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I just read part of it or the abstract. I remember that most of it was not online and then I forgot to buy the journal. Safire is supposed to be "tough", I prefer much Thomas Friedman analysis as you can guess. Anyway, what did he say ?
The gist of the followup from Friedman (or Safire??) was that Chirac lied in his interview - in fact France did sell rocket fuel illegally. The editorial was available free on the NYTimes website, you can probably still locate it.
What shocked me most in your post, is that you pretend that the french sold a nuclear central to saddam Hussein in order to destroy Israel... In later case, your grave accusation of indirect attack against Israel falls flat.
I did not claim that France's intention was an indirect attack on Israel. France's intention was to ingratiate itself to a brutal dictator so France's business interests would be enhanced. Saddam spoke openly about creating the first arab bomb for the sole purpose of destroying israel. Do you think Chirac really believed that Iraq needed nuclear power when iraq literally floats on top of oil? Of course it was for nuclear weapons.
Nobody can pretend that there is not an anti french sentiment developping in the US. It's easy to manipulate information to make people angry against an ethnic or national group. so here again the interview of Chirac by Amanpour. I know this is just a drop into the ocean of antifrench propaganda inside the US media, but I'll do it:
Please, feel free to proove that chirac lies or that he is incompetent.
Did you read the NY Times (Safire) response to Chirac's denials?
As for anti-french propaganda, isn't it fair to have some of it in the US after anti-american propaganda has been rampant in france for decades? How many mcdonald's restaurants have been burned down in France, for example? How many tourists have been attacked or spit on in the streets of Paris?
Clearly it makes you uncomfortable when the propaganda is turned back on France. Why? I have never cared if French people attach american tourists - I just don't visit france.
I have 3 very good friends in the south of france, and they are quite level-headed and politically savvy. They know Chirac is as big of a sleezebag as any politician, certainly not a heroic "champion of peace" as he is being portrayed in france today.
But back to what you say about France interests in Iraq, chirac has denied that categorically. I have posted the interview, by Ms amanpour, in this forum.
In particular, chirac said that france oil importation from iraq are ridiculously low compared to the US.do you have better sources since you claim the reverse ? does chirac lies or is he a fool himself ?. Chirac in france has the same reputation than Bush here, he is not very smart, etc. So he could be fooled by his own councilors, that's possible, but proove it please.
http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html
Chirac can deny all he wants. Are you aware that Chirac personally managed the sale of a nuclear reactor to Iraq in 1975, for which the sole purpose was to build "the first arab bomb" to destroy israel? TotalFinaElf, the french oil company, has (had...) a $30 bln contract with Saddam, which would come into effect when sanctions were removed. Russia has $8 bln in debts, and Lukoil, the Russian oil company has a $50 bln oil contract, which they announced yesterday they would sue to protect.
But since you are so well-read you surely already know this stuff?
And France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Japan, Russia, England, Italy, Vietnam, Korea, China- all have at one time or another been our friend, mortal enemy, ally, liberator, liberated, etc.
Nations don't have friends, they have mutual interests. We are friends as long as our mutual interests are served.
Yes, spoken like someone who has a true understanding of the world. *All sides* of this particular conflict have an agenda. Russia and France have business interests with Saddam, the US does not. As far as I'm concerned, the so-called WMD was merely a pre-text to launch this war, which could have been justified on other grounds, such as humanitarian.
What is funny about so many who are either pro-war or anti-war is they lack the sophistication or knowledge to make real judgements. A polarized position is often a sign that someone has been dismissive of anything that doesn't align with their pre-conceived views.
Even funnier, is when some of these people assume that anyone who doesn't share their polarized anti-war views is ignorant or poorly informed.
It sounds like the pro-war people in here watch the mainstream news a little too much. Why don't you turn on an independent news source?
It's funny but really sad that all of you have accepted whatever Bush has told you.
Who's pro-war? I was merely responding to your statement that compared saddam to every other politician in the world. At the least, you could admit that was a stupid comparison.
I read news from over 100 online newspapers from around the world, so your statements about "independent news" is just as presumptuous as your saddam comparison.
"All of you" accepted what? How on earth could you possibly know what "all of" the people have accepted and what they have not?
It sounds to me like you make broad generalizations about people you don't know, and make absurd assumptions based on your broad generalizations.
I'm none too impressed.
So, they had a corrupt leader. Who doesn't? Show me one political leader who says he isn't corrupt and I'll show you a liar. I don't think Sadaam is a good leader but his people didn't have it that bad before the U.S. stepped in.
What a fool. Typical left-wing moral equivalency. It's all the fault of the US, and has nothing to do with an expansionist dictator that rules with unmatched brutality.
