tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post315227327400434757..comments2024-03-18T21:52:45.757-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Dark matter anomalies, galaxies, moons and more!David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-12984137381143885592016-01-05T18:10:21.553-08:002016-01-05T18:10:21.553-08:00David: "the Radical Republicans in 1865 shoul...David: "the Radical Republicans in 1865 should have simply seized 75% of the land of anyone who had owned 3 or more slaves. (50% if they sacrifice the main house and buildings.) All the seized property should have gone into a pool to be distributed among three entities evenly -- (1) a benevolent organization of veterans and widows and orphans, (2) a freedman's bureau to benefit ex-slaves, (3) an education foundation to establish new, equal schools for all."<br /><br />It would have been better than the nastiness that actually happened, where the de-feudalization was executed haphazardly and often with massive private profiteering and corruption. The Freedman's Bureau was grossly underfunded and frankly a joke -- not really surprising as most of the Unionists who actually fought the Civil War didn't care about African-Americans as long as they were not part of a massive economic-political engine threatening their way of life. Catfish N. Codnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47097368016476760012016-01-02T13:27:16.108-08:002016-01-02T13:27:16.108-08:00Thanks Paul451. I just did a post on the upper Pho...Thanks Paul451. I just did a post on <a href="http://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2016/01/upper-phobos-tether.html" rel="nofollow">the upper Phobos tether</a>.<br /><br />I am obsessed with Phobos. I believe it will be the most valuable piece of real estate in the solar system.Hop Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12923433894475072056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-68139868500494965272016-01-02T12:00:58.989-08:002016-01-02T12:00:58.989-08:00Onward
onward
Onward<br /><br /><br />onward<br /><br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-6140896785855442052016-01-02T11:06:49.116-08:002016-01-02T11:06:49.116-08:00"coordinated croaking"? Sorry. The guy..."coordinated croaking"? Sorry. The guy's just to hilarious! He clearly never met an actual scientist and swallows the koolaid that the enemies of confeds -- scientists - are LIKE confeds... marching conformist-nodding coordinated (by Fox) dittoheads...<br /><br />,.... instead of by far the most individualistic and competitive humans our species ever produced. <br /><br />Croak, oh dittohead frog. The one thing he'll never ever do is go and actually meet a real scientist. David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-58971102785733850272016-01-02T08:41:11.795-08:002016-01-02T08:41:11.795-08:00Space Solar Power Satellites remain the only reaso...Space Solar Power Satellites remain the only reason for industrializing space. <br /><br />Space tourism remains a tiny niche market for the ultra rich. <br /><br />Space manufacturing (outside of materials that absolutely have to be manufactured in zero gee) has no cost or quality advantage over terrestrial manufacturing. <br /><br />Asteroid mining to feed Earth markets makes no economic sense. Suppose an asteroid mining operation found an asteroid of almost pure platinum (current spot value of about $890 per ounce) and hauled it back to Earth orbit. How is it going to get this material down to the Earth's surface without expensive rentry vehicles? And a large enough platinum asteroid will certainly depress market prices through over supply, making the asteroid mining of platinum unprofitable. It's an unavoidable catch 22. (Not to mention it won't be competitive with mining nodules off the sea floor)<br /><br />The only kind of space industry that can benefit Earth has to one that supplies something immaterial: energy or knowlege. And while a geological survey of Mercury's regolith is fascinating and useful for pure science it won't have much market value. So that leave us with energy. <br /><br />Asteroid mining can provide the materials needed to build orbiting mirrors and lenses to collect and focus sunlight. In space these lenses and mirrors can be made to massive size:<br /><br />http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/10/brute-force-terraforming-of-mars-moons.html<br /><br />"Large lensing structures may not be something of the far future. There was a 2007 NASA NIAC study for making large bubbles in space. Devon Crowe of PSI corporation made a study for