Moontanman

They've already sent us a communique, 65,000,000 years ago, they are awaiting our reply...

Time Cube? I want a Time Cube!

Most of the public skepticism around UFOs come from the crazies who seem to think it's their life's calling to fake them and the US Air Force's totally unscientific drive to explain away any and all sightings, no matter what, as natural or man made. The debunking has mostly been bunk but that doesn't make any unknown light in the sky an alien space craft either...

Only a bush league god then? About a year ago i checked out yahoo chat, I spent some time lurking to see how the bots work, bots out number humans 10 to one at least. In some cases the bots will respond to anyone who posts with a limited number of responses. In some cases the bots will make a statement every couple of minutes, this often results in a string of bots replying to other bots. The resulting "conversations" often even make a strange kind sense. Some bots will respond to certain key words like "human" or "real" and proclaim themselves to be real humans. It's eerie to watch...

D.H. is correct, there is a wide gulf between what we can do today and what we might be able to do today, i didn't mean to imply the Nuclear Light Bulb Rocket could be made easily, next week or next year but as things stand now we will never even try, I wanted to point out that going into space in a big way did not require Star Trek type technology or technologies beyond our current ability or understanding. The NLBR is a good example of technology that could give us a huge leg up into the Solar System and still be with in the bounds of what we can do with out defying the laws of nature or even really stretching our technology. I do not think chemical rockets will ever be enough to do what we need to do much less what we want to do. I do indeed have great respect for NASA, they do some astounding things with very little money, it's real science and D.H was correct in pointing out the reality of the situation to us. I make no apologies for being pro nuclear, in the long run nuclear power is the only way we will be able to capitalize on the resources of the solar system. personally i think nuclear power s the key to our continued civilization on this one small planet, at least if we continue to insist on uncontrolled growth. I honestly think that our continued fear and loathing of anything nuclear is either something we will get over or we will die clinging to that out modded and totally unreasonable fear. It bothers me quite a bit there is no trace of Anthony Tate that would suggest he has any real connection with NLBR, it also bothers me quite a bit that there is nothing to support at least the testing of gaseous core nuclear reactors. It's quite possible I've been punked, it happens, but I remain staunchly pro-nuclear power, both on the Earth and in space. it is off topic here but i think nuclear power is completely supportable as a power source for our civilization.

I think it was mentioned earlier that generally when it's cold and the humidity is very high it is often cloudy which helps prevents sharp temperature drops. I've seen ice condense directly out of the air twice in 40 years of living near the ocean and seeing cold wet air. interestingly enough both times it was a clear sky and wet air that allowed this to happen, radiative cooling under clear skies allowed the moisture to condense directly into ice while I was fishing, everything became covered in ice over a few minutes as the temps fell.

You didn't read the article, you skimmed it, saw what you wanted to read and dismissed the rest.... It might be badly written science fiction but they did indeed address safty issues... http://www.nuclearspace.com/Liberty_ship_pg10.html Then there is this as well, is he lying or misleading us? If you are going to ridicule this mans article at least read it, I've exchanged e-mails with him, he is a very reasonable human being, I don't think he is a pro nuclear crazy or writing science fiction except in the sense that is it a fictitious account of what we could do with current technology if we could get past the idea that nuclear is evil.... I know only solid core reactor rockets have ever been built and they were never run at full power (I can't confirm this) I've always had my doubts about the reality of the solid core rocket and the real world results of running a ceramic core near it's melting point for long periods of time. If I remember correctly hot spots caused by vibrational cracking of the ceramics severely limited their power output. Out in space a low power version of the solid core reactor could give you low level thrust of a stripped down reactor and use several different liquids as mono propellant, no oxidizer needed, just heat the reactor up and spray the hydrogen or water or ammonia into the reactor, it would have to be wildly inefficient but if you were in the outer solar system in slow orbits it might make sense, maybe with robotic missions. The space craft could refuel it's self by just finding a chuck of frozen ice of some sort and using it as reaction mass.

Thanks Shoneswa for resurrecting this thread, i also live in an area where we get very moist but cold air in the winter. I have to admit that cold moist air does feel colder than cold dry air but I think it has to do with water droplets in the air. I used to love to fish on the local fishing piers in the winter at night, very few things feel colder than being out over cold water with cold moist air blowing over your body. It seems to creep into clothing in a way that cold dry air cannot, impossibly it almost feels like the cold is radiating into you like heat does when you stand in front of a heater. But one thing that cold wet air seems to have that dry air doesn't is mist, when you have very high humidity and very cold air the water will condense out of the air column onto your skin and clothing, something about air being very close to 100% humidity and moving over a surface that makes it condense out of the air column. All surfaces get moist and the cold feels worse than dry air. I'm not sure it is worse but it certainly feels that way. Even if you can't see a mist there often is one when water comes close to it's freezing point and close to 100% humidity.

