Re: More jolly Space Station news
"Pardon my ignorance, but why hasn't there ever been a true alternative to rockets? It just seems so primitive to put all your goodies on top of a bomb, and shoot it up with brute force, when more elegant solutions may be possible. " Using a "Hydrogen gas balloon" doesn't cut the safety issue. Whether it's a bomb strapped under you (rocket) or above you (balloon) the results are the same in an accident. Although I think "elegant" fits the balloon scenario, the word "primitive" would fit a balloon more so than a rocket?
Re: More jolly Space Station news
On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Bruce Moomaw wrote: From: David M Harland [EMAIL PROTECTED] INDUSTRIAL SPACE FACILITY [snip] In reality, however, this revolutionary start-up deal had its origins in the Reagan administration's July 1984 call for commercialisation of space operations, and this was NASA's way of helping private ventures make commercial headway in their most crucial formative years. The fundamental problem that I have (from a business perspective) is that there is *no* market in space and a relatively small market for anything currently produced there. (As pointed out by others, the biotechnological applications for space based operations seem for the most part to be contrived.) In April 1989, however, NASA effectively killed off the ISF when a specially commissioned panel advised against leasing the commercial free-flying module for microgravity work. It added a caveat that if the development of the station was signficantly delayed then it would be worth reconsidering the free-flyer as an interim vehicle. It would be useful to know *who* was on the panel and what the basis for their recomendations was. If Bruce wants to chase after NASA, the minutes of the meetings of such a panel would be something one would like to obtain under the FoI regulations. Well, of course, the development of the Station WAS significantly delayed (to put it mildly) and also multiplied several times in cost. Which NASA knew it would in 1989. Given the ups and downs of the political approval process for the space station, how can one claim that NASA *knew* it would cost several times as much as proposed -- I'd hasten to remind one that not even NASA could have predicted the course that Russia has been through over the last decade. How much of the station cost increases has been due to that rather unpredictable detail? (!) Even if the station was planned as a shuttle user boondoggle, there would always have been people who could have shown that it could be done for less. Why hasn't there been any discussion/movement regarding the development of much greater launch capacity? If you go back and look at the early Saturn V plans or Russian plans, one can realize that there were plans of building even larger rockets than we once had. Its worth keeping in mind that the lift capacity of the Saturn V or the Energia were ~4-5x the lift capacity of the Shuttle. According to my notes -- the launch capacity of the Shuttle into NEO is ~25,000 kg, the Energia ~105,000 kg, the Saturn V ~118,000 kg. Robert == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
- Original Message - From: Gary McMurtry [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 1:21 AM Subject: Re: More jolly Space Station news I would just like to add to the long thought train that Robert has been delivering that we never know where the next bold new idea comes from. It could be from that gal or guy next door. This simple fact makes any single life a very precious one indeed. Just how many joint replacement surgeries would a 2000 to 6000 year old person have to survive to maintain any semblance of mobility, Robert? I'm just over 50, and so far the left knee, ankle and spleen have either been fixed or removed. Maybe I'm just accident prone or lead an active life. To overcome aging, one would have to completely reorder the developmental biology of an organism, evolved over millions of years. I think that's a very tall order. Brain transfers to younger bodies ala Shelley's Dr. Frankenstein would be far easier. That wouldn't work either. Consider Gahan Wilson's morbidly funny story Harry's Golden Years, in which a billionnaire keeps having his increasingly senile old brain transplanted into new bodies -- with the result that he ends up as a handsome young man who also happens to be a drooling idiot. What Robert is talking about, though, is countering the physical aging process completely -- including osteoarthritis (which is a function of the aging process, rather than simple mechanical wear and tear). It would still mean, though, that at some point the brain would completely fill up its capacity for stored memories, thus causing you to go insane in another way unless some way was found to edit and remove some memories. (And, again, the odds that the Space Station's studies would lead to immortality -- as opposed to the huge number of other medical studies one could conduct for its $90-150 billion total cost -- are very small indeed.) Whre the value of the average human life is concerned, though, no matter how gruesome it looks, we HAVE to come up with some kind of socially accepted official figure -- or else we end up spending an infinite amount of money to keep people from being hit by cars when they cross the street. As I understand it, economists say that the figure that the voters of most democracies converge on is about $4 million per life. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
In a message dated 10/8/2001 8:43:46 PM Alaskan Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, David M Harland wrote: There is no viable alternative to the Shuttle for human spaceflight. It is now running about as efficiently as it ever will. It is simply a costly business. Huh? Does anyone know what the costs are for the Russian missions? If they will take $20 M for 1/3 of a mission, then it seems that one can argue that their launch costs are less than $60 M/flight. Taking the high/low range for the shuttle ($1B vs. $400M) vs. $60 M and its clear that there *are* both viable and cheaper alternatives to the shuttle. I've often seen arguments that the cost of getting a human into orbit need not be more than the cost of a cross-country airplane flight (in terms of energy expenditure). So we return to the issue of whether or not it is a volume business (with occasional losses) or an exclusive monopoly for a select few. The "Mars Colony" approach begs issues such as whether real molecular nanotechnology, planetary dismantlement and the evolution of the human mind from its current hardware base onto a more robust platform are feasible. I've thought long and hard about the preservation of individuals and the species and it doesn't happen unless one embraces the ability to evolve and adapt. Building a Mars Colony in the Zubrin/Mars Society image is quite feasible but most likely pointless -- it might save humanity from an asteroid impacting Earth but it doesn't save us from meandering brown dwarfs disrupting the solar system or nearby supernovas that we will at some point probably encounter. Robert Robert, understand that I think that you, and the Aieveos project, are brilliant. But, I just don't see 'Ringworld' in our immediate future. What point discussing the possibilities of humans being impacted by Nemesis or the 'Brown Dwarf Du Jour', when we have yet to get off the Earth in a significant way, and most can't really fathom a world beyond the next 5 year horizon, let alone the 500 year one. -- JHB
Re: More jolly Space Station news