making large space structures from bubbles that are made rigid using metals or UV curing. A single bubble can be 1 meter in earth gravity, 100 kilometer in low earth orbit or 1000 kilometers in deep space. Foams made of many bubbles could be far larger in size. The size of a 1000 kilometer bubble is nearly the size of Charon, the moon of Pluto. Charon is 1200 kilometers in diameter. Saturn's moon Tethys is 1050-1080 kilometers in diameter Ceres the largest object in the asteroid belt is 970 kilometers in diameter. A single tesselation foam (like in the picture) of 1000 kilometer bubbles would be about the size of Earth's moon. A Penrose tesselation like the one in the picture of 1000 kilometer bubbles would be in between the size of Neptune or Saturn. A Tesselation foam of 100 kilometer bubbles in earth orbit could form an object the size our existing moon or larger. Metal can be evaporated to coat the inside of the bubble for reflective sails and telescopes."<br /><br />These lenses and mirrors can be separate structures in synchronous orbit with the actual generators, probably Stirling engines in low earth orbit. The resultant energy can be beamed down to rectennas on the surface.<br /><br />Aside from solar power, here is no other economic reason for developing space industries.DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39679981886267524822016-01-02T08:20:16.873-08:002016-01-02T08:20:16.873-08:00locumranch:
Even so, I will put such skepticism a...locumranch:<br /><i><br />Even so, I will put such skepticism aside if & when these erstwhile scientists...<br /></i><br /><br />Former scientists?LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-62343785311775485622016-01-02T08:03:54.897-08:002016-01-02T08:03:54.897-08:00In magical circles, knowing the complete and true ...<br /><br />In magical circles, knowing the complete and true name of an object, being, or process was once thought to give one complete control over it. This was thought to work because (1) a name is a definition, (2) a contagion link, (3) a similarity link and (3) an association. To this day, many magical thinkers still insist that knowledge of a 'true name' gives one a complete understanding and some measure of control over that particular process, situation or thing; hence our incessant jingoism, the proliferation of jargon, non-definitional labels and meaningless terminologies which tend to be nonsensical, misleading & obfuscational.<br /><br />Progress; diversity; dark matter: Terms like these are mere incantations that neither describe nor define. At best, they signify membership in an exclusive club. At worst, they stifle critical thought, dissent & empiric inquiry.<br /><br />As far as Frog Symphonies go, you can tell the ones with the PhD's by their coordinated croaking, distended chests & cute little bow ties: <br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpevZ0-wUYQ<br /><br /><br />Bestlocumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43185396751821811522016-01-02T07:57:33.519-08:002016-01-02T07:57:33.519-08:00Oh, you can. The thing is, the amount of energy us...Oh, you can. The thing is, the amount of energy used to break the hydrogen-oxygen bonds is rather high, and that energy can be used in other processes. If you use coal to break the water into its elemental components, you are causing far more pollution than what was saved in not using gasoline-powered cars. That is before you include the energy costs of compressing and/or liquefying the hydrogen.<br /><br />Certain elements can be used in the electrodes which help catalyze breaking the hydrogen-oxygen bonds. Those catalysts are often toxic and can be expensive. <br /><br />It is far more efficient to use batteries instead of hydrogen power. And a hydrogen fuel cell doesn't "burn" hydrogen to power an engine - it uses the hydrogen to generate electricity to power electric motors... much like an electric battery, only with a fuel source. <br /><br />Rob H.Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-59797285660933938292016-01-02T07:21:17.236-08:002016-01-02T07:21:17.236-08:00Too bad about hydrogen fuel. I didn't realize ...Too bad about hydrogen fuel. I didn't realize there were so many problems with it. I thought we could just use electricity to break hydrogen out of water, then "burn" it which would just release water again. I did not know there are other toxic things involved...