Bonjiourno, Paolo.
Welcome, anyway.
In a message dated 07/07/2001 9:34:01 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
paolo.ali@... writes:
Subj: [ssi_list] (unknown)
Date: 07/07/2001 9:34:01 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Reply-to: ssi_list@...
Hello.
Wow, couldn't help but noticing that the ISS has only 64 m^3 more habitable
space than Skylab did. Is this the current value for habitable volume of the
ISS or planned volume when completed?
less than the ideal platform especially when considered in relation to the
types of goals that SSI is interested in but it certainly struck me how poor
the thing is when compared to 70's technology. Yes, I do realise that
habitable volume is not the best way to measure something like the value of
a space station but still!
Marty Ravell
--- In ssi_list@... David Larsson
> A newbee question regarding the Billion Dollar Budget, what's OTV
and HLLV?
>
> I googled for it and also had a look at SSI homepage without
success.
>
> Tnx in advance,
>
> ///David
>
OTV = Orbital Transfer Vehicle - A spaceship taht stays in space,
doesn't need the robust launch systems to escape the Earth's
gravity, and more efficiently transfer payloads between two or more
orbital points.
HLLV = Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle - A launch vehicle that can launch
heavy payloads into orbit. For instance, skylab with a volume of 361
m^3 was launched in one shot (discounting the smaller attached
modules.)
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/skylab.htm
compared to ISS with a habitable volume of 425 m^3 and a mass of
186,357 kg
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/isstodate.html
Hope that helps.
TangoMan
--- In ssi_list@... "Martin Ravell"
>
> Wow, couldn't help but noticing that the ISS has only 64 m^3 more
habitable
> space than Skylab did. Is this the current value for habitable
volume of the
> ISS or planned volume when completed?
Check here for a diagram of existing and proposed ISS modules.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/ISS_Core_Program.pdf
>
> I know a fair few members of the list would agree with me that the
ISS is
> less than the ideal platform especially when considered in
relation to the
> types of goals that SSI is interested in but it certainly struck
me how poor
> the thing is when compared to 70's technology.
Well, going back to the theme of the original poster, back in
the '70s they had Saturn V to loft a one-piece Skylab, and today,
there is the space pick-up truck called the shuttle to take the
smaller load modules up to orbit.
TangoMan
> is anybody there?
Lucio Coelho
> America, almost alone in the world, has never had the
> influence of Socialism, that is until the Green Party showed up,
> premeating into the civilian consciousness.
http://www.slp.org/ or these?
http://www.dsausa.org/
And what was the Smith Act about, if Socialism has never had influence in
US?
Rewriring the past is not actually going to change it, at least i hope so...
Cheers,
Claudio
(who thinks everyone who generalize all environmentalists as socialists is
probably a fascist, but still can't see what it has to do with space
exploration... :)
This "anti-socialism attitude" (i.e. "America, almost alone in the world, has never had the
influence of Socialism, ...") is strange in a chat-group which posits building artificial worlds for people to live in. Are those worlds to be company camps? And even if some are, won't the inhabits assume the "owners" will take care of them and all (well most) of their needs? The owner(s), even if not initially government(s) will soon become the "government(s)" and so this would be socialism by definition.
To try and help broaden your understanding of this world, the USA has pioneered many socialistic institutions, like the Public (or National) Parks, Public Schools, Public Mail Delivery, Public Supported Fire-stations (those used to be all be private), and Social Security, Medicare, etc. Indeed isn't the Internet "socialistic" in that every one uses it and only those who can pay for it? No, wait, that is communistic. Don't use it if you don't like it! At least don't lie to us (or yourself) about what it is.
The Space Colonies will not be like the wild west, although there are of course lots of open spaces, they are empty and huge resources will be needed to colonize them. It won't be like homesteading where the air, water, land (and therefore food) could be had basically for free.
Jay Huebner
>
> > America, almost alone in the world, has never had the
> > influence of Socialism, that is until the Green Party showed up,
> > premeating into the civilian consciousness.
>
> Right, so who are these guys? http://sp-usa.org/ or these?
> http://www.slp.org/ or these?
> http://www.dsausa.org/
> And what was the Smith Act about, if Socialism has never had
influence in US?
hope so...
