Re: LA-4541-MS

Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Apr 9, 11:31�am, BradGuth <bradg...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Apr 8, 10:01 pm, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:


I said elsewhere that a tether gets you about 42% advantage when using
chemical oxygen systems. �Tethers don't make a lot of sense when you
have really high specific impulses at high thrusts, as in nuclear
pulse rockets like the one I;ve described here.

Does that mean tethers are useless? � Not really, because there are
scenarios where tethers make a big difference.

For example,

Say using nuclear pulse rockets you bring an asteroid to Earth orbit,
put up a tele-robotic factory and build the tether and all the fixins
on the asteroid, fragment left after processing and use it as a
counterway. You then use nuclear pulse rockets to take the whole
shebang to the moon, and lower it to the surface.

Now what?

The moon seems nearly devoid of water. �So, we go to the asteroid belt
again, and get an icy asteroid of an appropriate size,and send it to
L1. �We then dismantle the ice,and send it to the surface, th provide
water for the lunar inhabitants and industry. �Its a way to get
MASSIVE quantities brought in at LOW gee down to the moon,that you
don't want crashing into the moon, or find impracticably large to land
on the moon.

Earth has more water than we know what to do with,

If you mean salt water, yes Fresh water not so much. Details count
Brad, you never got that.

Besides having specified salt water, I once having said to use beer.
Doesn't that count for detail?


so why bother with
investing hundreds of billions and taking decades in order to bring an
icy asteroid to the moon, or even into orbiting at any one of the L1,
L2, L3 or L4 options?


Why leave Earth at all? What would investing hundreds of billions of
dollars on Earth do for us today?

This advice coming from the lord almighty Mook of spending every last
public dine on behalf of doing all thing Mook, or else?

What's with all the following rant and contradictions of Mook?

Are you afraid that someone other than lord Mook might get a little
attention?
. - Brad Guth


Well, consider that the 9.5 millionaires in the world control over $38
trillion in liquid assets, and they're looking for good investments.
So, a few hundred billion dollars isn't a whole lot of money compared
to that.

The problem you have Brad is you make these statements with a whole
lot of unexamined assumptions that aren't true. You're not alone.
So, here you assume $100 billion is a lot of money. You also assume
that things can be done cheaper on Earth than in space. That's not
always true either..

The world spends most of its money on food ($6 trillion/yr). Then,on
energy ($4 trillion/yr0. Then, warfare ($1.5 trillion/yr). Way down
at the bottom of the list, is capital formation.($0.01 trillion/yr0 -
i.e. investments in new plant and equipment to lower the costs of of
things like food and energy and warfare..

Capital formation is really low (except for military R&D) because
governments are not organized to promote it as the most important
thing they can do. They don't recognize that. Oh, some of the more
enlightened governments pay it lip service, but for the most part,
most governments don't understand a damn thing about how to make life
better for people.

Its not a conspiracy, though some conspire to take advantage of any
situation for personal gain and as a way to survive. No, it's a
reflection of the ignorance of people generally. Oh, they *think*
they know,what the problem is, but that's based on gut feel, not a
careful study of the problem to begin with. Governments and
businesses when they can, exploit those feelings of fear, hope dread,
anger, to gain momentary political influence, and power. So, THEY for
the most part, don't study the problem carefully either. Businesses
have a skill set that make them very good at doing one thing, and they
want to do whatever they can to increase the value of that one thing
to their stockholders, so they're out of the picture too- except that
under the best of conditions,free markets tend to cause the emergence
of a network of businesses that efficiently meet the needs of people.
This often times doesn't last and is a hit or miss affair, since no
one has really taken the trouble to really understand what goes on
there and what the conditions are in detaill

So, that leaves it to each individual to figure out for themselves
what needs to be done.in their own lives to increase their happiness
and improve life generally.

Now, lets take food for example, we want more food, better foods, in
greater variety and taste, at lower cost, available to everyone at
great profit. How to do that. Well, you invest in food production to
achieve that. WHAT do you invest in? Existing farms would be one
thing. Well, when the $38 trillion out there looking for good
investments. Why aren't they doing it already? Well, the people
that are well fed have the most efficient farming system. Duh. The
people that are poorly fed have the least efficient farming system if
any. Well, that makes sense. The biggest opportunity is among the
people who have the greatest need. But, when you look at the problem
closely, you find, that there are REASONS in each case, why those
people didn't make the investments themselves. Most of those are
political, many of those are resource constraints.

