SSTO Comments and some on gambling your way to space.

--- panamabob1 wrote:
>
> >>> So lets pursue what we DO have :-)
> > A very good idea.
>
> Well glad you agree, that makes you one more potential associate.

If you can show that you have a workable way I'm in.

> Oops, at that altitude the wings aren't really doing much
> aerodynamically...they're part of the free fall package :-)

Yes, that could be a problem.

> Energia, the ruskie booster people claim 100% safety,

Do you believe that?

> Thats really hard to say, in all fairness, what proper way would have
> allowed their survival? Buran does have ejection seats in its design,
> but would ejection seats have helped in that catastropic an
> incident.? How much forwarning did they have, how far from the
> explosion would they have been ejected? What speed were they going
> and what dangers when hitting the slipstream.

There is evidence that they were alive after it blew up. It wasn't the
explosion that killed them, it was hitting the ocean that did. If they had a
good escape system they would have been able to get out and parachute out
hitting the water at a far lower speed.

> How about the gantry system at the Ruskies space drome as opposed to
> NASA's, How about loading payload vertically instead of horizontally,
> the giant caterpiller transporter to move everything vertical instead
> of cheaper horizontal. How about the Space shuttle designed to move
> around 20 tonnes as opposed to Buran configuration that can do many
> times that.

Yes. Some very good examples.

> How about ignoring studies from Stanford Univ. regarding using ruskie
> ready and waiting boosters for Mars mission instead of considering a
> new design that will take years and years and billions to
> materialize? Ruskies can do a Mars mission NOW, in one move, instead
> of the proposed building of a interplanatary vehicle in Space to do
> the mission (mainly because there is no heavy payload booster
> available in the USA /NASA "garage")

NASA could get a heavy payload booster if they needed one. Although I'd fear
it becoming a jobs program like the STS.

> My favorite is the ISS, as much was spent in re-arranging designs as
> it was budgeted to spend on the construction itself. Of course much
> of that perhaps was due to political gerrymandering. Could you
> imagine your spouses impression of you if you spent $20,000 to
> research and decide what $20,000 car to buy? :-)

I'd buy a $40,000 car with the money instead of the $20,000 one.

Of course the one that has to realised with NASA is that often their projects
are designed to create jobs in the places influencial polies represent.

> ISS is a better place to stay compaired to what? :-)

Compared to Mir.

> Mir-1 was getting a bit dated and crowded, for sure. Because of the
> harshness of space, lifespans for safety sake are rather
> short;usually 10 years or less.

Space, Harsh? Sure it is for us but it's acutally better on some types of
equipment then earth. Electronics of course do have to deal with radiation but
that isn't that hard to solve. Structually Mir was in very good condition
(except the module that got hit with the Porgress resuppyly craft). The
equipment though was due for replacment and since everything is integrated into
the station it would be hard to replace the equipment in orbit.

> Still, some kind of a platform is better than no platform,,, I was saddened
by
> both MIR and SkyLab burn ups. Was it cost effective to modernize them?

It may have been.

> NASA was interested in boosting Skylab and even designed the engines to do
so,
> but Challenger put a damper on that.

Didn't Skylab burn up before Challenger blew up?

Also they don't need new engines to boost it. Just some more fuel.

> >> No matter what you should never ever even consider using spam.
>
> I appologize, it wasn't the spam part I meant, it was the platform
> that the casino people were using. Just looking for a cheap easy way
> than having to deal with dozens of government agencies in the USA and
> the relatively inexpensive costs of no brick and morter structure...
> (the lure of the internet and e commercem :-)

Problem is that if you're actually serious about this the cheap easy way is the
way you shouldn't go because it makes you look like you're just a con man out
to get their money and vanish.

> >> As for the casino it's probably non-legit because if it were
> >> legit it could afford to use more effective advertising methods.
>
> I can not say if they are legit or not...thats the question I had. As
> far as the dolar amount toadvertise, Im not sure what you mean with
> that. It could be they dont want to go the route of Amazon, etc. with
> super high ad cost and no profit. E#commerce and the like to me are
> still unknowns... Still for a techy minded group it would seem the
> logical means of reaching folks. I don't know. Just know I wouldn't
> shrug them of out of hand.

Of all industries spamming probably has the lowest ethical standards so I would
not be suprised if they aren't legit. As for dollar amount, spamming is cheap,
but it doesn't work which is why only the worst products possible get
advertised that way (they wouldn't make a profit if the sender actually had to
pay for the ads). As for go the route of Amazon, spammers often get it even
worse. They tend to piss people off, there have been instances of spammers
getting hacked into. Some spammers have gone to jail, etc. Basically if you
want to advertise you have to use something that costs money. You can't get
effective advertising with no money or effort (but you can get a lot of
enemies).

The internet will be a very useful tool along with eCommerce but we're going to
have to have an offline component as well and it'll have to be quite strong.
If you don't have something offline then people often lump you in with all
those fraudsters on the net (and there are many of them). We are going to be
dealing with a group of people that tends to be very net happy but that also
means that they're also likely to be the people who know about frauds and so we
have to make sure we don't make it look like we are fraud (otherwise the
hackers have fun at out expense).

> I think everyone is buying the lots as a novelty,don't you?

If they're not they'll be dissapointed.

> If not they are die -hard land speculators willing to buy something no one
> can even get to yet. Perhaps they have hopes of groups like this in making
> Space hops practical and cheap so they can make a killing in the resale
> market? :-)

I'm sure they have hopes of that. But they don't actually own anything so they
won't see any return on their investment. Doesn't matter if the guy who sells
it to them says he has all the land. That would be just like someone in Spain
claiming to own all of America because he sent a letter to the government and
they ignored it. Fact is you don't have a claim unless you can prevent others
from exercising rights that are exclusive in your claim.