I recognize a mistake when I write one. I should have
written "America, almost alone in the world, has never had the
influence of Socialism PLAY A MAJOR PART IN THE POLICY PLATFORM OF A
POLITICAL PARTY THAT HAS WON THE SUPPORT OF A SIZABLE PORTION OF THE
ELECTORATE, that is until the Green party showed up."
The organizations you link to are fringe players and never appealed
to more than a core group of their supporters. The Green Party was
the first to win the support of a sizable number of people.
"The four biggest vote getters were Democratic candidate Al Gore
with 50.16 million votes, Republican candidate George W. Bush with
49.82 million votes, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader with 2.78
million votes, and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan with 0.45
million votes."
http://members.verizon.net/~vze3fs8i/air/whowon.html
Contrast the Green's 2.69% of the popular vote with Europe's
political spectrum.
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep5/owa/p_meps2.repartition?
ilg=EN&iorig=home
The European People's Party & The European Democrats - 232 seats
The Socialist Group - 175 seats
European Liberal Group - 53 seats
European United Left/Nordic Green Left - 49 seats
Green/European Free Alliance - 45 seats
Non-Attached - 31 seats
Union for Europe of the Nations Group - 23 seats
European Radical Alliance - 21 seats
Group for a Europe of Democracies & Diversities - 18 seats
The largest group is EPP/ED and I'd say that thery're most similar
to the American Democratic Party, with segments of the party being
more right of center than American Democrats.
The secnd largest group is the Socialists. Their political platform
is alien to most American voters.
Keep in mind that there are a good number of American Republicans
who think the Democrats are Communists! They'd be apoplectic if they
had to share Congress with the Socialists or the European Liberals
and Greens.
My thesis remains that America hasn't had the influence of
socialism/communism like Europe.
> Cheers,
>
> Claudio
>
> (who thinks everyone who generalize all environmentalists as
> socialists is probably a fascist, but still can't see what it has
> to do with space exploration... :)
TangoMan
(who thinks that those who care about the environment are really
conservationists, and environmentalists have a heavy social agenda
that is influenced by socialist thought and that their political
parties campaign on such principles, and that those who cast
aspersions and ignore facts are addle-brained and that the point of
all of this is that while SPS may be an ecologically positive energy
source it will most likely be opposed by the environmental movement
because of social and not ecological reasons)
> To try and help broaden your understanding of this world, the USA
> has pioneered many socialistic institutions, like the Public (or
> National) Parks, Public Schools, Public Mail Delivery, Public
> Supported Fire-stations (those used to be all be private), and
> Social Security, Medicare, etc.
in nature (medicare.) The adoption of some programs may or may not
make sense, depending on your particular American political
inclination. The wholesale adoption of a socialist agenda probably
doesn't fly, to wit this commentary from Denmark:
http://www.american-pictures.com/english/racism/articles/welfare.htm
"This time our nationwide general shutdown of society is about
getting a 6 weeks paid vacation plan."
"Over here you get 70-90 % of your ordinary salary for years if you
have no job or have just finished education and not yet found a job
in your field, not to mention 3 years of pregnancy leaves for either
parent with full pay (with the other spouse getting 2 weeks off) and
one year long sabbaticals at 80% of regular salary."
"I am myself constantly discovering new aspects of the welfare
state - such as a couple of months ago when my son turned 18 and
automatically started receiving a monthly check from the government
of 230$. Why? Because he is in his second year of high school and
anybody going to any form of school is being paid a salary."
"Americans so hung up on punishing their wrong doers (and public
executions a la the middle ages in Europe or today's China) would
probably open their eyes wide when learning how some welfare states
such as Sweden are making experiments sending young criminals on
long vacations to the Caribbean in an effort to rehabilitate them."
"My black American friend, Harb, was sentenced to life in Danish
prison for murder ("life" is over here defined as 16 years - usually
with release after 8 years)."
"But already after 4 years Harb was given a four room modern
apartment outside prison to live in with his girlfriend - fully
furnished with brand new furniture, TV etc. picked by himself in the
local IKEA."
"The selfishness in it was shown when the German Green party
proposed a 12-doubling of taxes on airline fuel in order to allow
Germans only one round-the-world vacation every 5 years - and almost
were eradicated by the suddenly not-so-green voters."
"Tens of thousands of Somalians, Turks, Palestinians, Pakistanis
etc. come directly from some of the poorest villages on Earth and
are immediately given the same welfare benefits as the Danes. So
much money do they make here, that they - mostly unemployed - go on
frequent long vacations to their homelands - and out of their Danish
welfare benefits feed whole villages in the Third World."
