Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 05:00:21 From: Space Digest maintainer Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu Subject: Space Digest V15 #265 To: Space Digest Readers Precedence: bulk Space Digest Thu, 1 Oct 92 Volume 15 : Issue 265 Today's Topics: Disney's Man in Space Military funding Monetary Magic Russia's OPERATIONAL Starwars Defense System Socialist myths about investment Space and Presidential Politics (2 msgs) Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding) What is this ? Welcome to the Space Digest!! Please send your messages to "space@isu.isunet.edu", and (un)subscription requests of the form "Subscribe Space " to one of these addresses: listserv@uga (BITNET), rice::boyle (SPAN/NSInet), utadnx::utspan::rice::boyle (THENET), or space-REQUEST@isu.isunet.edu (Internet). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Sep 92 12:46:46 GMT From: Thomas Clarke Subject: Disney's Man in Space Newsgroups: sci.space In article <27949@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM> wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Bruce Watson) writes: > > _Man in Space_ [Shown on the Disney cable channel last Sunday, September > 27, 1992 at 2:00 pm MDT] begins with the history of rocketry and explores > how humans might react in space. It ends with brilliant animation of a > manned orbital mission using a derivitive of Von Brauns multi-staged > rocket. The film aired on 9 March 1955 [a Wednesday evening--my Boy Scout > troop meeting night--I caught hell from my father for not attending.] > and viewed by nearly 100 million. Among the viewers was President > Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was so impressed that he called > Disney and asked to borrow a copy which he showed to officals at > the Pentagon over the next couple of weeks. On 29 July 1955, > Ike announced that as part of the upcoming International Geophysical > Year (IGY, 1957-58), the US would launch an earth satellite. > Bummer. I don't get Disney channel. I've been looking for this program for a while now, but no video rental/sales places seem to have it. I remember this show fondly also. It is a major reason for my nostalgia toward Saturn and discontent with the Shuttle. Saturn is a proper (Disney) rocket, whereas the Shuttle is not :-) -- Thomas Clarke Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL 12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826 (407)658-5030, FAX: (407)658-5059, clarke@acme.ucf.edu ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 92 12:30:28 GMT From: Brad Wallet Subject: Military funding Newsgroups: sci.space In article , 18084TM@msu.edu (Tom) writes: |> >As I stated in my previous post. Until the programs are set up to |> >orderly divert the money to another R and D effort, it should stay in the |> >military budget where at least it is going some good. |> |> This is plain silly! The only good the (extraneous) military budget does |> is to pay people to work. We might as well pay them to bury rocks one |> day, and dig them up the next. |> |> Cut the general tax burden by the amount cut, and the companies that |> would love to hire technically educated people will have the means |> to hire them. They don't right now, because the tax burden is too high. |> |> Also, once the people in the military are making wealth (rather than |> things like weapons, which don't get used in peacetime, and are there- |> for, not wealth) the general prosperity of the country will improve. |> |> This extra wealth could easily cover the R&D the military does, |> especially if you buy the argument that military R&D is not as |> valuable as, say, car R&D or VCR R&D. What would a VCR look like if it was built using vacuum tubes? Why was the IC developed? To make computers fit into ICBM's and SLBM's. How much did the first, very simple IC's cost? Over $1000 dollars a piece. That was a lot of money back then. Only the defense of our nation could justify such outlays. But, imagine where we would be if the IC had been abandoned because of cost. Would it have been developed if the demands for national security hadn't required it? Someone out there will surely say yes, but I am sure that the true answer is probably no. Fact is that the technical challenges faced as a part of military R&D are the most difficult taken on in today's society. Top dollar is payed to do RDT&E of these systems because the results of failure can be the destruction of our society. Insane spending turns out to be sound economic policy. Truth is the R&D you talk of rarely pushes the extremes of technology and therefore does an order of magnitude less to futher mankind. Someone last week stated that the computer on every desktop was the major computer innovation of the last decade. This was merely applying and improving technology which was develop for military (and to some degree space) usage. Biomolecular computing, now that is innovation. Will it be immediately available to the public? Does the public have an immediately need it? No, but one day society will. Will it be available? Only if the military is not decimated by politicians. Can the R&D be done outside of the military? I don't think so. The military has the advantage of having to solve problems. We do research, but