Bill Phil
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Posts posted by Bill Phil
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But this is a scientific definition. The point is not to please the most people. The point is to make a consistent categorization of natural bodies.
That's exactly what that does. It's a categorization system that's much more efficient than the current one.
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Hmmm, historically NASA and other 'hard' science programs have usually received better funding under Republican administrations, now in the current climate your guess is as good as mine. However as a strong believer in Murphy's Law I'll be quietly holding my breath if not my nose over the future funding of science.
BTW Politics is made up of two words, 'poly' meaning 'many', 'tics' meaning 'blood sucking parasites'. Make of that what you will.
Are you sure? NASA had the most in today money back in the 1960s. And guess what? Apollo was canceled in 1968, the year the last Saturn vehicle was rolled out of the construction building. In the 1970s they had record lows, and a bit more in the 80s. But nothing compares to the sixties, which was a democratic decade, save for Nixon.
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By the same logic, the definition of a planet is meaningless because they're all orbiting the galactic center, the star just alters their trajectory. Therefore, planets should simply be called sub-brown-dwarf objects.
Some researchers have proposed classifying the earth-moon system as a binary/double planet, but that's due to the very high relative mass of the moon compared to Earth, and does not say anything about other moons in the solar system (apart from Charon).
Yes, that's true. But if you look at the trajectory, it's altered by such a small margin compared to the galactic center. Plus, they would still be planets, as the major gravitational body acting in them is their parent star.
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When Sputnik was launched, it was called a Red Moon.
The real debate is if moons are orbiting planets at all. They have what I like to call Flower Petal orbits. Their trajectory around the sun is altered by the planetary body, so it looks a lot different than an ellipse. So let's count the Moon as a dwarf planet, okay?
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According to Wikipedia the lowest possible orbit of one revolution is approximately 150km. So no you cannot, unless you had an immensely dense material.
Like, say, a rod from a god? (Tungsten,low drag design)
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If I'm correct, they are called "stringers". They are used to provide a more rigid structure with less of a weight cost. In aircraft, as presumably in rockets, they are used to transfer aerodynamic forces acting on the skin to the frame of the vehicle. The use of stringers on the interstages, and on occasion between the tanks on a single stage (such as the S-IC stage of the Saturn V) to provide a stronger structure while saving mass.
Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here.
The Russians fire stages while the one below is still firing. The gaps are so the exhaust can escape.
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Maybe if you had wings that are ginormous and still applied thrust. Not to mention that you need to change your attitude constantly....
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In any case the tech-tree HAVE to be remade, first because there's Better Than Starting Manned, then because even if I start with manned ship I want to be able to design a "Mercury" capsule as a new pinnacle of my Space Program, rather than being able to put 10 tons into orbit right of the bat but have no use for it so soon in the tech tree.
Of course, if you think about it, if history was different, we would have started manned. BIS had a moon vehicle design in the 1930s. The THIRTIES. So in actuality, starting manned kind of makes MORE sense.....
Although I think manned isn't the right word....
On topic: I see the point, but I got into orbit with 1st node parts, so I don't see how changing the order would do much good.
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The LM was extremely light, especially compared to the CSM.
Designing the mission to be Dv cheap generally means that you want the lowest altitude when you're coming from outside the system. This way the Oberth effect helps you out, and you have to slow down a lot less. So, it's not really strange, it's just physics.
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Okay, the first thing I can think of is how much additional trouble it would be to constantly say major planet.
Uh...
How would that be a big problem? "Major planet" would be more specific, like terrestrial planets or gas planets. You could still call it a planet.
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The pyramids are big piles of rock with almost no internal space, and the great wall of china is a series of perfectly normal medieval boundary walls that happen to be really long. They don't show any intelligence, just concentration of power and resources.
What about Hadrian's wall? The coliseums of Rome? The Roman plumbing system that delivered more water per person than New York currently does? Concrete? The roads of Rome?