Yes, in the current world context it is completely accurate to say this. But from a moral perspective, one is required to ask *if* and *when* this will change? Never, never, never. At least since the time of Aristotle, people have been asking such questions, as 'when will the philosopher kings bring us to harmony'? 2300 years, and millions of dead later, we're not any closer. If anything, we're closer to oblivion, as the means to wipe out masses of people has become more and more available to individuals. Statistically speaking, some of those individuals are bound to be irresponsible. As the world population density increases, so too does the value of lives property lost *even* if impacts occur in less populated areas. It is simply a matter of *when* the costs to prevent such hazards becomes less than the frequency of their occurrence. I disagree. In the current crises, the worst damage done to the US was not in terms of loss of people or infrastructure, but the attendant panic response. This would suggest that more important than preventing injury to the public is the prevention of the _perception_ that an individual is at risk. What we're talking is not quantity of lives, but the quality of them. That requires money, which is really just another way of prioritizing efforts, by spreading the decision making to as many people as possible. Fundamentally and absolutely wrong. The "quality" of someones life is entirely a subjective experience dictated by the difference between ones needs expectations (genetically and culturally determined) and the reality of what one experiences on a day-to-day basis. Nonsense. Any goat herder in Afghanistan would probably agree that his life sucks, and he's leaving Afghanistan. If he could, he'd come to America, or another Western country. What made him a goat herder, not a stockbroker living a life of ease? Money. A subjective belief that everything's groovy only gets you so far. Molecular nanotechnology or *even* advanced biotechnology provides the means to provide for *all* the people on the planet in a way that their "survival" needs are completely satisfied -- so the "quality" of their lives shifts from something dictated by their basic biology to something that is based purely in their psyche (i.e. purely artificial subjective). Hmm... let's take this to practical considerations. Psyche travelers, in our contemporary sense, seem to be represented by the Heaven's Gate cult, Timoty Leary, and the past lives of Shirly McLaine. My point is that humans evolved to strive, not to mentally masturbate. Take away our reasons for struggle, and we devolve as a species. Once those needs are met, "money" has relatively little to do with it. A small group of professors at a single university chould easily provide a "global" education forum given current information distribution forums. In those situations, it is not "money" or "democratic decision making" that determine the outcomes but the "cleverness" and "desire" of individuals. Your 'small group of professors' could either be philosopher kings, or tyrants. Alternatively, they could prove to be subtlely incompetent, gently leading humanity to social extinction. I'd rather trust to strife, struggle, hardship, conflict, and so forth to keep us a worthy species. In a real context, ask yourself: WHY has it been that humanity's greatest social and technical inventions have usually been as a result of conflict with one another? I'll note that Bruce has argued that there is virtually no cost difference between the "Earth based" and "Space based" protection schemes. I'd argue that that is *fundamentally* incorrect -- that the harvesting of fuel and materials in space is much cheaper than lifting such materials out of the gravity well that the Earth is in. Don't believe *either* of us -- require a demonstration of the math. IMO, Bruce's perspective that a few nuclear weapons (my interpretation of what he has said) can deflect an incoming asteroid is very naive. We need a much greater ability to deploy a massive amount of kinetic energy in space if we hope to be able to defend the planet. What happens when the general in charge of deflecting space rocks decides he's got a better plan for Earth, and the wherewithal to make it happen? The trouble with putting the military in space (or really, any capacity to change the course of asteroids) is the hijacking / coup d'etat question. Just as castles made knights and nobles supreme for 1000 years, so the monopolization of space will tend to be the ultimate 'high ground' of the third millenium. The major players will rule the world, because they rule the heavens. It'll be to make money. Just like the conquest of the Americas. Then you have to wrestle with a couple of UN treaties that make the ownership or development of private property in space *very* problematic. If you can't "own" a rock -- how can you make money from it? That, my friend, is the one area that, if
Re: More jolly Space Station news
Please remove me off this list, it is out of control == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
More jolly Space Station news
From the Oct. 1 Aviation Week: NASA believes it has whittled its $4.8 billion shortfall on the Space Station to about $500 million, but that only buys a three-man crew -- barely enough to keep the station operating, and woefully inadequate for 'world-class science'. Estimates of how much more it would take to build a station capable of supporting a crew of 6 or 7 are starting to push into the $8 billion range -- about what the Reagan Administration originally estimated the total project would cost. No one is happy about that, particularly members of Congress who were sold a functioning laboratory. And the ESA, which has spent about $4 bilion on ISS and may add another $460 million to help the US pay for a Crew Return Vehicle, calculates that a 3-man crew would give ESA a scanty 1.5 hours of crew time a week. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who chairs a NASA oversight panel, says it's time for some 'creative thinking.' For example, oil-rich states in the Persian Gulf region could buy in, using cash-strapped Russian companies to build their hardware. [Right. Saudi Arabia, maybe? -- Bruce] Meanwhile, members of the independent panel set up to find out how to finish the US station 'core' with the funds available are 'depressed and astonished' after a week at the ISS program office in Houston, according to one insider who says NASA hasn't offered 'hard numbers' to back up its estimate of the original shortfall. I do wonder how much longer Congress will tolerate this farce just to conceal from the voters the fact that NASA royally scammed them. Meanwhile, NASA Watch reports that the Bush Administration has now given up on finding any willing replacement for Dan Goldin, and doesn't think NASA is important enough anyway to put any more thought in on it at this point -- so they're just going to leave Goldin in as head, to do whatever damn thing he wants with the limited amount of money they intend to give him from now on. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
