Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/spacedig/v15_2/v15no255.txt

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Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 05:01:20
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #255
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Mon, 28 Sep 92       Volume 15 : Issue 255

Today's Topics:
                              Alan Bean
                 ALTERNATIVE Comet Rendezvous Mission
    Atlas E and F questions ( Actually Pershing missile) (2 msgs)
                  Clinton and Space Funding (2 msgs)
           NEAR asteroid mission (but wait! There's more!)
Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding) (2 msgs)
                            overpopulation
              PUTTING VENUS IN AN ORBIT SIMILAR TO THE
            Space Platforms (political, not physical : -)

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Date: 27 Sep 92 22:46:00 GMT
From: Mike Smithwick <[e-mail]>
Subject: Alan Bean
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tanya Sienko) writes:
>[regarding astronaut Alan Bean's space artwork]
>
>I have a flyer for a half hour video documentary about Bean and his art.
>It's available from Rudy Inc., 40 Glengarry Ave., Toronto M5M 1C9, Canada.
>[phone].  $19.95 plus shipping and tax.
>
>I have not seen this video, and don't really know anything else about it
>at this time (but I'll probably buy it).
>

One of the local PBS stations broadcast that video (I assume that it
is the same one  you're talking about). And it is quite good. Some things
I didn't know about Al's work was that he'll scrape the gesso of some
of his paintings with the hammer he actually used on the moon. Other times
he'll take a lunar boot tread and "walk" it through the gesso creating
a tread texture.

They interviewed Gene Cernan who said that how much he liked Bean's
paintings and wished he could afford one.

mike



--
"There is no problem too big that can't be solved with high explosives"-Rush

Mike Smithwick - ames!zorch!mike

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 23:39:01 GMT
From: Patrick Chester <[e-mail]>
Subject: ALTERNATIVE Comet Rendezvous Mission
Newsgroups: sci.space

Just when you thought it was safe to read the newsgroups....

IT....returns.



In:
>Article 46406 of sci.space:
>From: [e-mail]
>Newsgroups: sci.space
>Subject: ALTERNATIVE Comet Rendezvous Mission
writes:

Note: Anyone who read this guy's article in sci.military a few days ago will
find more of the same. Though *I* will try to be different in my flaming. :)



         >            ALTERNATIVE Comet Rendezvous Mission

         >     The two proposed NASA comet rendezvous and sample return
         >missions are expected to cost BILLIONS of dollars, take
         >nearly 20 years from now to complete, and could FAIL in
         >DOZENS of ways!
  Could you be a little more specific about this. Like for instance, list a
  *dozen* possible failures.

         >     Therefore, I believe that NASA, the United States, and
         >the project scientists and engineers, should all SWALLOW
         >THEIR PRIDE and ask the Russians for help.  The Russians have
  Actually, I'd rather that NASA swallow its pride and open its monopoly on
  space travel to the private sector. Oh well, one can dream.
         >some equipment that could complete a MANNED comet rendezvous
         >and sample return mission, ROUND TRIP, in a matter of only a
         >couple of MONTHS!  In spite of their economic and political
         >problems, they are FAR AHEAD in space, militarily and
         >scientifically.
  Yeah, right. They're good at theoretical science, but we're actually better
  at applied science. Most Russian devices were created with technology stolen
  from the West.

  [Lawyer uncovers dastardly plot. Flem at 11 ]


         >     The Russians have spacecraft called "COSMOSPHERES",
         >which were originally built and used for "Star Wars" defense.
         >They are spherical in shape, INvisible to radar beyond about
         >50 miles away, atomic-powered [possibly Migma fUsion],
         >electro-gravitic (can hover against gravity), and equipped
  You sure it's not flubber? Or are you really talking about the standard
  levitation device in science fiction called the grav pod?
         >with "Psycho-energetic Range Finding" (PRF) which tunes-in to
         >the actual atomic signature of an object or target.
  Plagarizer! How dare you steal ideas from Japan's Mobile Suit Gundam Series!