we have a focus. Program offices want to know what your research is going to do to benefit their program. Believe it or not, those of us doing military R&D are very proud of our systems. We want to make them better. We are not simply burying rocks and dig them up. We are solving problems and developing technology which will one day be commonplace is our society. Research done for research-sake is good. It is very good. I support it. I think we don't do enough. But, military research, because of the drive to solve practical, real-world problems, is going to be less risky and most likely to lead to the everyday man's life being bettered. Perhaps, it is fair to say military research feeds off of the discoveries of purer research. So, we could hypothesize a pure to military/space to business to household model of the passing of technology. Could the military research and develop systems but not field them? I used to favor this method. You get the R&D benefits of the military. You decide that the current ability of the military can meet the current threat. You work to ensure that when a new threat arises, we will be ready. But, I see three problems with this. Fielding systems leads to the price dropping to the point where businesses can afford to invest (see the IC), true feedback and therefore tasking only really comes from the use of the system in the field, and the current capabilities are not able to meet the current threat. ------------------------------------------------- Brad Wallet Mathematician bwallet@see.nswc.navy.mil Naval Surface Warfare Center (703)663-4950 (AVN)249-4950 DSMAC - "Tomahawk's Eyes" "I can neither confirm nor deny that these opinions are entirely my own and may or may not reflect those of the US Navy." ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 92 12:43:42 GMT From: Thomas Clarke Subject: Monetary Magic Newsgroups: sci.space In article henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > The way to handle this is to think capitalist, not socialist. Sell the > Pershings at a competitive market price for sounding rockets of that size. > Use the revenues to fund a one-time-only launch-grant program for the > experimenters: show your payload ready for launch, get a voucher good > for $XXX toward one launch, first come first served, until the money from > the Pershings runs out. Same net result, but without the destructive > side effects on the industry. Run that by a little slower. A sells to B. A gives money to C. C buys from B. B has net near zero (buys and sells). C has net near zero (receives and buys). A has net near zero (gives and sells). Amazing. Of course the taxpayer paid for the item in the first place. But then the taxpayer received good value in the form of military security :-? -- Thomas Clarke Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL 12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826 (407)658-5030, FAX: (407)658-5059, clarke@acme.ucf.edu ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 92 13:14:36 GMT From: mcelwre@cnsvax.uwec.edu Subject: Russia's OPERATIONAL Starwars Defense System Newsgroups: sci.space RUSSIA'S OPERATIONAL STAR WARS DEFENSE SYSTEM In February 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin proposed to the United States and the United Nations a global defense shield (with "Star Wars"-type weapons) BASED ON RUSSIAN TECHNOLOGY. Some people might wonder what the "backward" Russians could possibly have that would be of value for the S.D.I. research and development program. The little-known TRUTH is that the Russians started deploying an OPERATIONAL "Star Wars" defense system in September 1977, and it has greatly grown and improved since that time. It is a SPACE TRIAD built around CHARGED-PARTICLE BEAM and NEUTRON PARTICLE BEAM WEAPONS. In this article I will describe the Russian system as it developed from 1977 to 1983, and give several examples of how it was used during that period. But first I will try to convince readers of the credibility of my main source of information about it. My main source is articles published in a weekly legislative newspaper, WISCONSIN REPORT (WR), of Brookfield, Wisconsin, (P.O. Box 45, zip 53005), written by the late Dr. Peter David Beter, a well-respected Washington, DC attorney, Doctor of Jurisprudence, and expert and consultant in international law, finance, and intelligence, who received much of his information from associates in the CIA and other intelligence groups of other countries who disapproved of many of the things happening or being planned behind the scenes. They believed that at least limited public exposure might delay and ultimately prevent the worst of those things, such as NUCLEAR WAR and NATIONAL DICTATORSHIP, from taking place. Dr. Beter started appearing on local radio and TV talk shows, but soon found himself being BANNED from them, as a result of government THREATS to cancel broadcast licenses. So he started producing monthly one-hour cassette tapes and sending them to a growing list of subscribers. From June 21, 1975 until November 3, 1982 he recorded eighty "Dr. Beter Audio Letters" plus eight "Audio Books" and three special topic tapes. On September 1, 1977 Wisconsin Report started publishing transcripts of those tapes. Based on information