On Sun, 7 Oct 2001, Bruce Moomaw wrote: NASA believes it has whittled its $4.8 billion shortfall on the Space Station to about $500 million, but that only buys a three-man crew -- barely enough to keep the station operating, and woefully inadequate for 'world-class science'. To my way of thinking, there is little world-class science that can be done up there other than to perhaps determine the long-term effects of zero-g or higher radiation levels on the human body and potentially other life forms. I've always thought the suggested experiments I've seen were fairly 'contrived'. The understanding the long-term effects of zero-g are questionable without a clearly stated goal to genetically modify the human genome (presumably through patches to the genomic program) to allow humans to be space-compatible. Estimates of how much more it would take to build a station capable of supporting a crew of 6 or 7 are starting to push into the $8 billion range -- about what the Reagan Administration originally estimated the total project would cost. The question is precisely *what* is making it so expensive? No one is happy about that, particularly members of Congress who were sold a functioning laboratory. And the ESA, which has spent about $4 bilion on ISS and may add another $460 million to help the US pay for a Crew Return Vehicle, calculates that a 3-man crew would give ESA a scanty 1.5 hours of crew time a week. What I can't figure out is why something floating in space needs 200 person-hours a week to operate it. For example, oil-rich states in the Persian Gulf region could buy in, using cash-strapped Russian companies to build their hardware. [Right. Saudi Arabia, maybe? -- Bruce] Most people aren't aware of it but Saudi Arabia is facing its own problems. They have got a significant population of unemployed and underemployed young people and the infrastructure investment requirements anticipated over the next 20 years in terms of desalination, electricity production, sewer plants, etc. to meet the needs of the anticipated population growth. They are not as cash-rich as you might think. Meanwhile, members of the independent panel set up to find out how to finish the US station 'core' with the funds available are 'depressed and astonished' after a week at the ISS program office in Houston, according to one insider who says NASA hasn't offered 'hard numbers' to back up its estimate of the original shortfall. This is a good point. Where's the beef? Was the shortfall NASA crying wolf? I do wonder how much longer Congress will tolerate this farce just to conceal from the voters the fact that NASA royally scammed them. Well, I wouldn't assume a scam before ruling out simple ineptitude. As recent projected increases in the costs for the CERN LHC show, NASA may not be alone in mis-managing large projects. Now, the interesting thing is to contrast that with the Human Genome Project, where it looks like things will get done sooner and cheaper than were originally estimated. Meta-rule?: Working with big stuff you will underestimate the difficulty while working with small stuff you will overestimate it??? If true, that says that efforts to move to micro/nano (I hate using the term nano with something weighing kg) satellites should payoff bigtime. Meanwhile, NASA Watch reports that the Bush Administration has now given up on finding any willing replacement for Dan Goldin, and doesn't think NASA is important enough anyway to put any more thought in on it at this point -- so they're just going to leave Goldin in as head, to do whatever damn thing he wants with the limited amount of money they intend to give him from now on. This is unfortunate since it implies that we've got a lack of leadership and potentially a long term moral and recruitment problem at one of the few agencies that might have a crack at saving our collective butts should we just happen to discover an unpleasant hunk of space material headed in our general direction. It doesn't do us one damn bit of good to launch a mission to Europa if it turns out our antennas to receive the data and the people to study it have been blasted into atmospheric dust. I know the odds are low -- but do you want to be on the losing side of the coin? What is needed is a long term plan to use space development *not* as a science boondoggle (be it the Space Station or Solar System exploration) but as a *legitimate* project to develop the infrastructure to save the species. Only a very small minority of people will buy into the science aspects but a large majority of people will buy into saving themselves or their children. I also notice that nobody has responded to my question regarding *what* the power source is supposed to be on any Europa mission. [Feel free to repost to other lists if the content is of interest]. Sigh, Robert == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project
Re: More jolly Space Station news
Well, at the risk of being considered a bottom line man, here's my read on the space station fiasco. In the early 1970s, Nixon wanted the space shuttle because they thought it would be a great way to launch err, spy satellites. So, we got it. Now, we have the space station to give the shuttles someplace to go when they're not launching satellites, fixing telescopes, bore-bore-bore, etc. The science is marginal at best, contrived at worst. This would be a great area for congress and NASA to cut costs. It's an expensive albatross, if there ever was one. Geez, Gary == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
It's an expensive albatross, if there ever was one. I disagree, the problem is its functionality has been pared back to much, it needs to be expanded! :) dmh == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Gary McMurtry wrote: So, we got it. Now, we have the space station to give the shuttles someplace to go when they're not launching satellites, fixing telescopes, bore-bore-bore, etc. I've read someplace, perhaps The Case for Mars, that the space station was designed to keep the shuttle busy for 3-4 years and that is why it costs so much. It could have been built as a single unit for much less and launched with a cluster of Suttle solid rocket fuel boosters and/or a newly designed booster based on the SSME. The science is marginal at best, contrived at worst. This would be a great area for congress and NASA to cut costs. It's an expensive albatross, if there ever was one. Cut costs for *what* purpose? Its partially up there now -- the trick is to make it really useful. The *useful* thing would be to propose a gradual, say 10-20 year program for a realistic space-based asteroid/comet shield. You don't get it by launching the required materials from the ground, instead you use the space station as a base for harvesting increasingly larger and larger near earth objects that you use for space-based manufacturing of the necessary rockets, fuel, power arrays, etc. that could be used to defend the population of the Earth from hazards we currently are pretty darn susceptible to. Once developed you can also use the facility to launch probes around the solar system on a much shorter mission time scale. You use our existing launch capacity to get the probes up with a minimal fuel load, then refuel them at the space station. Since the fuel is presumably being harvested for a much lower cost, the overall mission costs should fall as well. Faster, better, cheaper just like Dan Goldin says. Robert == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
