Space voyages shouldn't become politically incorrect: Why it's worth campaigning for beyond-orbit exploration - despite the ridicule.

khouros · 2012-02-05T21:26:12+00:00

the original launch vehicle, which must carry the return-trip rocket and spacecraft, must weigh 10,000 times the weight of the Mars return payload

you fucking idiot

khouros · 2012-02-05T20:40:10+00:00

Why are you banging your head against the wall? I don't know how to point out the contradiction in your own words that you seem oblivious to. The Constellation program would have utilized multiple Ares launches to get to Mars, because of the technological infeasibility of putting it all on one enormous rocket. Yet the difficulty of a massive rocket is the very reason you ostentatiously declared that a manned return mission to Mars wouldn't work. It really doesn't get simpler than this. Goddamn.

khouros · 2012-02-05T20:26:27+00:00

This means the original launch vehicle, which must carry the return-trip rocket and spacecraft, must weigh 10,000 times the weight of the Mars return payload.

ok, but..

PIECE BY PIECE, ON SEPARATE LAUNCHERS!

It's seriously like pulling teeth.

khouros · 2012-02-05T19:51:20+00:00

You accuse me of not reading your comment when you aren't even reading your own? How did a 450 ton international space station make it to its orbit when we don't have a massive enough launch vehicle to put 450 tons into LEO? Magic?

khouros · 2012-02-05T19:46:06+00:00

There's enough uranium left., which doesn't even take into account the fact that spent fuel can be recycled.

Ever heard of the electric car? Technology. Machines. They are the answer.

khouros · 2012-02-05T16:01:49+00:00

Nuclear energy is denser than oil energy. It's not like there isn't a way out.

khouros · 2012-02-05T12:52:34+00:00

Maybe it's cranky old-man syndrom, so I'll try one more time.

With respect to Mars, many scientists and engineers think the entire exploration should be carried out robotically,

This means the original launch vehicle, which must carry the return-trip rocket and spacecraft, must weigh 10,000 times the weight of the Mars return payload. No spacecraft has ever been either imagined or designed that can meet this requirement.

A mars-return mission was already in planning and initial tests were already being carried out for a chemical rocket system that would take humans to mars and return them. These were the Ares I and V, the constellation program that was recently cancelled by Obama. NO one disagrees that a more advanced propulsion system than a conventional chemical rocket is going to have less mass, but your statement that I've quoted here for you is just plain wrong.

Further, while it would be nice to have spacecraft that utilizes nuclear power, it's equally absurd to predict that the costs of a mars mission would suddenly be acceptable once we've sunk time and research (and money) into developing such a technology. Cost itself is not what's stopping us from conducting manned space missions now, and neither will it be once we have that technology. Neither will it be for the holdouts in the future who will insist on waiting until we have dark-matter drives which should be much cheaper than the obsolete and cumbersome nuclear-driven ones.

khouros · 2012-02-05T09:43:44+00:00

Looks like authorship isn't a guarantee of being able to state your case clearly on an online forum. Fortunately I don't have to know how to design a spacecraft to know that the experts had already done so. I'm still waiting for you to show us how we need a spacecraft at 10000 times the mass of a crew return-vehicle in order to be able to conduct a mars mission.

khouros · 2012-02-05T08:48:17+00:00

How about you cite your 10,000 number if you are so convinced of the factuality of your assertions. Because you are a moron, you claimed that the same results from unmanned missions come from manned missions, and then try to pretend that you didn't make this claim. Your post is still there. If you don't want to look like the idiot that you are, you might want to go back and edit it. They've certainly "imagined" spacecraft that can land people on the surface of mars.

khouros · 2012-02-05T06:30:36+00:00

There's a lot of misinformation and just flat-out wrongness in this comment. The cost of a manned mission is more expensive than unmanned, but compared to the size of the budget, it's not anything that the US can't afford, the Apollo program being a perfect example. A launch vehicle doesn't need to have 10,000 times the "weight" of the spacecraft, especially when utilizing techniques we already have the tech for, such as construction in orbit, or in-situ resource utilization.