That is, say we wanted to take the 20 milion sq km of Sahara desert
cover it with low cost plastic green houses, use desalinated ocean
water - and grow enough food for everyone on the planet. We can use
tele-operated robots hire operators,train them in a virtual reality
game software - build support factories to produce parts, tractors,
fertilizer and so forth.. We'll organize it with the precision of a
military campaign, complete with R&D centers, strategic planning and
all the rest. We'll 'conquer' hunger worldwide in four years. Hoo
RAH!

When we do that, we find the problems.

First, the Sahara is broken up into a dozen disparate political
feifdoms that either don't like this idea, or will do all they can to
take as much money and power out of the program to put into their own
pockets. And they're willing to back it up with the blood of those
they can cajole, corral, or intimidate into fighting for them. So,
that'll take 4 years at least to work out.

Second, the Sahara seems dead sure. But its not. Its a vital living
thing and a part of the vast ecosystem of the planet. We start
turning soil and irrigating it we'll unleash a response. Now, I don't
know what that response will be, but I can say that in years when
rainfall is high? Locusts are a problem. There are quadrillions of
locusts hibernating in the desert sands apparently - and when
conditions are right - they emerge from hibernation, reproduce and go
back in hibernation - so, from my limited knowledge, that at least
will have to be dealt with. I am sure there will be dozens if not
hundreds more problems - like long slumbering bacteria, viruses,
fungi, that are brought to life by this effort the spread through the
region and decimate everybody and everything - until its brought under
control Of course the local political folks will use that to gain
more power and more money and generally rabblerouse. This will take
at least 4 years as well.

Lets say you struggled through all of this and you are on your way
constructing greenhouses, factories to supply the greenhouses with all
the fixins needed for profitable operation at very low cost.. you're
on your way. Then you hit the third problem - resource constraints.
Sure you've got plenty of land plenty of sunlight, plenty of water -
when you desalinate it. But you run into limits of one kind or
another. Energy for one. It takes energy to make fertilizer, turn
the soil,sterilize it, process it with micronutrients, make
greenhouses, carry them to where they're needed erect them, air
condition them, desalinate water, pump it to them, and so forth. So,
energy is going be a big chunk of the costs. Also, labor, we've
already talked about that, but the rate at which you can build is
going to be constrained by the rate you can train folks and get them
productive - cause you'll nee about 10 million people who know a lot
about biology and agronomy and farming practice, and about 50 million
hired hands that'll listen to them effectively and productively.
Sure, they can stay in their villages and operate through the robotic
network cheaply, using my innovations, but they still need to be
found, the infrastructure built, and trained, and brought up to
speed. The micronutrients themselves are a constraint. And these are
just the ones we can easily predict. THERE WILL BE OTHERS.

Fourth, distribution. Lets say you've got your 20 million sq km
thorugh the hard work of 10 million farmers and 50 million hands -
producing a great variety and abundance of high quality food - enough
to feed everyone on the planet for pennies a day per person - and
still provide an excellent return on investment for those who
supported this effort. How are you going to get the produce to them
cost effectively? When you try to do this, you find you've got to
build ANOTHER system. A system of supply. And you run up against all
three of the previous prblems - on a global scale - that is far more
difficult, and far more costly.

Fifth - acceptance. Throughout all of this struggle and strife,
you've made some friends, but you've also made enemies. Not the least
of which are local farmers who despite their total inability to
provide decent food at decent prices - will organize to turn public
acceptance against this effort. They're just looking out for number
one. Nothing personal. So, you either have to coopt them into your
supply chain strategcy, which largely negates the value you provide -
or you have to mount a public relations campaign from day one and keep
on top of it so that people will accept your foods.


And this is just the short list - in doing things ON planet Earth.

All sorts of issues, responses, limits, problems - despite the super-
abundance of water - despite the presence of air, despite gravity -
despite the generally benign conditions ALL of these issues INCREASE
THE COST OF CARRYING OUT THE PROGRAM - to several TENS OF TRILLIONS OF
DOLLARS.

