- #31
DevilsAvocado
Gold Member
- 848
- 91
JaredJames said:
Look JJ, I appreciate many of your post and some are even brilliant, like your "dismissal on the whole notion of god(s)". But this current "Apollo game" must be some kind of mental blackout... you’re constantly changing your arguments, avoiding the original question:
DevilsAvocado said:
I won’t make fun of your "simulation hypothesis", it’s too cruel.
MANIAC I
http://www.peterpoole.info/images/1952_maniac.jpg
Let’s listen to the man who made it happen instead:
Kennedy Apollo Speech (May 25, 1961)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_JlSdRCg7g
JFK - We choose to go to the Moon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouRbkBAOGEw
"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there.' Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."
-John F. Kennedy, Rice University, Sept. 12, 1962
-John F. Kennedy, Rice University, Sept. 12, 1962
This man had balls, and I’d wish we had more of his kind today. The Apollo program was driven by politics and the Cold War, more than anything else. There was no 'simulation' in 1956 or 1961 or 1962 that proved this programs success as a safe Sunday trip to heaven. It was a combination of high risks, step by step development, and political strategy in the Cold War.
Besides balls, JFK had excellent poker face. This is what happened behind closed doors Nov. 21, 1962 (after the speech):
(Selected snippets by me, full text here: http://history.nasa.gov/JFK-Webbconv/pages/transcript.pdf
and recordings here: http://history.nasa.gov/JFK-Webbconv/index.html )
Transcript of Presidential Meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House
Topic: Supplemental appropriations for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
21 November 1962
Present at the meeting:
President John F. Kennedy
James Webb, NASA Administrator
Dr. Jerome Wiesner, Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology
Edward Welsh, Executive Secretary, National Aeronautics and Space Council
David E. Bell, Director, Bureau of the Budget
Dr. Hugh Dryden, Deputy Administrator, NASA
Dr. Robert Seamans, Associate Administrator, NASA
Dr. Brainerd Holmes, Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, NASA
Elmer Staats, Deputy Director, Bureau of the Budget
Willis H. Shapley, Deputy Division Chief, Military Division, Bureau of the Budget
Brainerd Holmes: Well, I’ll give you the next chart, the lunar landing, and show you the effect on that. The effect that this would have is somewhat hard to determine because if everything went the way we anticipated in the design of our Apollo, there’d probably be very little effect on the Apollo. But if we found by these one-week missions, you see, things that we don’t now think are going to happen—such as, well, adverse effects from zero gravity and [disease?], and anything like this, it might affect the design of the Apollo. Everything going well I would say, that, uh, given this experience, it wouldn’t particularly affect this schedule, which is affected in itself, however, because of the need for funds. And that schedule, uh, that one shows…. Once again, this…this schedule which is without the supplemental funds and it shows the first manned flight February of ’65 in the Apollo.
Robert Seamans: I think I agree with you, Jim, that you can schedule six months earlier but you have to understand what these dates really are. These are dates for the internal management of the projects. They have to be dates that people believe are realistic. I mean, you have to have a fighting chance to achieve these dates but they’re by no means dates that you can absolutely guarantee at this time, because this is a development program, and you are learning as you go along, and if you crank up too much of a crash program and you start running into trouble, it can take more time to unsort the difficulties than if it is a better paced program.
Hugh Dryden: That’s one way of looking at it. Proceed on the assumption that you do not meet any unexpected obstacles, this is an assumption which from experience that we know is not completely accurate.
President Kennedy: The science…. Going to the Moon is the top-priority project. Now, there are a lot of related scientific information and developments that will come from that which are important. But the whole thrust of the Agency, in my opinion, is the lunar program. The rest of it can wait six or nine months.
James Webb: The trouble…Jerry is holding up his hand…. Let me say one thing, then maybe you want to [unknown] the thing that troubles me here about making such a flat statement as that is, number one, there are real unknowns as to whether man can live under the weightless condition and you’ll ever make the lunar landing. This is one kind of political vulnerability I’d like to avoid such a flat commitment to. If you say you failed on your number-one priority, this is something to think about.
Jerome Wiesner: [Unintelligible—“If you got enough time?”] Mr. President, I don’t think Jim understands some of the scientific problems that are associated with landing on the Moon and this is what Dave Bell was trying to say and what I’m trying to say. We don’t know a damn thing about the surface of the Moon. And we’re making the wildest guesses about how we’re going to land on the Moon and we could get a terrible disaster from putting something down on the surface of the Moon that’s very different than we think it is. And the scientific programs that find us that information have to have the highest priority. But they are associated with the lunar program. The scientific programs that aren’t associated with the lunar program can have any priority we please to give ’em.
James Webb: Now, now let me make one thing very, very clear. The real success of this program and what it does for this administration in terms of prestige and for the country in terms of a position of preeminence is going to depend not so much on these target dates, but how this program is run. These birds are going to fly or not fly, not by what you put on the schedule or the amount of money you put in it, but the way this thing is run. As a matter [unknown] over the next year or two we have got to validate the capacity of the government to run a program like this in partnership with industry. This has not yet been proved! And the attitude, the philosophy within which you go, of a tight, hard-driving race here, watching the dollars, is going to be terribly important, in my opinion, in where you come out. And the easiest thing you can do is have this nice image we’ve got now, you blow it away by a bunch of foolish things.
