Jonfliesgoats

Yeah, but Lisa was cancelled.

QM also gets used by con artists. They typically wrap some snippet of QM into some snippet of religion to extract money, time or services from people. You can usually find these guys hanging around about three blocks from any major campus. The fact that QM seems so strange to the lay person (I am not a physicist and definitely a lay person) gives these folks tools and room to maneuver.

Good news!

I had a similar reaction. It is easy to think we are turning our backs on the stars, but it seems the facts paint a rosier picture.

I wonder if you can use gravity waves for imaging? Does something massive between an emitter (say orbiting black holes) and a receiver affect signal properties? Can we "listen" to gravity and learn where and how big dark, massive things or regions may be?

Exciting!

Sad news. Russian cosmonauts are rarely appreciated in the West, but the few I have met have always been innovative, intelligent and gracious. I hope Mr. Volk was happy during his vacation.

Good points. Like it or not, this airplane is already a central part of Western navies. Like other platforms it seems these planes get shoved down the customer's(JTAC, pilot, GFC, etc) throats whether they want them or not.

Perhaps you could use some sort of electrolytic process to charge your equipment on Venus to prevent acidic ions from reacting with it?

Glad you like it!

Glad to have you here, Nerd! Let us know when you get your Xbox working, and what you come up with troubleshooting.

Filtering: I would imagine there are quieter frequencies out there. Celestial, gravitational noise would be all relatively low frequency, right? We make the same choices with radio applications. Signal dissipation: As far as I can tell it would take lots of energy just to transmit information over a short distance. Still, it would be interesting to see what information can be sent using gravity devices.

Interesting!

I love this thread! Pure speculation: We throw money at the project to land devices on the order of ten tons of mass on Venus. Ore extraction is assumed to be a relatively straight forward process. We can take advantage of the thick, windy Venusian atmosphere Tethered balloons loft turbines for power into the windy atmosphere. They drag buckets which indiscriminately lodge in the Venusian soil/regolith. (A smarter, rover/excavator could be used too, but I like dumb buckets slamming around Venus) A small system of converters lift material to a tiny, suspended refinement system that rains waste material indiscriminately back down to the Venusian surface while preserving ingots of unobtamium in suspended packages. Once so many ingots are saved, the bucket and tether/conveyor system are are jetissomed. The balloons drift in the Venusian atmosphere until they hit a system of angled, suspended collection nets that funnel the balloons into a central collection point. Getting the collected unobtanium back to earth would require an expensive launch of a rocket back to some orbiter to ship the material back to Earth. We could perhaps do this with current technology and fairy-tale unlimited budgets.

@WinkAllKerb'' i haven't thought about that story since high School! It is actually really appropriate. Great reference!

Back in 2003 an amateur RC airplane hobbyist flew an autonomous model across the Atlantic. Here's a brief story about that. http://www.progressiveengineer.com/profiles/maynardHill.htm

Our paradigms may be outdated too. The air dominance effort we disucuss is certainly improtant. At least some people are considering asymmetric warfare and challenges to air superiority. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a583530.pdf

@Exploro Here's my response. I am at the end of a long workday, so pardon my long post. Fatigue and editing don't go well together. Also, I look forward to your response. I thank you ahead of time for engaging me on this. Stealth and LO: Yes, I am keenly aware of the F-22's presence over Syria, also in defense of Baltic airspace and in the Western Pacific. First, I make no assertion that these technologies are not being refined. As you point out, advances in geometry from over the last few decades are evidence of continued improvement here. With regard to LO as a fad or requirement for penetrating counter-air, I stand by my statements. A detectable airplane is detectable. Perhaps fire control radars can't engage the aircraft, but visual or passive systems can. There are still guns, and they are still dangerous. There are lots of dumb fighters, like the J7 which can ruin a pilot's day if they get close enough. Also things like the element of surprise are lost, etc. When we get really mean, we need to make sure we don't burn our targets. Detection burns targets. However, we are really simplifying the concept of signal to noise ratio and how that plays out in air defense. A LO airplane is detectable and attackable, but reduced detectability can be thought of as a way to reduce effective ranges of active detection rather than making an airplane invisible. We certainly get something in survivability in stealth aircraft. This is why I favor restarting the F-22 line, as is currently being discussed. In the case of the F-35, what we lose in lethality is not made up for in survivability. The F-22 is the platform for penetrating counter air. It is designed for air dominance, maneuverable, networkable, etc. The F-35, with reduced stores, reduced fuel, less performance and less interchangeability of sensors delivers a moderately surviveable airplane that can't really do much of anything useful. So my assertion is not that stealth and LO is worthless. My assertion is that we are employing it poorly. A stealthy F-22 is brilliant. A stealth B-21 or B-2 is brilliant! A stealthy F-35 is going to suck at CAS, and JTACs already don't like it in exercises. A stealthy surface ship, like a frigate is worthy of cartoons. Stealth and LO as a fad: Saying that rivals investing in LO is a validation of technology is both unnecessary and double-edged. As I clarify above, I am not asserting that stealth is useless. I am asserting that we employ it on systems poorly. Europe decided to go with the Eurofighter. They did not see much benefit in LO despite having Russia's PAK FA being developed nearby. Also, Russia developed VTOL fighters and swing-wing Mig 23s. Does that mean the weight spent on those systems was worth it? When the Americans were investing in project stargate, the Russians ran experiments to test the extra-sensory perception of cats. Is that a validation of ESP? Penetrating Counter-Air, Penetrating SEAD and survivablity: You make an excellent point! F-22s, SEAD and EW drones, B-21, B-2 are for this. The F-35 being marginally survivable against modern a2/ad with just a few stores means LOTS of sorties into contested environements. Having more pilots flying more sorties in worse airplane in more hostile environments saves our lives and projects force how? Another dumb dad: Helmet mounted targeting A proposal: Top notch, manned penetrating counter air supported by vast quantities of drones (perhaps from arsenal planes?) for SEAD, EW, networking. 4th generation platforms backfill and provide CAS as environments contested. LO on ships: Most engagements are BVR, true. However flash-points like the straits of Hormuz put fleet assets close enough to active sensors to make LO boats silly. In the W. Pacific, I will concede that LO boats mean search radars have to broadcast more RF, and may get rid of any red range advantage. Finally, we miss the role of crew training. A well trained crew, squadron, wing, etc. will be lethal regardless of equipment.

