Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Volyren Nightsong on August 13, 2011, 06:00:14 pm
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*****************if you dont want depressing stuff, scroll to the bottom, to get a laugh. otherwise, read and discuss, please********************
Anyone who knows me, knows that this post will be long, and full of parenthesis and jokes. However, I would like to have a thoughtful discussion about where YOU think the country is going. Please, no DEMO-CRAP or RE-PUBE-LICKER talking points, no swooning over Obama, and no asking for his birth certificate (we all know Donald Trump stole it), No Rush Limbaugh’s or Bill Maher’s. Sheopard Smith’s and (whoever is ACTUALLY FAIR on the other channels) are welcome, but let’s keep it light. We are all friends here, and this is a touchy subject. (Sadly)
I would like to hear your thoughts on the state of… well… THE States. (forget the money parts, wall street and all that, I'm talking about the PEOPLE, and their slow inexorable and frankly inexplicable slide toward the butt end of the Roman Empire’s Timeline.)
So without further ado, let us wade into this moral swamp of conflicted opinion, where facts float on the top of murky liquid lies, and as we move toward each other, they mix together into an incomprehensible soup that resembles raw sewage in both odor and appearance. Finding clarity in such dirtied waters is nigh impossible without the aid of a sewage treatment plant. Please, let this topic be that purifier. And maybe, just maybe, we can find a way for people on both sides to meet in the middle and discuss ideas, rather than wield them as clubs to attack each other.
(I am not referring to this community, but rather America, and on a lesser level, the whole world. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I for one, cannot abide this cesspool, and if the waters cannot be cleaned, I think I would rather stay dry, even though the soul withers without the sustaining waters of shared thought.
Now that the foreword is out of the way, let me ask my question, say my piece, crack a joke, and then welcome yours.
When was the last time any of you can remember when we were proud of our president? (I mean REAL PRIDE, not one half of the country liking the guy cuz he's on their team, and the other half hating his guts) I think it all died around the Clinton/first Bush era. Both of ‘em were liked by MOST but not even close to ALL. And it’s only gone downhill since then. I think that, more than anything, is why both sides reference Reagan with a sense of pride and smile when they hear stories about the man. He was the last AMERICAN president. We no longer have one any more. We just have a D prez, or an R prez, and we just switch every 4 years or so. If history TRULY repeats, then let us hope we get another Reagan before the part about Rome collapsing under senatorial bickering and legislative gridlock comes around again. I think its gettin' kinda’ close. (Maybe we can go dig him up and do the “Weekend at Bernie's” thing? Whatcha' say guys? Hey, and if he wins, we get a Hard Light presidency!
I would stake every single cent I own, my life, even my immortal soul, that if ANY of us were president right now, we would get N.A.S.A. back into space, and out of the Middle East doing their Muslim outreach.
I truly want to ask those of you who support Obama, if YOU would have slashed N.A.S.A.’s budget to nothing? Would you have cancelled the next shuttle project, leaving us totally dependant on the Russians to get us into space, which we have to pay them a substantial sum for? Now just those facts would have been the most abominable slap in the face to every hard working man and woman at NASA, nevermind the utter destruction of so many of ours and our children’s hopes and dreams for the future.
But sadly, that was not the end of it. The poisoned blade was twisted further. Years of struggle, loss of life, blood, sweat and tears, thousands of hours of study, training, hoping, praying, for that next great leap into the heavens. The brilliant, motivated, and passionate people, for whom the phrase “To Boldly Go….” is not some iconic quote, but their very way of life, have been betrayed so deeply, that it’s a wonder the rate of people choosing to quit NASA after years, DECADES even, has only been 35%.
Their mission has been changed. They are to lower their eyes, away from the stars. That’s easy to do when your head is hanging in defeat.
NASA’s new mission is: “Muslim Outreach”
I read the report, not from a news agency, but direct from the white house website, and I cannot promise you that this is word for word, because I have tried to erase it from my memory, and would rather die than read it again. Essentially their mission is defined as this: NASA’s top level engineers, scientists, astronomers, etc, are to meet with the leaders of the Muslim world, to highlight the contribution Muslims have made to get mankind into space. Obama wants the Middle East to know that he values their insight, ideas, and sacrifices to help all mankind achieve a better future.
The very next year data was collected and it was revealed that the suicide rate among NASA employees was actually higher than that of combat soldiers suffering from PTSD.
That’s a pretty sad freaking commentary on our future.
But by far, the most egregious, and unforgivable act had to be to cancellation of the next gen spacecraft. It was already under way. It was 60% complete! They would have been able to get people back into space within 2-3 years after the shuttle was retired. I struggle very hard here to remain civil, as this was the moment that I stopped “disagreeing” with the president, and actually started HATING him. Despite multiple petitions, NASA’s management begging, and pleading, hell, even against HIS OWN advisors, he cut... no… he DESTROYED the project. He cut ALL funding, and REASSIGNED the people working on it to other areas and projects... (Like Fuc**ng Muslim Outreach!)
I think the saddest part of the whole deal is that HE absolutely WASTED a TRILLION dollars of OUR hard earned money, telling the whole world he was going to save the economy, jobs, and America as we know it. And all the lazy, ignorant ass did was write a BLANK CHECK to each state, which they promptly SQUANDERED!
NASA only needed 200 Billion. That’s all.
Obama wipes his butt with bigger piles of cash. I'm sorry, but there is NO EXCUSE for his actions. They were done out of nothing but MALICE and SPITE. (Like how he returned the Winston Churchill bust to England, which was a gift from the prime minister. Is it just a coincidence that his father, who he himself said he wanted to be just like, grew up HATING the British) if everyone in America just sent in 3 dollars and 50 cents, NASA would have had all the funding it needed. But as soon as he found out about a few people trying to organize a NASA donation drive, he did the only thing he could to kill the program, and he took away the people who were working on it, and locked it up tight so that even if they had the money and didn’t need a single penny of taxpayer money, they would not be ALLOWED to work on the project.
Even though I am a conservative leaning social moderate, I have tried to put aside all my misgivings about his past, his words, and his actions. I have tried to ignore his hypocrisy when he asks for more civil discourse, and in the next sentence bashes everyone who isn’t on his side. I’ve done my best to let slide his many reckless actions, and his outright LIES when the facts are right in front of him, on paper, double, triple checked by number crunchers, scientists, and whoever else has to waste their time finding truth so he can dance around it, and speak over it. God forbid he is confronted with the truth, he laughs like it’s a damned joke, blames everyone but himself, and then goes on a 30 minute rant about all the good HE is doing. Not his team, not America, HIM ALONE. If he talks for more than 5 minutes you will hear the word “I” so many times, that were you to count them on paper, your pencil would run out of lead before the 2 and a half minute mark.
And he has a host of goons and mobsters in all but name, ready to yell and scream at whoever DARES question the glorious perfection that is HIM. He can do no wrong. If he says the sky is green, and let’s say, I dunno, some scientist has the nerve to try and explain that the sky is blue, due to the diffraction of sunlight by the gases in our atmosphere, letting in predominately blue light, and blocking the others, do you know what the response would be?
Simple. The scientist is disagreeing with the president, because he is a racist.
Nevermind the explanation, which is accurate, and provable. The scientist must be a racist. Why else would he go out of his way to make Obama look bad?
Then the scientist must spend months trying to prove he isn’t a racist. And the end result is that he never says anything else about it. And neither do the other scientists who agree with him. They don’t want to be shunned by society, called a racist, become a social pariah. And the result?
Everyone just comes to accept that the sky is in fact green, and sadly the whole world, save for the perfect president has a specific form of genetic color blindness.
Yes this is a silly and extreme example. But it quite handily illustrates a point, which anyone who watches more than one source of news can see for themselves.
I know I run the risk of getting slammed with the race card, for this post (I doubt by any of the intelligent people here), but I do not fear it.
I know that in my heart, I do not hate the president because he is black.
I hate him because he has a black heart.
Oh and a bit of news for you: Were you aware that the Russians just decided that they were going to make the International space Station crash into the ocean in just a few short years? It is absolutely true. They waited until we had no way into space without them, and then, just to show that they are now in control, made the announcement that the ISS is just a waste of money, and that they were going to destroy it. They did not consult with the USA, or Canada, France, UK, Japan, or any of the other countries who contributed to this achievement which is the realization of thousands of people’s dreams and desires. If that doesn’t make you sick, then you could probably survive on dog turd sandwiches.
So with that long winded and gloomy bit of rant out of the way, how about a little levity before you add your rant to mine.
Sadly, I am not going to meet the age requirement to run for president this election. But 2016 is gonna be MINE!!!!! (You gotta be 35)
I have a 10 point plan, to not only save America, but the whole damn world.
