The Future from 1966
Popular Science describes plans for a 4,000 mph underwater train under the Atlantic that will make it possible to simply zip across the ocean — “allow you to have lunch in Manhattan and still get to London in time for the theater, despite the 5-hour time difference”. Concept is simple. Just construct a 3,500 mile long neutrally buoyant (floating) tunnel at a safe depth under the ocean, pump all the air out of it to remove air resistance and put maglev rails on it.
A number of practical objections suggest themselves. One is how you construct a 3,500 mile long pressure hull and ensure watertight integrity; the other is how easy it is to make a 3,500 mile long vacuum chamber. But that’s not the point. It’s a wow idea, like flying cars, jetpacks, domed cities and … that makes one wonder whether it won’t wind up like the other cool stuff that once seemed just around the corner and never materialized.
The Future in 1922
One problem with visions of the future, according to some, is that they are usually extensions of our present day ideas. They are what we imagine the future to be like in terms of what we know today. It is not the future that actually eventuates.
Typically, complex problems of the day are solved with new wonderful emerging technologies. But in reality the technology is grounded in that of the day, mere off-shoots of what was considered leading edge. In hindsight, it is unlikely that the technology could have achieved a fraction of what was imagined.
The imagined future either never comes as imagined (being infeasible as extension of the past technology) or it is altogether more wonderful, based on methods unforeseen. Consider this home office of the future, circa 1966. We can do almost everything predicted in that long ago year, but very little of it in the way envisioned.
“No Way In” print and Kindle edition at Amazon
I was fascinated with space travel as a child. Ironically, all of the near-future sci-fi things I watched in the 70s (i.e. “Space 1999″ and “2001, A Space Odyssey”) were supposed to be taking place now: flying cars, colonies of terraformers on Mars, sending ships to nearby Alpha Centauri, and domed cities under the water.
Unfortunately we instead seem to have turned inward, with the rise of the internet, all of our money being spent on entitlement programs, etc. We still burn dead plants for fuel and dismiss space exploration as being too expensive.
It makes me wonder if our world will evolve in a radically different way that delays space exploration for a long, long time. It’s quite a shame.
Possessing an XRAM of local note (Extremely Random Access Memory), I was immediately reminded over nearly half a century of an Analog serial, “A TransAtlantic Tunnel, Hurrah”.
I feel young again. Maybe I’ll Google it.
IIRC, it was a tunnel built on the ocean floor, bridging various chasms. Lots of action.
IIRC further, kind of roughly written.
Not a lot of lyricism in Analog. That was for F&SF.
Yes the past is here to stay
But the present’s in the way
Of that grand and golden future of our dreams
Gleaming cities on a hill
Old age vanished with a pill
No the future never comes or so it seems
When man first beheld the stars
He did dream that one day cars
Would propel him quickly to some sunlit shore
And one day when man has tamed
All the galaxies he’s named
He will close his eyes and dream of something more
“Popular Science describes plans for a 4,000 mph underwater train under the Atlantic”
How ’bout we simply build a successor to the Concorde, first? That was a pretty cool piece of futuristic technology from 1966 that actually worked.
It’s fun to look at an aviation magazine from circa 1945. Postwar would see private aircraft as common as automobiles and just as easy to operate. My favorite ad shows a elderly man settling down for a snooze as his wife takes the controls, him telling her to just hold their sleek pusher aircraft on course until they got near home and then wake him up.
Of course that was just for running down from Cleveland to Dallas or Atlanta for visiting the kids on weekends. Our daily commuting would be done by helicopter. One ad shows newspapers being delivered to a rural store by helo.
The airplane I own was built in Feb 1946; they were building them at a near wartime production rate of about 10 a day. Since the Hellcat and Mustang factories were in a race against each other and managed to build as many as 20 a day the actual postwar light aircraft production rate was downright lazy viewed from 1944. No wonder they thought everyone would have one. Of course by late 1946 the light aircraft manufacturers were having trouble finding places to park them all, and the boom came to an end.
Looking for something else one day on the Internet I stumbled on the existence of steel houses. Just after WWII a company built houses out of steel, with baked on finish steel panels for walls over steel frames. They have lasted well to this day. That still sounds like a good idea.
The incredible optimism in the country during the last years of WWII comes through so clearly in those magazines.
Richard #2:
Yes, I recall that one too. It was set in an alternate universe where the American revolution failed and the engineer for the tunnel project was trying to overcome the disgrace to the family name brought by his ancestor, G.W. I probably even have those issues somewhere.
I guess the reason they needed the tunnel was that their transatlantic aircraft were coal powered, a concept the oil-strapped Germans in WWII really were going to try for their proposed ramjet fighters.
It makes me wonder if our world will evolve in a radically different way that delays space exploration for a long, long time.
In the early 1400′s, China was the preeminent scientific power in the world, and her ships were far larger and more technologically advanced than anything in the West. The Ming Dynasty had just chased out the Mongol Yuan Dynasty; and as part of reasserting Chinese dominance of the world Emperor Yongle sent Admiral Zheng He on a series of expeditions. Some commanded by him personally, some at his direction. They made diplomatic contact, and gathered tribute. It is known that they got at least as far as what is now Tanzania. It is asserted, with some evidence, that at least the fleet of one expedition, and maybe more, got much farther. Chinese ships of that time were large enough to carry Columbus’ fleet as deck cargo. The largest was 416 feet long, had nine masts, were compartmented, and carried up to 500 passengers and crew. There are fairly contemporary Western sources that confirm the ships, and the plans have survived.