         >     The 3rd-generation JUMBO Cosmospheres occupy more volume
         >than the Hindenburg blimp, and are ELECTRO-MAGNETICALLY
         >PROPELLED (can accelerate continuously and rapidly, and make
         >it to Saturn in three WEEKS!).  [Many of them are armed with
         >charged-particle beam weapons, neutron beam weapons, and/or
         >microwave brain-scrambling equipment!]
   Oh yeah? WE have the WAVE MOTION GUN..;)

         >     I would not be surprised if the Russians have already
         >COMPLETED a comet rendezvous and sample return mission and
         >have data and samples to share.
   With that sort of drive, you should be surprised if they don't have colonies
   on Mars.



         >AIR BOOMS, 1977-78

         >     I wish to add that the 1st-generation COSMOSPHERES were
         >deployed beginning in the Fall of 1977.  In late 1977 and
         >early 1978, there was a strange rash of giant AIR BOOMS along
         >the East Coast of the U.S and elsewhere.  The AIR BOOMS were
         >never satifactorily explained, by either the government or
         >news media.  They could NOT be positively identified with any
         >particular SST or other aircraft, and indeed were much louder
         >than aircraft sonic booms.
   As I said in a previous flaming, it was an emergency scramble of Archangel
   class cruisers (including the first model: the _Micheal_ ;>) launched to
   attack the Cosmospheres. Their shields and fast launch time could get them
   into orbit before the spheres could blast them. At least *I* can think up a
   better story ;>.

         >     The giant AIR BOOMS were actually caused by Russia
         >COSMOSPHERES firing CHARGED-PARTICLE BEAMS down into the
         >atmosphere in a DE-focused mode (spread out) for the purpose
         >of announcing their presence to the WAR-MONGERS in the U.S.
         >Pentagon.
   This doesn't make sense. Are you saying that the Russians did these very
   aggressive actions to our country because they were afraid of *Pentagon*
   warmongering? Don't the actions you describe above sound just a WEE bit
   unfriendly?


         >     The 3rd-generation JUMBO COSMOSPHERES were first
         >deployed in April 1981, in parallel with the first U.S. Space
         >Shuttle Mission.  They significantly INTERFERED with that
         >mission, in ways which were successfully COVERED-UP by NASA
         >using techniques similar to those shown in the movie
         >"Capricorn I".
    Hollywood SFX are still not good enough to succesfully fake such a thing
    IMHO. At least it looks fake to me.



         >CREDIBILITY of Dr. Beter

    [Unsubstantiated claims of Israeli conspiracy to get the US angry at
      Arabs]

         >     Dr. Beter predicted what he called the "RETIREMENT" of
         >Leonid Brezhnev ONE WEEK BEFORE Brezhnev "died".  [Note that
         >the word "retirement" was used for the TERMINATION OF
         >REPLICANTS in the 1982 movie "Blade Runner".]  He also
    What's the point in bringing up this movie? Are you saying that Brezhnev
    was a <gasp> a _replicant_?<grin> Or are you just trying to be melodramatic
    and get us all excited over the word "retirement?"
         >predicted that Brezhnev would be quickly replaced with
         >Andropov, which occurred ONLY THREE DAYS after the "death" of
         >Brezhnev, to the SURPRISE of all government and media
         >analysts.

         >     [I KNOW that we are all supposed to LAUGH at the word
         >"conspiracy".  That is what the various government, military,
         >political, media, banking, and corporate CONSPIRATORS have
         >successfully PROGRAMMED most of us to do. ]
     Time to pull out my flame thrower. Nah... Not powerful enough. I Know!

     PLASMA BEAM..... ON!!!

     All right, that does it. I am sick and tired of hearing this cop out claim
     of "programming" or "brainwashing" being used by conspiracy theorists to
     explain why people don't immediately believe their claims. It is insulting
     my intelligence and I really hate that. Why? Because to argue against such
     a claim means that I am supposedly following my "programming" and therefore
     can't think for myself. It takes the postion that the theorist-- somehow
     immune to the "programming" that has seized the minds of the rest of the
     country-- must do our thinking for us since his mind is "untainted" by
     government tampering. You're going to have to find another answer to why
     people laugh at your theories, because I will not buy this one.

