, character, judgment, vision, political courage for a start.
“There are often polls run on public opinion. They give a really good indication of what the public want...”
What the public wants in a democracy is frequently contradictory, ill-informed, mis-informed and very bad policy. This is not new in democracies. I’ll give three American examples:
In 1898 an overwhelming majority of Americans wanted war with Spain. For no good reason, and the consequences were expensive in blood and treasure and hardly worth the cost to the Americans of the time.
In 1953 an overwhelming majority of Americans felt that Communist influence in the United States was a very significant danger. For no good reason, and the consequences were an erosion in civil liberties and the suppression of a considerable number of important artists. It’s difficult to explain to people 55 years later how it was that most people felt it was a matter of national security to stop Communist sympathizers from making movies.
In 1962 a majority of Americans felt that sending men to the Moon was lunacy.
Reversing these policies took leadership: Nobody in 1898, Eisenhower and many other courageous politicians in 1953 and Kennedy in 1962. The job for which Americans elect their political leaders in not to “fufill the people's wishes,” but to do what’s best. Sometimes, not even what’s best for the people who elected him or her; but for others, for all mankind. A tough, slippery, subjective concept requiring leadership, character, judgment, vision, political courage.
John Kennedy wrote a book about this, "Profiles in Courage."
I imagine that you yourself can think of instances in Irish history in which public opinion was dead wrong.
Besides, public opinion polls suffer from a lot of problems. For one thing they are often inaccurate. For another, the nuances of phrasing the questions are really significant—frequently dictate the answers. For instance, what results would you expect from these two different questions:
“Approximately $200 per year per family is spent on space exploration. Do you feel this is
> Too much?
> About right?
> Too little?”
Or,
“Approximately 96 cents per day per person is spent on space exploration. Do you feel this is
> Too little?
> About right?
> Too much?”
Which question would you want asked?
Bob
Not to throw cold water on thngs, but considering that the population of the solar system in 2050 will be distributed as
Earth, about nine billion
Rest of solar system, less than 100
My predictions for the human population of the solar system in 2250:
Earth, five to ten billion
Rest of solar system, less than one million, maybe a lot less
I don’t think there’ll be a need for a solar government much more elaborate or independent than currently exists in Antarctica.
Bob
“acceleration away from the Earth at 9.8 m/sec^2” ??
Acceleration is measured in meters per second. What’s squared got to do with it?
“cancel the forward orbital motion of Earth”
The planets all go in the same direction. Why cancel the Earth’s orbital velocity? Slowing down and speeding back up is a complete waste of time and energy. The transfer orbit optimized for time and utilizing a fixed amount of delta v would depend on the position of the two planets, but would never involve reducing orbital velocity about the sun to zero.
Hopefully, our 22nd century descendants will be smart enough to calculate transfer orbits. That ability was fully developed in the 20th century.
Bob