" but at least in Norway any single mother is entitled to a
government paid baby-sitter one or two nights a week. Usually they
use one of their friends or a student who want to earn extra money.
The idea is of course that a "welfare mother" should have a chance
to live a life like everyone else, to go out and party and that way
perhaps have a chance to find a spouse if they look for one."
The author goes on and on. I point to this link because one doesn't
see that type of commentary too often in the US. There is a growing
gulf between the US and Europe and perhaps in some small way this
article is illustrative of the two different worlds we each seem to
be inhabitating.
Quite frankly I find that I'm seeing more in common with my
associates from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan than the people I do
business with in Europe.
In terms of tying this in to space settlement, international efforts
such as the ISS function well enough because the crews are up there
for a short time and their missions are very specific. If there is
to be such a thing as a internationally populated Habitat I wonder
how it could be made to function smoothly if the populace is
representative of the WIDE range of politcal and cultural beliefs
that we see forming a gulf between Europe and its derivative
civilization, America.
> The Space Colonies will not be like the wild west, although there
> are of course lots of open spaces, they are empty and huge
> resources will be needed to colonize them. It won't be like
> homesteading where the air, water, land (and therefore food) could
> be had basically for free.
> Jay Huebner
My writings have never indicated that I hold libertarian beliefs and
I am under no illusions about a future homesteading scenario.
TangoMan
Message text written by INTERNET:ssi_list@...
>
I recognize a mistake when I write one. I should have
written "America, almost alone in the world, has never had the
influence of Socialism PLAY A MAJOR PART IN THE POLICY PLATFORM OF A
POLITICAL PARTY THAT HAS WON THE SUPPORT OF A SIZABLE PORTION OF THE
ELECTORATE, that is until the Green party showed up."
to more than a core group of their supporters. The Green Party was
the first to win the support of a sizable number of people.
"The four biggest vote getters were Democratic candidate Al Gore
with 50.16 million votes, Republican candidate George W. Bush with
49.82 million votes, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader with 2.78
million votes, and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan with 0.45
million votes."<
If you consider the Green party to have won the support of a sizable
proportion of the electorate (arguable), the socialists have also
previously done so.
election socialist party percentage of popular vote (for president)
1904 3.0%
1908 2.8%
1912 6.0%
1916 3.2%
1920 3.4%
These are all higher percentages than the Green Party received in 2000. I
also suspect the Green percentage will in lower in 2004 in view of what
happened in 2000.
> If you consider the Green party to have won the support of a
> sizable proportion of the electorate (arguable), the socialists
> have also previously done so.
>
> election socialist party percentage of popular vote (for
president)
> 1904 3.0%
> 1908 2.8%
> 1912 6.0%
> 1916 3.2%
> 1920 3.4%
>
> These are all higher percentages than the Green Party received in
> 2000. I also suspect the Green percentage will in lower in 2004
> in view of what happened in 2000.
research. I was sloppy and didn't look back that far.
I too think the Green vote will be lower in 2004. Everyone is
gunning for Bush :) and won't risk vote splitting.
Although what would happen if Dean didn't get the nomination? Would
his supporters draft him into a separate campaign?
TangoMan
Ho c'mon that's rubbish!
I live in UK and here you get about $75 a week for up to six months if you
become unemployed not for your fault, and provided that you are in line with
the national contributions up to that moment, and you are actively looking
for another job.
During this time you can not leave the country and you are required to
provide proof you are trying to get back into employment. This is the best
welfare I'm aware of. In Italy you get nothing if you are unemployed, zero,
zip, nada.
Nobody is getting holiday paid because he has committed a crime, and I doubt
the European prisons are much better than the American ones, certainly
Amnesty doesn't think so.
I don't know where this guy got that stuff but it certainly looks like one
of those badly written urban myths to me. It's not a reliable official
source in any way, unsurprisingly because although Denmark, Norway and
Sweden have particularly generous social support (which they have no problem
to afford being very rich countries) that seems absolutely ridiculous
rubbish to me.
What you do get in Eu is free medical assistance if you can't afford it and
you need it, and to me that seems absolutely right and humane. I'm not
christian but leaving someone dying in the middle of the street because he's
too poor to pay for an operation seems absolutely barbaric and uncivilised
to me.
