We will see if this gets posted. My comment on the military in space has not gone up.
The SLS is really the continuation of the Shuttle program and for want of money, like the Shuttle could have been turned into a reusable version, the SLS can also be transformed. It CAN be made to work. For those arguing that it is not fully reusable and only this is acceptable, I submit that two different versions of the External tank can make it fully reusable. One lightweight version now being produced, and a heavier wet workshop version for use as crew compartments for Space Stations and Spaceships. These Space Station wet workshops could be launched from Vandenberg and provide Space Force with human-crewed early warning orbital stations our adversaries would be far less likely to attack as this would of course have far greater consequences that satellite brinkmanship.
Chapter 8 of “The Shuttle Decision”
Though it lacked wings, the pressure-fed booster became a candidate for reusability because its thick aluminum skin would easily serve as a heat sink. This same robust skin would allow the vehicle to come down by parachute and land in the ocean, surviving the impact and the subsequent perils of the sea. It would enter the water 200 miles offshore; a boat would then bring it back. No one was prepared to describe this as graceful; with this form of makeshift added to those of its design, the concept was unofficially called the Big Dumb Booster. Such dumbness seemed, however, to promise a new path to wisdom.
A pair of RS-25’s weigh about 14,000 pounds dry and a CH-53 helicopter can sling load 35,000 pounds so parachute-air-recovery of at least a pair of engine return modules with a pair of helicopters is quite possible. credit: The Shuttle Decision, NASA history series.
credit: Chris Bergin June 18, 2010
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And I replied to one of the most devious and sleazy fanboys…we will see if this goes up.
Certainly, an interesting and epic saga, but I have to side with those who frown on any praise of the Shuttle. It was one of the worst wrong turns in the history of any government agency. I would have to compare it to the V-22 Osprey, which is such a flawed design there is also almost zero to praise. The V-22 is essentially a bastard combination of an airplane and a helicopter. The Shuttle was essentially a bastard combination of an airplane and a spacecraft. The V-22 cannot fly as fast as a fixed wing airplane and cannot hover as efficiently as a rotary wing helicopter and is far more expensive to operate than both of them. The V-22 has no ability to auto-rotate and make an emergency vertical landing like a helicopter. The Shuttle sacrificed most of it’s payload on the Orbiter itself while having no escape system for the crew and was also extremely expensive to operate. Apologists cite all the wonderful capabilities of the Shuttle and the V-22. In reality the Shuttle should have used pressure-fed liquid boosters and an engine return module mounted on the bottom of the external tank and used a capsule and escape tower at the top of the stack. It would have been used for heavy lift missions with no crew. It would still be flying. Likewise, the Credible Sport concept was a far better path to pursue than the tilt-rotor used by the V-22.
The only question in politics is how much a person gets to keep and how much do the rest of us get to keep a person from keeping everything. In regard to the election, it is like high school actually, and high school never ends. In my high school, the bullies always won. I am not optimistic about the outcome. Saying liberals control the media and it is all fake news is part of the big lie. Corporations control the media, and they only care about what makes them money. Everything, EVERYTHING, reduces to the rich evading taxation and regulation. That is the key. And the corporate owned media will not say that quiet part out loud when it should be incessantly stated to the American people. When someone does say it they find themselves shut out and labeled a communist and everyone knows this…..don’t call out the bully, you will lose.
Right and left is taken from the French revolution. An official hearing was held and the majority poor people who wanted a better life ended up on the left side of the room, and on the right gathered the minority rich people who had that better life. One witness explained: We began to recognize each other: “-those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair-.” This was after and largely inspired by the American Revolution, which would have failed without the support of the French Navy. The French were not supporting any idea of freedom but simply trying to hurt their old enemy the English. That success would ultimately lead to the King of France marching to the guillotine.
Though America would succeed in creating a functioning democracy, France would not and in the decades after The Terror become the birthplace of the most radical utopian political ideology in history: Communism. The left is often associated with this later development but in fact is only about the original event on that side of the room. The right would come to be associated with another radical political ideology from over a century later: Fascism. In America the left and the right are attractors to that precursor of communism called socialism and the enabler of fascist dictatorships which are the super-wealthy. A good principle to follow is that while The Terror and The Holodomor were bad, The Holocaust was the worst.