from his sources, Dr. Beter PREDICTED the bombing of the Marines in Beirut A FULL YEAR BEFORE IT HAPPENED, WARNING that the U.S. Pentagon and the Israeli Mossad were CONSPIRING TO DELIBERATELY ARRANGE IT in order to try to get Americans angry at the Arabs and generate public support for PLANNED military action against them. He reported the impending assassination of Anwar Saddat of Egypt SIX DAYS BEFORE IT HAPPENED. And Dr. Beter predicted what he called the "retirement" of Leonid Brezhnev one week before Brezhnev officially "died" (note that the word "retirement" was used for the TERMINATION OF REPLICANTS in the 1982 movie "Blade Runner"), and his quick replacement with Andropov which occurred only three days after the "death" of Brezhnev, to the surprise of all government and media analysts. Subscription application and renewal forms for Dr. Beter's tapes would usually say, "Subscribe to the Dr. Beter Audio Letter and watch the news start making sense." RUSSIA'S SPACE TRIAD OF STAR WARS WEAPONS In September 1977 the Russians started launching MANNED killer satellites, called "COSMOS INTERCEPTORS", armed with CHARGED-PARTICLE BEAM weapons, into earth orbit, (12-15-77 WR). By April 1978 there were about THREE DOZEN of them, and they had FINISHED DESTROYING all American spy and early warning satellites, (5-18-78 WR). On September 27, 1977, in what Dr. Beter called "THE BATTLE OF THE HARVEST MOON", a Cosmos Interceptor in Earth orbit used a NEUTRON-PARTICLE BEAM to wipe out a secret American laser-beam base nearing operational status in Copernicus Crater on the Moon, (11-3-77 WR). The Russians quickly deployed their own military bases on the Moon, the second leg of their space triad, starting on October 4, 1977, with seven EXTREMELY POWERFUL charged-particle beam weapons BASES on the near side of the Moon and three support bases on the far side, (2-9-78 WR). The first test of the Moon base weapons occurred on November 19, 1977, ironically at about the same time as the release of the first "Star Wars" movie with its "death star" weapon. The Russians were aiming at the eye of a cyclone near India. But they miscalculated the deflection of the beam by the Earth's magnetic field, and the beam struck the ocean too close to the shore causing a TIDAL WAVE that killed many people, (2-9-78 WR). A blast of charged-particle beams from two or more of the Russian Moon bases fired in quick succession would create the DESTRUCTIVE EFFECT OF A HYDROGEN BOMB on its target. The third leg of Russia's triad of space weapons is the "COSMOSPHERES". The first-generation Cosmospheres were weapons platforms that were ELECTRO-GRAVITIC (could hover against gravity), ATOMIC POWERED, horizontally positioned by rocket thrusters, somehow invisible to radar beyond about 40 miles (perhaps from a radar-absorbing coating), armed with CHARGED-PARTICLE BEAM weapons (at least a hundred times less powerful than those in the Moon bases), equipped with "PSYCHO-ENERGETIC RANGE FINDING" (PRF) which tunes in to the actual ATOMIC SIGNATURE of a target or object and canNOT be jammed, and some of them were also armed with microwave BRAIN-SCRAMBLING equipment. In late 1977 and early 1978, there was a strange rash of giant AIR BOOMS along the east coast of the United States and elsewhere. These air booms were NEVER satisfactorily explained, by either the government, the scientific establishment, or the news media. They could NOT be positively identified with any particular Super Sonic Transport plane (SST) or other aircraft, and indeed they were MUCH LOUDER than aircraft sonic booms. The giant airbooms were actually caused by Russian Cosmospheres firing CHARGED- PARTICLE BEAMS down into the atmosphere in a DEFOCUSED MODE (spread out) for the purpose of announcing their presence to the WAR-MONGERS in the United States Pentagon, (2-9-78 WR). The main purpose of any "Star Wars" defense system is to protect a country against nuclear attack. During the weekend of January 20, 1980, Russian Cosmospheres accomplished such a mission. A NUCLEAR FIRST STRIKE against Russia by the then BOLSHEVIK-CONTROLLED United States was being started with a total of 82 special secret aircraft that can sneak up to a country's shoreline under water, surface, change configuration, take off, and fly at treetop level to their targets. Dr. Beter describes part of the action in his Audio Letter #53, recorded on January 21, 1980: "At that point the real action got under way, in the Caspian Sea and off northern Norway. The Subcraft, with Israeli pilots, were on their way. They were traveling under water on the first legs of their attack missions.... "Late Saturday night, Washington time, a coded signal was flashed to the Subcraft to continue as planned. By that time, the northern contingent of Subcraft were in the White Sea. The southern contingent had reached the north end of the Caspian Sea. It was already daylight, Sunday morning, the 20th, for the Subcraft contingents. Their orders were to wait out the day under water, out of sight; then, after nightfall, they were to continue their steady approach to get close to their targets. The Subcraft were maintaining strict radio silence. They were also deep enough under water to be invisible from the air to either the eye or radar, yet