Chekkitout
1. Ummm... pay our bills?
2. Quit spending 80 bucks per foot of PVC pipe, and 400 dollars for cheap toilet seats in the DMV?
3. ANNEX CANADA! (Why? Umm.... cuz we can?)
4. Implement the Nightsong Tax Plan (taxes stay the same, but on your tax forms, YOU get to pick where your money goes. will probably lead to the shutdown of 98% of government offices, and a 10,000% increase to infrastructure, and a 1 million percent increase to NASA's budget.)
5. Because of point 4, NASA now IS the government.
NASA now controls the USA, so we never get beyond point 5. Instead, NASA implements its own 10 point plan for world awesomeness (at least they let me make the first point!):
1. Political parties are banned. (No more D's and R's, YAY!!!!)
2. Construction begins on; Moon base, Orbital Elevator, Mars Colony, Space Drydock Facility, Next Generation Shuttle (with obligatory pew pew guns), International Space Station expansion and renovation into the first Zero-G hotel for Hard-Light Members only (can you even do the horizontal mambo in zero-g? if up and down have no meaning, how can the horizontal be quantified? Hmmm.....)
3. Research into Effects of Zero-G on Human Coital Interaction (aka Bow-Chikka-Wow-Wow in space)
4. Pluto is hereby REINSTATED as the Sol System's 9th Planet. (And anyone who says different will be launched into the sun)
5. Begin Construction on FTL Research Facility at Earth's LaGrange Point. (This one might in all seriousness yield results)
6. Begin Construction of 4 Massive Colony Ships. (Just in case we go asteroid boom boom bye bye)
7. Retrofit the Hubble Space Telescope into a High Definition Projector with a maximum resolution of 25,000² x 18,500² AU. Make sure it has HDMI inputs.
8. Begin mounting booster engines onto the surface of the moon. Use booster to move the moon to low earth orbit, keeping the tidal forces in check by hollowing out the entire moon in order to reduce mass.
9. Conscript Volition, and the top 10 experts in every field of game design for classified project. Launch shuttle to run HDMI cable from bottom of orbital elevator, to the Hubble Space Projector. Alienware and Saitek conscripted to build custom Interface Design at base of Orbital Elevator.
10. Massive Blackout as entire Earth’s electrical grid is shut off. Bewildered masses head outside. With a blinding flash of light, humankind looks up to the moon, which takes up 75% of the night sky. Hubble fires up. Orbital Elevator relays signal via HDMI. The moon becomes the largest screen in the galaxy. Freespace 3 begins playing on surface of moon.
World peace ensues.
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huh... you are new here...
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O_o
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huh... you are new here...
Unconvinced of this.
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Could be worse, but instead of 10 point plans and such. Keep it simple?
:v-old: for government
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About Obama killing space exploration, etc. you should read this:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/06/07/senator-kay-bailey-hutchison-r-tex-disses-private-space/
and this
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/02/01/president-obamas-nasa-budget-unveiled/
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well I just like how when I skimmed through a 3 page diatribe about NASA the word "Muslims" caught my eye.
and unfortunately point 5 isn't going to happen CERN SERN beat NASA to the global domination punch 30 years ago/from now (depending on how you look at it, time travel's funny like that)
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well when some terrorist tries to fly a heavy lift booster into the sears tower, il be concerned.
and now my 10 point plan to advance space exploration:
1. nuke the planet to the point where its so inhospitible that humans have to eat eachother to survive.
2. tell the survivors that god has terraformed the moon and has commanded them to exodus to their new home (they will believe anything at this point)
3. raid cold war installations and nuclear silos for hardware
4: duct tape a bunch of icbms together
5: retrofit an old car into a space capsule.
6: send large numbers of stupid people to the moon.
7: before they land tell them that you lied about that whole god thing and the chances of their survival are almost nil.
8: then tell em they had better find some caves and learn to suck the water out of regolith.
9: once an effective colony has been established, send in smart people and establish a dictatorship
10: profit!
:D
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Screw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacex) NASA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_galactic) dude! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines)
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i should point out that the 11th step is nuke the moon, and then exact a similar plan, except make the focus mars. this can be repeated ad continuum until we run out of habitable bodies in our solar system and should eventually lead us to colonize other solar systems. which we will then nuke.
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the whole point was that we are going down the crapper because both sides just whip their followers into a frenzy, then sicc them on each other.
and the bit about nasa was just goofing (cept for the complete screw up of it.) really, nasa has been nuetured for a long time, obama just took it in for euthanization. im juts commenting on the sadness of it.
and its sad that the "muslim" bit caught your eye. i didnt say anything bad about muslims. thats just what he sent nasa to do. and the problem with finding truth in all the crap (which was the first bit up there) is a serious problem. thats how they get you to hate the other side.
i like fox news, which most people hate, but im NOT a fan of hannity, etc. if you want to watch fox, and get JUST news, then only watch at 3 and 7. shep is the man. (bears on trampolines, nuff said) i actually used to watch hannity when it was hannity AND colmes. but i dont like ANYTHING that just spews opinions of things. i flip the channel every time one of those jackasses from either side get on a rant and talk over each other and the host. i used to watch nbc, but then msnbc tunred into the DNC cheerleader network, and you couldnt trust anything they put up. what made me lose total faith in them was when they did a story on the tea party, back when it first started, and showed a bunch of people with ak-47's strapped to their backs. the reporter said "there were only white people there, scaring away minorities with their guns, and yelling at people of color." and i thought to myself, "that doesnt pass the sniff test. especiallly since the camera angle was cropped so that the peoples faces were never shown. i mean, if you are going to do a story about how ugly racism is, you would want to show the faces of the people, so that the viewers could see the hate in thier eyes. well i dont have time to waste trying to sift through all the crap for that one peanut of truth. i was flipping channels a few days later, and beck was on. i normally only watch a few episodes of that show, like the ones about forgotten history (like how women, and black people could vote in early colonial america, and it was only later that those rights were taken away) i especially like the two he did about the black founders of america. (you would think we could get that into a text book, or at least a shoutout on black history month) but what really caught my eye was that i saw footage of the same white power ak-47 rally. i wanted to see what he said about it. (its good to hear both sides, because the truth usually lies in the middle) so i unmute the thing, and lo and behold. a guy witha cell phone camera happened to be there, recording the media. the guy they focused on, the one in the white shirt and slacks with the ak47 on his back? the guy who hates minorities and is yelling racist things at passer-bys? turns out he IS BLACK, and so are many of the people there. (no wonder they didnt show faces or hands). at that point, i trust only shep smith, no one else, not on fox, or any other network. its pretty damn sad.
on a funny note about media lies though? anyone else see the vid of the reporter in the boat, reporting on the flooding in a neighbourhood? she had her oars in one hand, and you could see that the water was up to the top of a stop sign right next to her. and BAM. right in the middle of her report, two local people are just walking down the road talking, and walk right behind her. turns out the stop sign was a prop (just the top half of a sign) and the water was barely ankle deep. man i wish i could find the link to that video again, it was a classic.
anyway, i know i make long posts, but i cant help it when i type a mile a minute. at least i usually go back and edit them before posting. otherwise they would be two or three times as long. (and probably read like the thoughts of someone with a case of TERMINAL A.D.D.)
the bit about nasa just really ticked me off though. its been ticking me off when bush cut the funds, and its infuriating to me that obama just took it out back and shot it.
seriously, i know the whole argument about privatizing the space industry, but thats decades off. i was right there cheering when the white knight claimed the ansari X prize, by launching a man into space 2 times in 2 weeks, but whoop-dee-doo. give me enough model rocket boosters and i could launch a collection of gi-joe's into space. the only real accomplishment was the idiot proof re-entry mechanism, which i dont beleive could be used in any other vessel, as it was based ENTIRELY on the shape of the ship. nasa wasn't out to make a dollar. so when they went into space, they took science equipment, experiments. we enjoy the life we do, and post on THIS forum, because of their work, even if they never intended for the technology to be used in this way. private companies are worried about one thing and one thing only.
THIER BOTTOM LINE. instead of experiments, space on their vessels will be taken up by billionaires and tons of nick nacks and collectibles so that when they get home they can ebay off these stupid cuzies as having "been in space". we will never get any where that way. at least not fast.
i used to dream of going into space, as im sure a lot of you have done, right? well ask yourself, and i mean REALLY , ask yourself. how has your dream of going into space changed, if you can even imagine it at all any more.
the only way i see myself getting up there, barring going the route of the astronaut farmer (awesome movie) is to win the 50 million lottery, and then quickly cash the winnings before the government takes away half (which they do. some states its actually 65%) and buy my ticket on one of the tourist flights. at least i might end up next to angelina jolie. and the only thing to look forward to there, is to be able to shove a damn sandwich down that skeleton woman before she achieves weightlessness ON EARTH.
anywho, rant over.
im tired, and still gotta do a few more exercises in fredding (trying to learn) so that i might be able to contribute more than VA here.
later peoples (ill check those links too, but ive just about had it with politics. i watched 5 mins of the republican debate. its like all of them in the race now (except for herman cain, i love that dude) have the same cloned brain just different bodies. (of course ron paul does not count, since he is a beta reticulan.)