As I once told a coworker who was arguing with me about Trumpism, “if I am walking down the street and I see people on the right with swastikas and confederate battle flags and people on the left with Antifa and Black Lives Matter flags….I am going to the left.”
Despite having left my toxic online community….I still have some things to say and The Space Review seems willing to let me post occasionally. And then allow others to trivialize, mock, and denigrate me. But whoever is moderating must be throwing out most of the replies because they are just not vicious and disgusting enough for fanboys.
Here is the third comment I submitted. The first two were posted.
The need for military personnel in space is now vital to national security for 3 reasons:
The nuclear triad is failing as a valid deterrent. Submarines, bomber bases, and ICBM sites are all targeted and with only minutes to “use them or lose them”, the risk of a massive exchange is as high as ever. Our luck cannot continue. Launch on warning MUST be extended from those few minutes to bring the risk down or our luck WILL run out. The money spent on nuclear submarines that are now tracked by sea glider underwater drones, on new bombers that are kept under constant surveillance, and on ICBMs in silos the coordinates of which are precisely known, can all be redirected to a space-based deterrent. Space as in NOT orbital. Months away in deep space Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit (BELO). Such “Space Boomers” would necessarily be human-crewed. These Spaceships would cost the same as the triad and one figure to use as proof is the quarter of a trillion-dollar life cycle cost of just the 12 new missile submarines.
Satellite constellations are increasing the risk of nuclear war. The temptation to militarize these tens of thousands of satellites will inevitably lead to many of the same cold war games that were played in the last century. Unfortunately, because satellites are not human-crewed, those games MUST inevitably spin out of control. The resulting incidents WILL place the superpowers on nuclear alert and these repeated Cuban-missile-crisis events cannot have any other effect but to run our luck out at some point. The greatest danger is the inability of the superpowers to detect weapons being launched with the present warning network resulting in a hair-trigger launch on warning situation that will NOT be sustainable. The solution is the same solution used in places like the DMZ on the Korean peninsula where U.S. soldiers have been stationed for 72 years. Human-crewed Space Stations in GEO would be the new DMZ. Stationed over national borders any actions against these Stations would be the same as an attack on a U.S. military base and the resulting casualties would entail consequences not found in satellite brinkmanship. These Stations would also provide infallible early warning of attack.
DOD’s mission is to “provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security. The Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force and Coast Guard are the armed forces of the United States.” National security is fundamentally about preventing the destruction of a nation. This includes the destruction of the world of course. If the world goes then so MUST America be destroyed also. Any insurance policy for humankind in effect with a sustainable population off-world WILL prevent the destruction of America. Only the DOD has the resources to begin this sea change in national defense by projecting not only deterrence but also creating an insurance policy for all of humankind off-world. Entrepreneurial schemes will NOT succeed in creating any kind of human expansion or permanent presence Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO). Space-based nuclear deterrence would provide planetary protection with tremendous power to deflect asteroid and comet impact threats. The cislunar infrastructure required to support GEO warning Stations and space-based deterrence would enable further industrial expansion with lunar human technicians and a path to addressing another DOD priority: Climate Change. Space Solar Power by way of lunar resources as the solution to Climate Change.
It is going to get crazy. It is now crystal clear to me how civil wars happen. Trumpism is such transparent fascism that democrats are simply not going to let him end America at this point. Millions of us will pour into the streets the moment it looks like Trump is going to take power. His plan is obviously to wreck the election process and use congress and the supreme court to seat him. Again, not going to be that easy. The democrats are going to have to cowboy and cowgirl up and fix this or allow democracy to die.
44:44 “This idea that there will be free and fair elections in 2028 after four more years of Republican Trump rule is…delusional.”