<br />Definitely agree that it would be good to break free from the gas station thing though that sounds like it may not be easy to doCharlie Hohnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11592135980458005047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21751640594113530272016-01-02T06:02:44.134-08:002016-01-02T06:02:44.134-08:00Back to dark matter, I think a lot of the controve...Back to dark matter, I think a lot of the controversy arises from the provisional nature of science, which gives a picture of life, the universe and everything, subject to new research. This is a difficulty for critics of some findings, and researchers protecting their work, it's difficult for both groups to grasp that the provisional nature is a feature, not a bug. Sucks to be the one whose research is overturned, but it's better for the entire community to have a more accurate picture. If you don't like the current body of knowledge, wait, it'll be clarified.Tim H.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-61618343646070283952016-01-02T03:47:55.450-08:002016-01-02T03:47:55.450-08:00Those perchlorates in the Martian liquids - are th...Those perchlorates in the Martian liquids - are they there in sufficient quantity to justify drilling them out and refining them for rocket fuel? Could Mars become the Saudi Arabia of space (probably minus the genocidal tyrants in charge)?<br /><br />Eh, probably not, but it's fun to think about.Jon S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13585842845661267920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91326567956443195662016-01-02T00:31:45.908-08:002016-01-02T00:31:45.908-08:00Daniel Duffy,
"So we may have to terraform it...Daniel Duffy,<br /><i>"So we may have to terraform it from orbit before we can land on it."</i><br /><br />OTOH, if you are going to terraform Mars, the people on the ground are mostly going to be in the way. The best, cheapest, path to terraforming Mars is to avoid Mars like the plague.<br /><br />Aside, the first fossil signs of free oxygen production on Earth goes back to 3.5 GYA. For 1.5 billion years it was all absorbed by the ocean. (AKA "the Great Oxidation Event".) Only then was it released in the atmosphere and started to oxidise the land. That took another nearly 1.5 billion years. (AKA "the boring billion".) Suddenly, somewhere around 3/4 GYA, oxygen levels in the atmosphere suddenly shoot up to 10%. (I mean "suddenly" on the scale of billions of years. It probably took ten-to-twenty million years.)<br /><br />3 billion years of oxygen production just to saturate the land and oceans.<br /><br />But we're going to terraform Mars?<br /><br />Rob H has the right idea. Any technology and scale of industry that allows us to (sort-of) terraform Mars is an order of magnitude more effective in places like the asteroid belt. And it's inherently more robust. (Oh, each asteroid or free-flying colony is more vulnerable than an entire planet, but the whole ecology (we need a new word) is vastly more robust.)<br /><br />We don't have a need for simple acreages of raw land. Especially not dead land. We want a self-sustaining industry. Mars doesn't deliver that, instead it just sucks up the resources (and attention) that would be better spent looking for opportunities elsewhere.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-59940077314343203792016-01-02T00:30:06.437-08:002016-01-02T00:30:06.437-08:00Daniel Duffy,
"The atmosphere is too thin for...Daniel Duffy,<br /><i>"The atmosphere is too thin for aerobraking of massive payloads, but thick enough to kick up horribly unpredictable turbulence if you try and use retro-rockets."</i><br /><br />However, we're learning more about firing rockets into a hypersonic airstream in thin atmosphere, thanks to SpaceX's efforts to recover their first stages. It seems to be pretty simple (as rocket science goes.)<br /><br />Apparently some of the NASA-Mars guys have been all over them with instruments and high-end monitoring, since it's the first time anyone has actually done the experiment. It had become a defacto facto amongst higher-ups that it was probably impossible (too unstable) and therefore not even worth trying.<br /><br />Which is one of the many insane things you discover about the behind-the-scenes politics of the space program when you start drilling down. There are so many weird myths believed by higher-ups that are either proven untrue, or have never been tested, but whenever someone proposes a demonstrator to test the theory, they can't get funding because "everyone knows" it won't work.<br /><br />[For example, the entire idea behind SLS is based on the myth that Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) architecture is too risky or expensive or... something; even though docking is so routine they are handing it off to commercial vendors. So you have a program that will spend upwards of $70 billion and waste two decades on building a launcher large enough to avoid the need to developing an EOR booster stage or orbital-depots, even though every component in every SLS mission proposed so far has been within the payload capacity of existing launchers - provided you launch them individually.]Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65816921602450898592016-01-02T00:27:25.712-08:002016-01-02T00:27:25.712-08:00Re: Locumranch and dark mattter