All these things are major achievements, concrete being a useful construction material.
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Ah but we already have that. And it's even simpler than that, there's either planet or dwarf planet.
What I said was a way to end the argument, because then it's both.
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Selenium maybe? It's a rare element used for semiconductors.
It could be. I've forgotten exactly what, but if I remember correctly it's most common in China.
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Well, someone saw Gravity.
Debris is not as bad as you think. Sure, it's not great, but for the last 6.5 decades, no major collisions have happened. Kessler syndrome is about debris increase, but eventually the debris becomes molecule sized, and so the problem solves itself, eventually.
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You mean Helium 3 right?
I think in order for this to happen, people would have to see that helium is needed.
No. It's some sort of solenoid for computers.
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A lunar base would be useful for low gravity tests on humans and animals, but so are centrifuges...
Resources.
There's a type of resource costing a thousand dollars per GRAM. I'm quite sure it's fairly abundant on the moon.
Definite profit could be made.
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I think before Mars is more interesting. If we set up a space logistics system capable of delivering 20 tons per week to the moon, then we can build some serious lunar bases.
After we get some bases on the moon, we go and grab some Apollo asteroids and start mining them, as well as building deep space stations beyond Earth orbit. Then we build very massive spacecraft out of these asteroids and deliver tons of payload to Mars. Finally, we create some von Neumann machines to explore the outer systems and gather data, as well as building bases and stations for later crews.
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Or, we could build a network of solar power arrays kilometers in length in width closer to the sun than mercury. Using some high power lasers we could then propel a solar sail vehicle. Problem is, we can't necessarily provide thrust at apoapsis.
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Maybe bombard Venus with base-rich asteroids. Ads hydrogen and the acids may react with the bases, making water. Problem is, we then need to keep it that way.
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Source?
And I remember reading that there was all kinds of acids in the Venusian atmosphere.
Plus, you kind of missed my point.
My point is that you shouldn't limit what you want (hydrogen) by just talking about water
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Good job!
However, I think the end of the Epilogue could have been made into a reference to the Apollo Program.
"The men in this room are going to the moon."
"The Kerbals in this room are going to Jool, besides me." -Director guy
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Why not make "Planet" a broad term? Then divide planets into "Major", "Minor", etc.
That way everybody wins. People who say Pluto is a dwarf/minor planet, and people who say that Pluto is a planet.
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Considering the engines had "passed" the ground testing, I suspect it's just faulty equipment. That engine's number came up and it's fairly likely that it had a bad pump or bad pipes.
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We did this discussion so many times before, but venus is so interesting that always come back.
What you mean by terraforming the atmosphere? You want terraform all the atmosphere or just a layer?
For example at 50km height venus atmosphere has similar temperature and pressure than earth at ground level. Also is a lot easier to float there and has many other benefics that can not be found in any other place in the solar system.
So with a long process you can live up there and expell oxigen, it will take a lot but you can make the atmosphere at 50km more comfy.
But it will never would be as earth because there is a element missing. "Hydrogen".
Venus has 15000 km3 of water in its atmosphere. That is more than earth, but is 90 times more dense. So is too dry. And that is all the hidrogen that you can find.
About the Von Neumann machines would also face the same problem.. There is not hidrogen.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but does't acid have Hydrogen in it? If that's so, the von Neumann machine idea could work quite well...
But feel free to correct me. I'm honestly not sure.
EDIT:
Yep. There's Hydrogen in acid, probably a lot of it. Enough in one sulfuric/carbonic acid molecule for a single molecule of water, and there's plenty of oxygen in the upper areas of the atmosphere in CO2.
Maybe if the von Neumann machines could directly manipulate molecules, so then chemical reactions could be more easily undone. Perhaps beamed power from orbital arrays?
So Pluto is a planet!?
in Science & Spaceflight
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It's more efficient because the names make more sense, less confusion. And so it's easier to understand.