I posted this November 1st: “In the event of a civil war, before Martial Law is declared and the military restores order, the better armed republicans are likely to inflict some massive blood-letting in any large clashes. However, to engage in those large clashes they are going to have to go to population centers and this is going to lower republican numbers somewhat and greatly increase democrat numbers. It seems a weird replay of the blitzkrieg with everything depending on how much violence the fascists can generate to effect a quick victory.”
I doubt this will get posted on The Space Review. If so, then fine. If not, also fine. I am not happy about doing this, but I want it out there.
A “true” Space Station provides a Near Sea Level Radiation 1 Gravity (NSLR1G) environment for long duration missions Beyond Low Earth Orbit (BLEO). Dosing and debilitation causes permanent damage to astronauts and cuts short their careers in space due to rapid accrual of a career dose. This is the single critical obstacle to humans living in space and the most difficult to overcome. Because astronauts will still be dosed transiting to and from this protected environment, and the effect of the heavy nuclei component of galactic cosmic radiation on lesser shielding schemes, the amount of shielding is not negotiable and far beyond what people interested but not knowledgeable would guess. To meet this requirement these stations will likely have 4 distinct features.
The “true” Space Station would be constructed using “Fat Workshops”, which are double-hulled upper stages with a 17-foot outer envelope to be filled with a cosmic ray water shield. Such a construct only becomes efficient on a scale much larger than NewSpace-everything-cheap accepts as practical. The numbers automatically generate shock, outrage, and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I will leave it to space enthusiasts with an open mind to calculate the tons of water needed for a sphere with a 17 foot outer envelope and an inner envelope equal in diameter and totaling 68 feet. The concept really starts providing an adequately spacious crew compartment at around 100 feet. This is actually about how large one Shuttle concept, the Chrysler SERV was.
The “true” Space Station would utilize a Tether Generated Artificial Gravity (TGAG) system several thousand feet long spinning at around 1 RPM to provide 1G of artificial gravity. The reasoning behind such long tethers is simple in that tether materials are so strong that the savings in weight for a partial gravity rating are not great, and the Fat Workshops used are already rated to withstand max Q launch stresses so there would no savings in that either. The multi-tether system would allow a crew compartment to travel from the end of the tether at one 1G to the center at zero G for various purposes such as docking and transferring personnel. As long as an equal mass was also relocating to keep the system balanced this would keep the tether system operating smoothly and water can also be used to dampen oscillation.
The “true” Space Station would utilize thousands of tons of water not only as a Cosmic Ray Water Shield (CRWS) and as a dampening and balancing mass in the tether system, but also in a closed loop life support system providing years of breathable air, purified water, and basic calories. “The European Space Agency is coordinating an international research project called the Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative, or MELiSSA. The goal of the project is to create a completely closed life support system that could be used for space travel. MELiSSA is an artificial ecosystem modelled on an aquatic ecosystem. The MELiSSA system would contain living plants and algae.”
The “true” Space Station would require an Ultra Heavy Lift Vehicle (UHLV) to launch the Fat Workshops to the vicinity of the Moon where they could be loaded with lunar-ice-derived-water launched from the Moon using 23 times less energy than from Earth. Eventually rail guns, or mass drivers as Gerard K. O’Neill called them, might be used. Once a construction pipeline for these Space Stations is operating the next step would be to provide them with Nuclear Propulsion as only nuclear energy can efficiently move these large masses. Nuclear Thermal is a dead end and the only presently feasible and practical system is Nuclear Pulse. Unfortunately, while transporting packaged bomb pits safely is possible using human-rated capsules with escape towers, it is politically problematic. However, advances in ThermoPhotoVoltaics and overpowering ion thrusters may make Nuclear Electric a viable option in the near future.
I think the wet workshop concept was the path to take (with the Shuttle) and design based on the Chrysler SERV would have made it work. The problem with the SERV was of course it was SSTO. With an outer ring of engines, an inner ring, and a single central engine, I believe the SERV would have worked quite well. The outer ring could have been F-1A’s with their kerosene propellent load incorporated into the ring and used splash doors and parachutes to be recovered at sea. A J-2 inner ring would have required a heat shield to reenter and then also been recovered at sea. The central engine might have also been heat shielded and been parachute-air-recovered with a helicopter. And eventually the rings might have been propulsively landed Phil Bono style. After the engines were jettisoned the roughly spherical tankage would have been made into a crewed platform. Eventually such workshops would be used as crew compartments docked with Earth Departure Stages and leave LEO for….out there.
