Comments on: Yet more Bush and space

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 21:29:26 +0000

Ed Minchau wrote: “Actually, I’m still waiting for an exit strategy for Roosevelt’s War on Poverty.”

Heh, that reminds me, when are we ever going to bring home the troops from Germany and Japan?

By: Dfens

Dfens — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 16:52:51 +0000

Ok, Paul, granted I should have remembered that, but that's not the only process for aluminum reduction (hey, whose side are you on?). Anyway, I suppose the point is oxygen can be produced, it does, however, require some significant energy production. On the up side, there are no cloudy days on the Moon. You can use solar power to heat the pots, but still need some electricity to separate the Al and 02. One nice thing about Al, though. It can be used as both structure and fuel for a rocket.

By: Greg Kuperberg

Greg Kuperberg — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 06:54:33 +0000

Actually, Lyndon Johnson declared the War on Poverty. Johnson had some key things in common with the president that we have now.

These dramatic promises, including the VSE, remind me of the wise and famous quote from Louis Gerstner when he became CEO at IBM in 1993: “The last thing that this company needs is a vision.”

By: Ed Minchau

Ed Minchau — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 05:23:37 +0000

“Which will come first, that NASA will assemble and provision spacecraft on the moon, or that America will bring stability and unity to a free Iraq? After all, both are long-term goals from a visionary President.”

Actually, I’m still waiting for an exit strategy for Roosevelt’s War on Poverty.

By: Paul Dietz

Paul Dietz — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 01:53:58 +0000

> I lived near an aluminum reduction plant once. They liberated a lot of oxygen […]

Huh? The conventional electrolytic process for producing aluminum does not liberate oxygen. It liberates carbon monoxide and dioxide. The positive electrode is made of carbon, which is slowly consumed. The chemical energy of this reaction substitutes for more expensive electrical energy by reducing the required electrical potential.

By: ken murphy

ken murphy — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 01:12:12 +0000

I’m actually thinking it’s going to be the lunatics rego-boarding the craters that are going to be driving the advances in spacesuit technology. It’ll only take a few dead Tony Hawks and those guys are going to be paying for some serious spacesuit upgrades.

I can see where the golfers would have certain areas in spacesuit design that they’d like to see improved. Maybe together we can all pitch in and help.

By: Dfens

Dfens — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 21:08:03 +0000

Now there’s a topic worthy of a Friday afternoon! I’ll bet even I could hit a straight drive there. Another benefit to going back to the Moon is the astronaut’s innate drive to play golf will guarantee some significant improvements in space suit technology.

By: Greg Kuperberg

Greg Kuperberg — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 20:36:38 +0000

It needs a golf course.

By: Dfens

Dfens — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 20:23:52 +0000

I lived near an aluminum reduction plant once. They liberated a lot of oxygen and produced a valuable aerospace commodity. Al makes up about 9% of the Earth’s crust. I’d imagine the Moon would be similar. Hydroelectric power, on the other hand, is probably out of the question there.

By: Cecil Trotter

Cecil Trotter — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 19:45:23 +0000

“It’s one of those things that are theoretically possible but that haven’t actually been invented yet.”

Kinda like all the technology that didn’t exist when JFK said lets go to the Moon the first time?