With this technological advantage, the world could literally have been China’s oyster if they so desired. But China is a top-down society [kind of like what Buraq intends for us] and when Yongle died, his successor Hongxi turned China back to its traditional inward orientation. The fleets were disbanded, the technology degraded, and by the time China encountered the West she had lost all scientific superiority.
China had been passed by, and has not recovered yet. I grant that most of the ability to advance in the West was because of the discovery of the Limited Liability Corporation [If we had discovered it during the Ming Dynasty, y'all would be eating with chopsticks **smile**]. But the point is that they chose to deliberately yield in a vital area and never was able to return to preeminence. Their society had, in fact, evolved in a different direction.
In 40 years, we have voluntarily lost our ability to travel in space. Right now, we are one Shuttle launch from having to hitch rides with the Russians. I suspect if we do not recover our country and our vision of a real future before the last of us who lived the vision of space travel dies; we will remain earthbound forever.
Subotai Bahadur
Ed Driscoll…
The SINGLE biggest problem for the Concorde was that it was too small. (!)
Any conveyance that travels through a fluid ( ocean or air ) is made all the more cheaper by going large.
Hence, supertankers, jumbo jets, etc.
The Concorde, if it carried three times as many passengers could do so with perhaps half the cost per seat as the original design.
The A380 is the sub-sonic version of the same logic.
For all kinds of reasons, a super-sonic jet scaled large AND using liquid hydrogen or liquid methane would be economically successful — in the next generation.
I think it’s going to be methane because the process has already been made routine — and because plenty of methane will be ready to hand. The cooling power of liquid methane will be very handy, too.
——-
The biggest change in the city scape is to be elevated pedestrian skyways. These will be much lighter than vehicle bearing highways. By over capping major streets in city centers they will make ground traffic much faster and safer for all concerned. Lobbies will shift up to the second floor.
I proposed over-capping Kalakaua Avenue, Honolulu to the City Council over twenty years ago.
It was proposed as a method of noise abatement and as a mechanism for the City Council to permit additional celebrations and parades. Where the Avenue passes by the beach, I proposed ranked steps from deck to sand — open at the risers — concrete in the treads — so that ‘Greek seating’ permitted the gallery to witness beach sports.
Underneath these steps — at one point — would be an HPD sub-station and HFD rescue station.
The underbelly of the over deck was to be made available for utilities – the water table being so high – to include electric traction power for a Waikiki bus loop.
The rest of the scheme revolved around acoustic tiles designed to make life above quiet at the late hours.
The hope would be that the over-deck would eventually reach as far as the financial downtown — and that adjacent residences would be jacked up/ rebuilt and garages installed at street level. In this manner, Honolulu could maintain its neighborhoods – -with the kids playing on the over-deck safe from vehicular traffic.
Distances being what they are, Segways and bicycles would be able to shunt the tourist work force to and fro without fuss or noise.
——-
My pitch was fulsomely pleasing to the elder residents of Waikiki. So one of the Council members joked that I be made ‘mayor of Waikiki’. ( an honorary joke position )
Beyond that, the nine tom-cats on the council were quiet: it was the first time any public citizen proffered a solution to the noise hell of late night Waikiki.
——-
My other pitch to move the subway dream offshore — mildly like the afore mentioned mag-lev tunnel — also had them mute.
I proposed to install segments — prefabbed at Barbars Point ( the industrial center at the Southwest corner ) of glass, steel and concrete — on the sea floor deep enough to avoid collision — shallow enough to provide vision — and route it up and down the southern coast of Oahu. No serious digging required for the main sequence.
At various nodes, in the manner of airports everywhere, belt movers would hustle commuters towards the beaches — moving underground to reach portals at Fort DeRussy and such.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_DeRussy_(Hawaii)
At such a major portal a major car park would be built — capped off with a park at the top deck. This would have a direct link to the military hotels and to the over-deck. The car park would also be a bicycle park and Segway park.
The combination of low disruption to underground utilities, and direct commute paths would make it economic.
I hoped to also bring deep-ocean cold up to the hotels, too. In this manner, their chill bills would be reduced. The massive pipes could be co-located with the pedestrian tunnels.
I figured a glass-topped subway and viewing center would be a huge draw for all of the nearby hotels.
——
I skipped my proposal for a tethered submarine for tourists. The idea being to leave diesel-electric sets up on surface pontoons — tethered to a shallow diving — glass envelope. It would be raised and lowered by direct action from above — with slightly negative buoyancy — traveling only so deep as to see the top 180 feet of the ocean.
Should anything go wrong, a panic ballast release would have our crew topside in short order. Captains above and below would assure all that no one clipped the some-what-submersible.
——
The future can be great — if you simply simplify the city.
RWE @ 5 said:
“It’s fun to look at an aviation magazine from circa 1945…. The incredible optimism in the country during the last years of WWII comes through so clearly in those magazines.”