- Original Message - From: Gary McMurtry [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 11:12 AM Subject: Re: More jolly Space Station news Well, at the risk of being considered a bottom line man, here's my read on the space station fiasco. In the early 1970s, Nixon wanted the space shuttle because they thought it would be a great way to launch err, spy satellites. So, we got it. Now, we have the space station to give the shuttles someplace to go when they're not launching satellites, fixing telescopes, bore-bore-bore, etc. The science is marginal at best, contrived at worst. This would be a great area for congress and NASA to cut costs. It's an expensive albatross, if there ever was one. Ah, but it's also a major supply of pork -- which is the other reason that Congress is reluctant to kill it. And it wasn't a mistake on NASA's part -- like the Shuttle, it is a deliberate, multibillion-dollar criminal fraud and always has been. The sole purpose of both projects has always really been to retain NASA's bloated funding levels after the end of Apollo, and NASA got them through with the classic Camel's Nose technique: persuade Congress and the White House to fund the things in the first place by ridiculously understating their cost and overstating their effectiveness, and then each year incrementally raise one and lower the other while arguing that if Congress doesn't continue funding the project anyway, the money already spent will have been wasted. (Science journalist Daniel S. Greenberg calls it the sucker-bait technique.) As one retired NASA official told a Time magazine reporter after the Challenger disaster: We hated to do it, but we were getting SO many votes. This also explains why NASA has repeatedly, openly and illegally defied the Freedom of Information Act to withhold documents written by high-ranking NASA officials on this subject -- and, as Nature has pointed out, many of the documents that have been released confirm that NASA officials up to and including James Fletcher deliberately planned the strategy. But -- as the savings and loan disaster also proves -- criminal activities will pay off big time, and you will never be punished for them, if you can persuade a majority of members of the legislature itself to support them. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
- Original Message - From: David M Harland [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 12:25 PM Subject: Re: More jolly Space Station news It's an expensive albatross, if there ever was one. I disagree, the problem is its functionality has been pared back to much, it needs to be expanded! Hogwash. Its real cost was always ridiculously disproportionate to the size of the scientific benefits it would supposedly produce -- that, after all, is why NASA had to deliberately understate its cost by a factor of 5 to 10 to get Congress and Reagan to approve it in the first place. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
- Original Message - From: Robert J. Bradbury [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 10:32 AM Subject: Re: More jolly Space Station news On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Gary McMurtry wrote: So, we got it. Now, we have the space station to give the shuttles someplace to go when they're not launching satellites, fixing telescopes, bore-bore-bore, etc. I've read someplace, perhaps The Case for Mars, that the space station was designed to keep the shuttle busy for 3-4 years and that is why it costs so much. It could have been built as a single unit for much less and launched with a cluster of Suttle solid rocket fuel boosters and/or a newly designed booster based on the SSME. The science is marginal at best, contrived at worst. This would be a great area for congress and NASA to cut costs. It's an expensive albatross, if there ever was one. Cut costs for *what* purpose? Its partially up there now -- the trick is to make it really useful. The *useful* thing would be to propose a gradual, say 10-20 year program for a realistic space-based asteroid/comet shield. You don't get it by launching the required materials from the ground, instead you use the space station as a base for harvesting increasingly larger and larger near earth objects that you use for space-based manufacturing of the necessary rockets, fuel, power arrays, etc. that could be used to defend the population of the Earth from hazards we currently are pretty darn susceptible to. Once developed you can also use the facility to launch probes around the solar system on a much shorter mission time scale. You use our existing launch capacity to get the probes up with a minimal fuel load, then refuel them at the space station. Since the fuel is presumably being harvested for a much lower cost, the overall mission costs should fall as well. Faster, better, cheaper just like Dan Goldin says. Forgive me for saying so, but you have a complete bee in your bonnet on the urgency of asteroid deflection. It will be tens of millions of years before another dinosaur-killer asteroid hits Earth -- and by that time, humanity will either be spread all over the Solar System or (more probably) will have totally exterminated itself, even if we expand into space at only a very slow trickle. The only significant short-term risk from an impact is that another Tunguska-size event might panic a nation into thinking it was under nuclear attack -- and that (along with the need for evacuation of the small impact area), is why a Spacewatch network is cost-justifiable, but your proposed huge project is not. (Moreover, if we ever do decide to deflect an asteroid or comet, we could do it right now -- without any need for a major manned presence in space -- just by aiming unmanned vehicles at the object.) If we're going to spend such a huge amount of money on the security of the human race, it makes infinitely more sense to spend it on techniques to try and protect the human race from attacking itself with nuclear and biological weapons. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Bruce Moomaw wrote: It's what it has been from the start: some kind of thermionic nuclear generator converting the heat from Pu-238 into electrical energy. However, NASA would like to develop a new system more efficient at this conversion than the current RTGs, thereby reducing the amount of plutonium necessary by a factor of 2 or 3. A conversation with Chris Chyba over a year ago, seemed to suggest to me that there was only one remaining RTG in existence (perhaps a spare from the Cassini mission). In order to do Europa Pluto the development of a new source was a *necessity*. Their first development attempt -- the AMTEC generator -- was a royal technological fiasco, so they're now trying to develop a Stirling generator. I believe the development work was being handled by LANL or LLNL, so I don't think you can blame the failure on NASA. After all there aren't a lot of nuclear engineers working at NASA. [snip] but, as I say, it would use far less plutonium, which is good both from the safety point of view and from the viewpoint of how extremely costly it is to manufacture the stuff. Why is it costly to manufacture? Or is it just the handling costs that drive up the expense? Any generator that uses Pu-238 at all, of course, runs a safety risk from a launch accident. NASA insists that the risk, even in the event of a launch explosion or accidental reentry, is miniscule; but then NASA lies a lot. Ah, making claims without citing factual data (shame shame). It would appear that the RTGs were designed by the DOE, so you would need to make an argument that the DOE is lying about their safety, *not* NASA. Here is a page about the RTG architecture -- judge the safety for yourself. http://spacepwr.jpl.nasa.gov/rtgs.htm Solar power now looks perfectly practical for Jupiter flybys, since solar arrays have gotten a lot lighter than they used to be -- but solar-cell damage from Jupiter's intense radiation belts is still a very serious problem for a Jupiter orbiter, and the weight problem is also very serious for a Europa orbiter. They can get *much* lighter still, but they probably have to be assembled in space due to the high g forces during Earth launches. The limits would appear to be at least 3 orders of magnitude lower than current areal densities. Robert == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