@Exploro Thanks for your articulate and well presented response! Let me address your points by topic, and please feel free to tear up my assertions.

The Mao Mango thing is actually true and hilarious. That said, I can say from personal experience that there is a similar defacto ideology test to promote within Western defense and aerospace companies. So Inma not sure if we really have an advantage here. When I was an undergraduate I was a member of a small, socialist organization for a few months. I figured that the only way to develop an informed political identity was to get involved with groups and really evaluate them before I committed. I rapidly realized that the group I was associated with was all about ultimate frisbee and had little to do with any real facts or action. Instead, I became a true believer in the liberal order established by the US in the post war years. I kept flying, studying, working and being an adventurous weirdo. Ten years later, I was in the field, working with a recently developed system, flying and demonstrating it to our customer. I had already passed all official background checks and had been read-in to specific programs. Somehow it came to light that I was a member of this socialist group (I suspect from a newsletter mailing list that I was on). One day, one of our customer's representatives started asking me some casual, but clearly pointed questions about my political affiliations. Perhaps naively, I answered them honestly. The next day I removed from the camp, removed from the program I had worked so hard to develop and subject to additional, immediate screening. By law, political leanings cannot affect your access to security clearances, but law and reality are not always the same thing. Had I been in a similar position in the Soviet or Chinese Air Forces, I simply would have disappeared. Luckily, two weeks later I was back at work, and all was done. Still, from there on in, I never shared any political views or even commented on popular comedians. I was as skeptical of people working with me on our program as I was of people from foreign organizations. Conversation at DFACs, at work or even traveling to and from worksites was something that was a genuine risk to me and my family. Now that my years of high adventure are behind me, I wonder if my urge to talk anonymously on here is somehow related to that period of paranoid silence and effort. That is a question for another audience, however. My long-winded point is that there are ideology and political tests in the West. We just don't have them formalized an supported by uniformed, political officers. Still, if you want to work at Lockheed, Boeing or Brand X, you better not become a member of the International Socialist Organization in college. That may cost you a promotion or a job in sensitive programs. I got lucky. Also the ISO isn't what it claims to be. What can I say? I was extremely naive.

@Scotius I use the LM7 as an example of general technical achievement. Admittedly, it is not the best comparison. @pincushionman I noticed the dependence on tribal knowledge in one of my past lives fielding new equipment. That experience left me with a different hypothesis regarding Chinese struggles to build engines, though. Perhaps their organizational structure and corporate culture is a hindrance? Your suggestion bears some more merit than mine, though.

Chinese aircraft rely on duplicated and imported engines. Despite having access to high end commercial engines imported from the West, indigenously produced commercial engines lag in performance. Chinese manufacturing and metallurgy are advanced. They should have the ability to reverse engineer and produce much better motors locally, but they haven't. What gives? Chinese turboprops are based on Russian designs and have shorter service lives and worse fuel efficiency than Western counterparts. The same holds true for military aircraft. The J20 uses older engines, although there are plans to use better motors. Still, a nation that can make the Long March 7 struggles with airplane engines. What is going on?

From spaceflight101, here are 2016's launch statistics for dummies. http://spaceflight101.com/2016-space-launch-statistics/

Good idea with Jupiter!

Hmm. I was thinking about sending data without worrying about material between the transmitter and receiver. Quantum communications would offer more bandwidth and be much smaller, I imagine.