It’s sad and humiliating to look at aerospace journals from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. The paper in these old journals has turned brittle and crumbling from old age but most of the ideas are quite fresh and many of them remain practical. As a “modern” aerospace engineer it’s difficult to innovate. Usually any crazy idea that I can think of was invented, discussed, published and forgotten before my career began in 1976. I’m so envious of the guys who were involved with NACA, the early ballistic missiles (Atlas and Titan), Apollo and Viking Programs. They had almost unlimited funding, a seemingly bright future and a field that was wide open. The aerospace profession should still be that way but the Human Race lost its nerve in the mid-1970s (coincidentally about the same time that “Peak Oil” struck in the United States). By definition, if our species is to survive beyond its planet of origin, we’ll need to develop an interplanetary transport technology along with the technology to live on other worlds. Oddly enough, without it being debated or rationally argued over, the decision was made NOT to survive as a species beyond our planet of origin. There seems to be a implicit assumption that the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy will save us all at the 11th hour. This is Darwinism at work.
blert @ 8 said:
“The Concorde, if it carried three times as many passengers could do so with perhaps half the cost per seat as the original design.”
My teachers in graduate school claimed that the magic number for Super Sonic Transports (SSTs) was Mach=2.7 (this is contentious amongst aeronautical engineers). Supposedly anything between trans-sonic and Mach=2.7 wasn’t economical because it drank too much kerosene. Not by accident, the operating point of the Boeing 2707 SST was Mach=2.7. Unfortunately the Boeing 2707 never got off the drawing board because its development costs were too high. The Concorde’s development was state subsidized and leaned heavily upon the American XB-70 Valkyrie supersonic bomber’s design. Driven by national pride, the English and French had the financial resources to develop a commercially uneconomical SST. To be fair, the American politicians dumped a pile of money on the XB-70 and it turned out to be a white elephant (still one of my favorite airplanes). It’s understandable that our politicians didn’t want to expend good money after bad.
Yikes its getting harder to write and longer intervals lie between my posts but anyhow here is my latest Bill Gates Meets Hari Seldon
Isn’t there some hot new supersonic transport proposal from Europe?
The optimism of the 20th century was largely met by reality, plus or minus a few world wars and nuclear weapons.
But the 21st has started out with 9/11′s resurgent Islamic atavism, 2008′s epic fail of capitalism, and the election of an American president who is everybody’s buffoon. We can just pray that does not govern the next 89 years.
But it may, along the lines of The New Dark Ages.
It may.
Still even the Dark Ages were not entirely dark, or so goes the talk. “If one thing remains that grows fair I will not have failed in my task, for I too am a steward, did you not know?” says Gandalf to Denethor.
Richard Aubrey @2 said:
“I was immediately reminded over nearly half a century of an Analog serial, “A TransAtlantic Tunnel, Hurrah”.”
There was a British made film back in the 1930′s called “Transatlantic Tunnel”. I saw it the first time back in the 60′s on late night TV; I saw it the second time a few weeks ago on Netflix. They were using large boring machines similar to what’s used today. There was stock manipulation by insiders, labor unrest and workers experienced some sort of caissons disease. You also get to see people flying gyrocopters. At the time they were the wave of future, but they never really took off. Pardon the pun.
I should mention that “Popular Science” is regarded by many in the aerospace profession as a jinx magazine. If your project gets a positive writeup in “Popular Science” then you need to get your resume current because your project is doomed (I saw this happen first hand with the X-33 project).
I should also mention that the goofy hypersonic train is actually very “green”. Most of the electromagnetic energy required to accelerate the train would be recovered during deceleration. Once it was built, it would consume almost no energy and not pollute the atmosphere. Larry Niven described the concept at length in his novella “A World Out of Time”. That novella had lots of cool be impractical concepts in it, e.g. Bussard ram-scoops, cryogenic suspended animation, etc. For what it’s worth, the upper Mach Number for economically practical commercial aviation is around Mach=5 (about 2 km/sec). The Earth’s circumference is about 40075.16 km. Half way around the world is 20000 km which is about 2.8 hours if you’re traveling at 2 km/sec. People won’t pay a premium price to spend less time in transit versus the sunk time cost to get to-and-from the departure/destination airports. The economics of commercial aviation can be very sophisticated, nonlinear and unintuitive. People get Ph.D.s on seemingly trivial aspects of commercial transport where pennies are shaved off of operating costs. It’s not my cup-of-tea but I’m glad there are people willing to spend their careers dealing with this.
#5 RWE: “Looking for something else one day on the Internet I stumbled on the existence of steel houses. Just after WWII a company built houses out of steel, with baked on finish steel panels for walls over steel frames. They have lasted well to this day. That still sounds like a good idea.”
Here in Central Ohio they were called Lustron. There were still a few not far from me. I gather that they were not very flexible in their layout, and they were quite small to begin with.
Of course the way things are, it will be many long years before anyone builds a lot of new houses.
The classic stick-built wood-frame house is so obsolete technically, yet that’s what we still have. Would you buy a bespoke car? Would it likely be a great value and reliable? OTOH bespoke clothes are not entirely impractical, and given just slightly better robots might even become standard sometime in the not too distant future.
Josh @ 12 said:
“The optimism of the 20th century was largely met by reality, plus or minus a few world wars and nuclear weapons.”
