JoeSchmuckatelli

Good News Everyone! Fusion milestone: fusion power now only 20 years away! https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/fusion-power-milestone-reached-briefly-sustained-reaction-rcna13690

We live in a strange world.

I would have thought that so long as it has working solar that it could do work almost indefinitely, but apparently that's not the case. I can't find the reference, but I once read that without some fuel reaction wheels eventually lose energy and then you've just got a drifting piece of junk. I'd guess that a drifting Webb could still do work for at least as long as they have control authority to keep the sunshield oriented correctly, and the telescope pointed at a target. So even if they don't have enough fuel for effective station-keeping and need to let it drift, that may not be EOS... but eventually control authority will be lost and then it's junk

@ARS - The Russians have quite a few really interesting solutions - many variants of tracked vehicles, but also some with huge balloon tires. Just google Russian Off Road - ah heck, I did it for you: Russian off road snow vehicle - Google Search Lots of cool vehicles to stare at!

I think it was an emotional decision rather than calculated. The 'calculation' part being how they justified the decision, but the decision isn't something that you can usually put a positive spin on. The wiki puts it this way: There was a traditional underpining in the culture (of death before failure), desperation and existential fear that led them to try this. Again, as I wrote above, I don't think we see that again - until/unless some nation feels like its very existence is at risk. It's like the suicide bombers in the Middle East - acts of emotional desperation that rational people don't normally do... and the victims (kamikaze/bombers) are the young and impressionable, not the leaders.

Disclaimer: for anyone stumbling upon this thread - it is a continuation of an in-progress discussion in another sub-forum, but one that diverges from the topic at hand. I'm moving that discussion here. Having said that - If anyone wants to join in and discuss writing, editing and anything else related - I welcome the discussion. @KSK and @Spacescifi Here's something I've found that seems helpful: The Story Grid - Story Grid It seems to be a good resource for helping writers understand and appreciate the pacing, obligatory conventions of the genre and other things that editors might appreciate, but writers may not fully grasp. ... To continue our discussion: At some point I do intend to write something for publication, but I want to make sure that the next effort doesn't just start off with me writing something I think is fun... but it actually has a good foundation, proper structure and pacing and is something that feels like a good story - thus leaving me with only the challenge of writing something interesting... @KSK I've read a lot of King's work, but pretty much stopped after he had his accident and every story became about a writer who had something bad happen to him. I don't remember if I read that specific title, but I'm going to pull it (again) and see/revisit what he writes about writing. What I do remember about him was his talk about 'the flow' (or however he put it) when the story almost seems to pour out of you and you know its good. I had that experience (in the novel attempt). Heady stuff. Driving to an appointment today and thinking about all this I found another two authors I might compare: Robert Jordan and Gene Wolfe. Jordan is an able craftsman who found a formula and success. I absolutely hate his work. Trite, formulaic and ultimately boring - because the bad guys are obviously bad, the good guys are obviously good, and the bad things happen to a whole host of non-characters while the heroes wring their hands over it and are mildly discomfited by the bad guys until at long last they SAVE THE DAY and EVIL is thwarted for eternity. He does, however, have a craftsman like command over the structure and pacing of Story, and his stories - while all the same, just with different 'paint' are easy and accessible and comfortable and successful. Wolfe on the other hand is a mastercraftsman, a true artist, who fully understands the formula and knows how and when to depart from it. His stories can, at times, be difficult to read because of this - but his characters and themes stick with you. No two stories are alike. I have kept every book of his I've bought. I've thrown away every Jordan novel, sometimes without finishing it (my eyes get tired from all the rolling). I think my mistake was trying to write like Wolfe without first having been Jordan. To return to my carpentry analogy: Any DIY homeowner can go to Home Depot and with the right tools can install a door and trim out a room, JoeSchmuckatelli Remodeling can build you a fabulous addition to your home, but neither of those are going to look like Frank Lloyd Wright designed it. Right now, with my writing, I'm the DIY guy. Once I figure out the tools, a few, very close friends might look at it and say 'huh, it doesn't suck'. I need to get to the Remodeling Professional stage (knows the craft, knows the material, has all the tools) if I want to progress - only then should I attempt (again) to be FLW!

