It’s interesting how much you can figure out about a classified satellite from ground observations. And these are amateurs. Governments can do a lot better (though with some of the new telescopes available to amateurs, the distinction is getting blurred).
Garden Weeding And Planting
I’ve finally gotten around to adding some long-overdue space blogs to the blogroll. I’ve also moved some of the dead links to the AWOL list. Finally, I created a new category, called “Futurism/Transhumanism.” The only blogs I have there now are The Speculist and Future Pundit, but if anyone can think about others (or space blogs I’ve missed) let me know.
On The Radio
I’m going to be on The Space Show this evening, along with my webmaster, Bill Simon, talking about the July 20th ceremony, and other space-related topics. It starts at 7 PM Pacific, 10 Eastern, for an hour on the radio, and some additional time streaming, until 8:30 Pacific.
“2006 Was 1943”
The success of the surge. And the continuing efforts of the Dems and the media to make Iraq into another Vietnam.
[Afternoon update]
Max Boot has to educate Henry Kissinger on the fact that Iraq is not Vietnam:
Skilled diplomacy can consolidate the results of military success but can seldom make up for its lack. In Iraq, there is scant chance that any American legerdemain can convince internal factions like the Jaish al Mahdi or Al Qaeda in Iraq, or outside actors such as Iran and Syria, that their interests are congruent with ours. While the U.S. pursues stability and democracy, our enemies are merrily capitalizing on mayhem to carve out spheres of influence and bleed us dry.
The only thing that could conceivably alter their calculations is a change in the balance of power on the ground. That is what Army Gen. David Petraeus is trying to achieve. But he is being undermined by incessant withdrawal demands from home, which are convincing our enemies that they can wait us out. Only if the other side faces the probability of defeat — or at least stalemate — can negotiations produce a durable accord.
“2006 Was 1943”
The success of the surge. And the continuing efforts of the Dems and the media to make Iraq into another Vietnam.
[Afternoon update]
Max Boot has to educate Henry Kissinger on the fact that Iraq is not Vietnam:
Skilled diplomacy can consolidate the results of military success but can seldom make up for its lack. In Iraq, there is scant chance that any American legerdemain can convince internal factions like the Jaish al Mahdi or Al Qaeda in Iraq, or outside actors such as Iran and Syria, that their interests are congruent with ours. While the U.S. pursues stability and democracy, our enemies are merrily capitalizing on mayhem to carve out spheres of influence and bleed us dry.
The only thing that could conceivably alter their calculations is a change in the balance of power on the ground. That is what Army Gen. David Petraeus is trying to achieve. But he is being undermined by incessant withdrawal demands from home, which are convincing our enemies that they can wait us out. Only if the other side faces the probability of defeat — or at least stalemate — can negotiations produce a durable accord.
“2006 Was 1943”
The success of the surge. And the continuing efforts of the Dems and the media to make Iraq into another Vietnam.
[Afternoon update]
Max Boot has to educate Henry Kissinger on the fact that Iraq is not Vietnam:
Skilled diplomacy can consolidate the results of military success but can seldom make up for its lack. In Iraq, there is scant chance that any American legerdemain can convince internal factions like the Jaish al Mahdi or Al Qaeda in Iraq, or outside actors such as Iran and Syria, that their interests are congruent with ours. While the U.S. pursues stability and democracy, our enemies are merrily capitalizing on mayhem to carve out spheres of influence and bleed us dry.
The only thing that could conceivably alter their calculations is a change in the balance of power on the ground. That is what Army Gen. David Petraeus is trying to achieve. But he is being undermined by incessant withdrawal demands from home, which are convincing our enemies that they can wait us out. Only if the other side faces the probability of defeat — or at least stalemate — can negotiations produce a durable accord.
Feckless
Bill Richardson might be good on space policy, but I sure don’t want him responsible for our national security:
ROBERTS: but there’s no indication that they want to get together and no indication that the international participants want to get involved, as well.
GOV. RICHARDSON: no, but you use the leverage of our withdrawal and you engage diplomacy to almost force them to get in there. get iran and syria in there. my point is all these other candidates are still talking about, even though we’ve had 160,000 troops, they’re still ready to leave 50,000 troops behind. i don’t. i move them out, deploy them around the region for contingencies, into afghanistan, so there is a difference in our approach, and i believe i got that out in the debate last night and some of your poll tested video groups have been good.
As Kathryn points out, way to go. Hand the place over to the terrorist-supporting enemy regimes that have been destabilizing it.
Another Inconvenient Truth
As Glenn notes, National Socialism was socialism, unhappy though leftists might be when it’s pointed out.
Space Linky Love
Ferris Valyn has the latest edition of his space diary up, with a lot of links, and discussion of the conference. Also, yesterday, I failed to mention the latest edition of the Carnival of Space over at Music of the Spheres.
90,000,000 Carat Diamond
I look at using chemical vapor deposition (and welding) to build a mono-crystalline, mono-molecular carbon space elevator over at The Space Review. Surprisingly, it will cost about what Brad Edwards budgeted for single-walled carbon nanutube (CNT) manufacturing.
If space elevators cost $25,000/kg and space delivery after the elevator’s up cost $10-$800/kg, then the second space elevator probably should be built out of less expensive, less exotic materials. If Kevlar is only 2% as strong as carbon nanotubes, you can still afford 50 kg of Kevlar for the price of 1 kg of diamonds at delivery costs and purchase prices less than $500 if elevator-quality CNT cost at least as much as bulk purchases of pure synthetic diamonds wholesale. One wouldn’t use Kevlar further down the elevator because then there would be a multiplier because we would need more Kevlar to hold the Kevlar and it would go up by a factor of e50 or so. But that doesn’t apply right at the base–it’s pretty much linear there.
Another issue I may explore is that if a Mars elevator can be 6 tons or less, it might weigh less than the fuel needed to take off from Mars or even the fuel and aerobrake to get from Mars geosynchronous orbit to the surface. Mars exploration economics change a lot if return oxygen can be carted up from the surface by elevator. Note that one would not necessarily need laser or microwave power to power a climber on Mars. Solar power for a climber would have it climb slower, but it would still climb.
A great place to work the kinks out of space elevator technology is the Moon. A Lunar space elevator going from a little ways Earthward of Earth-Moon L-1, would not need materials as strong as a space elevator for the Earth’s surface. If successful, it would allow much more mass to go down to the surface and much more return mass than the 46 metric tons of LSAM ascender and descender. A 7-ton Lunar elevator and some climbers powered from Earth would provide as much cargo capacity as Edwards’s starter elevator on Earth. Since Lunar exploration doesn’t really begin in earnest until late next decade according to the current (perhaps overly optimistic) vision, it might be worth doing some thought experiments about saving mass on the very first sortie to the Moon by using a Lunar space elevator. Pearson advocated this using M5 fiber to make a 7,000 kg Lunar elevator with 200 kg capacity a few years back. Forget thought experiments, launch the @$%#! elevator.