EDIT: Luis Dias, i agree totally with some points of that article. i too blame bush, clinton before him, and the elder bush before him for not properly managing nasa. but again, thought some parts of those blog posts were factual, most was again, opinion. and of course, big surprise, made republicans look bad. im not for one side or another, but when you make one side look bad, and another side look good, you are in essence claiming allegience to the latter, and war on the former, which is going to end badly for US ALL. let me remind, that in that article it criticizes a politician for being negative about private space industries delays, and then switches gears and agrees with obama cancelling the constellation program BECAUSE IT WAS BEHIND SCHEDULE. it doesnt matter what letter is after your name, hypocrisy IS politics. and the main problem i have with obama is the slap in the face to nasa. the whole mid-east outreach bullcrap. look, i feel badly for most of the middle east. their rulers are psycopathic murderers, and their kids are brainwashed in school to glorify suicide and promote racism, especially against jews. and when they cry out for change, they are shot in the street. but to win hearts and minds there you send NASA? SERIOUSLY? i watched the head of nasa talk about his new goal on the news, and the poor man looked like he wanted to blow his brains out, but still had the dignity to fake a smile and say he looked forward to it. both sides have stood on the backs of nasa's workers, and used their acheivements to make themselves look better, while tossing nasa scraps from the table, and then yelling at them for not being able to get a man into space with rubber bands and paper clips. (i suupose if the rubber band had enough tensile strength, and elasticity, and the paperclips could be made into a pressurized cabin.... no. thats a job for macguyver) i keep going back to reagan. it seemed like he was the last president to properly appreciate space travel and the hard work of nasa. (i DO LIKE the private side of things, but we need BOTH) so i think we should start experimenting on finding the real formula for voodoo's most closely guarded recipe. ZOMBIE POWDER! because given any of the presidents we have had in my lifetime, a zombie reagan still looks like a better choice. and when he is hungry we could feed congress to him. though if a zombie needs brains to survive, zombie reagan would die of starvation eating congress.
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Volyren: You may want to reign that rambling side of yours in a bit, or learn how to use capitalization and paragraphs. Whatever points you may have or think you have, they get obscured quite efficiently by your tendency to make every post as TL;DR as possible.
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Government has had its knives out for NASA since the days of Carl Sagan, it is, unfortunately, not surprising that the moment 'austerity' was mentioned, science and education are the first one the agenda, they usually are.
I can only think that Governments have some kind of strangely self-destructive impulses.
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thats what i like about orion drive, we can go places and nuke everything we left behind, at the same time! its so awesome!
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yeah, i apologize about the rambling, if you look at some of my earlier posts here, i think i have made at least a 50% improvement. its hard when you are used to typing super fast. a long time ago i used to have problems with writers block because my fingers couldnt keep up with my brain. so over the years ive sped up my fingers to keep up with my thoughts, and eureka! writers block no more! however, i kept getting faster and faster. the problem with that is, now, i type so fast, my computer cannot keep up with my fingers, and it actually ends up missing about 1 in 30 keystrokes. as a coping mechanism (and being spoiled by MS Word's customizable auto correct feature) ive let slip punctuation, capitalization, and most aggregious of all, at least in my opinion, is my tendency to make one sentence into a whole paragraph, and while said sentence may still be correct in grammer and syntax, the multitude of comma's (as sadly this sentence seems to be evidence of) would, if made into periods instead, make for easier digestion of my rambling reading material. (<--- see! my period key DOES work! though its definately out of shape)
your criticism of my neverending posts is quite fair, and very true. my biggest problem though, is that i USED to always write my posts in word, and just copy/paste, but i dont have word on this computer specifically to remove my bad habit of working on my novels on an internet enabled computer. the publisher im signed on with has contract policy that any authors working with them only use locked computers (no internet). there were a few cases of parts of future publications either leaking out, or being stolen. and i must admit, when i had word on here, i DID use it a LOT. and thats taking chances with my livelihood. i get slammed with renegging on any part of my contract and im out my entire 20k bonus for getting it to print AND i lose half of my contiuing royalties from book sales. it takes a year or two to get one done, and on average i dont make much more than someone working a regular 10 dollar an hour job. (my only benefit is getting to do what i love)
so again, i know some of my posts can be hard to read, headache inducing, eye throbbing, and all around atrocious to read, but im REALLY trying. ive noticed my postings tend to get much more verbose, and many times more sloppy when i am tired. and right now, ive been up for a little over 40 hours. So, (ooh, look! a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence! How does he do it?) on that note:
my apologies for the sloppy posts.
My thanks for muddling through them anyway.
And feel free to rag me about it any time i slip back into the old bad habits, ok? (honestly, you cant write and NOT be able to take criticism.) And besides, its much easier to have an objective observer point out your flaws, since human nature is, BY NATURE, subjective. In other words, if you dont take a bath, you get used to your smell. But other people most assuredly will not. So dont feel like you are going to hurt my feelings. You're actually helping me to improve, and I appreciate it.
Every single person I've conversed with here, about ANY topic have been friendly, jovial, helpful, good-natured, funny, or a combination of any or all of those descriptors.
I truly like it here. I mean it. Best group of people I've had the pleasure to unintentionally annoy. ;)
If ever there be something I can help with, be it webspace, busywork, or even monetary support, I will be more than happy to lend a hand.
And on that note, Its Waaaaaaay past my bedtime, and that sexy looking pillow is just screaming my name. "I'll be right there baby, just dont tell the old lady. She just would't understand what we have together...whats that? Oh, don't mind them, they promised to turn their heads. Now, come here you evil temptress, I'm gonna ... gonn....a.....SSSSSSNNNNNNNOOOOOOORRRRREEEEE
(ah, sleep deprivation induced delierium, its the 2nd best type of delerium there is!)
Imm'a gonna stop here before i fall asleep on the keyboard and accidentally post 12 pages of ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg. It's happened before.
Later guys and(or) gals.
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Bleak future of NASA? What about its bleak past? We have achieved little in the past 30 years thanks to NASA operating the most expensive launch vehicle ever (the Shuttle) that spectacularly failed to meet its goal of making launches affordable and practical. I am of the opinion that whatever US manned space exploration will be in the future, it will be considerably better than what we had until now, because we have already hit the bottom.
And if you want to blame someone, blame the congress where representatives care only about as much money as possible flowing into their states, not the future of spaceflight. They also have the most influence.
Is this a troll thread? :nervous:
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We have achieved little in the past 30 years
lol
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Seriously, nasa might not have achieved much since the early days of the shuttle program, but my whole point is that every kid, at least in my day (which wasn’t THAT long ago) would have loved to go to NASA’s space camp (even if just to kick jinx in the nuts). The whole point, which everyone seems to miss, is that if we make space flight COMPLETELY private and corporation owned, then unless you are a millionaire, then just forget about ever getting into space. And if the discoveries that NASA made were instead done by companies, we wouldn’t even have this board to talk on, or Freespace to mod and play. The company that made a discovery would lock it up tight, patent it, own it. Sharing information doesn’t make money. Selling it does. But then if you pay for something, you aren’t going to GIVE it away either.
Personally, the way things are now, the only way any of us will get into space is as ejecta blasted off the surface by a massive asteroid impact.
I have long since lost any hope of ever living long enough to see a human on mars, or even maybe look down on the earth from orbit. Sadly, I don’t believe any of my great-great grandchildren will either.
Humanity has preogressed this far due to our sense of innovation, and our desire to explore. But now I think the driving force of humanity is just “grab what you can, hang on to it as long as you can, and don’t be afraid to screw anyone in your way to get what you want” even the people we consider “good” have a pretty crappy mindset. Look at any of the numerous videos of people standing around while someone bleeds to death. No one helps, no one calls the cops, they just stand there and stare for a bit, or quicken their pace, telling themselves “not my problem, I shouldn’t get involved.” Whether you tell yourself that someone else will help, or if you are worried about looking like you were involved, or even being sued by the family of the victim for some technicality in state law (we have all seen that happen to people on tv). Frankly, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. If you see someone in need of urgent help and the first thing in your mind is whether you might get in trouble somehow, then you aren’t going to help anyway.