We live in an age of miracles. The Personal Computer is a miracle. The Internet is a miracle. Search engines like Google are a miracle. The modern automobile is a miracle.
When some consumer device that I own dies beyond repair like a DVD drive, washing machine or automobile, I like to dissect it and study its design. I’m always amazed at the shear cleverness of these machines, particularly automobiles. We human beings can take great pride in our technology. The main key to success has been harnessing the Free Market to technological development. The Space Program failed to meet expectations mainly because it was a government program. However that simple rule does not always hold true. For example, ballistic missiles, RVs and thermonuclear warheads are technological miracles. If people in government are convinced that their own survival is at stake then even government can achieve technological miracles.
It is getting harder to write because there the dialog is shutting down and people are settling into hardening positions. Either you preach to the choir or waste your breath on people who have set their faces.
The other prose dampener is that the situation is getting far too serious to talk about in a breezy way. It’s not funny when you don’t have a job. And there are only so many ways of observing that the water is flooding into the ship.
If you look at newsreels from the Second World War there’s actually a phase when all talk of serious things — even morale boosting talk — becomes positively irritating, like the happy narrative from Pathe about the wonderful it was to black out the city. Maybe we’re getting into that phase now.
What never seems to go out of style is entertainment. So maybe sit-down comedy will be the next big thing on the Internet.
“It makes me wonder if our world will evolve in a radically different way that delays space exploration for a long, long time. It’s quite a shame.”
I think not and base my argument on the most basic of human conditions, greed.
The Earth (Sol III) does not contain an infinite amount of anything. The Universe contains an infinite amount of everything. Once the value of something exceeds the cost of getting it, somebody will go and get it. IN relative terms (% of GDP) the cost of Columbus’s 3 ships cost Spain more then the cost of the Apollo program cost America.
Never seen the figures for the payout. The Gold from the New World financed the Habsburgs for a couple of centuries. The Payout from the Apollo program is sitting on the desk in front of you.
Regarding expansion into space of the human race I am not too worried.
I admit it pains me to see the US heading toward back water status in future years there are other countries in the world that are forward looking and will succeed where we seem to want to fail.
I have come to the conclusion that what is really important is the long term survival of the species. We can sort out the politics later.
In 1967 they knew the future would include faster and better communications. What could possibly go wrong?
stoicheion @ 19 said:
“I … base my argument on the most basic of human conditions, greed.
The Earth (Sol III) does not contain an infinite amount of anything. The Universe contains an infinite amount of everything.”
This is certainly true. Unfortunately there is a significant barrier to developing extraterrestrial resources in the cost of getting to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) from the ground. Once you’ve reached LEO then the entire Solar System is at your disposal. Right now it costs US$ 10,000/kg to get to LEO and mankind’s brightest minds have not been able to significantly reduce that cost. The main justification behind the Space Shuttle was to reduce the cost to LEO but the Space Shuttle utterly failed in that regard.
Wretchard @ 18 said:
“It is getting harder to write because there the dialog is shutting down and people are settling into hardening positions. Either you preach to the choir or waste your breath on people who have set their faces.”
These are scary times. It has the look and feel of the early 1930s. The full sting of the Great Depression has not yet been felt and the major fascist/communist demagogues have not yet crawled out of the woodwork. The United States had considerable latent power in the early 1930s. We were in the toilet due to the Great Depression but it was implicitly accepted that ultimately the shear wealth of America’s natural resources and the vitality of Anglo-Saxon culture would ultimately bring about recovery. However this time, most of our cheaply accessible natural resources have been depleted. Our culture was seriously damaged by Cold War agitprop. It may take years of introspection to expel the moonbat poison that inhibits meaningful thought and discussion. It may boil down to the requirement of killing off a large fraction (90%) of the human population before we can reboot our civilization. I’m a parent and don’t like this last conclusion.
Exploration of space requires a *lot* of energy, more than we know how to handle for anything larger than a fifty kilogram robot. I love my scifi, but it is possible that in the real universe it will take thousands of years for us to make much progress in space, and that only limited travel to and exploitation of the moon, comets, and asteroids. Mars may be a 100,000 year project, if we last that long. If we can spot an Earthlike world within ten light years, maybe we could send a colony ship, if we can figure out how to make one last the centuries it would take. And of course that doesn’t much help the 5.999999900 billion of us left behind.
Faster than light travel? Even relativistic travel? May not happen. Star gates, jump points? Unlikely.
Really, our space program to date is remarkably successful, given our current levels of science. The next breakthrus for real-world space travel are more biological than mechanical, can we set up independent biospheres for those generation ships or lunar bases? Can humans live and reproduce in zero-G? Can we shield spacecraft against solar storms or somehow have humans survive the radiation exposures?
In the near term the simplest Big Idea is just to turn the world’s deserts green and double the size of the habitable planet. All you need are better versions of two existing and already improving technologies: membranes & pipelines.
I remember in the early 1980s — I had an Apple II, and would read articles on what people would do with their computers in the future.
I thought that the most preposterous of the ideas was that people would use their computers to download recipes. Out of all the things in the world you could do with a personal computer, you would use it to make pancakes? Really? Who would set up such a service? Who would even bother doing that when cookbooks were so ubiquitous?
Now, in 2011, when I go to make pancakes, I use a recipe I printed off the internet. Dang; they were right.