This is one more indicator of what is going to happen. People will take to the streets with guns, and it will spiral out of control. These Trumpists are saying things they hope will get them a foot in the door after the coup.
We the People, the democrats, are not going to let it happen. We will end up in the streets fighting them. Millions of us will finally say no more.
9:10 “America’s Oligarch moment makes this more like 1990’s Russia than we want to believe. Russian democracy died because their institutions and politicians were not strong enough to enforce the law; sound familiar? I can identify half a dozen laws Elon Musk has already broken without enforcement, Bezos censored the Post because he knows that nobody will enforce the law and keep Trump from seeking political retribution.”
11:30 “Let’s not lose sight of the fact that all this is being driven, ultimately, it’s not the only issue, but I do believe it is very much the central issue, is by race. By the question of race. And that is a particularly American problem because of our history of slavery and our history of hostility to immigrants.
“-the immigration issue is a race issue…..as Trump (has said) it is about poisoning the blood. Race is at the root of all this.”
Kagan and Krystol talk at the end about violence and how this “is just getting as ugly as it can possibly be.” To me, much of this seems like a continuation of “Democracy in Chains.”
What woke me up? I was in the military and my shop supervisor happened to be a democrat. This was the early 90’s and few people in the enlisted ranks were political in any way. This was changing though. I was skeptical about the whole political thing and considered it a waste of time until I was in another shop for a couple months… where they played Rush Limbaugh loud all day long. My coworkers reciting Rush’s talking points made me a democratic for life. This and other learning experiences and events eventually led me to a revelation: being political is the primary feature of actually being an American. How can anyone claim to be a citizen if they do not exercise the most basic duty of a citizen?
We the People ARE the government and the country.
We are now apparently deciding to end the Republic, to throw away our representative democracy and become an Oligarchy, a Plutocracy. And under Trump it will be a Kleptocracy. All these terms mean something and the primary tactic of the fascists trying to end America is to confuse and complicate these concepts. Fascists calling anti-fascists fascists as “schizo-fascism”, “flooding the zone”, and inundating all channels with “the firehose of falsehood.”
Destroy the truth, stack the courts, terrorize into submission. They are eating the pets.
11:58 “The whole reason we have freedom of speech is to protect us, protect normal people, who have their own truths to tell, in a world where there are too many Trumps and too many Musks. That’s what it’s for. If it gets flipped around to be a weapon of the Trumps and the Musks, then it gets completely perverted and we have to start thinking again.”
Trump’s Tax Cut may have been like the Apollo 1 fire. Aerospace interests realized going to the Moon was going to be hard money and chose the easy money of cold war toys. The Space Age was over before it really began. In the same way the Trump Tax Cut may have ended America. I cannot shake this really bad feeling. I have also been sick three times in just over a month. I had the flu, then I had Covid for the first time, and now I am sick again. I think the stress of the last couple months may have made me vulnerable. Maybe. I rarely get sick. I worry every day about my country. I am a part-time transit driver and take people to medical appointments and I have been paying attention over the last couple months. What I see is a society of manipulated consumers and not involved citizens. And only a citizenry that are focused on their government can keep a representative democracy functioning. I have a strong feeling that 250 years of American democracy will likely be declared over by the rest of the world a few years after Trump is elected. America as We the People think of it as our collective being will be dead.
Jeff Bezos, the oligarch owner of the Washington Post, and also another less well-known billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, have both intervened to stop their newspapers from endorsing a presidential candidate. Musk has poured over a hundred million into the Trump campaign and vice-presidential candidate JD Vance is essentially the creation of Peter Thiel. We the People may be about to see the end of America. It is a truly historic moment. Yet…it seems to be business as usual. Comedians make it all a joke and the media look to make money for their advertisers. As a few super-wealthy entities are trying to end this troublesome limited rule by the lower class and take absolute power.