As for immigrants, they get very little if anything at all except for a few
months hospitality in refugee camps, which again seems rather reasonable for
people that is usually fleeing from war or misery and arrives with nothing.
What you want to do with them, shoot them? The very basic humanitarian helps
they get (if and when they are eligible to it) is actually an investment to
allow them to become productive members of the society. Without it many
would end up becoming criminals or involved in illegal activities anyway,
and cost to the society much more than what it spends for a tent
accommodation and a hot soup twice a day for a few months. Most of them end
up doing the shittiest jobs no-one else wants to do at some point, and that
only in the richest northern countries, like cleaning streets in Germany and
taking away rubbish in UK, which is not exactly heaven on earth, believe me.
In southern countries like Italy, Spain and Greece those jobs are all
already taken by locals and new immigration mostly ends up doing temporary
jobs in agriculture or building, which are as bad and also seasonal...
Ho, and "life", over here, is MINIMUM 30 years, meaning that under no
circumstances you spend less than 30 years behind bars anyway.
The only reason US can't afford that is because the continuous cuts to
corporate taxes that means the wealthiest are contributing less than their
employee to the common interest. If you would get the 10% richest paying an
extra 1% of taxes (which they wouldn't probably notice anyway) you would get
medicare as well. This is what happens in Canada for instance, which is not
exactly a communist country now, is it?
It is the totally privatized wild libertarianism in the US that looks
suspiciously like a bland form of fascism to me.
Let's put this to rest, now, shall we? Or at least let's stick to facts and
reliable sources not to "an e-mail I got from a friend of mine" kind of
junk-papers news, please.
Cheers,
Charliebravoman
> Ho c'mon that's rubbish!
stripes. This is indicative of a different political philosophy and
a different way of looking at the world. I don't share it, but there
are many who do.
My question still stands - how will an international Habitat
comprised of people from different cultures who hold political
philosophies that differ by an amount greater than what is usually
seen in one country make a viable go of it? Remember, we're not
talking of a short mission duration but many years or even a
lifetime couped up in a can in orbit.
Will the immigration people screen for political inclination? Who'll
scream bloody foul first - the right or the left?
> It is the totally privatized wild libertarianism in the US that
> looks suspiciously like a bland form of fascism to me.
Is fascism a new word you just learned? You seem to use it
frequently. Never mind, I support people stretching their
vocabularies.
> Let's put this to rest, now, shall we? Or at least let's stick to
> facts and reliable sources not to "an e-mail I got from a friend
> of mine" kind of junk-papers news, please.
There's a whole world of this out there. I found this from the
Democratic Underground website. That's a major source of democratic
news in the US. Go to democrats.com for more sources like this.
You'll note I just commented at the end of the piece and the rest
were quotes from the source.
You know, you sure interject a lot of hyperbole into your comments
that you seem to pull from out of thin air. Nowhere was there a
mention of my getting this as an e-mail from a friend. Please post
your guidelines on *reliable sources* so that we can comply with
your request.
TangoMan
On Wednesday, December 17, 2003, at 08:40 PM,
> My question still stands - how will an international Habitat
> comprised of people from different cultures who hold political
> philosophies that differ by an amount greater than what is usually
> seen in one country make a viable go of it? Remember, we're not
> talking of a short mission duration but many years or even a
> lifetime couped up in a can in orbit.
compatibility will be among them. The initial habs will be either
government or industry funded - either way the funders will want things
to be a success and choose accordingly. Smart money is on ethnic and
religious homogeneity, but PC concerns may prevent that. Absent the
ability to choose a crew of all middle class USAmerican presbyterians
(which would be my choice for a variety of reasons), the second best
bet is to choose people who have as much in common as possible.
Alternatively, if the crew is small enough, make sure that there are no
more than one to three people of any given ethnicity/culture, and try
to minimize contact between people of similar cultures, thereby forcing
the hab to develop its own unique common culture. This might be the
best in the long run, but in the short run might lead to problems.
The above is pretty much a cultural analysis - politics will be
irrelevant. People will do what they are told by the hab owners and
their appointed representatives. By the time the crew is in a position
to demand any kind of political say there will be a unique hab culture.
Oil rig crews don't hold elections, and neither will hab crews. In
the long term people will be able to buy stakes in their habs, and
those stakes will presumably come with voting rights for hab governing
council or something similar.