Thanks guys My experience with writing is akin to carpentry. Just because you have the tools and can bang a nail into a piece of wood it does not mean that you are a carpenter. That takes practice. Even once you become a carpenter and are good at it - you may still not be able to build a house... Again, that takes practice! So with me - I have written most of my life and finally sat down to write a novel length story. It was fantastic fun. Once ready to share it - I found four friends willing to read the first chapter and I sent it out, expecting to hear from them asking for more. ... Silence ... What a fabulous gift! (it took a while to get over my wounded pride to realize how valuable that non - response was) --- --- --- Edit: (wink) Moving this here: If you want to continue. I don't want to derail Science talk or Spacescifi's thread.

I have; I'm a heck of a writer, but absolute crap as an editor! (of my own work) I'm really, really bad at figuring out what makes my 'fantastic' novel, read like some aspirational twit's word-barf. Neither were / are the Japanese. That was absolute desperation on their part, fearing wholesale annihilation. I doubt modern Japanese would repeat that tragedy. Again - when thinking forward, don't overly rely upon the past. The Chinese may be thought of having 100 year plans, but on a point-to-point spectrum the decision maker has a lot of pressure: the need to succeed, avoid the impression of failure, his own aggressiveness or lack thereof, helmet fires, fog of war and etc. Don't forget the Chinese experience of Korea; they did not act cautiously. When writing a story, you can have an absolutely reckless and brilliant Chinese Commander and a cautious and tradition-bound American face off with predictable outcomes; especially if the brilliant guy has a blind-spot and the cautious guy gets his friends killed. That's the fun of fiction!

As someone who has lived with these things... I caution you away from the 'Armchair General / After-Action-Report' "That was obvious, everyone should have known it before they began" line of thinking. Fog of war is a real thing. You only know what you know, don't know what they know and your best guess as to their plan and how your plan will work does not survive first contact. The OODA loop is a real thing; and those who master it are better than those who don't. - - - Let's think about a scenario: Future Chinese Privateer craft attacks and seizes the cargo of a British Commercial Mining Vessel in the Asteroid Belt. Britain and China do not have an openly hostile relationship, and there is a sincere question whether this was a rogue pirate captain acting on his own in the Chinese vessel, or a commissioned ship of war - and the Chinese are claiming the British violated international law and jumped an unregistered Chinese claim. An American Space Guard Cutter is the only ship on station and it tries to interdict the Chinese Privateer. The Privateer preemptively attacks and damages the American Cutter, but it manages to destroy the Chinese craft. Then it discovers that a Chinese Battle Cruiser out of Mars Station is inbound and firing missiles at the American Cutter in a counter to it's destruction of the Chinese Privateer; so the American runs for cover, and the rest of the fleet at the L5 of Jupiter. There is no way the American can outrun the Cutter's missiles. Does it really need 'torchship missiles' to defeat the Chinese missiles? No - all it has to do is mine the missiles path with low-speed, highly maneuverable bomblets as it runs. A pair of drone radar C&C satellites can coordinate the bomblet cloud, triangulating on the bogies, which should interdict 70% of the incoming missiles with the remaining 30% covered by point defense with a 90% success rate. The American ship is crippled, and now its a race between the faster craft of the L5 fleet and the challenge faced by the Chinese Cruiser Captain; does he close in for the kill and risk his craft, or does he veer off?