- Original Message - From: David M Harland [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 12:25 PM Subject: Re: More jolly Space Station news It's an expensive albatross, if there ever was one. I disagree, the problem is its functionality has been pared back to much, it needs to be expanded! Hogwash. Its real cost was always ridiculously disproportionate to the size of the scientific benefits it would supposedly produce -- that, after all, is why NASA had to deliberately understate its cost by a factor of 5 to 10 to get Congress and Reagan to approve it in the first place. Come on now, Bruce. Don't speak so elliptically, tell us what you really think! dmh == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, David M Harland wrote: I disagree, the problem is its functionality has been pared back to much, it needs to be expanded! Hogwash. Its real cost was always ridiculously disproportionate to the size of the scientific benefits it would supposedly produce -- that, after all, is why NASA had to deliberately understate its cost by a factor of 5 to 10 to get Congress and Reagan to approve it in the first place. Come on now, Bruce. Don't speak so elliptically, tell us what you really think! I've lost track of who said what in the above conversation. However, I'll make a contribution. This chart compares the allocation of U.S. government RD funds: http://www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/rd/cht9001a.pdf A more extensive discussion is at: http://www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/rd/ca01main.htm I'd argue on humanitarian and moral grounds that the best evaluation criteria should be on lives saved / $ spent (or more accurately years of potential life saved / $ spent). In that respect the $ going to the NIH or the EPA probably far exceed those going to the NSF or NASA. Bottom line is -- if you want a billion dollar Europa mission -- how many human lives are on the line if the available $ are diverted from NIH research to NASA development? It isn't a nice question but it needs to be asked to *focus* your attention on priorities. Robert == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
Robert, I hear you on the human costs versus our perhaps esoteric need to know. Carl Sagan wrestled with this topic also. One of my favorite exchanges (whether real or contrived) was attributed to Ben Franklin. When someone questioned his basic scientific research with the question What good is it?, he replied What good is a newborn baby?. His was apparently a quick wit. Gary On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, David M Harland wrote: I disagree, the problem is its functionality has been pared back to much, it needs to be expanded! Hogwash. Its real cost was always ridiculously disproportionate to the size of the scientific benefits it would supposedly produce -- that, after all, is why NASA had to deliberately understate its cost by a factor of 5 to 10 to get Congress and Reagan to approve it in the first place. Come on now, Bruce. Don't speak so elliptically, tell us what you really think! I've lost track of who said what in the above conversation. However, I'll make a contribution. This chart compares the allocation of U.S. government RD funds: http://www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/rd/cht9001a.pdf A more extensive discussion is at: http://www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/rd/ca01main.htm I'd argue on humanitarian and moral grounds that the best evaluation criteria should be on lives saved / $ spent (or more accurately years of potential life saved / $ spent). In that respect the $ going to the NIH or the EPA probably far exceed those going to the NSF or NASA. Bottom line is -- if you want a billion dollar Europa mission -- how many human lives are on the line if the available $ are diverted from NIH research to NASA development? It isn't a nice question but it needs to be asked to *focus* your attention on priorities. Robert == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/ == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
Bruce You complain that a crew of three will only barely be able to keep the ISS operating... so finish the habitation module and have a crew of six, or two modules and have a crew of nine. Italy has offered to build the module in return for NASA launching an Italian life sciences laboratory, so all it'll cost NASA is the launches of these modules. If NASA can't afford to finish the X-38 ACRV, buy more Soyuz spacecraft to serve as lifeboats. Hell, if it meant that ESA and NASDA were able to station their own people aboard on a full time basis to run their own laboratories they'd probably but the transports. The worst thing will be to pay the cost of providing the ISS as an infrastructure for science, then inhibit the crew so that only a trivial amount of science can be done... It is all very well to argue that it cost more than initially estimated, but so has every space project since the dawn of the Space Age - just look at the Europan mission, which has gone from being an FBC mission to a billion-dollar ticket. And its all very well to argue that the ISS should have been designed in a few largr units to ride a couple of big dumb boosters rather than itty-bitty-wise for the Shuttle, but we have to work with what we've got. Now that the damned thing is coming along, use it! You may not think much of microgravity research but that's your view, a fluid specialist probably couldn't give a damn about a mission to Europa - even though it has the largest ocean in the solar system. Quit moaning. dmh == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
Bruce said: If I told you what I REALLY think of the Station, this site would probably get yanked off the Web. Actually, though, it's quite possible to conceive of a Station that would have been far more defensible -- namely, one made of a series of similar self-contained modules that could be attached to each other to enlarge the Station as, and only as, it seemed justifiable. This design was worked out in quite some detail by at least one high-ranking aerospace engineer (for Lockheed, I believe) -- whose reward was to get fired by his company for upsetting the gravy train. And another company proposed an Industrial Space Facility -- a small microgravity lab which could have been completely assembled by two Shuttle flights, and then spend most of the time running its experiments automatically with occasional manned visits to retrieve and replace the experiments -- which NASA deliberately strangled lest it give the Station too much competition. For anyone who wants to know INDUSTRIAL SPACE FACILITY As the prospects of microgravity research grew in the early 1980s, it began to look as if there would soon be a role for a free-flying facility on which longer-term experiments could be performed or, better yet, applications run. The development in 1985 by McDonnell Douglas of a pallet in the Shuttle's payload bay for 'Electrophoresis Operations in Space' (designed to refine biological products such as insulin) seemed to be a clear sign that sooner, rather than later, the company would seek to expand its orbital operations. Perhaps it would lease time on a semi-permanent multi-role platform? Perhaps by the early 1990s there would be an ever-increasing call for time on orbital platforms. In this lucrative service-provider market it would clearly pay to be the first in the field. It would also be of benefit to be seen to have close links with NASA. Space