Jesus, it's t...Re: Locumranch and dark mattter<br /><br />Jesus, it's the <i>name</i> that offends him? Wadda ultra-maroon. Wadda im-bess-ill.<br /><br />David,<br />Re: Phobos space elevator<br /><br />It's an old idea. But Hop (Hollister David, occasional poster) just put up a post about it while exploring a new tether spreadsheet someone made, so the idea was fresh on my mind.<br /><br /><a href="http://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/lower-phobos-tether.html" rel="nofollow">http://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/lower-phobos-tether.html</a><br /><br />It's just so much simpler than a space-elevator to Mars itself. You can get 90% of the benefits with 1% of the material mass. And unlike any planetary space-elevator, a Phobos tether is useful from the first sub-10km tether, through 100km, to thousands of kilometres. You don't need to build the entire ultimate (50,000km) length as the first step.<br /><br /><i>"Now astronomers are using these lens clusters as instruments, doing dazzling things like detecting a supernova in an early galaxy's image in an Einstein Cross... and predicting exactly when the same supernova would erupt in one of the other cross images."</i><br /><br />Not quite exactly, they were a whole year out. Sheesh, bunch of amateurs.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65451793569052461332016-01-01T20:18:09.639-08:002016-01-01T20:18:09.639-08:00A frog lectures symphony musicians about Beethoven...A frog lectures symphony musicians about Beethoven. One can only tolerate and shrug.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47510360269329717802016-01-01T19:58:52.478-08:002016-01-01T19:58:52.478-08:00Here's a cold massive object yet observable:
h...Here's a cold massive object yet observable:<br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WISE_0855%E2%88%920714Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55253037315268859512016-01-01T19:47:53.361-08:002016-01-01T19:47:53.361-08:00According to NASA, baryonic matter (aka 'norma...<br /><br />According to NASA, baryonic matter (aka 'normal matter') makes up less than 5% of the Universe entire, meaning that the majority of our so-called 'scientific' dark matter & dark energy theories are almost entirely non-empiric, non-evidentiary, baseless, unsupported & unsupportable, on par with the old parable of some blind men in a dark room who attempt describe an elephant concealed at a thousand miles distance, which (of course) does nothing to to diminish the awesome beauteousness of either baryonic matter or the Universe entire.<br /><br />http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/<br /><br />Even so, I will put such skepticism aside if & when these erstwhile scientists come up with something more than a pretentiously non-descriptive name with which to summon with: Dark Matter 2, the ongoing adventures of the Dark Star crew as they bumble their way through cosmological theory complexities, finding 'nothing', with neither talent nor a clue.<br /><br /><br />Bestlocumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-1764022165148137542016-01-01T18:21:34.061-08:002016-01-01T18:21:34.061-08:00Experiments to search for Dark Matter --
http://w...Experiments to search for Dark Matter -- <br />http://www.npr.org/2016/01/01/461310525/a-physicist-dreams-of-catching-dark-matter-in-the-actDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-81542741061874196352016-01-01T18:20:51.690-08:002016-01-01T18:20:51.690-08:00Eventually we'll need drilling rigs for space ...Eventually we'll need drilling rigs for space colonization, especially lunar or planetary, for water. The launch costs are dismaying. I strongly desire Phobos mission first, and would go so far as suggesting semi-permanent manned presence there, Mars has so much to offer though:<br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonates_on_Mars Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47628522981708498542016-01-01T17:26:20.561-08:002016-01-01T17:26:20.561-08:00Robert - "Why terraform Mars at all?"