Why don't you flip on the news today and watch the iraqis celebrate the removal of saddam? Saddam is not just another corrupt politician, he was a brutal, genocidal dictator. Why don't you talk to the kurds or the marsh arabs?
Sounds like it would take a lot more launch fuel, and result in a much heavier craft with more moving parts.
One big problem I see: if the descent engines failed, the craft would burn up on re-entry.
This page has three links to futuristic space colonies (artwork) that could be built from asteroid material.
Lockheed-Martin refused to honour the clause in the contract that stated the contractor must share the cost of any set-back during development. When Lockmart made a last-minute change of the propellant tank from solid wall composite to hollow wall, honey comb structure, it failed. Lockmart did not want to pay for that failure; they wanted NASA to pay for it all. After 2 years of the lawyers arguing over it, NASA agreed to proceed with an aluminum tank. Then George W. Bush cancelled the X-33/VentureStar project.
Thanks, this is useful info.
Do you know if the X-33 was technically feasible? What I mean, was it going to be successful? Perhaps it became clean that it could not succeed, so that played a part in cancelling it. I know it was high-risk, but also high-reward.
I haven't been able to find any info on its payload capacity either.
The X-33 was designed to test the feasiblity of a concept-it wasn't cancelled, it was successful. I don't believe it was ever intended as an actual vehicle.
Yes, it was cancelled after a hydrogen tank failure.
X-33 was a SSTO 1/2-scale space plane. Very impressive stats. Used metallic heat shielding which would have been low or zero maintenance. Nothing expendable like External Tanks or SRBs. Used the linear aerospike engine.
Very impressive piece of hardware. I've read a lot about it. It was partially funded by NASA and mostly by Lockheed Martin. I guess it was cancelled because there was little prospect for a commercial market after iridium and globalstar imploded.
Another important factor is the potential of space elevators. If they work out, these plans will be much more feasible.
I've got the book on the space elevator, and it's interesting reading. They seem to have answered every question I can think of.
The drawback to the space elevator is you are putting all your eggs in one basket. If you have one major foulup, you are out of business for years until you can rebuild it.
Personally, I can't figure out why they cancelled the damned X-33. I suppose NASA didn't like it because it didn't have a cockpit on it.
Inflatable stations are great - I think that's how you would start off, by launching a doughnut-shaped kevlar/demron space station with artificial gravity, then send it on its way to an asteroid. Do a search on TransHab if you haven't already.
However, you probably could not manufacture kevlar as easily as you could melt down slag, so infinite expansion of a station would not be easy with kevlar until you have significant industrial capacity at the asteroid in question.
As far as tensile strength, according to PERMANENT, lunar simulants were melted and achieved 50,000 psi, which is not bad. I guess the difference is there is no hydrogen to pollute the glass, therefore it's stronger.
I've been reading a lot about various "bootstrap" efforts, such as mining asteroids to get materials for larger space structures. Related to this, I was thinking about converting all the "slag" or waste of the asteroid into modular panels that could be snapped together to form space stations.
Is anyone aware of a modular panel design, similar in concept to the panels that make up geodesic domes, which could be used to create other shapes (in particular building doughnut-shaped space stations)?
If you could create a modular panel that could be snapped together to create more doughnut-shaped spinning space stations, manufacturing the panels would be quite easy (IMHO), and could be done in-situ on an asteroid.
See http://www.permanent.com/ for interesting reading on a bootstrap effort.
Have you guys looked at the results from "demron" - it looks like it would be quite effective in blocking cosmic rays, and it's a lightweight fabric:
Russia launched Sputnik before the U.S. launched any satellite.
Yes, Russia was ahead of the US for a time, but I doubt anyone will say that is the case anymore. To the best of my knownledge, Russia has not had even a fraction of NASA's "unmanned" successes, including orbiting and surveying almost every planet, the hubble, chandra, voyager, etc etc
NASA has a huge list of such accomplishments. Russia also has a small list of venus orbiters, mars orbiters, etc, but nothing in comparison to NASA.
Why don't you read the rest of my post. This "circular dependency of uselessness" is the only demand in space there is right now--it's the only thing keeping manned space travel going.
You should read the article and take it to heart - they are not advocating abandoning space, but rather abondoning the current "make work" program and instead doing something inspiring.
Even now, it is serving a purpose. Our OSP R&D must be accelerated so that we have a viable crew ferry to take us to the ISS. The ISS gave us a public purpose in space.
Hehehe - you proved my point.
We need the shuttle to get to the space station and we need the station so the shuttle has somewhere to go. That's a circular dependency of uselessness.