they were also hugging the shoreline in water too shallow for Russian sonar to pick them up. And their infrared signatures were negligible as the result of extensive development. In short, by the standards of Western technology, they were undetectable. But in AUDIO LETTER No. 42 I revealed Russia's master secret weapon. It is called "Psycho-energetic Range Finding" or PRF. It is unlike sonar and similar techniques. PRF tunes in to the actual atomic signature of a target, and there is no method known by which PRF can be jammed. "By deploying their Navy to the Arabian Sea, the Russians are pretending to be fooled by the Bolshevik distraction with the aircraft carriers. In this way they encouraged the Bolsheviks to launch the Subcraft toward their targets. They waited until the Subcraft were far away from their bases and out of sight of the Bolsheviks, who are directing the American first-strike operation. But the whole time they were being tracked by Cosmospheres overhead using PRF, and shortly after 1:00 A.M. yesterday morning Eastern Standard Time the Cosmospheres began firing their Charged Particle Beam Weapons. There were 10 Subcraft in the White Sea. Each disappeared in a blinding blue white water spout of steam, smoke, and fire. In the north end of the Caspian there were 19 Subcraft--they, too, met the same fate.", (2-7- 80 WR). The 3rd-generation Russian JUMBO COSMOSPHERES were first deployed in April 1981, in parallel with the first U.S. Space Shuttle mission. They significantly interfered with that MILITARY mission, in ways which were successfully covered up by NASA using techniques similar to those shown in the movie "Capricorn I", (5-7-81, 5-14-81, and 5-21-81 WR). Jumbo Cosmospheres are much larger than the 1st- generation models, and use ELECTROMAGNETIC PROPULSION instead of rocket thrusters to move around. For about two years after Dr. Beter stopped recording his Audio Letters in November 1982 (because of heart trouble), his distributor, Audio Books, Inc., published some newsletters titled "NewsALERT", using information passed on to them by Dr. Beter or received directly from his sources. A special supplementary issue, dated March 26, 1984, describes how Russian Jumbo Cosmospheres captured two communication satellites right after launch from U.S. Space Shuttle Mission #10, found anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles mounted on one of them, and dumped both satellites into useless orbits. NASA had fun TRYING to explain two-in-a-row failures of a highly reliable PAM-D satellite booster. Russia's offer to share their "Star Wars" defense system with the rest of the world might also extend to SCIENTIFIC SPACE EXPLORATION. For example, the United States is planning to send two unmanned flyby and sample-return space missions to a comet. These missions would cost BILLIONS of dollars, take fifteen years from now to complete, and could FAIL in DOZENS of ways. A Russian Jumbo Cosmosphere could complete a MANNED version of such a mission in a matter of MONTHS, if they have not already done so, since these Cosmospheres can accelerate continuously. Note that the United States has announced a deal to purchase at least one SPACE REACTOR from Russia. Now you know what the Russians originally developed and used them for. UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED. Robert E. McElwaine B.S., Physics and Astronomy, UW-EC ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 92 07:50:12 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Socialist myths about investment Newsgroups: sci.space,misc.invest,alt.politics.marrou,alt.politics.libertarian In article <1992Sep29.013519.2777@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes: >In article <1992Sep28.124207.3862@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes: > >>Chevron, and other utilities and quasi-utilities do make long range >>investments, but the overall risks are low and well understood. > >They are well understood, for the most part. They are not low, as >you yourself note the high rate of dry holes -- sometimest whole fields >end up dry. There are also less-well understood risks, such as the >political climate in Russia. (Or in the U.S.!) The risks are low. The ratio of dry holes to producing wells is well understood, and getting better with time. Meanwhile the value of a producing well continues to increase. For a single wildcatter, drilling wells is risky, but for a large company drilling lots of wells, the statistical risk becomes very low that they will incur greater drilling costs than they will recoup from producing wells. Political issues are a separate case. Multinationals spend large sums attempting to control and dominate local political situations in order to minimize these risks. >This doesn't stop them when the product they are after is useful, >people will be it, and they'll make money. It should stop >them when there is little desirable product or service, like the projects >you are promoting. The oil exploration business was a wildcatter's nightmare up until the 1950s when the exploration business matured. You're trying to equate the risks involved in a mature industry with one that is in it's infantcy. Better examples are the transcontinental railroads and land grant universities. Seed