Industries Incorporated (SII) had been set up in Houston in 1982 by Max Faget, the chief designer of the Mercury capsule. When Joe Allen resigned as an astronaut, he had joined the company. SII was therefore familiar with how NASA conducted business, but nevertheless, set out to transform the way that microgravity payloads were developed. A decade before Dan Goldin made it the norm, SII was an advocate of a 'faster-cheaper-better' approach. In the mid-1980s it noted the future for a large orbital facility for long-running experiments, and proposed the Industrial Space Facility (ISF) as an automated materials processing factory to be deployed and tended by Shuttles. A docking system set in the front part of the bay would be linked to the middeck's airlock by a short tunnel and the ISF would have a hatch and, when raised from the bay by the RMS, could be rotated and mounted on the docking system. After deploying a pair of solar panels, the commissioning crew would enter the module and activate its systems. When everything had been verified, the Shuttle would withdraw and leave the ISF to execute its predefined programme, perhaps with telerobotic assistance. When the programme was complete, the 'product' would be retrieved by another Shuttle, the applications serviced (or superseded upon the expiry of a specific lease) and a new batch of raw material loaded onboard. On these servicing missions a logistics module would be carried in the payload bay. Unlike the space station that NASA was proposing, the ISF was to be self-contained. The design was sufficiently flexible to allow several modules to be joined together and, if necessary, a module could be returned to Earth for refurbishment. In the long term, ISF modules might be integrated into the space station as interim factories. The ISF proposal was well received, Westinghouse, Boeing and Lockheed backed the engineering studies, and NASA announced an agreement in August 1985 guaranteeing two flight opportunities so that SII could assure prospective clients that it had agency support. Furthermore, to obviate SII having to raise capital to cover launch costs, NASA introduced a 'fly-now-pay-later' deal whereby the company would reimburse the cost of flying from the revenues earned from renting time on its module. The company's close association with NASA had paid off. In reality, however, this revolutionary start-up deal had its origins in the Reagan administration's July 1984 call for commercialisation of space operations, and this was NASA's way of helping private ventures make commercial headway in their most crucial formative years. In April 1989, however, NASA effectively killed off the ISF when a specially commissioned panel advised against leasing the commercial free-flying module for microgravity work. It added a caveat that if the development of the station was signficantly delayed then it would be worth reconsidering the free-flyer as an interim vehicle. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list:
Re: More jolly Space Station news
- Original Message - From: David M Harland [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 4:01 PM Subject: Re: More jolly Space Station news Bruce You complain that a crew of three will only barely be able to keep the ISS operating... so finish the habitation module and have a crew of six, or two modules and have a crew of nine. Italy has offered to build the module in return for NASA launching an Italian life sciences laboratory, so all it'll cost NASA is the launches of these modules. If NASA can't afford to finish the X-38 ACRV, buy more Soyuz spacecraft to serve as lifeboats. Hell, if it meant that ESA and NASDA were able to station their own people aboard on a full time basis to run their own laboratories they'd probably but the transports. The worst thing will be to pay the cost of providing the ISS as an infrastructure for science, then inhibit the crew so that only a trivial amount of science can be done... It is all very well to argue that it cost more than initially estimated, but so has every space project since the dawn of the Space Age - just look at the Europan mission, which has gone from being an FBC mission to a billion-dollar ticket. And its all very well to argue that the ISS should have been designed in a few largr units to ride a couple of big dumb boosters rather than itty-bitty-wise for the Shuttle, but we have to work with what we've got. Now that the damned thing is coming along, use it! You may not think much of microgravity research but that's your view, a fluid specialist probably couldn't give a damn about a mission to Europa - even though it has the largest ocean in the solar system. Quit moaning. I'm not moaning; I'm snarling. There's a definite difference. The trouble with your reasoning is that -- even after the Station is completed -- the cost of maintaining it yearly will be phenomenal. The Congressional Budget Office estimated it at about another $50 billion over the Station's life -- and that was working on the assumption that NASA's then-current estimate of a $4.8 billion cost overrun was correct. $90 billion may end up closer to the truth. Don't forget that the actual cost of every Shuttle maintenance flight (despite NASA's attempts to cover it up with highly creative bookkeeping) is about $1 billion. That's one hell of a lot of additional money for a trickle of useful science. As for the fact that it cost more than originally estimated: it now costs 5 to 10 times more than originally estimated. That was no accidental mistake. And the fact that the cost of Europa Orbiter has now mushroomed to about 5 times JPL's original estimate (also not an accident) is an excellent argument for cancelling it too, and proceeding to a more direct and cost-effective way to explore Europa. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
- Original Message - From: David M Harland [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 4:07 PM Subject: Re: More jolly Space Station news For anyone who wants to know INDUSTRIAL SPACE FACILITY As the prospects of microgravity research grew in the early 1980s, it began to look as if there would soon be a role for a free-flying facility on which longer-term experiments could be performed or, better yet, applications run. The development in 1985 by McDonnell Douglas of a pallet in the Shuttle's payload bay for 'Electrophoresis Operations in Space' (designed to refine biological products such as insulin) seemed to be a clear sign that sooner, rather than later, the company would seek to expand its orbital operations. Perhaps it would lease time on a semi-permanent multi-role platform? Perhaps by the early 1990s there would be an ever-increasing call for time on orbital platforms. In this lucrative service-provider market it would clearly pay to be the first in the field. It would also be of benefit to be seen to have close links with NASA. Space Industries Incorporated (SII) had been set up in Houston in 1982 by Max Faget, the chief designer of the Mercury capsule. When Joe Allen resigned as an astronaut, he had joined the company. SII was therefore familiar with how NASA conducted business, but nevertheless, set out to transform the way that microgravity payloads were developed. A decade before Dan Goldin made it the norm, SII was an advocate of a 'faster-cheaper-better' approach. In the mid-1980s it noted the future for a large orbital facility for long-running experiments, and proposed the Industrial Space Facility (ISF) as an automated materials processing factory to be deployed and tended by Shuttles. A docking system set in the front part of the