Lunacy from Brussels

Good Lord !

You actually believe that s*it ?

Graham

Hello Graham,

Yes, from the gas guzzler days. It seemed that if points were only five cents cheaper then the hall sensor they'd put in points. Plus if the sensor would be mounted there and the shaft sloshed around in what's left of its bearings the problem is about the same, less the backfiring from oil residue.

Heck, even my old two-cylinder Citroen didn't. It simply fired on both pots all the time. One side of the coil secondary went to the left spark plug, the other to the right. No ground. That made for interesting scenarios when hand cranking it. Ka-choof...ka-choo-poof..."KABOOM". Cleaned all the crud out of the exhaust and left that as a black splotch on the car parked behind.

Regards, Joerg

civilization

By making Mars part of the American Frontier, we exclude the Europeans and their fading civilization.

Commercial terraforming operations live by two rules:

Indeed, but also note that he ignored the premise (i.e. flights to Mars being routine). With that assumption, we WOULD be a space faring civilization, and small issues like the mass penalty from shielding would be solved. Although it may take a long time for this to happen, it doesn't have to (i.e. no tchnological show stoppers).

I do hope that some of New Europe will favor existence and also the Frontier, although the demographic statistics I've seen indicate semi-nihilism[1] is dominant.

top.

Thanks, Rich

Just go and pluck a big chunk of ice out of Saturn's rings, and drop it on Mars. You'll have atmosphere! >:->

Cheers! Rich

Is the direct route the best route to fixing?

For instance Space exploration -> space mining -> cheap platinum -> cheap fuel cells

-> low oil consumption

vs.

Current trends -> higher oil consumption

Columbus' fleet could have quickly attacked the Moors and seized a coastal village. Would he, or we, be better off?

True. However the classic Orion designs are based on still secret formulas, derived by Freeman Dyson. The physics involved are not elaborate, though he probably came up with some clever issues. I'll probably have to redo this work if the orginals stay hidden much longer, then be faced with his superior work coming out right after.

He proved that the basic design can be self stabalizing, each pulse will tend to happen at a time and location when it will push against the spin caused by the previous pulse being off center.

The GA for NASA chart shows a curve for shielding thickness for 3,000 pulse missions and 10,000. Mars is actually a 3,000 pulse mission usually, so the thicker shield will lead to only 15 REM of engine exposure during the trip.

So what? Pooh, I don't understand why you're gettign your panties all in a bunch just because some people want to do stuff that you're not interested in. Is it about the tax dollars? We're _all_ in agreement there, to one degree or another, but I personally see it as a matter of perspective - I just compare it to the "defense" budget, and it's a drop in the bucket.

But, well, to each his own. :-)

Cheers! RIch

Well, notwithstanding it's supremely arrogant of you to proclaim Planet Mars to be a "dead rock", without bothering to actually investigate, the real answer is, "To see what's there."

If you're not interested, fine. But trolling here accomplishes nothing except feeding the trollfeeders.

Thanks, Rich

That's what God invented f****ng for. ;-P

Cheers! Rich

civilization

YEah - we're all out of territory to conquer on Earth, except the polar caps and the bottoms of the ocean, and nobody cares about them anyway.

But don't you remember back in the good ol' cold war days when it was easy to tell who the "bad guys" were - space was touted as "the ultimate high ground" or something.

So, there's only one way left to go, and that's up - and it's got a lot better visibility than igloos and submarines. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

You could also mount the engine on a long strut - the inverse-square law still applies here, doesn't it?

Cheers! Rich

Well, where the f*ck have they all gone, then?

Thanks, Rich

civilization

The more money you uselessly pump down drains, the better :-P

always

I don't know about "subduing" or "conquering" territories that are lifeless and unclaimed, but yes, there's always a new frontier.

What utter rubbish. Try looking up when outside at night sometime.

The best way to improve this planet is to stop raping it for resources, when there are effectively boundless resources offworld that we could be using instead.

,------------------------------------------------------------------. | Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: | | snipped-for-privacy@strout.net

A nightmare... take an atomic bomb, set a steel plate on top, then a shock absorber and sit on top of it.. set the bomb off and up you go.

Thomas