support from the government was required because the benefits of the operations were diffused amongst a large population that was not directly involved in operations. This decoupling of risks and benefits is common in the start up phase of large industries. >>When the risks of space exploitation reach similarly low and well understood >>levels, there won't be a problem with investor owned utilities working >>in space. Comsats have already reached that point. > >Were comsats at that point in 1962, when AT&T had invested over $300 >million ($92) of its own money, and Hughes a big chunk of its own >money, before NASA stepped in and claimed credit and Congress forced >AT&T out of the business? One wonders why comsats reached that >point so quickly, while we've spent $100's of billions on astronaut >projects and space stations that never have. It must be "short-term >thinking" to spend money wisely and do something useful. Your distorted view of comsats and manned space is well known. Those interested can refer to the archives. I'll only note here that the tiny sums you list rode on the back of many billions of government investment in military and civilian launcher technology and electronic miniaturization technology. These expenditures, many of which returned no profit to the government, were necessary before the pittances you mention could leverage any advantage. The initial infrastructure investment required for space exploitation is large, and the initial investors often see little or no return. As with other large enterprises, the pioneers often go broke and it is those who stand on their shoulders who profit. You are like someone belittling Goddard because it was Von Braun who capitalized on his work. The government has served as the pioneer in space exploration so that others can come along later and stand on the shoulders of that work to reach profitability. >>Nowhere has anyone yet hit a gusher in space that justifies >>a lot of dry holes. > >In fact, we are learning about the Jupiter-family comets, which will >be the oilfields of the 21st century, fueling the cargo rockets >plying between the planets major and minor. It's just that >NASA and most space fandom is living back in the 1960's, So you claim. Show us the gusher. List it on a profit and loss sheet. Your space development claims are paper airplanes. *If* and when someone hits the gusher, it will likely be government funded because there is no track record of success on which a wildcatter can base his investments. >when socialism was the utopia and the space program the epitomy of >the glories of socialism, and who gave a damn if it was useful. >Too many still live under the delusion that NASA is providing a >rational vision for space development. It should be commerce, or at >least an applications and business orientation, providing the leadership, >not a washed-up "vision" of yesteryear that has already squandered >$100's of billions from our treasury. Oh blah blah blah. We've heard this tired old tune from you over and over. It's still nonsense. Show us *any* private alternative that has shown a profit that didn't ride the back of government investments in space. Your private space utopias have no counterparts in reality. The government has paid for the first steps of every viable space technology and enterprise. Where were you complaining about government funding of Atlas and Titan launchers? Where were you complaining about government funding of IC development? Where were you complaining about Vanguard launches? None of those showed a profit for the government. Yet all of them were necessary for commercial comsats of today to show a profit. 20/20 hindsight shows cheaper and faster alternatives to some of those approaches, but no one knew that at the time. That's why it's called research. So all of the government's investments in space haven't shown profits yet, so what, they're not supposed to show a profit. They are the necessary first steps to gaining the experience that will allow later investments to show profits. The industries that will spin off of today's manned space experiments will be the comsat industries of tommorrow. No one can accurately forcast exactly *what* those industries will be. Perhaps they will be robotic manufacturing facilities benefitting from the manned research done on materials processing. We don't know, and can't know, without making the investments and doing the research. Your short term fixation would guarantee that we miss at least some of the opportunities sure to develop in space exploitation. Your viewpoint is like that of the buggy whip manufacturer making Kevlar buggy whips while missing out entirely on the automotive revolution. Current business knowledge doesn't scale into a future dependent on new technologies, and the entry costs are too high for speculative investment on the necessary scale by anyone other than the government. Manned research is still the most productive approach to exploring new processes and techniques. Until robots are developed with the capabilities of a man on the spot, they will remain so. Once research is done, automated systems can often be realistically designed for the routine exploitation of the research results, but the first steps are essential to the success of the latter effort. Gary ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 92 06:46:29 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Space and Presidential Politics Newsgroups: sci.space In article <6858@transfer.