So if Queen Isabella and Spain had been researching better birch bark canoes Columbus should never have been financed? If you read the article I don't understand what you are trying to say and if you didn't you missed quite an interesting description of why nuclear power is not as dangerous as the general population thinks it is. If you didn't read the article you should, but either way your analogy still makes no sense to me.... Those movies had no basis what so ever in reality, gaseous core nuclear reactors have been made.... they work, they are not some twisted idea of a movie writer who wanted to scare people... There are many advanced technologies that we need to perfect before we start to build huge planet changing things like space elevators, space colonies or terra form planets much less star ships and we need these technologies to get to the point where we can see if things like lasers and plasma beams to what ever can be done. The sad thing is that a great many people do not see the need for incremental steps, we cannot leap to some sort of antimatter drive until we complete the steps in between where we are and where we want to be. One of the most important things to remember here is that the space program is not expensive, the budget for NASA is almost an after thought, something politicians can pledge to do something about (one way or another) with out having any real effect on the whole but make themselves look like they are doing something, much like a whipping boy that is trotted out by which ever side needs to make a point at the time. This is as silly as playing the lotto to make money, spend a couple bucks to win $200,000,000, can it happen sure it can but do you want your future to depend on winning the lotto? Of course not, we as a species or at the very least as a society need to invest our money wisely and space travel will almost certainly pay off in the future. The question is do we invest now to make sure we have what we need later or do we spend our money on huge amounts of silliness that will never amount to anything but more people on increasingly smaller planet or do we invest a reasonable sum to try and escape that eventuality? i say we invest money in the technology of space travel, real technology, and if by chance we win the lotto then great, but if we don't invest now we will end up with lots of worthless lotto tickets and nothing to show for it. Make no mistake, we need to stop pretending that NASA is too expensive to support, NASA is too important not to finance, it's certainly more important than a new way to murder other people more efficiently ...

lol, I don't think there was much point when he was here either....

Isp is a good comparator of different methods of propelling a rocket, i am aware there are others but Isp is simple and easy to understand. i understand that air breathing engines can be used with in the atmosphere but the last I read the added weight and complexity of the air breathing engines off set any advantage to using them, of course I am always prepared to read a different assesment....

You made the claim that there is room for much improvement in chemical rockets, I didn't ask about ion or any other type of propulsion. Jet engines do not work in space, yes they can be used to get a rocket closer to space but in space a jet engine is dead weight. Now I'll ask again exactly what immense break through in chemical rockets are you talking about? The space shuttles main engines are as good as it gets with chemicals (you can do a tiny bit better with fluorine instead of oxygen but the result is nasty and very dangerous) Chemical rockets are at their peak at a Isp of 450, solid core nuclear rockets Isp top out at about 900, gasious core nuclear light bulb rockets top out with an Isp of about 5000. If "there remains significant room for improvement in chemical propulsion" I'd like to know what it is because ions aren't going to get us off the ground any time soon, neither is plasma or lasers or microvaves so if you know of a chemcial rocket fuel with significantly more power than the space shuttles main engines please let us in on the secrete... Of course once you get into space there is this one.... capable of 3.6% of the speed of light? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_salt-water_rocket Lots of "far out" stuff that "could" be used that is not science fiction just but still improbable... There is no doubt that nuclear power has some real baggage to get to the curb, my generation grew up ducking and covering and watching the radioactive thing that ate the world moves and being in constant fear of a nuclear strike while we lay in bed at home after the movie. Then all you heard was how nuclear power was evil it killed small furry things and more or less just ruined your day if you even thought of it. I'm not sure how or even if we will find a way to get this baggage to the curb and into the taxi to the space port but if we want to expand into space or even explore it we will need nuclear power in one way or another... If anyone hasn't read this article please do so it contains some interesting comparisons of the dangers of nuclear power and how risk mitigation helps us control any damage. http://www.nuclearspace.com/Liberty_ship_menupg.html

Would you care to elaborate on that? Exactly what chemical reaction can we use to get better than 450 isp?