     Oh yes, and McElwaine? Don't get cute and use the above rebuttal as "proof"
     that I am following my programming. You will just have to think of another
     reason why I object to your theories. Like perhaps they are the cheesiest
     pieces of work I have seen so far. The only thing that ties w/you are
     creationist theories on talk.origins. It may also be BECAUSE you CONSTANTLY
     use WORDS using ALL CAPS to EMPHASIZE the CRIMES you DECRY. That comes off
     as a cheap attempt at melodramatics and is completely bogus. Use _lines_
     to emphasize things and don't do it too much. You're articles may get a
     more favorable response.

     PLASMA BEAM...... OFF!

     Okay, I'm calm now.

         >ELECTRO-MAGNETIC PROPULSION


    [This essentially claims that the Russian Cosmospheres push against
      uncharged electrons somehow to accelerate. I have no idea what
      the hell he's talking about, but it does provide ideas for a
      story I've been thinking of writing.<grin>]

     Guess I've been brainwashed again, eh McElwaine?

         >     UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this
         >IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED.
     I may consider that if you would write articles with information I don't
     find to be complete falsehoods. Otherwise I have trouble resisting. ;>


         >                         Robert E. McElwaine
         >                         B.S., Physics and Astronomy, UW-EC
                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I have a good idea what the "BS" stands for in Robert's case. :)


--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick Chester            |"The earth is too fragile a basket in which to keep
[e-mail] |  all your eggs." Robert A. Heinlein
Politically Incorrect      |"The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest of us
Future Lunar Colonist      |  are going to the stars." Anonymous
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 16:59:08 GMT
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: Atlas E and F questions ( Actually Pershing missile)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>The Titan IIs are in storage, earmarked for refurbishing as (military)
>launchers.  I believe the combination of treaty limits on methods of
>disposal and treaty deadlines made it impractical to do much with the
>Pershing 2s, which were in any case a bit small for use as launchers.
>--


I realize the pershings were a little small for use as orbital payloads, but how

about as sounding rockets?  they have to be more useful then the scouts
or other light rockets.  i'm sure a number of grad students could have
slapped together light fast hi altitude study  payloads, if they could
have gotten the rides.   Thiokol says they recycled the fuel, but it
would have made more sense to use the birds up.  well, that's my HO.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Sep 92 04:11:26 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Atlas E and F questions ( Actually Pershing missile)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>I realize the pershings were a little small for use as orbital payloads, but how
>about as sounding rockets?  they have to be more useful then the scouts
>or other light rockets...

First, a correction:  Scout is *not* a light rocket, it's an orbital
launcher at the extreme upper end of the sounding-rocket category.
It can be used as a super-heavy sounding rocket -- the user's manual
includes some information on this -- but it seldom is.

The Pershings would probably make okay sounding rockets, if the treaty
language was suitable.  (There are problems here, which is why the treaty
called for destruction and set time limits.  A sounding rocket sitting in
a warehouse awaiting launch needs only a warhead and a launch truck to
become a weapon again.)  But why bother?  Sounding rockets are not that
hard to come by and it's a reasonably competitive market, I believe.

Oh, if you let the Pershings go as government surplus at fire-sale prices,
they'd be cheaper than commercial sounding rockets.  Of course, this has
a good chance of bankrupting some of the sounding-rocket companies by
flooding the market with government-subsidized competition.  What happens
when you run out of Pershings and there's nobody left to provide ongoing
sounding-rocket service?  You can devise safeguards against this, but it
gets tricky, and the existing companies will fight you tooth and nail in
Congress and in the courts.  Is it worth the trouble?
--
There is nothing wrong with making      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
mistakes, but... make *new* ones. -D.Sim|  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 28 Sep 92 01:37:32 GMT
From: Philip Young <[e-mail]>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