Helping others is instinctual, and with all our animalistic instincts, and impulses fading away thanks to our increasingly comfortable and sedentary lifestyles, its pretty sad that the very thing that makes us human, OUR HUMANITY, is one of the first to go.
Before I get too far off track, my point was, that we no longer care about exploring, pushing limits. We just want to sit on our asses and watch someone else do it.
Last I checked, no one ever made it far sitting on their ass. And space is 50 miles straight up.
My advice? Get a comfy couch.
Because none of us are going anywhere.
EVER.
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Well you have good points about space travel being privatized. The typical counter to that is that eventually, it'll be cheap enough to where you don't have to be a millionare/billionare. But the big thing is yea, a lot of the discoveries, a lot of the knowledge and ideas will be locked up by patents, and I think that is indeed a serious problem, both now and one only set to grow in the future.
It's funny too, because open source projects often produce better results than ones that are closed.
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Seriously, nasa might not have achieved much since the early days of the shuttle program
- Cassini–Huygens
- MESSENGER
- Sojourner
- Hubble
- ISS
- Spirit and Opportunity
Really, people need to stop assuming unmanned -> unimportant. Tons of awesome science is being done thanks to every unmanned probe sent off by NASA. (yes, I realize the ISS is manned but it was too big to leave out of that list)
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UT, you obviously think patents are a lot more powerful than they actually are. If patents were actually worth anything, there wouldn't be a dozen knock off brands of anything worth mentioning.
Additionally, knowledge is not locked up in patents. A SINGLE SPECIFIC WAY OF APPLYING THAT KNOWLEDGE is all a patent pertains to. Change one decently insignificant part, and it's a new product.
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I wasn’t saying that nasa’s missions or accomplishments were not important. Quite the opposite.
I just don’t find that there is anything even remotely be optimistic about.
Honestly even though I think that whole December 21st 2012 doomsday thing to be over hyped and rife with all kinds of inaccuracies and outright historical FICTION, I'm starting to think that IF I wake up on the morning of December 22nd 2012 I will be disappointed.
Which wont be much of a change from how I feel now.
Feel free to close this and my other threads here in general discussion, unless people want to continue posting on them.
I think I will be away for a long time.
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You do not seem to understand the nature of transition to private space industry. Governments will still be the primary customer. It will not be privately funded only. The research data will still be public and astronauts will still fly even if they are not millionaries.
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Additionally, knowledge is not locked up in patents. A SINGLE SPECIFIC WAY OF APPLYING THAT KNOWLEDGE is all a patent pertains to. Change one decently insignificant part, and it's a new product.
Patents don't work that way in the real world. Observe the patent lawsuits going on in the mobile industry: http://www.flickr.com/photos/floorsixtyfour/5061246255/.
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if theres one thing i hate about technology is how much of it is proprietary. patents are at least documented openly. imagine how much technology sits in some corporate vault somewhere. waiting to get lost, forgotten, or destroyed. if i had my way patents wouldnt just expire, they would become public domain after a certain amount of time. if you want to lock down a technology with a patent, if you ever decide not to renew (spend money) your pattents, it becomes public and therefore unpatentable. i dont like the patent office becoming a static collection of good ideas that noone can ever use without paying someone. and id rather companies invest what would have been spent defending patents on r&d to make better innovations. companies shouldnt even get to hold patents. i always figured patents were to protect the small time inventor, not massive corporate structures.
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You have Dawn that is orbiting Vesta right now, and will be the first mission of that type to enter a controlled orbit into a second space body while leaving the first one on it's own power as it departs for Ceres. Despite the huge financial difficulties the mission found itself in, it's been progressing beautifully and a lot of good research is being done just by that.
Then you have New Horizons, which targets nothing less than Pluto and the Kuiper Belt afterwards. If we're in this for the science, then these are great accomplishments. And if we are in this for the science then we need to be honest with ourselves and admit that while we have the technology to send someone to another planetary body, we do lack the technology to make the risks manageable and the journey to have much more of a point other than sticking a flag into another planet as a PR stunt.
Until we get new propulsion and material technologies allowing manned interplanetary travel that might actually make some sense, I'd say the correct choice is to focus on umanned exploration. Which is exactly what's been going on, and I for one find these unmanned probe programs pretty damn exciting in themselves. Have to learn to crawl before you move on to walking/running...
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Additionally, knowledge is not locked up in patents. A SINGLE SPECIFIC WAY OF APPLYING THAT KNOWLEDGE is all a patent pertains to. Change one decently insignificant part, and it's a new product.
Patents don't work that way in the real world. Observe the patent lawsuits going on in the mobile industry: http://www.flickr.com/photos/floorsixtyfour/5061246255/.
Yes. Going on. Undecided, incomplete, discussionary. In other words, non-binding and its entirely possible that none of them will succeed. All that tells me is that the mobile industry is screwy, but I think we all knew that anyway. For a better analogy, take a look at the automotive industry, which is a much better comparison. Building the same thing a different way does not violate a patent. I repeat, a patent does not restrict knowledge or its application in any meaningful way.
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Yes. Going on. Undecided, incomplete, discussionary.
Yet still wasting massive amounts of money on lawyer costs.
All that tells me is that the mobile industry is screwy, but I think we all knew that anyway.
Bold claim to make without evidence.
For a better analogy,
example
take a look at the automotive industry, which is a much better comparison.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640553503576637.html
Building the same thing a different way does not violate a patent. I repeat, a patent does not restrict knowledge or its application in any meaningful way.
Again, in practice this does not apply. This isn't even a new phenomenon: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/do-patents-encourage-or-hinder-innovation-the-case-of-the-steam-engine/
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Until we get new propulsion and material technologies allowing manned interplanetary travel that might actually make some sense,
You mean new propulsion technology like this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA) or this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Timberwind)? We've had that technology for 30+ years and couldn't be bothered to do anything with it.
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The biggest problem space propulsion has to solve is actually getting stuff into a high orbit. Nuclear propulsion doesn't address this issue. What we need is technology that will make going into LEO and above a cheap everyday venture so things like orbital docks and interplanetary craft assembled in orbit can become a reality without bankrupting the planet.
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The biggest problem space propulsion has to solve is actually getting stuff into a high orbit. Nuclear propulsion doesn't address this issue. What we need is technology that will make going into LEO and above a cheap everyday venture so things like orbital docks and interplanetary craft assembled in orbit can become a reality without bankrupting the planet.
We don't necessarily need new propulsion technologies for that either, the problem is NASAs huge bureaucracy. Sure the shuttle costs $400+ million to launch it, but most of that cost was from the bloat of the organization itself, the fuel for example was only a couple million. While a revolutionary new design like the Skylon would certainly allow us to do the job better, it isn't as much of a requirement as one might think, especially when considering launch cost differences between the Falcon 9 and Ares 1 (http://martianchronicles.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/ares-1-x-vs-falcon-9-a-comparison/). That in and of itself busts open the myth that we can't do it relatively inexpensively.
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Too true. People wail about how awful it is that NASA is getting less money, but really that's probably the best thing for the agency. I bet you they could still run manned space operations on a smaller budget, but first they'd have to get their stuff together.
Some anecdotal stories;
I have an uncle (I think...he's extended family, I only see him on Thanksgiving :D) who contracts for NASA. He's one of the old guys that was there back in the 60s and 70s I think, he told me about back then, if they wanted a new satellite, they'd get it up and launched within six months to a year or something. It was a very active environment, it accepted risk and it was very much that attitude of "gotta get this done, we don't know how to do it exactly so we're going to do the best we can". They were getting a constant stream of well educated, well skilled employees coming to work at the organization.
Fast forward to now, and things have changed. Firstly, it takes forever to get anything done. Through a myriad of deals with companies, outsourcing to private firms, litigation-happy lawyers, and a constant need to "justify" it's existence, what used to take one year now may take 5 or 7. It's more expensive because of yes, the bureaucratic bloat - there is so much paperwork that goes with launches now, it's unbelievable. As an example of how messed up the contracting system is (both for NASA and in general). NASA contracted out to rebuild a bathroom in one of their buildings. Halfway through the project they discovered that something was wrong with the plans and one of the stalls was too small for regulations. However, the way government contracts work, they could not stop building it. They HAD to finish the bathroom because that was what was specified in the contract. After the bathroom was finished, they had to draft a new contract (it costs money to make these contracts, too, don't forget), to tear down the bathroom they had just built, and then rebuild it up to spec.
As for the highly educated, highly skilled workforce - this guy retired several years ago, but they keep bringing him back because he's one of the few people that know how to do any of the stuff he does (he works with space-hardened electronics). The engineering students that are coming out of universities look great on paper, but when it comes to practical experience and knowledge they have not a clue. We got onto this subject because I brought up how bad a majority of the engineering students I've met are at what they do. It's crazy. They know how to crunch numbers like "all good engineers" - but they have no clue how to think creatively or problem solve.