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Story by John Naughton for The Guardian:
There are two kinds of aphrodisiac. The first is power. A good example was provided by the late Henry Kissinger, who could hardly be described as toothsome yet was doted upon by a host of glamorous women.
The other powerful aphrodisiac is immense wealth. This has all kinds of effects. It makes people (even journalists who should know better) deferential, presumably because they subscribe to the delusion that if someone is rich then they must be clever. But its effects on the rich person are more profound: it cuts them off from reality. When they travel, writes Jack Self in an absorbing essay: “The car takes them to the aerodrome, where the plane takes them to another aerodrome, where a car takes them to the destination (with perhaps a helicopter inserted somewhere). Every journey is bookended by identical Mercedes Vito Tourers (gloss black, tinted windows). Every flight is within the cozy confines of a Cessna Citation (or a King Air or Embraer)… The ultra-rich never wait in line at a carousel or a customs table or a passport control. There are no accidental encounters. No unwelcome, unapproved or unsanitary humans enter their sight – no souls that could espouse a foreign view. The ultra-rich do not see anything they do not want to see.”
Mr Self estimates that there are currently 2,781 of these gilded creatures in the world. He divides them into two kinds: “self-made” and “second gen”. He seems to feel sorry for the latter. “To inherit a condition of unjustifiable wealth,” he writes, “means to never experience cause and effect. All external pressures are alleviated by capital: there are no consequences to missing a deadline, to not finishing a project, to dropping out or giving up. It is terrifically difficult to fail, in any normal sense.” Aw, shucks.
On his honeymoon in Rome, Zuckerberg took so many photographs of Augustus that his wife joked that it was as if there were three people on the trip
The self-made billionaire, however, is a different proposition entirely. He (and it’s overwhelmingly a male) has “a tendency towards aggressive megalomania” when confronted with opposition. Which brings us neatly to the Zuckerbergs, Musks and Thiels – the self-made titans of the tech world.
Enter Mark Zuckerberg, supreme leader of Meta (née Facebook), who looks like an aggressive megalomaniac from central casting. Even the Economist, that bastion of neoliberal baloney, saw through him early, with a famous cover in April 2016 portraying Zuck as the Emperor Augustus on a weathered throne. But the guy’s Augustan complex goes back further than the Economist realized. On his honeymoon in Rome in 2012, for example, he took so many photographs of Augustus that his wife joked it was as if there were three people on the trip.
Of late, though, Zuck seems to have gone off Augustus. In his new role as a part-time fashionista, he recently appeared in a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Aut Zuck aut nihil”, which classicists immediately recognized as a play on an early Roman political slogan: “Aut Caesar aut nihil” (“either Caesar or nothing”), signaling a determination to be supreme leader at any cost. At his 40th birthday party he wore a T-shirt with the slogan “Carthago delenda est” (“Carthage must be destroyed”). It’s not clear yet who plays the role of Carthage in this new scenario.
Elon Musk, for his part, doesn’t see any need for historical analogies to fuel his megalomania. As the writer Franklin Foer puts it, Musk has “long dreamed of redesigning the world in his own extreme image”. And Musk sees Donald Trump as the perfect Trojan horse for this purpose. Many other tech titans are supporting Trump. But Musk is “the one poised to live out the ultimate techno-authoritarian fantasy. With his influence, he stands to capture the state, not just to enrich himself. His entanglement with Trump will be an Ayn Rand novel sprung to life, because Trump has explicitly invited Musk into the government to play the role of the master engineer, who redesigns the American state – and therefore American life – in his own image.”
So, here’s the question. Here are two individuals who totally control two organizations – Facebook and X – that have had devastating impacts on the lives of some of their users (and in Facebook’s case, whole countries such as Myanmar), as well as polluting the public sphere and undermining democracy in the west. Why has neither been held accountable for the societal damage their organizations have wrought? The answer is simple: they have the impunity that their immense wealth provides.
Ice on the Moon 