One thing that baffles me - why did we need a shuttle mission dedicated to "pure science" if we have the space station? So either that was a purely-wasted trip which resulted in 7 dead astronauts, or indeed that science could not be done on the useless ISS.
tim_purdue: "...not much of a loss..."! If you only knew...how long the mere idea of a "platform in space" was the only objective for space travel! It makes up for the fact that Earth doesn't have a Phobos. Once there, hang onto and nurture it. Because it's your "springboard" for tethered launches to escape LEO, weightlessness research of every description, LEO point-of-assembly (launched piecemeal by means of the Soyuz) for spacecraft too fragile and/or large to launch other than via the shuttle orbiters you don't mind losing. Thanks a lot, buddy!
I think this is NASA propaganda. I haven't seen any plans for the ISS that include using it as a launchpad for anything.
What I do know is that it is repeating activities that have been done for 40 years now, and does not go much beyond Mir or even Skylab, except in sheer cost.
Sorry if I sound harsh, but I cannot seriously see anything going on in the current manned space platform that justifies its existence. If I really believed that this was a stepping stone to anything else, then I would be all for it. As it is, I'm convinced that this is a government make-work program (at outrageous expense).
Contrast this with the unmanned program which returns incredible volumes of science from every corner of the universe.
The manned program should be more agressive and be backed with a real plan to go somewhere, otherwise, shut it down and use the cash for something useful.
I could support a "trade" of humans to Mars for cancellation of these projects however I fear what we would get is cancellation with nothing in return.
Cancelling a do-nothing space station/space shuttle would not be much of a loss, especially if all the money went into R&D (Research and Development) of a new craft.
Maintenance of the hubble is hardly reason enough to fly 5 shuttle missions/year, especially since the next gen space telescope cannot be serviced anyway. If I remember right, hubble is only due for one more service trip, or am I wrong?
Either way, the ISS/shuttle are gigantic leeches of cash that contribute back almost nothing compared to the unmanned probes.
Good article - exactlywhat I think. Abandon the shuttle and the ISS and do something exciting.
You're never going to find 10,000,000 people to turn over $1,000 to some no-name organization on the off chance that 50 years down the road it may be useful. Just isn't going to happen.
As far as 10% rate of return, that's optimistic. The true ROR is usually around 7%. Inflation is also a factor, usually 3%, so you are actually only growing the money at 4% per year.
You would be better off spending the money on advanced propulsion concepts, rather than use $10 bln for existing rockets, which won't buy you much. A few mln, or 10's of millions would go a long way for breakthrough propulsion, perhaps funding some sort of anti-gravity research, magnetic propulsion research, the "black light rocket", etc etc Then you may have cheap and routine access to space, for whatever that's worth.
I also like to bring a reality check once in a while, for all the dreamers like myself. Why would you want to live on desolate, freezing mars? Why not save a few bln dollars and set up a dome in Siberia or the south pole? Both are warmer, and more friendly to humans that mars is. Also easier to come back when you realize how much it sucks and the novelty wears off....
I enjoyed this article too. It almost sounds plausible, but I suspect there are large drawbacks.
To me, it seems this ship would be hard to steer - you are assuming that each explosion is perfectly timed and detonates at exactly the center of gravity, otherwise the ship would sheer off in the other direction, and it would be a total loss.
For example, nuclear energy ?doesn't? release CO2, but the production of HEU does.
Why? This old canard is absurd. First, only about 2% of a nuclear plant's output is required to refine the uranium, and second why not just use nuclear power to power the HEU generators?
You sound thoroughly propagandized by the anti-nuclear crowd.
It would be quite trivial to show cases where nuclear energy is just as evil as coal or other forms. The only truely benign energy source is solar. Anyone pretending otherwise is in major denial.
Unlikely, even if we entered this fantasy world where we burn wood and cornstalks to run all our generators. It takes a ton of DIESEL fuel to harvest and shred all this material to transport it to the power plant. What about watering and perhaps planting all the plant material?
Your own argument about "environmental damage" caused by mining/refining uranium has shown you are irrational, since your "solar obsession" causes far, far more damage.
*Shaun is Australian.
I'll try not to hold that against him.
I, for one, took this thread seriously and I sent an email to my Senator here in Iowa, Chuck Grassley, and urged him to support Project Prometheus, the Orbital Space Plane, and to CANCEL the existing space shuttle.
But none of these offers the science value, surface area, or materials that Mars can offer. Or the technological motivation.
I think Mars exploration is cool, I'm just being the devil's advocate.
The issue of minerals, surface area, etc are easily achieved underground here on earth at a fraction of the cost and without the debilitating low-gravity effects.