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#2251 Re: Not So Free Chat » Howard Stern's Fine » 2004-04-10 14:36:30
I think the FCC or what ever its called whent to far.
#2252 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Catapults. - Ancient technology for new purposes. » 2004-04-09 02:17:51
As far as balloons go, I believe there was a proposal for a stratosphere station once. I am not sure how much this helps someone get into space. As for rotating sling, what should it rotate around? Barings? Personally, as far as cheep alternatives to space elevators go, I like the idea of firing pulsed electromagnetic radiation at a parabolic dish, which causes the gas in the focus of the parabola to explode (A.K.A Laser Propulsion). Usually these types of vehicles are shaped like a discus for aerodynamics and spin for stability.
#2253 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Calculating Venus Fly-By - How to calculate a flight using Venus? » 2004-04-08 21:47:30
Still, all said I'd like to see the callculations.
#2254 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Cycler Spaceships - Ships going between Earth and Mars » 2004-04-08 21:05:11
Near as I can tell, there is no such thing as a zero energy orbit between planets, only between lagrange points in the same system (in our case, the Earth/sun/moon system). But That's neither here nor there.
What are the useful orbits? I think I recall seeing an orbit that some commits take from Juperter L1 to L4 to L5 back to L1. So if we took a similar trajectory from mars, would we come anywhere near earth? And if we did how fast would we be going, what direction would we be going by earth at and how might the gravity of earth affect these Martian orbits?
#2255 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Cycler Spaceships - Ships going between Earth and Mars » 2004-04-08 08:31:26
Why have a cycler "spaceship" - - build your L5 style cities in free return orbits, every time you pass by Earth or Mars add a few new buildings.
Choose a free return orbit and over the centuries perhaps hundreds of thousands of people could come to live in this travelling city.
Cool
#2256 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » The Purpose of the ISS? » 2004-04-07 14:46:34
When I say bigger, I mean with some kind of engine, probably an ion engine and maybe a small greenhouse. In other words, it wouldn't need to be serviced as much and we wouldn’t ever need to deorbit it because it could bring itself up to a safe parking orbit anytime we want..
#2257 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Earth to LEO - revisited - another direction » 2004-04-07 11:32:36
I don't know how much alumnium one should thorough away. How may ubundent sorces of it are there? What precentage comes from the amazon rain forst?
#2258 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » The Purpose of the ISS? » 2004-04-07 11:26:46
The ISS, however, is big enough to cost too much and too small to actually get anything done.
I think that about summs it up
#2259 Re: Life on Mars » chrophy in mars? - life in mars » 2004-04-07 11:13:44
Evolution goes toward the best local maximal solution, not the best global solution.
Maybe not totally related but in optimization (e.g. neural networks) evolutionary algorithms are used because they tend not to get trapped in local minimums as easy algorithms based on gradient decent (e.g. back propagation). The distribution of the mutation, (i.e. do we expect mutations to be close to the parent or far from the parent), can be tuned to optimize the algorithm for local searching or global searching. If the algorithm is optimized for local searching it may find the local minimums very quickly but it may take a long time to find the global minimum. Perhaps it will take longer then the age of the universe.
#2260 Re: Not So Free Chat » Ralph Nader - ...(love him or hate him?) » 2004-04-07 10:23:45
Good point Cindy.
It's too bad I don't know what Kerry's space policy is.
Oh, well I am not a US citizen. So I have no vote. I wonder If I could register in Florida? 
#2261 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Energy to Mass » 2004-04-05 11:09:44
Of course not. But do you come here to best ustalize your time anyway?
#2262 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Energy to Mass » 2004-04-05 09:07:42
Ahhh, call some quanity mass-energy and be done with it. It could be measured in Joles, killograms or some other quantity.
#2263 Re: Not So Free Chat » Should the scientific study of Mars - follow AFTER settlement? » 2004-04-05 08:16:25
You're right. That would make a great movie.
#2264 Re: Not So Free Chat » Universal Overview » 2004-04-05 07:34:08
The big flush?
#2265 Re: Human missions » Post central for information on CEV - iformation station for the spacecraft » 2004-04-02 08:40:54
Not to digress too much, but I am just happy to see plans in motion, whether they are SDV, EELV, moon or mars.
#2266 Re: Not So Free Chat » Computer Algebra » 2004-04-02 08:18:34
This must be the program [http://pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr/]PARI you are talking about.
#2267 Re: Human missions » Post central for information on CEV - iformation station for the spacecraft » 2004-04-01 13:02:14
Nuclear electric has its advantages too? Right? More power? I think solar electric tugs will be developed by the private sector. I am sure both will be useful.
#2268 Re: Not So Free Chat » Universal Overview » 2004-04-01 12:18:06
Interesting thought, look at water. We don't see trillions of molecules but rather a fluid. It hes density surface tension temperature etc.
#2269 Re: Not So Free Chat » Computer Algebra » 2004-04-01 12:08:49
I glad to see I am not posting in a vacuum. This discussion isn’t really related to my posts, on orbital mechanics. I just thought I would see who was interested in computer algebra systems here, since I was doing some reading on it recently. It also gives me a place to store some good links for future reference.
However, If someone learns these systems well enough, it could save some work in the derivation of various formulas. It also allows a person to check there work. More relevant to my posts on orbital mechanics is the software package MATLAB. MATLAB is primarily used for numeric computations. However, it does come with a symbolic package that uses the MAPLE kernel. For anyone who can’t afford MATLAB there is a freeware clone called [http://ta.twi.tudelft.nl/nw/users/vuik/ … lones.html]octave. Any code I write for MATLAB I will try to make sure it runs on octave as well.
#2270 Re: Not So Free Chat » Computer Algebra » 2004-03-31 10:58:47
#2271 Re: Not So Free Chat » Computer Algebra » 2004-03-30 15:50:20
#2272 Re: Not So Free Chat » Computer Algebra » 2004-03-30 15:44:38
This site seems to have a math arcive of usenet posts:
[http://mathforum.org/epigone/sci.math.s … 2003-08-31]http://mathforum.org/epigone....3-08-31
#2273 Re: Not So Free Chat » Computer Algebra » 2004-03-30 15:43:19
Does any one here know much about computer algebra packages?
#2274 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Earth to LEO - revisited - another direction » 2004-03-30 13:21:22
I keep reading the acronym EELV and for some reason I often thought Earth elevation vehicle. I wonder why I would have thought that. Anyway after reading the posts I realized the discussion was about a particular system, so I did a google search:
[http://www.af.mil/lib/afissues/1997/app_b_20.html]http://www.af.mil/lib/afissues/1997/app_b_20.html
(Evolved expendable launch vehicle) My mistake. I wonder if anyone else has made this mistake. Probably not.
#2275 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Photon force » 2004-03-30 10:32:08
His doesn't even have the Newtonian phsics right!