But I don't need to go into the failings of the US education system and the hilarious yet depressing failings of it's college/university system. That's pretty obvious to anyone who enjoys knowledge or learning, and it's a discussion for another thread.
The point is that NASA is a very useful, very necessary government agency; but it really, really needs to stop acting like one. Most government agencies today are these massive entities that are separate bureaucratic monsters that the general populace feels completely disconnected with. These budget cuts could be good for NASA, if they get a clue. They need to streamline, and take this massive pillar of bloated government "achievements", and flatten it so that people can actually interact with it. They need look back on themselves honestly - they should really have a public discussion where they ask people "Do you think the shuttle was a success?". Of course they get to discuss their side of the story, and have this real healing process that looks at the pros and cons of what the organization has done in the last several years. There's been a lot of good decisions and a lot of bad ones, and they need to hold themselves accountable for what was done, otherwise we really won't learn what works and what doesn't in a public space program.
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I lost faith in NASA when the canceled the VentureStar, that was when I felt they stopped looking to the future.
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I lost faith in NASA when the canceled the VentureStar, that was when I felt they stopped looking to the future.
Speaking of which........ (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2006/01/x-33venturestar-what-really-happened/)
Now that project is a showcase for massive project management incompetence.
EDIT: For those too lazy to click the link:
The VentureStar may now be nothing more than a memory, but it nearly became part of NASA, the commercial fleet and indeed even the US Air Force, had it of not been for some controversial key decisions during the construction of the technology demonstrator, the X-33.
Taking shape at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility, the X-33 was intended to be a 1/3 scale prototype of a fully-operational RLV (Reusable Launch Vehicle) called the VentureStar, designed to dramatically lower the costs of launching payloads in space. However, the official reasons for its demise fail to portray the true story.
Testing and construction had been going well during the assembly of the scaled down version of the VentureStar, with the launch facility at Edwards Air Force Base in California completed – along with 40 percent of the X-33.
Advances had been made with the thermal protection system (TPS) which doubled up as the aerodynamic shell of the vehicle. The XRS-2200 Linear Aerospike main engines were on target to become the next generation of liquid fuelled propulsion systems, although Rocketdyne’s decision to use Narloy-Z – a heavy copper alloy – saw changes to the flight control surfaces due of a aft-heavy center of gravity. This would prove to be a major – and defining – problem later in the process.
Other minor issues had continued to be ironed out until a critical test highlighted previously noted concerns, one that would add years to the target date for the first test flight, ultimately leading to be the end of the program – the failure of the composite LH2 (liquid hydrogen) tank during testing.
However, this was no surprise to those working on the program, with new information now showing that engineers and designers had protested at the very moment they were informed of a management decision to build a composite LH2 tank.
Such was the scale of the initial protest, go-ahead was given to build the LOX (liquid oxygen) tank out of the same aluminium-lithium alloy that is currently used on the external tanks for the Space Shuttle, a small but important victory for the protesting engineers at the time. The LOX tank passed testing and was installed with plumbing and electronics around the front third of the vehicle’s structure.
Yet still, the LH2 tank – a large multi-lobed structure – was to be the single most challenging project for engineers involved in the X-33 program, even if they had been able to use Al-Li alloys. Building one out of composite materials proved to be – as protests noted – even more of a challenge, with very little experience with large-scale composite structures within the workforce undertaking the fabrication of the tanks.
A five foot long tank was built and tested at NASA Lewis (now NASA Glenn), but the larger structure for the X-33 was going to be a step too far. Skunk Works’ designers of the LH2 tank had heard from engineers that storing liquid hydrogen in a pressurized composite (notably material IM7/997-2) tank with the hollow honeycomb walls was simply doomed to failure – but their advice was ignored.
Concerns grew with engineers of the tank, as problems in the LH2 tank fabrication stages during late 1997 and 1998 saw Alliant Techsystems personnel try to find solutions, personnel who also lacked experience with composite tanks. This led to the first tank – fabricated by Alliant in Sunnyvale – found to have debonds and delaminations – being sent back to try and fix the problems.
A second LH2 tank appeared to be in a much better shape and was shipped to MSFC (Marshall Space Flight Center) in Huntsville, Alabama for testing. The failure of the tank during testing at MSFC was still predicted – and occurred on November 3, 1999, during the fifth stage of testing.
Ironically, engineers – predicting the impending problem – had a solution already at hand. By filling the honeycomb walls of the tank with closed-cell foam, air wouldn’t be able to enter the structure and liquefy.
This idea had to be rejected, due to the 500 kg of extra weight being added to the aft, further affecting the center of gravity, which was already having serious fallout on the design due to the heavy engine ramps.
Thus the tank was doomed, as predicted.
‘Damage was discovered Wednesday (November 3) evening to one wall of the X-33′s composite liquid hydrogen tank currently undergoing cryogenic and structural loads testing,’ noted an MSFC press release at the time. ‘The damage was discovered while viewing the tank over video monitors, approximately two hours after the completion of a test cycle which appeared to be nominal.’
Such was the consensus that a failure was the only outcome for the composite tank, MAF (Michoud Assembly Facility) engineers had already started the process on having their own Al-Li LH2 tank ready for fabrication, pre-empting the call for change of plan.
Faced with a project failure, Lockheed Martin and X-33 NASA managers gave the green light to proceed with the fabrication of the new tank. Ironically this new tank weighed in less than the composite tank – disproving one of the reasons for going with a composite tank in the first place.
While the aluminium LH2 tank was much heavier than the composite tank in the skins, the joints were much lighter, which was where all the weight in the composite tank was, due to the multi-lobed shape of the tank requiring a large amount of surrounding structure, such as the joints. Ironically, the original design of the X-33 on the drawing board had the tanks made out of aluminium for this reason – but the cost played a factor for the potential customer base.
Then the hammer blow, as despite the project now appearing to be back on track, with the move towards testing of the new LH2 tank, the much-respected former NASA director Ivan Bekey appeared in front of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, at the US House of Representatives. His testimony on April 11, 2001, on NASA’s FY2001 budget request ‘Aero-Space Technology Enterprise,’ proved to be the final blow for the X-33 VentureStar.
His address to US lawmakers stressed that the X-33 had to continue with composite tanks, thus making the project doomed to failure.
‘The principal purpose of the X-33 program is to fly all the new technologies that interact with each other together on one vehicle, so that they can be fully tested in an interactive flight environment,’ said Bekey during his testimony. ‘If that is not done, the principal reason for the flight program disappears.
‘Even though the thermal protection system and the engine would be tested, the structure and its interaction with the tanks and support for the thermal protection system would not be tested. Since the biggest set of unknowns in this vehicle configuration have to do with the structure-tankage-aeroshell-TPS-airflow interactions, it is my belief that to fly the vehicle with an aluminium tank makes little sense from a technical point of view.
‘Worse yet, flight of an X-33 with an aluminium tank will increase the difficulty of raising private capital for a commercially developed VentureStar from the merely very difficult to the essentially impossible.
‘What I would recommend is that NASA and Lockheed Martin face up to the risks inherent in an experimental flight program and renegotiate the X-33 cooperative agreement so as to delay the flight milestone until a replacement composite tank can be confidently flown.
‘Both NASA and Lockheed Martin should make the investments required to build another composite tank and to absorb the program costs of the delay, because only then will the X-33 program be able to meet its objectives. To do anything less is flying for flying’s sake, wastes the funds already expended, and makes little sense.’
X-33 workers were said to be stunned by the comments of Bekey – still to this day a highly respected authority on space transportation – on his call to look once again at the composite tanks, now believed to be impossible to correct without a complete redesign of the entire vehicle – and then not assured.
By early 2001, the program was officially cancelled – five years and $1.5 billion down the line. Official reasons for the cancellation was a disagreement over extra funding from both industry partners, NASA and Lockheed Martin. However, the recommendation of the composite tank to keep costs down to prospective commercial interest was the main reason given to workers.
Not only was the program cancelled, but all the successful new technology was laid to rest along with the death of the X-33. The metallic TPS developed by BF Goodrich is still seen by some engineers as one of the most impressive parts that made up the X-33.
Four XRS-2200 Linear Aerospike main engines were constructed (two for testing and two for flight). One complete engine is still around today, displayed at NASA Stennis, at least two others were disassembled. Two LOX tanks were built over the lifetime of the X-33 construction, both are mothballed at NASA Glenn. The partially built vehicle, thought to be still in a storage hanger at Edwards Air Force Base, was actually disassembled.