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes: >In article amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk >writes: >> As has been said before, the sum total of everyone's special >> interests is the public interest, NOT what the political pundits >> claim is the public interest. For some on this news group space >> (read: the future) IS the defining issue. That is their right and >> perogative. Who gives a damn what the Washington Post says anyway? > >The problem with this is that I've met some space enthusiasts >over the years who would vote for Adolf Hitler if they thought >he would support a strong space program. Almost ANY issue has >to be put in perspective, and balanced off against others. A >candidates view of space explorations is ONE issue by which I >judge the candidate. You can argue about whether it should be >one of the most important ones or one of the minor ones, but it >certainly should not be the ONLY one. Single issue voting has a long and distinguished history. It *is* true that the public interest is the sum of everyone's special interests and single issue voting is the best way to express that. I'm certainly not going to vote for a candidate who opposes my special interests any more than I expect others to do so. *I'm* not the public interest. *I* can't speak for the public interest. Only the *sum* of individual voter interests can do that. Attempting to play statesman in the voting booth is a sure way to let the media and campaign advertising dominate the election process as voters base their votes on what they are *told* rather than on what they *know*. I say stick to the issues you know when making up your mind about whom to vote for or against, and let others do the same. The result will be a true expression of the public's interests. Gary ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 92 12:03:32 GMT From: John Roberts Subject: Space and Presidential Politics Newsgroups: sci.space -From: mwgoodman@igc.apc.org (Mark Goodman) -Subject: Space and Presidential Politics -Date: 27 Sep 92 23:52:00 GMT -Reply-To: mwgoodman@igc.org -This newsgroup has recently contained some rather absurd opinion -and speculation about the effect of a Clinton/Gore administration -on the space program. The simple facts are that neither party has -said much about what they would do Actually, both the Bush and Clinton space platforms have been posted. The observation that most people apparently don't read them before posting on the subject (or else make comical "translations" and insist on regarding only those) is a separate issue. -and that the issue is rightly peripheral to the campaign. In practice that has been the case because the two platforms are so similar that there's not a whole lot to discuss. Either Clinton or Bush could have written the numerous speeches at the World Space Congress on what directions the space program needs to take. -Others have followed the bizarre chain of logic that 1) Clinton -wants to spend a little bit of money on what appear to be sensible -things, 2) he will have to cut something else and 3) NASA is the -only game in town (ever hear of agricultural subsidies?), so 4) -Clinton will clobber NASA. Another chain of logic seems to go -like this 1) Clinton wants to cut military spending a tad more -than Bush does, 2) a lot of defense is aerospace, 3) NASA is -aerospace, so 4) Clinton wants to cut NASA. I would call these examples of the popular game of "The Candidate Said". Somebody makes up a statement or position and attributes it to a candidate, then everybody else holds the candidate responsible for that statement or position, because "the candidate said it". Almost all of the hundreds of political analyses posted to sci.space have been of this type. Any comments on the political situation are my own opinions/interpretations, and are not intended to be campaigning or an endorsement of any party or candidate. John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 92 08:27:23 GMT From: Gary Coffman Subject: Wealth in Space (Was Re: Clinton and Space Funding) Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton In article <28SEP199219445933@judy.uh.edu> wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes: >In article <1992Sep28.175027.25554@eng.umd.edu>, sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes >> >>Basic laws of supply and demand. More goods, prices drop. >> >>I dunno, maybe everyone could have gold-plated fixtures in their bathrooms? :) >Check out your chemistry books. platinum is one of the best if not the best >chemical catalyst in existence. We use a little in every Catalytic converter >on every car in the first world. A Brinks truck comes into a factory near >Huntsville every week with a shipment of platinum for the catalytic converters >made here. Platinum is used in many industrial processes. (Some smart >researcher here should give us a breakdown). It would be wonderful if the >price of platinum would drop by a factor of 10. Then there would only be >100 billion dollars worth on