I have a real difficulty with the concept that the USA has depleted its resources.
The actual problem is we have paralyzed ourselves with timidity. Or more properly, the delusional Leftward-scurriers are all time tossing spanners in the gears out of spite. The most generous comparison I can make is that they’re like Romeo C. staying the hand of Mercutio when rivals confronted them in the street. Juliet’s cousin Tybalt takes advantage of the instant to stab under Romeo’s arm, giving Mercutio a fatal wound.
In other words, the Left with their obsession with political correctness above all other ideas, are willing to sacrifice anyone, restraining them from defending themselves, or doing any blessed thing that has to be done to keep the world from falling into the cesspool.
Screw them all.
I have a beautiful book from the 1950s showing a future hardwood console fax machine for your living room on which you would print out your daily newspaper.
Josh @ 23 said:
“Exploration of space requires a *lot* of energy, more than we know how to handle for anything larger than a fifty kilogram robot.”
Energy is not the big gotcha for travel within the Solar System (it is The Problem for interstellar travel). Take a look at the Dawn spacecraft and JIMO:
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jimo/
What got us into trouble with JIMO was not so much the nuclear reactor but the huge radiator (heat rejection) and reliability of the energy conversion process, i.e. Brayton cycle versus solid state thermoelectric. The Dawn solar electric ion propulsion system is a very exciting concept. Also, Dawn is just about to reach Vesta and getting interesting to watch.
IMHO, the big problem with space exploration is power density, i.e. getting an inexpensive propulsion system into a modest sized aerodynamic shape that doesn’t weigh too much. It’s not an easy problem SpaceX Corp. is probably the most innovative in terms of low cost to LEO but they’ve not really cracked the $10,000/kg to LEO nut. IMHO, the Space Shuttle was heading in the right direction in terms of a fully reusable concept but stumbled with the concept of the External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters. The Space Shuttle should have lead to a practical second generation shuttle but the political process failed at that point. I have colleagues who would get very animated at this point and start shouting things. However I suspect the correct path is Two Stage to Orbit (TStO) based upon a kerosene/LOX bimese design where the booster and orbit vehicle use the same external structure and thermal protection system. However some guys would say the problem is intractable (I don’t believe this).
Perhaps the main reason why Europeans excelled in navigation from the late 1400’s to the 1700’s is a combination of desperation, fanaticism, and technological means.
With the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean, monopoly tariffs on spices squeezed the economies of Europe. If alternative trade routes had not been found to the Orient, Europe would likely have become doomed to subservience to the Ottoman Empire.
Alternative routes were found and opportunities for conquest opened up for the next few centuries. Internal rivalries within Europe meant that any major power that gave up an opportunity for trade and conquest lost power to its nearest rivals.
Perhaps religious warfare, far from being an impediment to exploration and conquest, was a major spur. Spain and Portugal were paranoid about Islam – for good reason. Then the Reformation exploded, with sectarian rivalries ensuring that Protestants and Catholics battled for expansion in the East Indies, Caribbean, Brazil, and North America.
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were technologically advanced enemies. In contrast, China steals our technology and Islamists seek to destroy the very imagination that creates technology. One main problem with Islamists is that they are not very satisfying to defeat; perhaps the closest Sci Fi analogy to fighting Islamists is The High Crusade.
The High Crusade taught me to never be complacent against enemies who are ignorant, medieval, and stupid. Even empires armed with wonder weapons need a will to fight, especially in close quarters combat.
Going back the Moon is a strategic necessity against Islamists. Canceling America’s chance to go back to the Moon effectively signals to our enemies that America has given up on greatness. As it is, the Obama administration is pushing amnesty for people who cheer the Mexican soccer team and boo the American soccer team at the Rose Bowl. (Just how genuine is one’s citizenship when one roots for the “old country” against the home team?)
Blert
“The Concorde, if it carried three times as many passengers could do so with perhaps half the cost per seat as the original design.”
I’d rather say, that that the people who travelled on Concorde had the means to pay a expensive flight, like for cruses ships, such people avoid the masses transports, like there are luxuous smaller cruises ships for about 70-80 passengers that belong to successful companies.
The Concorde problem was that it became technically “has been” comparatively to the new Airbuses, and it never run out of clients. Also, America protected its markets in forbidding the plane to land in american airports !
For those that said that it was state subsidied, of course it was at the beginning, like new planes design were, but isn’t Boeing camouflaging such state subsidies when it preserves its markets (like the A400 tanker for the Airforce), when they make pay the US army much higher prices for buying Boeing planes, that they would bargain when sold to civil companies?
and you’re going to get upset again, a new plane like concorde is in project, that would be low cost in fuel, and quicker than Concorde, Paris Tokyo in 2 hours, which would be on flight around 2040
http://www.futura-sciences.com/fr/news/t/aeronautique-1/d/le-bourget-2011-un-zehst-hypersonique-pour-lenvironnement_31065/
#29 Alexis – I would agree with you that going back to the Moon is a good idea; but only if there is an economic reason. I would suggest the reason given by O’Neill all those years ago; as a mining colony, largely operated by telepresence robots, devoted to chucking raw materials into space for the first generation of SPS. (Which will necessarily mean significant living quarters in space, and thus it starts.)