Rigney, Bigfoot is, to me at least, quite a bit more laughable than little green men. If Bigfoot was really running around we would eventually find one hit by a car if nothing else. Some very rare animals are hit and killed on our nations highways routinely, some animals have few major predators other than automobiles,(sadly as well as lot of not so rare but becoming rare animals as well) if there were any "bigfeet" we would have found a few dead by car at the very least but no evidence of Bigfoot has ever been found other than easily faked foot prints. No hair, no blood, no shit, no DNA evidence at all! There are tiny animals that are so rare there are only a handful alive but we have hair, blood, shit, and DNA (all collected from the wild I should add) for them and know quite a bit about them but there is no evidence what so ever there has ever been an ape at all in North America much less a 10 foot tall bipedal ape. As for LGM, it's remotely possible that there are short green colored aliens that are shaped like men. Highly improbable in my estimation but still possible but both phenomena fail due to popular idea of trying to prove something by faking it well enough to fool everyone, both ideas are part of a poisoned well of information that it will take an actual alien or Bigfoot in the flesh before it will be taken seriously. There is some really compelling evidence to back up UFOs if not LGM but at the end of the day it's still just eye witness accounts of something not understood at this time... but you and I could be executed with far less evidence.... This has nothing to do with bigfoot...

I love polls, 50% of everyone thinks everyone else is crazy....

I'm not sure if this applies to cock roaches but... http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent425/tutorial/respire.html Insect blood... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemolymph

I found this on google. http://www.earthlife.net/birds/breath.html

The difference between the political right and the left One side says... I'll try to reduce piss robot spending by 25%! The other side says... I'll ask them not to aim for our mouths!

I honestly think you are correct, I hope it was just that, a coincidence, but I do have to say (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that I seldom see Democrats (actually I've never seen it) using such violent, very much provocative imagery in their campaigns (yeah i know the atom bomb blast 40 years ago, I remember seeing the commercial, it was crazy and i doubt any garage nuclear physicists got an a-bomb going in their garage because of it, so get over it) republicans seem to really get off on the whole violent imagery thing, they do it quite well I have to admit. Guns and gun and or hunting images makes many Liberals very uncomfortable, (bunny huggers, almost certainly why the Republicans use them) but not me, I like guns, I like knowing I can defend myself against maybe not all but most reasonable threats (I can reach out and touch someone if I really need to), but i also know quite a few people who i am uncomfortable to know they have guns because they have no damn sense what so ever and seem to to think that violence is not just coming, they want it, they want it so bad they do their best to not only be ready they instigate violence at every opportunity hoping an all out war against their own country men will happen, now that makes me uncomfortable. I'd like to see some evidence of that violence, i am sure in every election there are idiot's that think it's time to "party" but widespread organized violence? I'd have to see some evidence for that as well.

I'm not sure if this counts but when I was 12 years old I planted about 200 hybrid long leaf pine trees, I planted them myself as part of a state wide program. It took me three weeks to plant them, when I was 12 that seemed like forever, lol. There are now about 75 to 100 of them still standing, they are all in the 100'+ range tall and more than 2' thick, I think i made my carbon foot print a little smaller by planting those trees.

It lands the same way it takes off, tail first, used to be a complete discription of the Nuclear Light bulb rocket liberty ship at that site, I'll search and see if i can find it again. The entire article... http://www.nuclearspace.com/Liberty_ship_menupg.html

Nuclear light bulb rocket.... http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/07/gaseous-core-nuclear-design-liberty.html

Some in this thread keep harping on NASA and saving money as though all NASA has to do is figure out how to save money and the problems will be all over. NASA is pitifully underfunded, the Iraq war spent more money in a day or two than NASA gets in a year. Cut the cost of NASA by 50% and the funding would still be a joke. Increase it by 500% and it would still be a joke. NASA does incredible things with almost no money, I have an outrageous amount of respect for NASA, if they had received 10% of what is given to the Military in the last 50 years I can't even imagine what they might have accomplished by now. BTW, a nuclear light bulb rocket of the same mass as the Saturn V could send the entire ISS into orbit in one shot with room to spare, i am talking about the entire thing, all the parts. It has taken us decades and many launches and it is still not finished with chemical rockets.

I wonder if we would be debating whether the cross hairs rhetoric was ok if someone who was running for president had a picture of the white house with a cross hairs on it as part of his campaign?

There is in fact no truth in religious dogma rigney, only faith and belief, doesn't nesesarrily mean there is no God, only there is no evidence to support that belief. Personally the problem I have with religion is that evidence is actually ignored in favor of dogma, no matter how thick the contradictions become religion sticks to it's dogma, it's a dangerous game to play with reality IMHO. Religion offers no discription of the real world that is supported by evidence, science offers plenty of real world discriptions that work quite well, god has offered nothing to help us in the real world, no pain meds, no antibiotics, no technology, nothing that helps in the real world, not even a discription of the real world we can point to and say God told us this and it was true, I think this is quite telling...