bay would be linked to the middeck's airlock by a short tunnel and the ISF would have a hatch and, when raised from the bay by the RMS, could be rotated and mounted on the docking system. After deploying a pair of solar panels, the commissioning crew would enter the module and activate its systems. When everything had been verified, the Shuttle would withdraw and leave the ISF to execute its predefined programme, perhaps with telerobotic assistance. When the programme was complete, the 'product' would be retrieved by another Shuttle, the applications serviced (or superseded upon the expiry of a specific lease) and a new batch of raw material loaded onboard. On these servicing missions a logistics module would be carried in the payload bay. Unlike the space station that NASA was proposing, the ISF was to be self-contained. The design was sufficiently flexible to allow several modules to be joined together and, if necessary, a module could be returned to Earth for refurbishment. In the long term, ISF modules might be integrated into the space station as interim factories. The ISF proposal was well received, Westinghouse, Boeing and Lockheed backed the engineering studies, and NASA announced an agreement in August 1985 guaranteeing two flight opportunities so that SII could assure prospective clients that it had agency support. Furthermore, to obviate SII having to raise capital to cover launch costs, NASA introduced a 'fly-now-pay-later' deal whereby the company would reimburse the cost of flying from the revenues earned from renting time on its module. The company's close association with NASA had paid off. In reality, however, this revolutionary start-up deal had its origins in the Reagan administration's July 1984 call for commercialisation of space operations, and this was NASA's way of helping private ventures make commercial headway in their most crucial formative years. In April 1989, however, NASA effectively killed off the ISF when a specially commissioned panel advised against leasing the commercial free-flying module for microgravity work. It added a caveat that if the development of the station was signficantly delayed then it would be worth reconsidering the free-flyer as an interim vehicle. Well, of course, the development of the Station WAS significantly delayed (to put it mildly) and also multiplied several times in cost. Which NASA knew it would in 1989. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
- Original Message - From: Gary McMurtry [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 3:06 PM Subject: Re: More jolly Space Station news Robert, I hear you on the human costs versus our perhaps esoteric need to know. Carl Sagan wrestled with this topic also. One of my favorite exchanges (whether real or contrived) was attributed to Ben Franklin. When someone questioned his basic scientific research with the question What good is it?, he replied What good is a newborn baby?. His was apparently a quick wit. I've always heard that story ascribed to Faraday. But whether it was him or Franklin, neither one (to put it mildly) was spending billions per year of other people's money on their experiments == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
- Original Message - From: Robert J. Bradbury [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Europa Icepick [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 1:09 PM Subject: Re: More jolly Space Station news On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Bruce Moomaw wrote: Forgive me for saying so, but you have a complete bee in your bonnet on the urgency of asteroid deflection. Bruce, it is precisely because I understand the laws of statistics that I have such a bee. I have sat at the roulette tables in Las Vegas attempting to play the odds and lost. It is precisely because you cannot guarantee that the heavy hitter against civilization will come in 10 million years vs. tomorrow that I argue that attention is required. The fundamental question is this -- How much would you be willing to pay such that you are alive tomorrow? It will be tens of millions of years before another dinosaur-killer asteroid hits Earth -- and by that time, humanity will either be spread all over the Solar System or (more probably) will have totally exterminated itself, even if we expand into space at only a very slow trickle. You *CANNOT* guarantee with 100% probability that a dinosaur-killer asteroid will not strike the Earth tomorrow. You are simply hoping that the statistical probabilities are in your favor such that you have 10 million years before such an event. Are you willing to bet humanity on such odds? More importantly -- can you convince me that *I* should bet humanity on such odds. Actually, what I'm betting on is the quite elementary statistical concept of expected value (which, by the way, is the reason I've never gambled). David Morrison has estimated that the chance of the average human being killed by an asteroid impact is actually about the same as the chance he will be killed by an aircraft accident (asteroid impacts, of course, are tremendously rarer but are likely to kill tremendously more people). Thus, it seems to make sense to spend about as much yearly on preventing one as the other -- if such an expenditure has the same chance of preventing such deaths. But -- as I've said before -- the overwhelming number of impacts will be Tunguska-type events, and even they will occur on the average only once every several hundred years. And, with sufficient advance warning, we can get out of their way; strictly speaking, we don't even need to deflect them (although it may often be worth our while to do so). Dinosaur-killer rocks, which absolutely must be deflected, come along on an average of once several tens of millions of years -- which means the odds are overwhelming that we will have the technology to routinely deflect them by the time the next one arrives, even if we spend almost NOTHING yearly on space exploration and industrialization. If we're going to talk about betting humanity on such odds, I can't guarantee that an armada of hostile alien spaceships won't arrive at some point and wipe us out, either -- but I don't see you (or anyone else, except perhaps Mulder and Scully) arguing that we should spend billions yearly against THAT particular super-extreme longshot. The only significant short-term risk from an impact is that another Tunguska-size event might panic a nation into thinking it was under nuclear attack -- and that (along with the need for evacuation of the small impact area), is why a Spacewatch network is cost-justifiable, but your proposed huge project is not. Why? I'll note that the U.S. is planning to spend between $15 -$100 BILLION on the loss of ~5000 individuals. This is equal to an ~2-5 year NASA budget allocation. Go compute the frequency of impact likely to wipe out 5000 people -- Is NASA spending $1-$5 billion a year on preventing that? The purpose of this military operation, obviously, isn't just to save 5000 individuals -- it's to minimize the chances of much greater losses in the future, since bin Laden and his damned swollen organization will certainly switch to using nuclear and biological weapons the moment they can get their hands on them. The purpose is to destroy Al-Quaida -- or as much of it as possible -- before it can do so. (Moreover, if we ever do decide to deflect an asteroid or comet, we could do it right now -- without any need for a major manned presence in space -- just by aiming unmanned vehicles at the object.) Bruce, if you really believe this, you need to review the literature further. Have we identified the targets, do we have the vehicles, can we accelerate them towards and intercept the objects with sufficient kinetic energy, etc., etc. I do not believe that is the case. I would further argue that our current knowledge with regard to potential hazards is so insufficient that even if we did have the capability of deflecting them we do not know their whereabouts and trajectories sufficiently to use such capabilities effectively. True -- but the point is that a space station, of ANY type, is completely irrelevant