As for Mars; it has long been my opinion that going to Mars ought to be left until it is trivially easy. There really is nothing there of any use, at least until and unless we terraform it.
“Right now it costs US$ 10,000/kg to get to LEO and mankind’s brightest minds have not been able to significantly reduce that cost.”
The USA turned Space over to NASA, which excludes your “brightest minds” theory. Sorry.
NASA is/was stuck on Rockets. That was the low hanging fruit back in the 50′s. Rockets had the public eye and that generated the funding needed. NASA started their downward spiral when the thought they could save money by going robotic.
The over-credentialed idiots at NASA never got their brains around the fact that if money saving was the goal, the best way to save money was killing NASA. To the swollen-brained idiots at NASA, it was all about the science. To the people paying the bills, it was about the romance. No humans, no romance, no funding.
That is why there has been no serious attempt to look for another way to LEO.
NASA and JPL want to send robots everywhere. Fine, let them and the Robots pay for it.
The money wasted on the Space Station could have been spent on a Mag launch or Laser boost system. The Easy insert Scram-jet looks feasable. Li might make a breakthrough in China;
http://www.enterprisemission.com/anti-grav.htm
That would get NASA off it’s duff. It would be worse then Sputnik.
The big problem right now for the USA is that this country has been decapitalized.
We’re broke.
The way you restore the capital base is to make the country energy independent–so we’re not shipping 500 billion annually abroad to pay for gas. There are no energy independent countries today with weak currencies or problems paying their bills.
The fastest way to make the USA energy independent is to switch buses and trucks to natural gas and if anyone is willing to take on the EPA regulations regarding switching cars to gas–then cars as well. Also, allow drilling all over the place.
The long term solution is for the US government to do a crash program to develop portable thorium reactors–instead of just leasing the technology to the chinese as they have done.
Once the thorium reactors are completed–if cheap electric cars are not available then use the thorium reactors to develop the Saudi sized green river basin oil shale in Colorado/Utah/Wyoming.
The portable thorium reactors could also be used to pump water west over the south pass from the upper Mississippi to prevent spring flooding and water the water scarce regions of the southwest.
Then once the country is recapitalized the USA can afford to go after the H3 and water on the moon.
I heard that one time a guy was trying to develop a particular mixture and accidentally spilled one of his solutions on a hot stove and B. F. Goodrich discovered the vulcanization of rubber. The point is that he was using whatever his abilities were, actively perusing an objective and not sitting on his rump somewhere collecting dust, or other people’s money to do nothing. There are still a lot of people out there doing these things but I believe the rigged system with which we have surrounded ourselves, discourages many. People like Mr. Goodrich are deeply involved in Mr. Murray’s belief that :
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen events, meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way.
I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!” “
The Marcellus gas play is gaining momentum
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gushers-highlight-potential-apf-3807643486.html
I remember “The 21st Century” with Walter Cronkite, which I used to watch on Sunday afternoons.
What happened with the manned space program:
As the world public focused on manned space spectaculars in the 1960’s the unmanned programs were quietly revolutionizing multiple different industries, including most notably military reconnaissance, weather forecasting, communications, and navigation. These new space-based capabilities were not just superior to the older methods, pound for pound they were actually much cheaper as well.
When the Apollo Program attained its goal of “putting a man on the surface of the Moon and returning him safely to Earth within this decade” in 1969 it literally had no place left to go. Apollo was an impressive stunt designed for domestic and international political purposes. The “within this decade” requirement meant that the basic capabilities for manned space exploration had not been attained, in order to focus on a stunt. The average lunar stay for the Apollo missions that actually landed was less than 24 hours. And Apollo had no capability to either go anywhere else or serve a springboard for longer lasting capabilities. It was like the difference between building the Daytona Speedway and building the I-95 freeway that runs next to it. The speedway was more fun and a better platform for politicians to make speeches, so we built it.
Simultaneously with the recognition that Apollo was successfully completed came the realization that the unmanned programs would not only continue but expand. They had attained the position of utility systems. No one cares if we have National Manned Sewer Program or National Manned Electrical Grid program; they just want the crap taken care of and the power delivered without fanfare or interruption.
The Shuttle was an attempt by the Apollo empire to survive by taking over that which they had never done and in fact had failed at doing when they had tried. The result was utterly catastrophic to both our “industrial” uses of space and to manned exploration. The whole of space launch, the single thread to which all our space efforts depend, was converted into a jobs program. It became like Social Security or Medicare, a program that could not be afforded but could not be cut.
Subotai,
Saw a geographer saying that the Chinese exploration was short-circuited by a climate change. Their entire ship building industry went into building river barges to carry rice to the northern provinces or whatever they had. Mass famine otherwise,or perhaps as well.
Richard #39:
I recall an article in an AIAA Journal in the early 1980′s that explained that the new Chinese regime transferred the funds for the building of ships of exploration into the building of fake concrete and stone river barges as opulant pleasure pavillions for the court and its favorites. They did not move, only looked kind of like ships, and enabled exploration only of human orifices, but the money got spent on “shipbuilding,” Obama Porkulous style.
I will always remain amazed at one of the non-predictions from the mid 1960′s that was more accurate than not.
Taking the politics of the 60′s to its ‘Stupidist’ conclusions the movie “The President’s Analyst” with James Coburn and Godfry Cambrige did a pretty good job of predicting things into the 90′s and 2K’s.