All this despite interest from the Air Force in resurrecting the project, with Lockheed Martin high-flyer Cleon Lacefield in charge of the effort to re-start the program on at least one occasion. Each time the Air Force made requests to take the X-33 project as their own, they found the opportunity denied at the highest level of US government.
Even when armed with Lacefield’s final comments on the X-33, comments which gave full support to the Al-Li, added to by support from NASA Stennis on the engines, the Air Force – now trying to have their own VentureStar flying by 2012 – found the door of the White House firmly closed shut on any possibility of resurrecting the project.
Rumors of a final attempt by the Air Force came just last year, only to for them to hear the same answer, likely ending their interest in the vehicle and also the last remaining monument to the X-33 – the state-of-the-art launch facility at the Phillips Test Range, Edwards Air Force Base. Again, it was the White House that vetoed any new evaluations of the X-33.
No part of the X-33 technology will play a role in NASA’s architecture being developed for the return to the Moon, with the agency deciding to use the conservative – yet experience-rich – shuttle derived and Apollo approach.
The X-33 VentureStar was highly criticized as a chunky flying fuel tank with little to offer once the satellite launch business diluted between several regular and proven launch systems around the world.
But for those that worked on the X-33, the pure complexity of the new system – and the chain reactions felt from issues and bad decisions such as the heavy engine ramps to the resulting need for the low weight of the LH2 tank – to the lack of options open to use a solution for the LH2 tank failures, turned her from a potential leap in space vehicle technology, to one that became a $1.5 billion white elephant to the tax payer.
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EDIT: For those too lazy to click the link:
clicking the link is the easy part, if you're going to pander to my lazyness I'd rather you summarize the article. :nervous:
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(...)if i had my way patents wouldnt just expire, they would become public domain after a certain amount of time. if you want to lock down a technology with a patent, if you ever decide not to renew (spend money) your pattents, it becomes public and therefore unpatentable.(...)
You do know that's more or less how patents work, right? You gain the advantage of monopoly over whatever you patented with the disadvantage that when the patent expires, everyone already knows exactly what your patent involved.
Hence why companies like say... Coca-cola never patented their product, because after the patent goes poof, everyone knows how to make their product.
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(...)if i had my way patents wouldnt just expire, they would become public domain after a certain amount of time. if you want to lock down a technology with a patent, if you ever decide not to renew (spend money) your pattents, it becomes public and therefore unpatentable.(...)
You do know that's more or less how patents work, right? You gain the advantage of monopoly over whatever you patented with the disadvantage that when the patent expires, everyone already knows exactly what your patent involved.
Hence why companies like say... Coca-cola never patented their product, because after the patent goes poof, everyone knows how to make their product.
this creates another issue of course, vaulting. companies who keep technology under wraps for fear that someone else would make money on it. such technology has the potential of being lost.
EDIT: For those too lazy to click the link:
clicking the link is the easy part, if you're going to pander to my lazyness I'd rather you summarize the article. :nervous:
main reason for the project failing is that they couldn't get the composite fuel tank to work. the engineers decided to make one out of proven technology that ended up being lighter than the composite tank, but management insisted that it be composite. then made the mistake of asking politicians for more money.
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main reason for the project failing is that they couldn't get the composite fuel tank to work. the engineers decided to make one out of proven technology that ended up being lighter than the composite tank, but management insisted that it be composite. then made the mistake of asking politicians for more money.
Yeah and the engineers said right from the start that composite tanks weren't going to work.
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main reason for the project failing is that they couldn't get the composite fuel tank to work. the engineers decided to make one out of proven technology that ended up being lighter than the composite tank, but management insisted that it be composite. then made the mistake of asking politicians for more money.
Yeah and the engineers said right from the start that composite tanks weren't going to work.
it should be noted that composite tanks were an issue for scaled/virgin galactic as well. ss1 NO2 tanks liked to leak and i think there responsible for the deaths that occurred during the construction of ss2. using composites for fuel/oxidizer tanks is a new and, so far, a somewhat unreliable technology. the tanks that were planned to be used for venture star were also of an exotic shape, where as the NO2 tanks used in ss1/2 were shaped like traditional propane tanks, and scaled by far has more experience with composite materials. lesson learned if youre managing an aerospace project, listen to your ****ing engineers.
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***IMPORTANT NOTE***was working on this in word, but im hurting too bad to finish, and it only gets longer with each response. long story short. im disabled. (not wheelchair bound, just really bad back)i have a natural resistance to many types of meds. so for pain meds. im taking 5 methadone and 3 advil twice a day. unfortunately im all out of pills. doctor is on vacation and his new nurse is too scared to write my prescription since its soo much of the strongest painkiller available. withdrawals hit 2 days ago. i got five more days of hellish agony to go.(doc gets back.) so forgive me for any mood swings, its gonna be nothing but distilled pain, coupled with psycosis and suicidal thoughts (wishes? Prayers?)
i have my bed as comfortable as i can.
i have my barf bucket.
my bottles of water
my box of kleenex
and the 'puter.
as long as i keep sharp things away from me (already gave jen the gun clip) i think i wil be ok.
its really bad.
as bad as heroin is, they give addicts 1 or 2 methadone to help them with thier withdrawals. but ive been taking 10 methadone a day for 5 years. there is nothing to help me.
i had a very bad day yesterday. first time i SERIOUSLY thought about dying. (thought, not planned). im going to take a couple of sleeping pills. (just a couple, no body start worrying)
hopefully i cann sleep throgu most of it.
i probalby wont be posting much, but please tryt o bear with me. im not myself rigth now and i apologize if i get whiny or snap at anyone.
here's the post i was working on.:
and you guys give me hell about my long posts?
we will never leave this planet again. i bet life on it, because that bet is precisely why we WONT be going.
lawyers, public relations, politicians. news agencies.
all of em wanna make sure everything is as safe as possible. double/triple/dectuple check everything. sign contracts. buy insurance. make changes insurance company required of you before signing off, then fix all the problems those changes made, and re-submit to insurance company for round two.
we wont even let kids have monkey bars at recess for fear they might get a skinned knee and the school get sued. I mean, COME ON! Do you REALLY think that the idiots who seem to run everything everywhere would take the chance, and LET you make up YOUR mind to take a risk? HELL NO. they might somehow look bad in some small way. Can't be havin' that now can we?
you wanna go have a colony on mars? build me a time machine.
move nasa back to 1810.
back when people had a passion for exploring and trying new things was risky. back when instead of spending 10 years piling complex rules on something when it went wrong, and someone died, they did the only thing they could. either find someone else who beleives in it and is willing to take the risk, or take the damn risk yourself.
everyone is too damn afraid of failure. and to make matters worse you have a million "experts" that suddenly come down with a case of the " i knew it was going to happen"-itis.
hindsight might be 20/20, but if you wanna focus just on your "hind", then have fun staring at your own asses. meanwhile let the REAL heroes strap into their modified winnebego with the moonshine propellant. he might blow up. might even have a 99% chance of blowing up. He knows the odds are against him. but he's gonna launch anyway. It's HIS DREAM. The meaning of HIS LIFE.
and if he doesnt make it, his son will.
and if his son doesnt make it, his grandson will.
let the news laugh at them, let the whole world ignore them. they wont mind.
40 years from now, the sensational headline says it all.
"NASA/Virgin Galactic Discovers Whiskey 'Still on shore of Sea of Tranquility"
2 days later, in the new york times (yeah, like they're gonna be around even a week from now)
"Astronauts attacked on moon! Only Survivor Gives NYT Exclusive Account of Events"
He [Sgt. O'Malley] said "They kept chasing us, firing off those shotguns and yelling 'GET OFF'A MY LAND, YA EARTHY BOY!' It was like a nightmare! I lost my entire team!"
O'Malley broke down during the interview, and requested to leave. According to President Bieber (you heard me) there is a retalliation mission being planned right now.
"We don't know how those moonbillies got up there, or how they have survived, but since my chief of staff, William Clinton II, was dismissed for the incident involving the transvestite, I have asked my Secretary of State, Jim-Bob Bush, to put together a counter-attack plan. I will be calling on congress to declare war on the moon. May Cthulu have mercy on them all."
This reporter attempted to get a statement from Vice President Abdul, but her office did not respond. However this reporter managed to catch up to her as she was getting into her limo, heading to the set of "American Idol season twenty-whogivesacrapshowmeyourboobs"
"I think its just horrible, what happened up there" she remarked " i mean, the doctor could have done both implants at once! Now my left side looks like a grandfather clock when I bend over!"