......Andrew
> My question still stands - how will an international Habitat
> comprised of people from different cultures who hold political
> philosophies that differ by an amount greater than what is usually
> seen in one country make a viable go of it? Remember, we're not
> talking of a short mission duration but many years or even a
> lifetime couped up in a can in orbit.
lot of differentiation between habitats, with many groups founding theyr own
society... a possible solution for the Palestinian-Israelian conflict? We
ship them both to space and turn lebanon in a holiday resort... :)
> There's a whole world of this out there. I found this from the
> Democratic Underground website. That's a major source of democratic
> news in the US. Go to democrats.com for more sources like this.
That I think is part of the problem. If you want reliable sources on
wellfare in Denmark check the Danish websites.
> You know, you sure interject a lot of hyperbole into your comments
> that you seem to pull from out of thin air. Nowhere was there a
> mention of my getting this as an e-mail from a friend. Please post
> your guidelines on *reliable sources* so that we can comply with
> your request.
If you look at the "article" you were referring to you'll see that it's
claimed to be "an email from a friend".
As for guidelines for reliable sources on government policies I'd suggest to
stick to the official government in questions. Seems reasonable.
Cheers,
Claudioman
To be fair, Tango was making this statement relative to Europe, referecing
an earlier post I had written. Perhaps it would be better to say that the US
had far less Socialist influence than Europe until...
Message text written by INTERNET:ssi_list@...
>
I stand corrected on my asertion. Kudos on the thoroughness of your
research. I was sloppy and didn't look back that far.
gunning for Bush :) and won't risk vote splitting.
Although what would happen if Dean didn't get the nomination? Would
his supporters draft him into a separate campaign?<
I had vaguely remembered something from high school history class about
Eugene Debs and then googled the elections of that time period. Isn't the
internet wonderful? It would probably have been more effort than I would
have been willing to put in in the old days.
I think the strongest Dean supporters are also the most anti-Bush, so I
don't think they would risk a split if their candidate does not win.
Lynn
> My question still stands - how will an international Habitat
> comprised of people from different cultures who hold political
> philosophies that differ by an amount greater than what is usually
> seen in one country make a viable go of it? Remember, we're not
> talking of a short mission duration but many years or even a
> lifetime couped up in a can in orbit.
>
especially for long duration space station missions. Seems that a
colony with widely divergent opinions will need a strong tradition of
tolerance.
The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~150 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.
Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html
Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.
Message text written by INTERNET:ssi_list@...
>If the two plantets were in a 1:1 resonance, or a 2:1 resonance,
then return trips would be hunky dory, but they're not, so if we
launch from Mars and after X days of transit, the cycler will reach
Earth orbit, but Earth will be somwhere else on its orbit.
to make 7 more trips without picking up or dropping any cargo before
it can intersect Earth on its orbit and Mars on its orbit again.
<
You can use gravity assists to alter the orbit at each pass at Earth and
Mars so the planets do not need to be in exact resonance.
Here is one source with some excerpts discussing this.
http://sci.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16392.html
Buzz Aldrin's Mars Vision: There and Back Again
By Brian McDonough
SCI:TECH
February 19, 2002 9:28AM
"Cyclers would take advantage of the gravitational forces of the sun, the
two planets and their moons for gravity assists. As a spacecraft nears a
planet, its flight path is bent, causing it to whip around the planet while
boosting its speed. This slingshot trajectory enables a spacecraft to
achieve the proper speed and heading.... ... Longuski told NewsFactor
that he and his students, who are handling the trajectory issues, have
looked at a variety of possible courses for the cyclers based on the
synodic period of just over two years, in which Mars and Earth essentially
line up. .....An initial plan that called for two craft to make the round
trip once per synodic period left the cyclers passing the planets so fast
that taxi vehicles would have a hard time making a rendezvous. They are now
looking at three and even four synodic periods per full orbit, requiring
three or four cyclers. "
LO
> I see no problem with this Adminstration's efforts to reach out. It is
> not a selling out of America or Freedom. It is a celebration and
> promotion of same. Thoughtful and moderate people see no controversy.
> Extremist "conservatives" in media concoct it. I'm tired of the hateful
> BS generated by Fox and talk radio on this and other measures, policies,
> and statements made by intelligent moderates who are trying (and
> succeeding) to lead us into better, less fearful, times. The voting
> public is not stupid.
Best,
- Joe