the asteriod BUT consumption would go way up and >some industrial processes would become more efficient due to the new cost >effectiveness of using the lower cost patinum. Therefore demand would >increase greatly, while lowering the cost of our overall industrial process. Actually, catalysts aren't consumables by definition. There doesn't really look like a viable demand for a tenfold increase in catalyst use in the chemical industry even with a tenfold price decrease. >If this were an American enterprise, this could put our basic industries >that rely on platinum based catalytic processes to become more cost >competitive on a world basis, which would help ease our balance of payments >burden and begin to bring terrestrial wealth back into this nation. Not a >bad deal actually. Only going to sell to Americans eh? What about the reduced world demand for Earth bound supplies of platinum as the US leaves the terrestrial market? Won't that lower the price for our foreign competitors too? >What about gold? Well if the price dropped by a factor of ten, there would >only be nine billion dollars worth of gold. Well that puts gold at a price >in the $30-$40 dollar range. This would bring much more demand for gold, >especially in electronics packaging which is where the majority of gold >is used today. This lowering of cost, if an American enterprise would make >our electronics industry more competitive on a global basis, therefore >bringing more wealth into this nation, creating jobs for the educated, and >providing money for needed social services as well as for the bread and >circuses crowd in Congress. Not a bad deal actually. Same problem. *World* prices drop, no competitive advantage. Meanwhile all those folks with gold jewelry see their investments dwindle. >I haven't mentioned the Nickel and Iron that makes up the vast majority of >the asteroid. There is probably a couple of trillion tons of smelter grade >nickel/iron (read steel) available on that one asteriod. What would this >do? It would effectively end all iron importation to the United States, >(We mine very little these days ourselves). This would help in our >balance of payments. Most imported iron ore comes from our friends to the north. We already have a trade surplus with them. They might be very unhappy with us and stop buying our goods. >Also, the vast quantity of material could be used >in places where it is not cost effective to do so today, such as in the >primary structures of bridges and buildings. Stainless steel, which this >material basically is, would last five hundred years between needed replacement >on bridges in the Northeastern US and Europe, vastly lowering maintance >and replacement costs for our interstates. (Remember that a recent estimate >placed this cost in the 200 billion dollar range in the next 20 years). 2,000 year old stone Roman bridges are still in daily use. It's amazing how good engineering can make non-stainless steel things last. We use as little iron in our bridge designs as we can for the simple reason that other methods and materials are better. Stainless steel really isn't corrosion free, nor is it fatigue free. Making bridges from it won't make them last 500 years unless the entire bridge is *designed* to last 500 years. We know how to do that now. The *Romans* knew how to do that, and *did* do that. It's just not cost effective to do it in most cases, even if stainless steel were free. Materials cost are a small fraction of construction costs, and welding stainless is a bitch. >This of course would free up billions to be used for bread and circuses as >well as to buy back our country from the Japanese and other foreigners. Not >a bad deal for ONE asteroid. > >Then after all of these goodies, a much larger fraction of the American >people would have the wealth to buy gold plated bathroom fixtures. > >Not a bad deal really Show us a way to *deliver* the materials of the asteroid to the Earth's surface in *ready to use* form for less than 109 billion dollars. Those gold and platinum *estimates* aren't in nice pure lumps. They're spread throughout that couple of trillion tons of stainless steel ore. Now we're talking $20 a ton material that will need hundreds of dollars an ounce worth of processing to get at that platinum and gold. Makes a big difference. Don't pull another dinosaur killer in the process. Gary PS We already have an asteroid supplying us with nickel iron. It's convienently located at Sudbury. You can reach it by *train*. You can even *walk* to it if you like. No need for expensive "astronaut" programs. :-) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 14:58:31 MET From: PHARABOD@FRCPN11.IN2P3.FR Subject: What is this ? Henry Spencer writes (29 Sep 92 19:38:03 GMT): >In article PHARABOD@FRCPN11.IN2P3.FR writes: >>Have the U.S. some kind of RPV with such performances ? > >If so, it is secret, so why bother asking? Because here in Western Europe, we don't like behavior in the KGB style, especially when it's over our heads... Well, maybe it was the Russians ? "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and craps like a duck, I call it a duck." J. Pharabod ------------------------------ End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 265 ------------------------------