Using any one of your energy efficient forms of a nuclear pulse rocket
could deliver as many thousand tonnes of terrestrial salty water to
our moon as needed,

Yes, I went into that in some detail several years ago.

Whenever you take something from Earth you have all the problems
outlined above. The salt water from the world's oceans has to be
processed to be useful on the moon. It likely has life in it, and
that will have a response to the process, negative - both on the moon
and on Earth. There will be political issues, resource issues to
support the effort, all sorts of things like that.

Beyond those issues you have an unfortunate fact that its still less
efficient than a tether delivering water from an icy asteroid to the
moon. Its all a matter of the details related to interplanetary
navigation.

Now tethers don't make sense if you're doing small transfers of tens
of tons per person of high value goods with these things, because the
amounts of energy and the cost of energy compared to the cost of
everything else in the spacecraft - put the energy costs down in the
noise level. Stuff like people, medicines, foods, finished goods,
machinery, stuff that's shipped on the oceans today - can be done
economically with nuclear pulse rockets - and that economy is not
materially affected by the tether launcher catcher setup.

However, tethers DO make sense if you're doing LARGE tarnsfers of
hundreds of thousands of tons or more per person, of low value goods
like air because the amounts of energy and cost of energy compared to
the cost of everything else - put energy costs on top - and they're a
driver of the cost of the whole system. Stuff like air - oceans -
etc.

So, in the case of cargo like we're used to getting - we can lift
things directly to where they're needed.

In the case of making a mantle of air for a planet, or oceans? We
have to be energy efficient.

So, the minimum delta vee needed to lift a ton of water from Earth and
settle it down gently on the moon with air drag and garvity losses
counted in is 15.8 km/sec.

The mimimum delta vee needed to lift a ton of water from the dwarf
planet Ceres and settle it down gently on the moon is 11 km/sec.

Put a launcher on Ceres and shoot the stuff to Earth, and use a
nuclear pulse unit to keep the 'catcher' stable and lower the ice down
to the lunar surface on a tether, and you've reduced the delta vee the
catcher has to impart to about 3.8 km/sec.

The level of effort scales with power needed to maintain a given mass
flow;

P = 1/2 mdot * V^2

So, each kg/sec of mass flow rate requires the following power levels;

Direct lift from Earth - 124.8 megawatts
Direct lift from Ceres - 60.5 megawatts
Launcher/Catcher/Tether - 7.2 megawatts

So for every dollar spent on the process you described, you'd spend 50
cents getting it from an icy asteroid, and 4 cents from an icy
asteroid using a tether - so building a tether makes sense, if you're
terraforming the moon.

But since the cost of building a ship to carry stuff exceeds the cost
of the energy generation mechanism in the ship - anything you carry
profitably aboard ship, energy costs are secondary.

Rule of thumb, when you're blasting an object with shaped atomic
charges to move its bulk somewhere - energy costs dominate. When you
loading something into a crate, and carefully lowering it into the
hold of a great ship? Energy costs don't dominate.

Rule of thumb: when you're terraforming a planet - energy costs
dominate. when you're bringing in the piano, and grandma's fine china
- energy costs don't dominate.

You need a nuclear pulse spaceship and a spaceport to bring you and
your swimsuit to a planet. You need a tether to bring the ocean and
air (not to be confused with bottled air which can be brought by
rocket or made on site)

and according to your superior rant

You are taking things personally and projecting shame over your
ignorance on to me. Please note, its all in your head. I had
nothing to do with it. Whenever you find yourself making these sorts
of judgments, you need to remind yourself to let it go.

about using
such nuclear pulse technology, as such it's all rather dirt cheap and
100% failsafe to boot.

If you cannot see the difference between TV dinners and bottled air at
one end of the spectrum, and beaches, oceans and clear blue skies at
the other - I don't know how to explain it to you.

DETAILS COUNT - you've got to understand the details in order to get
the job done right. Its just that simple. Get the details run and
you'll *** up every time.

Now, that you understand the details on how to develop a planet, now
lets talk about ORDER OF BATTLE - which gets you there most
efficiently.

When you think about it clearly you'll see that you build the rockets
first, establish an early outpost, and then build a tether later and
transform the planet into another Earth.
.
.