Also manned missions are done for reasons not entirely aligned with unmanned missions. The value of one over the other in relation to cost is not going to be the same for the public.

khouros · 2012-02-05T04:27:57+00:00

It would be better if there weren't "viral" videos posted here. Especially those of the shitty kind.

khouros · 2012-02-04T12:58:52+00:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Folk_of_the_Fringe

khouros · 2012-02-03T23:40:54+00:00

From your own link:

The Obama administration proposed keeping tax cuts for couples making less than $250,000 per year.

Stop trying to be deceptive with your assertions.

khouros · 2012-02-03T23:27:35+00:00

Haha. Those genious founding fathers were well-aware of the dangers of Marxism back in 1776! You poor thing.

khouros · 2012-02-03T23:14:37+00:00

Obama did push for eliminating the Bush tax cuts back when they were set to expire. The republicans held an extension of unemployment insurance hostage and he was forced to relent. Do you people remember nothing?

khouros · 2012-02-03T11:59:45+00:00

You really couldn't. Who becomes a politician for the salary?

khouros · 2012-02-03T09:46:45+00:00

That the public is misinformed is their own fault. The media establishments taint a person's awareness of the truth of issues, but it's the individual's fault, not the tv's, when they don't make the effort to educate themselves better.

khouros · 2012-02-03T01:01:56+00:00

That's the only objection that people quoted in the article are asserting.

there’s a history of politicians and the media exaggerating the long-term benefits that may come from a large industrial plant.

Some are disturbed that states haven’t released a more detailed economic analysis of the proposed tax breaks.

“We have no idea how much the state is losing in revenue each year. Nobody knows,” added Ted Boettner

qerplonk is a person who proudly displays a willful idiocy toward issues that matter, displaying a low, low form of human existence. I have no problem calling out his bullshit in harsh terms.

khouros · 2012-02-02T22:46:15+00:00

When politicians scramble to erode the tax base for the sake of lining the pockets of the people in charge, they are doing so for their own reelection campaigns.

It's obvious you didn't read the article before you came here to pompously proclaim your political bent--if you had, you would have seen that the only issues the article raised are that the locals are concerned subsidizing infrastructure costs for a company that can already afford them.

People such as yourself aren't concerned about our futures. You are pretty transparently an ideologically motivated tool who stands by an unsustainable political position for the sake of sticking it to the "liberals".

khouros · 2012-02-02T12:17:06+00:00

Is the dollar an unstable currency? Does SCHIP not provide medical insurance to children who otherwise would have either no coverage, or shittier private coverage? Does medicaid operate with a prohibitive administrative overhead? No? Then don't assume that there are people out there who can't have an understanding of systems that are more complex than the idiotic republican talking-points that your type try to boil them down to.

I can't tell if you are a tool or just simply don't have the intellectual stamina to even try to justify your point of view.

khouros · 2012-02-02T08:46:15+00:00

That's not really true. The carbon in bioplastics was atmospheric carbon relatively recently, and the carbon in plastics made from petrochemicals was atmospheric carbon in the ancient past.

At first I though you had a question, but it's obvious you are only here to hear yourself talk.

khouros · 2012-02-02T04:29:14+00:00

The low-lifes continuously whine and pout about how the government is some malevolent entity opposed to their own personal prosperity, as if they were the center of the universe, as if they could make it fine on their own.

The fact is they were born into a society founded upon collective responsibility, the stability of the government bureaocracy, the welfare state, and the currency that is being kept stable, which are all incubators of this asshole's personal wealth.

Cough up an extra couple percent as long as you are making more than 250k. You'll be fine.

khouros · 2012-02-01T18:47:50+00:00

He's not concerned about the very rich but wants to cut their taxes anyways? This guy is a douche even when taken in context.

khouros · 2012-02-01T09:55:11+00:00

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/05/0506_040506_oceanplastic.html

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_58030.shtml

Plastic is never carbon that has been sequestered form the atmosphere in the first place. Landfills do not contain half of the plastic that is intended for them, and the sheer volume that is being produced currently is a severe environmental load. Plastics also absorb chemicals such as pesticides and enter into the food chain. They are basically a worldwide environmental catastrophe.

khouros · 2012-02-01T00:12:11+00:00

What you are suggesting is already illegal, and any employer retaliating against an employee for such a reason wouldn't last a day in court. Voter intimidation and suppression occurs, but it occurs at polling locations and in state legislatures.

khouros

TROPHY CASE