Government involvement, at least initially, is crucial because of the high
infrastructure costs.  No private outfit is going to ante up the billions
and billions (to misquote Carl Sagan) necessary since payback is in terms of
decades rather than years.
So, for instance, the US government creates NASA.  In an ideal world ;-}
private commercial concerns use, and pay for, the infrastructural services,
and in the fulness of time NASA itself becomes self-funding, at which point
the government sells it off, thus recouping the investment, and maybe making
a quid in the process.
At least the US government had the vision and courage to get into the business,
although one could certainly argue about funding methods, priorities, etc.
Here, the government makes the odd soothing sound, but opposition by special
interest groups (and not just the usual assortment of those who would forego
future investment dividends by spending the nation's seed money on consumption
today) means that nothing significant will be done for the foreseeable future.
Definitely my own opinion, but it is public domain, so feel free to adopt it.
--
Philip R. Young
Data General Australia Pty. Ltd.


------------------------------

Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 02:03:07 GMT
From: "Thomas H. Kunich" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Clinton and Space Funding
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>
>Voodoo economics Nick. Most US military R&D is spent in the private
>sector paying private companies acting as private contractors to
>the military.

Might I suggest a short course in economics? Consider any money spent
on military hardware to be dumped down the drain. Or perhaps you think
that the present recession is caused by companies refusing to use all
of that 'good' military expertise to capture the world's market?

>Again wrong. The Japanese stock market crashed because of world
>currency fluctuations, the worldwide recession, and the collapse of
>a massive speculative boom.

The same answer here. American companies will now have the biggest
percentage of their talent released from military work. The U.S.
government has been paying our best companies to _not_ compete with
Japan. The japanese know that and are concerned that it is over.

The government has to _stop_ spending money. The government has no
idea of _how_ to spend money in order to make money. They don't
have the _concept_ of fiscal responsibility.

If Clinton gets in it will all be pretty much done for anyway. His
tax policy coupled with his spend policy will bankrupt the U.S.A.
in 5 years instead of the predicted 10 and space exploration can
be carried out by what is left of Europe and Japan's industries.
>

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 23:44:37 GMT
From: Dave Tholen <[e-mail]>
Subject: NEAR asteroid mission (but wait! There's more!)
Newsgroups: sci.space

Nick Szabo writes:

>> Prime target is a 1998 launch to 4660 Nereus,

> Does anybody have the original designation of this asteroid (it was
> renamed after _Asteroids II_ came out)?  Has it been given a
> type (C,S,M, etc.)?  Anything else known about its composition?

(4660) Nereus = 1982 DB

No taxonomic classification yet.  If the weather cooperates, I may succeed
in collecting the data necessary to do a classification this Tuesday and
Wednesday nights.  Between now and early next year, Nereus is as bright as
it will get for the next decade.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Sep 92 21:05:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Paul Dietz) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>
>  > 1. Shuttle is not a failure 49 out of 50 ain't bad.  Look to Congress
>  > and Cap Wineburger for the high operational costs of the shuttle.
>
>In other words, "the shuttle's not a failure, and it's not NASA's
>fault anyway!".   Can you write two sentences without contradicting
>yourself?
>
>The purpose of the shuttle was to reduce the cost of getting into
>space.  The shuttle has been a dismal failure in meeting this,
>its primary goal.

Only half right.  The primary reason for the Shuttle is REGULAR access to
space.  Cost was also supposed to be lowered but that went out the window
with Cap Wineburgers redesign, in 1971.  The shuttle has been an awesome
success for one reason.  It keeps people interested in space.  I have not
seen a single spacecamp set up anywhere by anybody to do planetary flybys,
or robotic exploration.  Each year 40,000 kids go through space camp here in
Huntsville, a similar number in Florida.  Spacecamps have been and are being
set up in Japan, France and Russia. The stimulus for all of these as been man
in space and execpt for the Russian the central motif is shuttle and space
station operations. How many lives have been changed in childhood because
of these spacecamps, especially Huntsville's? I know personally of several,
most of them women that have dedicated their lives to the space program
because of your "failure". Nothing more needs to be said