James Webb: All I’m trying to say is…Dave, is…that we are running about three steps ahead of a pack of hounds. And we have got some real vulnerabilities to validate the capacity to do this thing which is almost beyond the possible anyhow.
and recordings here: http://history.nasa.gov/JFK-Webbconv/index.html )
Transcript of Presidential Meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House
Topic: Supplemental appropriations for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
21 November 1962
Present at the meeting:
President John F. Kennedy
James Webb, NASA Administrator
Dr. Jerome Wiesner, Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology
Edward Welsh, Executive Secretary, National Aeronautics and Space Council
David E. Bell, Director, Bureau of the Budget
Dr. Hugh Dryden, Deputy Administrator, NASA
Dr. Robert Seamans, Associate Administrator, NASA
Dr. Brainerd Holmes, Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, NASA
Elmer Staats, Deputy Director, Bureau of the Budget
Willis H. Shapley, Deputy Division Chief, Military Division, Bureau of the Budget
Brainerd Holmes: Well, I’ll give you the next chart, the lunar landing, and show you the effect on that. The effect that this would have is somewhat hard to determine because if everything went the way we anticipated in the design of our Apollo, there’d probably be very little effect on the Apollo. But if we found by these one-week missions, you see, things that we don’t now think are going to happen—such as, well, adverse effects from zero gravity and [disease?], and anything like this, it might affect the design of the Apollo. Everything going well I would say, that, uh, given this experience, it wouldn’t particularly affect this schedule, which is affected in itself, however, because of the need for funds. And that schedule, uh, that one shows…. Once again, this…this schedule which is without the supplemental funds and it shows the first manned flight February of ’65 in the Apollo.
Robert Seamans: I think I agree with you, Jim, that you can schedule six months earlier but you have to understand what these dates really are. These are dates for the internal management of the projects. They have to be dates that people believe are realistic. I mean, you have to have a fighting chance to achieve these dates but they’re by no means dates that you can absolutely guarantee at this time, because this is a development program, and you are learning as you go along, and if you crank up too much of a crash program and you start running into trouble, it can take more time to unsort the difficulties than if it is a better paced program.
Hugh Dryden: That’s one way of looking at it. Proceed on the assumption that you do not meet any unexpected obstacles, this is an assumption which from experience that we know is not completely accurate.
President Kennedy: The science…. Going to the Moon is the top-priority project. Now, there are a lot of related scientific information and developments that will come from that which are important. But the whole thrust of the Agency, in my opinion, is the lunar program. The rest of it can wait six or nine months.
James Webb: The trouble…Jerry is holding up his hand…. Let me say one thing, then maybe you want to [unknown] the thing that troubles me here about making such a flat statement as that is, number one, there are real unknowns as to whether man can live under the weightless condition and you’ll ever make the lunar landing. This is one kind of political vulnerability I’d like to avoid such a flat commitment to. If you say you failed on your number-one priority, this is something to think about.
Jerome Wiesner: [Unintelligible—“If you got enough time?”] Mr. President, I don’t think Jim understands some of the scientific problems that are associated with landing on the Moon and this is what Dave Bell was trying to say and what I’m trying to say. We don’t know a damn thing about the surface of the Moon. And we’re making the wildest guesses about how we’re going to land on the Moon and we could get a terrible disaster from putting something down on the surface of the Moon that’s very different than we think it is. And the scientific programs that find us that information have to have the highest priority. But they are associated with the lunar program. The scientific programs that aren’t associated with the lunar program can have any priority we please to give ’em.
James Webb: Now, now let me make one thing very, very clear. The real success of this program and what it does for this administration in terms of prestige and for the country in terms of a position of preeminence is going to depend not so much on these target dates, but how this program is run. These birds are going to fly or not fly, not by what you put on the schedule or the amount of money you put in it, but the way this thing is run. As a matter [unknown] over the next year or two we have got to validate the capacity of the government to run a program like this in partnership with industry. This has not yet been proved! And the attitude, the philosophy within which you go, of a tight, hard-driving race here, watching the dollars, is going to be terribly important, in my opinion, in where you come out. And the easiest thing you can do is have this nice image we’ve got now, you blow it away by a bunch of foolish things.
James Webb: All I’m trying to say is…Dave, is…that we are running about three steps ahead of a pack of hounds. And we have got some real vulnerabilities to validate the capacity to do this thing which is almost beyond the possible anyhow.
JaredJames said:
Why not focusing on getting the basic facts right? Wiring the globe with liquid nitrogen is a little bit dumb to even consider, isn’t it?
What we are talking about is High-temperature Superconductor DC transmission (HTSC DC) inside the plant, approx 300 miles. To send the juice further, they connect to a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current" Foundation, Munich Re, Deutsche Bank, Siemens, ABB, E.ON, RWE, Abengoa Solar, Cevital, HSH Nordbank, M & W Zander Holding, MAN Solar Millennium, and Schott Solar.
Some of the structure is already in place:
[URL]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/HVDC_Europe.svg/400px-HVDC_Europe.svg.png[/URL]
P.S. Short on time... I’ll get back to the rest soon.
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