We then explained to Ms. Abdul we were asking about the tragedy on the moon. After her secret service escort gave her medication to her she responded
"I totally agree, we cannot let this crime go unpunished! The moon has been mocking us for so long, staring down at us from its perch, lookin' all smug an' stuff. But you are just so beautiful, so no matter what you will be ok. I promise. You are like this half burned toast i saw an old lady eat on cartwheel farm fresh volkswagen mooooooo. Mooooo. MOOOOOOOO!"
the secret service moved us away from the limo. We called out to the vice president as they were driving away, and heard Ms. Abdul yell back at us as they drove away, "Don't worry about the moon, kittypuss, I won't let that mean dog eat your pretzels ever again! Hey! Agent Giggles! Yes, you with the hair plugs! Get my arming codes and my football this minute! Turtle pie hot hair evil cereal oats! Scrotum!" We regret that we could not print the remainder of the VP's comments, as they were innapropriate for our younger readers and also in a combination of middle earth Elvish and Klingon. We here at the times will keep you abreast of all the latest happenings here in Washington DC2 at Six Flags over Georgia. This reporter must admit to liking this assignment much better than when we were based on capitol hill. In other news, cleanup continues on the rubble up and down the east coast. It has been 2 months since the explosion. Scientists at ground zero have found enough evidence to determine the cause of the massive blast. It seems that both Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher bumped into each other at an underground bestiality club, and both personalities were such complete polar opposites, they caused a matter/anti-matter reaction. All political commentators have since been rounded up and put into underground solitary confinement units for our safety and sanity."
***Note***was going to do another bit about next day's paper having "moon mysteriously blows up. in other news VP abdul found drowned in pool of mr. pibb." but about halfway through the paragraph above, is where the first withdrawals hit like a ton of bricks made with clay formed from distilled agony.
hope the above is funny, i cant even remeber whether it was supposed to be or not, hurts too bad to think.
taking sleepm eds now wish em luck.
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Are you really, really certain you want to post stuff like that?
***IMPORTANT NOTE***was working on this in word, but im hurting too bad to finish, and it only gets longer with each response. long story short. im disabled. (not wheelchair bound, just really bad back)i have a natural resistance to many types of meds. so for pain meds. im taking 5 methadone and 3 advil twice a day. unfortunately im all out of pills. doctor is on vacation and his new nurse is too scared to write my prescription since its soo much of the strongest painkiller available. withdrawals hit 2 days ago. i got five more days of hellish agony to go.(doc gets back.) so forgive me for any mood swings, its gonna be nothing but distilled pain, coupled with psycosis and suicidal thoughts (wishes? Prayers?)
i have my bed as comfortable as i can.
i have my barf bucket.
my bottles of water
my box of kleenex
and the 'puter.
as long as i keep sharp things away from me (already gave jen the gun clip) i think i wil be ok.
its really bad.
as bad as heroin is, they give addicts 1 or 2 methadone to help them with thier withdrawals. but ive been taking 10 methadone a day for 5 years. there is nothing to help me.
i had a very bad day yesterday. first time i SERIOUSLY thought about dying. (thought, not planned). im going to take a couple of sleeping pills. (just a couple, no body start worrying)
hopefully i cann sleep throgu most of it.
i probalby wont be posting much, but please tryt o bear with me. im not myself rigth now and i apologize if i get whiny or snap at anyone.
here's the post i was working on.:
Umm yeah. Why exactly did we need to know all of this, given that it has no real bearing on the rest of the post, or the "topic" being discussed here? Should we retitle this thread to "Volyren talks about things"? I think that would be more appropriate.
and you guys give me hell about my long posts?
Yes, we do. Because the level of wordiness (high) coupled with the level of content (low) is something we see rather rarely around here.
we will never leave this planet again. i bet life on it, because that bet is precisely why we WONT be going.
lawyers, public relations, politicians. news agencies.
Armadillo Aerospace would like a word with you. As would Virgin Galactic, I assume. And a lot of other companies exploring commercial applications for spaceflight. Oh, and the Russians. And Chinese. America != the World, and all that.
all of em wanna make sure everything is as safe as possible. double/triple/dectuple check everything. sign contracts. buy insurance. make changes insurance company required of you before signing off, then fix all the problems those changes made, and re-submit to insurance company for round two.
I think you'll find that that's pretty much exclusively a NASA problem.
we wont even let kids have monkey bars at recess for fear they might get a skinned knee and the school get sued. I mean, COME ON! Do you REALLY think that the idiots who seem to run everything everywhere would take the chance, and LET you make up YOUR mind to take a risk? HELL NO. they might somehow look bad in some small way. Can't be havin' that now can we?
Pointless ranting is fun, isn't it?
you wanna go have a colony on mars? build me a time machine.
move nasa back to 1810.
back when people had a passion for exploring and trying new things was risky. back when instead of spending 10 years piling complex rules on something when it went wrong, and someone died, they did the only thing they could. either find someone else who beleives in it and is willing to take the risk, or take the damn risk yourself.
Oh yes, due diligence and engineering best practices have never helped anyone. We should jolly well move to a Kerbal-based space program. After all, if we can extend the time between explosions, eventually we'll arrive at a spacecraft that only explodes after landing, yes? Stands to reason.
hindsight might be 20/20, but if you wanna focus just on your "hind", then have fun staring at your own asses. meanwhile let the REAL heroes strap into their modified winnebego with the moonshine propellant. he might blow up. might even have a 99% chance of blowing up. He knows the odds are against him. but he's gonna launch anyway. It's HIS DREAM. The meaning of HIS LIFE.
And wasted effort here, ignored institutional knowledge there, and if you squint a little, you can make out the flaming wreckage over there.
everyone is too damn afraid of failure. and to make matters worse you have a million "experts" that suddenly come down with a case of the " i knew it was going to happen"-itis.
Human nature. Gotta love it.
Also, could you please explain to the audience just what kind of windmill you're assaulting here? I mean, you're obviously on a crusade against straw, we'd like to know the shape of the strawmen you want to bring to heel.
and if he doesnt make it, his son will.
and if his son doesnt make it, his grandson will.
let the news laugh at them, let the whole world ignore them. they wont mind.
40 years from now, the sensational headline says it all.
"NASA/Virgin Galactic Discovers Whiskey 'Still on shore of Sea of Tranquility"
Less fiction, more facts please. Which goes for the entire rest of your post, which I won't quote here.
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Really I don't have a problem with people making moonshine winnebango rockets. I feel if someone wants to kill themselves in some spectacular and ill-informed manner, go for it; we've got an overpopulation problem, and the next moonshine rocketmaker will learn from your mistakes I'm sure.
The problem is that typically when a rocket fails, they fail in a generally down direction, and given the long trajectories of orbital rockets, one could probably reach the US east coast from launching in Arizona (midwest, for those who don't know US geography). How many chunks of flaming wreckage do we really need flattening houses a thousand miles away?
However...
Oh yes, due diligence and engineering best practices have never helped anyone. We should jolly well move to a Kerbal-based space program. After all, if we can extend the time between explosions, eventually we'll arrive at a spacecraft that only explodes after landing, yes? Stands to reason.
You have my vote for president, Flipside. :D
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Yes, we do. Because the level of wordiness (high) coupled with the level of content (low) is something we see rather rarely around here.
I'm wondering if this is High Max reborn, looks an awful lot like his posting style.
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Dunno, but I've seen this kind of posting many times before in other forums. Usually, and I'm not saying that it is the case here although it is my guess, it's because the authors suffer a very specific kind of OCD, one which makes them spew everything what's in their mind.
You know these people. Sometimes they start speaking telling stories and what nots at dinner tables and they stop somewhere around 2 AM. The incredible thing is that they seem to be able to marry other people.
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it's called Aspergers.