>
>  > 2. Clinch River Breeder.  Congress cut the money due to Three Mile
>  > Island and the anti-nuclear hysteria.
>
>Wrong.  The CRBR was cut mainly because it was completely unnecessary.
>The need for a fast-track development of breeders was predicated in
>the assumption that world-wide uranium consumption would grow much
>faster than it has.  Today, the spot market price for uranium is
>around $10/lb.  Breeder reactors makes no sense at all at this price.
>
The French do not seem to think so. They still have an active breeder program.
My sister happens to live near the CRBR and your memory has to be real short
not to remember the political wrangling that went on with the anti-nukers
and that project.


> > 3.  Synfuels.  Jimmy Carter's idea to destroy mountains in the west for
> > shale oil.  Would have been so toxic to the environment that even the
> > oil companies did not want to deal with it.  Bad idea pushed by so called
> > environmentalist President (can you name his latter day descendant?) Of Gore
> > you can.
>
>Oil shale was only one part of the synfuels program.  Petrochemicals
>from coal was another.  Note that we are still mining huge amounts of
>coal, so the environmental effects are occuring anyway.

Oil shale was the major portion of the Synfuels program. No we are not still
mining huge amounts of coal. We are mining less coal today than in the
seventies. Most of it from huge open pit mines in Wyoming that are non union.
They used to pull ten million tons a year out of the ground in Alabama. Now
it is down to about five. Most of our coal that we mine here in the east goes
to Japan because it is to high in sulfer to burn here.  The stuff out west
is nice clean low sulfer coal and that is what we burn most of here.

The Oil Shale program was to "cook" millions of tons of hydrocarbons from
shale deposits out west.  This process would be thousands of times more
polluting than simple coal mining and would take huge resources in water that
is very scarce out there to make it work. So the comment stands.

>Synfuels failed because the price of oil dropped, not because
>environmentalists complained.  Oil companies were leery of oil shale
>development because they could make no money on it.

No synfuels was abandoned as not cost effective and polluting. Remember it
was the Democratic congress and gas rationing that would have made this work.
It was Ronnie Raygun that killed the beast even before gas prices started
coming down.

> > 4. Fusion.  Still the best long term solution to both terrestrial energy
> > needs and intra-solar system propulsion systems.  No failures in the
> > technology just failure of will in Congress to fund this needed technology.
>
>Nonsense.  Fusion has turned out to be a hell of a lot harder than the
>hucksters had promised us.  The reactor concepts are engineering
>nightmares.  Since availability of fuel is not the problem with
>fission -- capital cost and scale of the plants is -- fusion is
>solving (or, rather, promising us it will solve) the wrong problem.
>
>As for intra-solarsystem propulsion, it would be economic idiocy to
>work on fusion just because we might have a use for fusion rockets in
>100 years.
>

Well then Paul there are some awfully smart idiots out there proposing that
very thing.  I saw a wonderful IAF presentation on this subject at the World
Space Congress.  The technology is near term and actually easier to achieve
than a fully contained fusion.  The delta vee is so high that a Mars trip
is 90 days and a Jupiter trip was only 120 days.

There are two seperate cost factors for space transportation. One is to get
out of the gravity well. Two is to get everywhere else.  Fusion will be the
tech of choice to reduce trip time between all points and LEO. It is no longer
fantasy, these guys actually were working on components testing the feasibility
of the design.  So I guess the idiots might be smarter than you think.

I changes my mind slightly while writing this.  Fission will be the tech of
choice in Cislunar Space and Fusion for everthing else. We ain't gonna
have either one if you keep pushing it back into the future with unsupported
statments.  There is a NEED for fusion propuslion systems today.  That is to
open up, at least the inner solar system to human development. Why? Look
around you.  The blood and Gore scenario will take place if we fail to
continue to push forward.  It is fun to see that the predictions of the
doomsayers in the 60's and 70's were off so bad. This happy result is
due to advances in technology, many of them space flight oriented. If this
trend does not continue we do have a large chance of falling into the
gloom and doom scenario.