Check it out and see what I mean.
Wretchard:
Your comment @ 18 is the most sobering I can ever remember from you. Yes, the dialogue +is+ breaking down, and the comment by NYTimes columnist David Carr now making rounds on the internet — “the dance of the low-sloping foreheads” — is only the latest and most revealing statement by one of the self-appointed literati to illustrate your point. What’s particularly interesting is to read the comments by people who are offended by Carr’s comment. Some pity his myopia (especially since he was raised in Minnesota); others challenge him. Bottom line: We in the USA are increasingly “two nations” as politicians and writers have pointed out over the past generation. And the situation is only exacerbated by the lack of dialogue you reference.
It is clear to me Obama and his administration feed this sense of victimhood and lack of dialogue, but I wonder if there’s a politician on either side out there who can reverse the trend? Is the “new normal” in American politics to foster and enhance division? If so, then we are well and properly doomed and might as well line up for our own glass of Kool Aid. I hate to be that much of a pessimist and keep hoping something or someone will appear to unify us once again as wel seem only to be unified during war. I hate to hope for war, but the time has come for us either to hang together or hang individually. Not a pleasant thought. . .
Sounds like a great idea. I’m sure the cholos and ghetto yutes, along with their bearded Muslim rage boys, could slap this idea together and have it running in a week. As soon as they can figure out the concept of the wheel, they’ll get right on it.
42. F: I think the day is fast approaching where your average, hard-working American says, “Enough already! I refuse to support non-contributors through my own labor.” If personal responsibility were forced back onto the populace as a whole, it would solve many problems. Necessity truly is the mother of invention. Starvation is the mid-wife.
was there ever really a dialog?
as I recall things in Los Angeles when I was a lad, there really was a John Birch society down there in Orange County, and they really did want to impeach Earl Warren, but it never happened.
I recall singing with the other eight year olds as we waited for the school bus back on Long Island, “I want Nixon with a rope around his neck, a knife in his back and a bullet in his chest, …”
I’d say the left historically “dialogs” after they lose, and the right “dialogs” hardly at all both because they are indisposed to do so, and because they can seldom find much of a partner.
if things are getting more like they’ve always been than they ever were, so be it. I agree, the leftoid press seems MUCH further removed from REALITY than they have ever been, and if possible even less FAIR to alternative viewpoints, but I’m not sure that’s a matter of “dialog” as such.
#39 Richard Aubrey and #40 RWE
I would be very interested in any cites that I could chase down. I have seen translations of the decree saying that “there is nothing out there that we are interested in”, but Chinese government officials are as prone to BS as any people’s. There is the Grand Canal for shipping food north, and there is famine periodically in China. I do wonder how far north they were shipping rice, because north China eats basically pasta, while rice is eaten in the south.
The corruption theory is likely too, but whether as a cause or effect needs explanation.
Subotai Bahadur
The area of science and technology which has advanced the most and is going to change to world most radically is the march of Moore’s Law year after year, decade after decade. Every two years, (actually every 1.5 years) the number of devices on a semiconductor chip doubles. Just read Intel’s road-map for CPU out through 2020, and it is clear they have no intention of slowing down. IBM among others is looking into nano-technology, such as building chips using carbon-nano-tubes for memory and logic, that will continue Moore’s Law out another 30 years.
On another technology front, Cold Fusion is back in the news. Another promoter is claiming that he has discovered and built a Cold Fusion Reactor, called the “Rossi Energy Catalyzer”, and plans to demonstrate a 1 Mega Watt reactor to the public this October. Not everyone is buying it, as not a few scientists are pointing out various ways his explanation of how it works violates the laws of physics. But, if it works, it’s a different world for all of us. Come October this Rossi will be exposed as a scam artist, or will be on his way to billions and billions in riches. We shall see.
Sub: there is really a lot of controversy about the size of those ships, the extend of their voyages and Chinese naval technology at the time.
There were a few VERY large Royal River Barges that may have been close to what you describe, but over all there is no strong support in the historical record for those huge ships in large and extended ocean going flotillas we hear about out of present day Chinese Chauvinists.
In fact, western naval technology was much farther advanced then China’s when we got there a century or so later. It is hard to imagine that this was the case if they were so advanced. Note too, that in actual fact overseas trade did not cease after Zheng and eventually the ban would be lifted Iwithin really a natter of decadesO. So far as we know Zheng followed known trade routes for most of his voyages.
Also, I would not really say that China was “the scientific leader” in the 15th century. Arguably there was in fact little “Science” at all in the world, at least as we understand science in the modern sense. They were certainly a leader in technology, but really nothing all that radically different from Europe. they did not have clicks, for example, and optics were undeveloped.
The notion of the Chinese treasure fleets appeals in certain quarters, but they are most likely exaggerated, and perhaps wildly so. So is their reach. There is scant record of them out side of official court records: in the larger Muslim world, and in India and SE Asia history is mute (though Zheng was said by some to be a Muslim). This is even though there was certainly familiarity with Chines merchants to the West of India.
It is a great tale, but the reality is probably much more mundane.
12. Josh
Isn’t there some hot new supersonic transport proposal from Europe?
