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Thread: Pilot Dating

  1. #11
    Dana's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
    You guys write a lot of complicated technical stuff. but I tho i haven't read it I am unlikley to be convinced by fiction from 1979. My question is really pretty simple. I know about com satellties and weather ones and spy ones. but otherwise why do we keep sending people up to orbit around the earth for a year. like the man who is the husband of the lady who was shot in Az. cant recall her name. What would you do for a year? What do you bring back? Cook and Columbus found vibrant and welcoming new worlds to settle with tons of natural resources and favorable to people...
    If you haven't read it then don't dismiss it. Stine's book is not fiction, it's a report on the possibilities in space. Unlimited solar energy, natural resources aka raw materials (one small nickel-iron asteroid could supply the steel needs of the world for 200 years), a place to put polluting industries, etc., etc. Mars, probably useless, ditto for the Moon except as a way station, the asteroids are where the action will be, since you don't have to lift the materials out of a deep gravity well. Right now it's all about developing the techniques to get into space and live there.

    Remember that somebody once asked Benjamin Franklin about the first hot air balloons, "Of what possible use is it?", to which he replied, "Of what possible use is a newborn baby?"

  2. #12
    Anymouse's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dana View Post
    Remember that somebody once asked Benjamin Franklin about the first hot air balloons, "Of what possible use is it?", to which he replied, "Of what possible use is a newborn baby?"
    I thought it was more along the lines of, "I know this is significant, but I don't know why."
    Someday I'll come up with something profound to put here.

  3. #13

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    Dana , if I asked anyone why small ships go into the north Atlantic, they have a real answer, there is a fishing industry. One Japanese man just paid $1.8 million dollars for a single large tuna which is the most prized fish.
    If you asked why geologists and drilling companies go around the world and off shore. there is a real answer. Why do ag chemical companies have big research labs or medical and drug companies the same. The find real products.

    By the way, I'll take your word that "one small nickle iron asteroid can supply needs for 200 years", but tell me when that was brought back, I didn't catch it on the news.
    If you don't have any more realistic or factual explanation for repeated and continuous space trips, especially to float around in the int capsule for a year, then I think it proves my point.
    By the way, some allege there are large mineral deposits on the sea floor also.
    And I don't need to read his book, we've got the gist of it from you.
    And all this has been going on for years, it didn't just start.

    I actually had some folks talk to me at Oshkosh some years ago about a lower level space flight. I think they were with the Space X group. I.m not sure if they thought I was an investor or whatever, but we really didn't go into much detail. I didn't know the pilot and wasn't really interested and it was at the Sun night party so it didn't go any farther., but I was surprised.
    Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 01-14-2020 at 10:04 AM.

  4. #14
    Dana's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
    Dana , if I asked anyone why small ships go into the north Atlantic, they have a real answer, there is a fishing industry. One Japanese man just paid $1.8 million dollars for a single large tuna which is the most prized fish.
    If you asked why geologists and drilling companies go around the world and off shore. there is a real answer. Why do ag chemical companies have big research labs or medical and drug companies the same. The find real products.

    By the way, I'll take your word that "one small nickle iron asteroid can supply needs for 200 years", but tell me when that was brought back, I didn't catch it on the news.
    If you don't have any more realistic or factual explanation for repeated and continuous space trips, especially to float around in the int capsule for a year, then I think it proves my point.
    By the way, some allege there are large mineral deposits on the sea floor also.
    And I don't need to read his book, we've got the gist of it from you.
    Pure research always pays off. Maybe not right away, often not in the manner expected, but in some way. In this case we're developing the supporting technologies. Of course we're doing it with all the inefficiency of a large government bureaucracy, but that's a separate issue.

  5. #15

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    Let's say you want to develop a material for nose cone that can stand to go from exteme heat to cold and back to heat. You can do it in a lab for perhaps a $million or as part of a space flight which likely cost $100 million.
    Same for freeze dried food, or maybe a gps system, etc. Our govt , our military industial complex is spending $11. 5 BILLION, yes that's with a B, to build a new aircraft carrier. After it sails, will your cholesterol be any lower, or your mortgage any less or it any cheaper to send your kids or grandkids to college? But hey, the space program came up with Tang, and sounds like a lot of folks are still drinking that Kool Aid, not stopping to think what all this costs or what is really the logic, if any behind it these days.

  6. #16
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    Tang was developed by General Foods before the space program even started. That (and Teflon and Velcro, which NASA didn't invent either) aren't what I'm talking about. And what does the cost of an aircraft carrier have to do with the value of space exploration?

    The ability to work in space will one day be necessary for the very survival of the human race.

  7. #17
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    Yes, Tang predates the space program. Tang came out in 1957, but it wasn't popular until they picked up on marketing it as the drink John Glenn took into space. Teflon and Velcro are even decades older. The Fisher space pen wasn't developed with NASA money, but the developer clearly did it with the goal that it be useful in space. NASA which had been using mechanical pencils did buy the already developed product. NASA laid out about $2400 total to buy a few hundred pens.

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