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 23:49:43 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: Nick Szabo Disinformation debunking (Re: Clinton and Space Funding)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

>>Wrong.  The CRBR was cut mainly because it was completely unnecessary.
>>The need for a fast-track development of breeders was predicated in
>>the assumption that world-wide uranium consumption would grow much
>>faster than it has.  Today, the spot market price for uranium is
>>around $10/lb.  Breeder reactors makes no sense at all at this price.

> The French do not seem to think so. They still have an active breeder
> program.  My sister happens to live near the CRBR and your memory has
> to be real short not to remember the political wrangling that went on
> with the anti-nukers and that project.


In fact, the US also has an active breeder reactor program.  We've had
a successful research breeder, the EBR-II, in operation for more than
two decades.  People at Argonne and elsewhere are exploring a small
(100 MW) breeder concept based on EBR-II, called the Integral Fast
Breeder, a passively safe concept.  There are advantages to not
being prematurely locked into a concept that would now be obsolete.

The French experience actually proves the point, I think.  Superphenix
has proved to be unreliable and uneconomic.  It's been shut down for
two years now with intractible sodium leaks, and there is serious
doubt it will ever be restarted.  It's the Concorde of the nuclear
industry.

The Japanese have a fast reactor program, but are reorienting it to
act as a plutonium burner, not breeder.  Even this seems pretty
silly, as you can burn plutonium in thermal reactors.

 > No synfuels was abandoned as not cost effective and polluting.
 > Remember it was the Democratic congress and gas rationing that would
 > have made this work.  It was Ronnie Raygun that killed the beast even
 > before gas prices started coming down.

Ronnie dropped the pork, but if it had been cost effective the
oil companies would have picked it up.  They didn't, because it made
no sense economically.


 >>As for intra-solarsystem propulsion, it would be economic idiocy to
 >>work on fusion just because we might have a use for fusion rockets in
 >>100 years.

 > Well then Paul there are some awfully smart idiots out there proposing
 > that very thing.  I saw a wonderful IAF presentation on this subject
 > at the World Space Congress.  The technology is near term and actually
 > easier to achieve than a fully contained fusion.  The delta vee is so
 > high that a Mars trip is 90 days and a Jupiter trip was only 120 days.


And what's better, these rockets are made entirely out of paper,
ink and viewgraph plastic, all cheap materials!

The fusion rocket concepts (we can't dignify them with the name
"design") I've seen are enormous, many thousands of tons.  They are
complicated.  They depend on large extrapolation from known physics
and engineering.  They subject materials to a great deal of stress and
neutron bombardment.  They must operate in space with almost no
maintenance.

Existing inertial confinement fusion experiments might implode one
pellet per *day*.  Fusion rocket concepts I've seen implode up to 400
per *second*.

The US can't seem to develop even a smallish space fission reactor.
Development of a space fusion rocket would be orders of magnitude
harder.

 > continue to push forward.  It is fun to see that the predictions of the
 > doomsayers in the 60's and 70's were off so bad. This happy result is
 > due to advances in technology, many of them space flight oriented.

Bullshit.  The improvements that averted the "doom-and-gloom" had
damned little to do with spaceflight.  The most important, the green
revolution, was underway well before the "space age".  Much of the
rest was simply that the doomsters didn't understand anything about
abundance of terrestrial resources.  A fault the Space Fans share, I
might add.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 18:19:27 GMT
From: Paul Dietz <[e-mail]>
Subject: overpopulation
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bruce Scott) writes:
>>>But this is just because the great die-off has started.

>>"Great die off" is bullshit, of course.  The world population has
>>never been healthier, wealthier or longer lived, on average, and
>>the trends are positive in most of the world.

> they go wrong it is not trivial. India has been charmed by the lack of
> really big natural disasters for some time now. But in the 1950's there
> was a famine whose effects were averted because the US fed the whole
> population for two years. That was with 300 million people. They lose if
> that happens now.