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once again, im reminded of why i quit wasting my time discussing things in of all places, a discussion forum. there are always people there, who happen to know one or two of the bigger words, and suddenly, start feeling insecure about the size of (whatever, brain, balls, pick an organ, same human failing). so they need to tear down every nuance of the post, then ramble on about them like they have a clue.
i posted the NOTE because i wanted to let people know why i seemed to be a bit depressed, and have snapped at a few nice people here lately.
its not my intent.
also, if anyone has ever gone through crap like this, it really helps to talk about it.
hard to talk to someone when the wife is at work, and all i have is myself and the cats.
i cant talk to myself, because i am too much of a smartass to me.
cant talk to the cats either, because as F'ed up as i feel now, and whatever meds ive downed in a futile attempt to alleviate this agony might cause some sort of reaction and then the cat actually talks back to me. that in its self wouldnt be a problem, but of my 3 cats, only one loves me unconditionally. the other two plot and plan ways to manipulate us into feeling bad for them so they get treats and snuggle time when they should' nt be getting either. Once spazz even faked a limp to get some of our food. once she was done eating, she bolted off, "reaoowing" like a banshee, as if it were some evil cat laugh. " haha, stupid human, your McNuggitz IZZ MINEZ!"
so that just leaves you guys to vent to. its hard to deal with this crap right now.
i will never look at a Detoxing junkie with disgust again. if it feels like this, i might even give the ol' track marked, unwashed hobo, who smells of stale pee, a great big hug and one of those kitten hanging from a tree "hang in there" posters.
given the responses i see here, though, i think i might just go seek out the hobo, or take my chances with the cats.
funny thing is, i found two of my MD's in the bottom of my travel advil bottle.
amazing how much better i feel, even though ive not even had half a normal dose.
i will leave you with this final note (because i can think of many more contructive wastes of my time than listening to people who just wanna argue and nitpick everything to death. you know, like, slam my head into a tree until either it, or my head explodes)
you go to some dark places in times like these.
i have had to deal with a shorter time once before when i was without my pain meds. i had a vague idea of just how bad it could be. so i took precautions against myself. i really did remove all dangerous things from around me. took the entire blade collection off the wall, removed all of my chef knives from the kitchen, and yeah, i even made sure that jen took the clip to the m1911 and stashed it in her car so i wouldnt have access to it, in case i lost my willpower.
i swear to you, this is as true and poignant an event as i have ever experienced in my life.
i tried to work a bit on some item descriptions for an andriod cyberpunk game i was helping out with. i just couldnt concentrate. the pain was too bad.
after 3 hours sitting in front of the computer, i kind of lost it. I'm not boasting, or bragging when i say that my words per minute are above 200. its why you get these long ass posts. ive worked very hard to be able to type as fast as i think. it makes working on books so much easier. whether novels, or player handbooks for pen and paper games, nothing can be as annoying as getting your train of thoughts moving, and then running into your word per minute limitations. your thoughts barrel on like a train without brakes. and when that train of thought hits the wall of limitations, the cars, cargo, people on board, all crunch together into an unintelligible mass. if you are lucky, you can make some side notes really quickly so that you dont lose where you were planning on going with that jumble.
but more times than not, you stare at your last few sentences and just draw a blank.
The sad part about what i was feeling at that moment was that my train was'nt even leaving the station.
I stared at Item Entry 1.
;*--
;
;
[Shop-free_v]
; shop_type= "arms_bravestar"
; shop_name= ""
; *|* funct_call_tech-lv_check= *rng-[1, 2, 3, 9]
; Elite_required= 0
; owner_hostile_reset= 0 */ varcheck- "playerstealth >3"= 1, */fnc_OR-- "playernegotiation > 8"= 1, */fnc_OR-- "plotswitch72= 1" */fnc_THEN "owner_hostile_reset= 1" = TRUE
; shop_discount= / varcheck- "playernegotiation= *rng-[1, 2, 3]= 1, *rng-[4, 5]= 0.8, *rng-[6, 7 ]= 0.65, *rng-[8]= 0.5, *rng-[9]= 0.4, *rng-[10]= 0.25, */fnc_OR "dev_debug=1" */fnc_THEN "shop_discount= */num_val_LOCK= -1.5"
; "weapRNG"= 1
; "weapMEL"= 1
; "weapALT"= 0
; "armorLGT"= 1
; "armorHVY"= 0
; "ammoREG"=1
; "ammoHVY"= 0
; "ammoSPC"= 0
; "cybercom"= 0
; "cyberrar"= 0
{*The store's item selection. Volyren, this is where you come in. do not change the formatting or spacing of any information. Just fill in the descriptions between the lines. This ini file covers the games behaviour for the southeastern quadrant of the map. Each store has its own selection of weapons which is randomly generated based on your level and skills as well as the plot points you have finished. You only need to enter one description for each weapon. If you see the same item in another store, just leave it blank. The game will read the ini file and locate the first entry that matches the item and display that. It will then copy that information to each entry that matches that item, so be sure you are filling out the text on the FIRST entry available or you will lose what work is there when starting the game. DO NOT DELETE ANY ;'s or it will create a TON of bugs! And before running the game, make sure to delete this note and any other notes in the ini file. you can just search for the {}brackets. there shouldnt be any of them in this file, or the game will give you a message that the loader could not complete action 32 error. We look forward to seeing what you can do! Thanks for the help! If you have any questions just PM me or john, and whatever you do please do not post any of the debug section. If people mess with those, it can mess up their games and corrupt any saves they have. Thanks again!}
[weapRNG]
; "weappistol1"
; display_thumb= "root/cyberknight/data/01SRC.bin"
; display_itemstats= "*/fnc_LIST= 1"
[list1=6]
1. Hold-Out Pistol ¥:675
2. Manufacturer: MARS Corp
3. Range: 4 Clip Size: 8 Modification: No
4. Power: 3 Accuracy: 4 Speed: 1
5. Information: " *&_txt_hide / PLACEHOLDER /" {The item description goes there. Delete the "hide" tag and enter the description between the "'s. The text should look like this "This is a gun. It goes bang" Line 6 must be left blank. This is where the item modification info will go when it is released in a future update. Don't forget to delete this note as well!}
6.
i just stared at the damned thing over and over. I couldn't even get a full thought put together.
The pain just kept getting worse and worse. In my current state of mind, I would be working on this one simple description for who knows how long. The thumbnail of the hold out gun looked a lot like my m1911, so i picked it up (even though ive thought about offing myself, i know for a fact that jen has the only clip to the gun with her at work, so I am totally safe.
well, no matter how hard I tried I just kept drawing a blank.
I Clicked the safety a few times, looked at myself in the mirror with it (the gun) to my head, things like that. I had finally just had enough. I closed the computer, and just tried to relax. i have often wondered about the whole "gun barrel in the mouth."
I just wonder how it is that in the movies the ol' barrel in the mouth trick actually works. you have to aim it just right, and then the bullet has to penetrate the thick cranial wall. In real life.
So naturally, i put the gun barrelt in my mouth, trying to imagine the correct angle to sever the spine. ( it may be morbid, but i feel that things like that are helpful to try and overcome writer's block.
i lined it up right and gave the trigger a quick squeeze.
damn safety still on.
so i release the safety and try again. i wanna know if its hard to keep your aim steady while essentially trying to fire a gun backwards. So im about to pull the trigger again, when my phone beeps really loud, letting me know i have a new email. After i log in and see its an update to my topic, offering to do voice overs for anyone who needs 'em. BigChunk had offered me an opportunity to work on one of the oligarchs, and maybe a couple of other minor roles. So after checking the new posts, and apologizing for the delay im causing, due to the little problem of me wishing i was dead and all, i was staring at the damned blank gun description again. At this point, i'm ready to just give up for the day, and take some more sleepy meds, my wonderful little sleepy pills, that afford me my only relief from the constant pain.
i close the computer, go to move the gun off of the bed, and hear a tiny clink. I shake the damned thing, and can still hear it. it sounds like there is a bold loose or something.
So I slid open the breach to see if something had gotten ino the guns inner mechanism.
i know for fact i gave jen the only clip we own for that gun, and i know we dont have any other bullets, save for the ones in the clip.
But despite my careful precautions to remove anything i might actually harm myself with, I had just came closer to killing myself than i would have ever imagined .
There, in the breach of the gun rested a live round, just waiting to take my out of my misery.
I had the gun, in my mouth, aimed right at my spine.
I pulled the trigger.
And then when it did not bring the hammer down, i double checked the safety and turned it off.
I put the gun back in my mouth, and had my finger on the trigger.
i had no intent of harming myself. NONE.
If not for chunk and his perfectly timed email, i would either be dead or paralyzed.
i dont know what else to say right now. im kinda just overwhelmed with all this.
i flushed the bullet down the toilet, and i really need to lay down. ive alrady taken sleepy meds and i am beyond drained.
i cannot afford to come back to this board any more and take the chance that i end up going over the edge being surrounded by all your negativity.
so until i get my meds from the doctor, im staying away from this place as though my life depends on it, because i feel allthat for the next 3 days it does.
if anyone has a little human dignity could you let chunk know that if not for him i'd be dead right now...i just cant handle all o the petty bullcrap that passes as intellegent discussion here. its like stephen hawking had some hellish offspring with the people from jersey shore.
and compain all you want. im not wasting any more of my time trying to conform a single part of me, just to listen to even more nitpicking than one would expect to find if surrounded by a thousand old ladies, who've woken up on the wrong side of their walkers this morning.
the great thing about freedon of choice, is... umm..... freedom of choice?
since no one makes yopu read my posts, yet still you return again and again to complain about how hard to read they are, logic would dictate that you are getting some fulfillment of some sort or another from constantly raggin' on me.
and on that note, im going to stop now before i waste some portion of my life that i might actually want back. like the last few hours.
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Locked. This really is going nowhere.