Re: More jolly Space Station news
Don't forget that the actual cost of every Shuttle maintenance flight (despite NASA's attempts to cover it up with highly creative bookkeeping) is about $1 billion. That's one hell of a lot of additional money for a trickle of useful science. They'd make those launches anyway, for one reason or another because they have the fleet of shuttles and they'll always find something for them to do even if they don't assemble/service the ISS, so you would save nothing by whishing the station away. There is no viable alternative to the Shuttle for human spaceflight. It is now running about as efficiently as it ever will. It is simply a costly business. You may well think that the logic for human spaceflight is circular (we fly in order to study how we adapt to being there) and it may be so, but that doesn't mean that it has no purpose. Indeed, it could be argued that in the long term the future of our species depends upon making the transition to a spacefaring civilisation. I for one would be happier to have a colony on Mars continue the species after an asteroid wipes the rest of us off the face of the Earth, than if our only legacy was a robotic probe on Mars working through its fault tree trying to figure out whether its comlink had failed or whether we'd all died. dmh == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: More jolly Space Station news
In a message dated 10/8/2001 10:30:00 AM Alaskan Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Well, at the risk of being considered a "bottom line" man, here's my read on the space station fiasco. In the early 1970s, Nixon wanted the space shuttle because they thought it would be a great way to launch err, spy satellites. So, we got it. Now, we have the space station to give the shuttles someplace to go when they're not launching satellites, fixing telescopes, bore-bore-bore, etc. The science is marginal at best, contrived at worst. This would be a great area for congress and NASA to cut costs. It's an expensive albatross, if there ever was one. Geez, Gary After all this time, I STILL say that the reason to be in space is not 'Dr. Science' projects or 'Chicken Little' asteroid doomsday scenarios, but money. Who gives a rat's ass whether bean sprouts really grow well in low-G? If a 3 mile rock comes down from space and lands in Peoria, well, we probably should have prepared, but we have to live with risk. Ah, but money... I still say, rent out the space station time to travelers and businesses. Use the station as a jumping off point for asteroid mining, solar energy gathering, low-G pharmaceuticals, etc. Keeping the Space Station as it currently is intended would be like Queen Isabella hawking her jewels so that Colombus could sail three times around the Canaries, or work to prevent an Aztec invasion of Europe. -- John Harlow Byrne
Re: More jolly Space Station news
In a message dated 10/8/2001 1:43:29 PM Alaskan Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'd argue on humanitarian and moral grounds that the best evaluation criteria should be on lives saved / $ spent (or more accurately years of potential life saved / $ spent). In that respect the $ going to the NIH or the EPA probably far exceed those going to the NSF or NASA. Bottom line is -- if you want a billion dollar Europa mission -- how many human lives are on the line if the available $ are diverted from NIH research to NASA development? It isn't a nice question but it needs to be asked to *focus* your attention on priorities. Don't be ridiculous. In a world of 6.5 billion people, lives are cheap. What we're talking is not quantity of lives, but the quality of them. That requires money, which is really just another way of prioritizing efforts, by spreading the decision making to as many people as possible. Again, if you're talking billion dollar missions, you should be funding those projects which have some opportunity of return on your investment. Getting a major company or ten involved in the space decisions game would tend to raise this issue to paramount importance. Pseudo science projects would wither away, and economical projects would flourish. Space exploration, if it happens, won't be to 'save human lives'. It'll be to make money. Just like the conquest of the Americas. It's gonna happen. It's just a question of when. -- JHB
Re: More jolly Space Station news
In a message dated 10/8/2001 2:13:48 PM Alaskan Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Why? I'll note that the U.S. is planning to spend between $15 -$100 BILLION on the loss of ~5000 individuals. This is equal to an ~2-5 year NASA budget allocation. Go compute the frequency of impact likely to wipe out 5000 people -- Is NASA spending $1-$5 billion a year on preventing that? You misunderstand the US position. We're not hitting the terrorists because of 6000 lives, although that makes excellent cause celebre'. After all, we lose over 100,000 a year in auto accidents, but no one is calling to march on GM or Ford. No, the US position is a response to a symbolic attack. The loss of the lives in the WTC was far more symbolic than the lives lost in Bangladesh, for instance. And, it's more addressable to go after terrorists than after asteroids, which you can't have a nice, splashy war against. To assess this properly one needs to place a valuation on risks to major population centers, years of potential life lost, etc. I do not believe that this has been done in detail. Sure the loss of Oshkosh, WI would be less than that of NY, NY, but presumably both are equally at risk. Robert, in my other life, I'm an attorney. I can tell you this: there is nothing more tenuous than an evaluation of a human life. A CEO is presumeably worth millions, while a ghetto dweller or third-worlder is worth less... but who can publicly admit this (especially in a world where 'we are all created equal'?). The closest you can come is in evaluating presumed income over the expected life of that individual. According to this analysis, a welfare recipient in California is worth more than a scientist in India. It makes sense to develop a *complete* equation with regard to the risks and allocate funds accordingly. Nuclear weapons are a serious concern but we can develop detection technologies for those. Biological weapons we can be by and large be vaccinated against. Rocks falling out of the sky onto our ill-prepared adobes is something that needs to be factored into the equation. I can individually request that my physician vaccintate me against Yersina pestis (the plague organism) -- I *cannot* individually hope to shelter myself from a rain of asteroids unless I can afford to live many meters underground. There's no such thing as a complete equation for risk factoring. Who could have figured that a group of semi-educated fanatics would be able to learn to fly a plane, while still retaining their fanaticism? Sure, cosmic rocks may be a threat of some degree, but what degree? It's far more limited, surely, than the immediate threats of, say, global warming (whoops, there went Bangladesh!). -- JHB