Again, bullshit.  A little thing called the Green Revolution occured
in India.  Starting in the mid 1960s, they started using high yield
wheat and fertilizers.  Wheat production there has increased by
a factor of five since 1967, well outpacing the growth of population.
India has never been better fed.

This is not a fluke.  These techniques have led to large increases
in yield whereever they have been strongly implemented.  China, for
example, is now the world's largest grain producer (I notice you
didn't mention China...).

> I do note the absence of comment from you concerning
> last year's disaster in Bangladesh. I repeat that 3 million homeless on
> shifting mud flats do not happen unless population limits have already
> been crossed. Unlike Floridans, many of them simply starved to death.

Again, *on average* the world has never been better off.  No doubt
you can point to instances of suffering around the world.  They have
been becoming less frequent, however.  The fraction of the world's
population living in countries with famine has decreased steadily
since WW2.

> A little travel where things have gone wrong can really open eyes. I
> suggest it, even only once. I've seen this for myself in Eastern Turkey.
> These armies of dirty children who feed off passers by will not grow up
> into the rosy Third-World technocrats one reads about in G Harry Stine
> novels.

I am astounded by your illogic.  If poor people exist, the world
must be getting worse?  Come again?

You seem to be reasoning that unless every last person on earth
is better off, no progress has been made, and apocalypse is around
the corner.  Utter, raving nonsense, mister.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 23:37:06 GMT
From: Dave Tholen <[e-mail]>
Subject: PUTTING VENUS IN AN ORBIT SIMILAR TO THE
Newsgroups: sci.space

>  > In a previous message you said that mars' gravity was too
>  > light to hang on the lighter gasses, thus the atmosphere is
>  > thin.  Titan, a moon of Saturn is slightly smaller than mars
>  > and has an atmospheric density twice earths at the surface.
>  > How do you explain that? :)

> Titan benefits from the gas torus effect I believe. It loses its atmosphere
> at a respectable rate, but the escaping gas is unable to escape Saturn and
> remains in orbit. A lot of the trapped gas gets reaquired by Titan, so the
> net loss is very small. Anything escaping from the Martian atmosphere is
> lost permanently.

Let's not forget that Titan is much colder than Mars, thus the velocity
distribution of atmospheric gas molecules is shifted toward lower
velocities, thereby increasing the amount of atmospheric gas traveling
at speeds lower than the escape velocity.  That explains part of the
difference.

------------------------------

Date: 28 Sep 92 00:14:09 GMT
From: Steve Brinich <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Platforms (political, not physical : -)
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.marrou,alt.politics.libertarian

  It is my understanding that the LP does support withdrawl from the UN.

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From: Herman Rubin <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,talk.politics.space,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: Clinton and Space Funding
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:

            ....................

>>The reason commerce isn't colonizing the moon is quite simple really;
>>there isn't anything there to make one wealthy.  It's an obstacle, like
>>Death Valley was an obstacle to the 49ers -- the borax came later and
>>didn't convince very many people to live in Death Valley.

>Indeed. As I remarked in another post to Dennis comparing private lunar
>exploitation to the Hudson's Bay Company model, "Where's the beaver pelts?"
>The Moon may have considerable scientific and military value, and the
>gravity may be *necessary* for long term human occupation as opposed to
>free flight colonies, but there's little of commercial interest to Earth
>bound companies that we have discovered so far. The Moon is not well
>explored, however, and something equivalent to borax may be waiting there
>for us to find.

There is another, and extremely important, reason for colonization, namely,
escape from an oppressive government.  The Spanish colonies were moderately
successful only where they were eminently profitable; the missions in
California must be considered a failure.  The French colonies in Canada
and Louisiana were not particularly successful.  On the other hand, the
English colonies to escape oppression were generally quite successful,
even bringing in others.  A major part of the US immigration in the 19th
century was to escape oppression.

There are very many of us who consider government oppression the norm in
the world today, including in the US, one of the least oppressive.  If it
turns out that man can survive on a reasonable scale out there, this group
will want to go, even at considerable financial cost to them.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: [phone]
[e-mail] (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)

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End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 255
------------------------------