@DDE The Russian proclivity and enjoyment for nicknames is kind of a fun/odd thing from an outside perspective - is it because there are only a certain number of Slavic names? Oddly w/r/t 'nicknames' - in America, I don't think of Mike as a nickname for Michael partly because I know both Mike's and Mike's that are actually Michael - while Dick is clearly a diminutive of Richard. So when I think of the word 'nickname' I envision "The Rock" or "Kid Squeeze" or "Chuckster" (not Chuck, that's his name but Chuckster - that's a nick). Also in America we have names from everywhere else, and even make up our own... So there is no way to know that Devonte is 'Te' and Abbo is 'Ab' or 'Bo' (without them telling us) and Binh hates to be called 'Benny' - but will answer to 'Tho' (because that is what his grandmother called him) OTOH - 'Elizabeth' seems to have a whole lot of diminutives: Most of these, tbh, would not lend themselves to knowing the root was Elizabeth, without a chart like this.

Right! And these are the same people who supposedly faked the moon landings?!? Standards have clearly gone downhill

That is starting to be an interesting line of inquiry - based off responses here and on [H]. If her interest persists I'll likely go full diy / lego (I did this in the 70s/80s with tiny motors salvaged from other toys and modeling glue to make my own crappy cars) and see what we can build. Options are fascinating! Given the cost and time constraints we went a different route. I found a 'robotic arm' kit that is anything but robotic. It's an arm that you can manipulate using levers and hydraulics. Had the epiphany that with a kid, breaking down something complicated into one relatively easy concept - how do robots move their arms - and figuring that hydraulics is more visceral than electronics it seemed perfect. So now instead of 'how robots work' her project is 'how hydraulic actuators work' with the robot arm being the demonstrator Edit: The thing with her is the fascination with typing a line of code and seeing something intentional happen - so I suspect that she will want to move quickly past the hobby building of the thing to futzing with programming

I did not think about it when I first saw that photo - but I guess NASA sees 'the darkness of space' as a euphemism... Because JWST is clearly catching light from all over the place!

... China illegally building artificial reefs in international waters? International Submerged Station! (by now we should have enough terms for Goigles to begin hitting the looney search patterns)

This is cool: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/26/world/milky-way-strands-scn/index.html More large scale structures found in the Milky Way

Odds on how long before some US Congressman quotes you?

Yes - and that's the view Russian and Chinese satellites should see just before the end... (Oh wait, aren't we supposed to keep that part of SS's mission parameters sooper sekret?)

I just wrote them an email suggesting they let the whole front end peel back like a banana. Eagerly awaiting the response and my royalty checks!

I'm not entirely sure what you are hoping to accomplish, then. Observation: most adventure/space-battle sci fi is a variation on conventional warfare - simply writ to a different scenario. This is accessible to people largely because of historical experience with the never ending battle between defensive and offensive technologies. There is a constant tradeoff and cost to every advantage that can, with a little creativity be overcome or bypassed. Makes military life interesting. You seem trapped in a 'Tech can overcome everything' loop. Not sure how you can get yourself out of that... but I will point out that every tech has limitations along with the capabilities. FWIW - the "Sand Cloud" is just smoke. It makes it hard to keep target lock. I suggest you look at what missile tech and missile defense looks like for modern Navies and tanks - because you will see the 'supersmart missile' has countermeasures.

Why is it the only thing I can think of now is some British guy whinging about 'The Bloody Swiss"?

Oh, easy. After popping a can or two of Sparkle you drop a Whizzer. The Whizzer gives the impression of the back of a ship in full flight and the missiles that get through the Sparkle cloud start looking and the only thing they can find is the Whizzer. Classic Sub Warfare tactics.

Right - but you pop the sand to 'go dark' and then turn or puff sand while you Brave Brave Sir Robyn as fast as you can.

Well - if you used horse blood and milk; it could be Mongol Crunch. Or Tartar Treat? ... Since we are on this... I had a professor, years ago, telling me that there was a phrase in Russian that described the Mongol years - and it roughly translated as 'Bloody Mud'. Any truth to this?

https://youtu.be/60ijH2EWI5g?t=66

The rocks shield it from the sun? Although if the inner ring is a blast wave... The more I look at it, I realize what an exciting locale it is. Clearly has two suns (due to the light directions) and is actively planet forming; likely to be a Heavy Bombardment period. Would be fascinating to study. Not sure Webb is the best craft to visit - but nice to see that it's still operational in a time when FTL is possible!