T...Robert - "Why terraform Mars at all?"<br /><br />Terraforming and creating asteroid habitats are not mutually exclusive. If we have the technology and resources to create asteroid habitats we will be able to throw a few ammonia asteroids at Mars.<br /><br />Still leaves the problem of how to land humans on Mars in the meantime.<br /><br />At only 38% of Earth's gravity perhaps we can construct a space elevator anchored at Mars' equator using automated equipment controlled by humans based on Phobos.<br /><br />Or we can land automated PFC factories on Mars that will create enough super GHGs to heat up Mars and generate a sufficiently thick atmosphere (mostly CO2) that will allow for safe parachute landings.<br /><br />Or we come up with insanely more powerful and efficient rocket engines to allow for landing and take off from Mars' relatively deep gravity well.DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56275591918785068692016-01-01T16:43:25.598-08:002016-01-01T16:43:25.598-08:00Robert, have you ever read a book called "Kir...Robert, have you ever read a book called "Kirinyaga" by Michael Resnick? Your idea of asteroid-based ecological preserves reminded me of that. In the preface the author explains that the book originally began as contributions to an anthology that never happened. In that case, though, it wasn't ecosystems they were preserving on asteroids, but cultures. Apparently the idea was that any disaffected group could form their own colony where they could live in isolation from the rest of human society. Maybe this will be the future of Confederate culture, religious extremists of all stripes and any number of throwbacks who can't deal with living in a human society that is not exactly what they want it to be. Unfortunately, while this would be a respite for most of humanity, it might not be such a good thing if these little intolerance colonies are what remains when old Sol fattens up in its senescent years.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15087817280540228192016-01-01T16:34:28.850-08:002016-01-01T16:34:28.850-08:00Jumper, I can't agree more with your call for ...Jumper, I can't agree more with your call for further research. Few of our most deeply-held "truths" have lasted the test of time, a fact that the professionals of science are well aware of. It is also why the cries of "stuck up scientist" I hear from the ignorant fall on deaf ears, here. Humility is built right into the scientific method. And when people go on about how much money astronomy costs (publically-funded science costing taxpayers pennies each) and how silly it is to use that money to discover things like rocks on Mars, I can only roll my eyes like the permanent adolescents they are. But typically those types are like loci - legends in their own minds who are unwilling to do the hard mental work to become credible, much less legendary. They mostly fail to distinguish between logical and analogical reasoning, and since analogical reasoning is easier, that's what they take for sense. There is a bifurcation in society between those who are willing to learn and those who pretend they already know everything, fighting constantly to defend their egos rather than to understand the real Universe. I don't know if that bifurcation is growing, or if the Internet has just made them more visible.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-12285461952059052142016-01-01T16:19:13.935-08:002016-01-01T16:19:13.935-08:00I'm for more research.
Neverness, by David Zin...I'm for more research.<br />Neverness, by David Zindell, had an amusing bit in it. In the future scientists have expanded the list of primary subatomic particles to some tens of thousands of verified ones, before it became clear somehow they were barking up the wrong tree. I'm just convinced that humans will last for a long time, and that in 400 years some of what is accepted now will be seen to be hopelessly wrong. It has, after all, ever been so.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2141276823252206382016-01-01T15:51:11.276-08:002016-01-01T15:51:11.276-08:00The spectacular progress in using intergalactic gr...The spectacular progress in using intergalactic gravitational lensing has been amazing. Ten years ago, we were marveling THAT there were such lenses, showing us magnified images of very early galaxies 10 billion light years beyond the lensing galactic cluster.<br /><br />Now astronomers are using these lens clusters as instruments, doing dazzling things like detecting a supernova in an early galaxy's image in an Einstein Cross... and predicting exactly when the same supernova would erupt in one of the other cross images. It's like time travel! <br /><br />Oh, and they could do this because they used the lens to map the distribution of dark matter in the nearby galactic cluster. We still are murky about what DM is made of. But many of its traits and distributions are unfolding very rapidly, penetrated by publically-funded science costing taxpayers pennies each, pursued by some of the smartest and wisest and most competitive humans our species ever produced.<br /><br />And jealous carpers won't change that. Cause we will not let the confederacy return us to a dark age.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24502698437197048802016-01-01T14:49:48.880-08:002016-01-01T14:49:48.880-08:00Hi Jumper
As I understand it "dark matter&qu...Hi Jumper<br /><br />As I understand it "dark matter" is a solution for the <br />"why is everything going too fast" <br />problem<br /><br />I assume that simple solutions like the "shape of the universe" were examined first and found to be insufficient<br /><br />One problem with the simple solutions being that the excess speed appears to vary at different locations producing the ability to produce maps of the "dark matter"<br /><br />Locum is simply ignoring the problem altogether duncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.com