Hypersonic, by leads, and it’s a joke, or should be construed as one.
subotai
What I can recall is, I believe, the name of the climate change event was eemosynian–that’s phonetic, btw–or something like that. Now that you ask, maybe I’ll try looking at climate change names on google and then cross check with China.
It was a presentation on CSpan or History Channel some years ago.
I figure it wasn’t shipping rice from south to north, but pushing food northwards. If area A gets a whole lot more food from the south than before, more of its surplus can go north to area B and so on.
Don Rodrigo
30 years, it’s the needed time to make the joke come true, so far Europe still can make such jokes !
My understanding is that by the mid-1400′s the best sea-captains, the best ship technology, the best navigation technology and the best charts all belonged to Portugal. When they finally sailed around the horn of Africa and came upon India from the sea, they soundly defeated the Arabs and opened the India trade. The Portuguese ships were far superior to the Arab ships, they could sail mush closer to the wind, and they had cannons and the Arabs didn’t. If there had been a pitched battle on the open sea between the Portuguese warships and the Chinese ships of the earlier 1400′s, the Portuguese would have won. By the mid-1400′s European Naval technology was superior to all others.
I was surprised to learn that shortly after Christopher Columbus discovered the New World (which he persisted in thinking was India, while the Portuguese were traveling to the real India), a Portuguese sea captain went off course on the way back from India and landed on the coast of Brazil. So if Christopher Columbus had not discovered the New World, another European would have around the same time frame.
Ahhh . . . talk of “scramjets” and rail guns and laser-propelled launch vehicles. Heady stuff, but, unfortunately, rendered impractical by both technical and financial realities. It needn’t have been that way, and can still happen, but here’s where we are on space access: all the ‘neato’ technologies are almost a ‘new’ now as when they were prposed and first tested because they ere never followed through on. America has tossed so much cool propulsion tech onto the shelf, in large part because of the exhorbitant amounts charged for conventional technologies, and the bureaucratic boondogles like the space station and the Space Shuttle.
We’re really not done with rockets yet, not by a long shot, to think otherwise is a failure of imagination.
51. Marie Claude
Don Rodrigo
30 years, it’s the needed time to make the joke come true, so far Europe still can make such jokes !
The Leads proposal actually has a timeline of up to 40 years, and is a proposal for a “zero-emission” hypersonic airliner. I am astounded by the long lead times for technological projects that the European aerospace industry pads their ambitious projects with.
Thought pop. I think that Harry Harrison wrote Transatlantic Tunnel
Don Rodrigo
I read that 30 years was the engineering offices norm to get a new type of plane to come out as a commercial’s, at least, when Airbus sorts a new model, this model was already on the drawing desks 30 years before. Though prototypes are tested years before
stoicheion @ 32 said:
“To the swollen-brained idiots at NASA, it was all about the science. To the people paying the bills, it was about the romance. No humans, no romance, no funding.”
I agree that focusing only on the science and not on the romance (human aspect) is suicide for the Space Program. On a bang-per-buck metric, Space Exploration offers very poor return compared to researching the human genome, semiconductors, nuclear energy, etc. People have unwisely focused on the cost of robotic exploration versus manned exploration. It seems like a no-brainer, i.e. manned exploration is about an order-of-magnitude more expensive than robotic. However if the manned program is killed then the robotic stuff dies almost immediately because it offers such poor return as a purely scientific exercise. The disconnect is even more remarkable when one observes that the main scientific justification for robotic space exploration is exobiology. Einstein once commented that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That seems to describe exobiology. i.e. they keep looking for life on Mars but the planet keeps replying that it’s stone dead. We should focus on putting life on Mars (colonization) rather than searching for fossil remains.
stoicheion also said:
“The money wasted on the Space Station could have been spent on a Mag launch or Laser boost system. The Easy insert Scram-jet looks feasable.”
The ISS is a frustration. Like the Space Shuttle, the ISS is a magnificent exercise in futility. However the two are connected. If they hadn’t bungled Cheap Access to Space (CAtS) then the ISS would not have turned into such an expensive white elephant.
In a former life I did scramjets for a living. At first glance, they’re sexy. However as you get deeper into the concept, you start to see problems that ultimately turn into show stoppers. Scramjets are great for hypersonic drones but they’re not the answer for CAtS. Same holds true for rail guns (Mag launch), i.e. the rails tend to burn up after a while. Rockets work because their basically simple. The whole problem with rockets boils down to designing an efficient and cost effective fuel pump and fuel injector. The rocket problem is nicely bracketed and you know where to focus your resources. The bad news about rockets is the problem is essentially solved, e.g. the SSME operated at almost optimal specific impulse and the F-1 was almost the perfect big-dumb rocket. There is almost no point in doing rocket R&D work when you can buy beautifully designed ex-Soviet rocket motors for a fraction of the development cost.
Subotai Bahadur,
Baloney.
Most of the ability to advance in the West was because of the atmosphere of individual responsibility engendered by Protestant Christianity.
The LLC didn’t come around for another ~550 years.
blert @ 8,
Not if it is to be supersonic.
I don’t know specifically about aircraft, but for ships fuel consumption varies roughly as the cube of speed.
If the technology had existed to make a larger, still-profitable SST it would have been built long ago.
The imagined future either never comes as imagined (being infeasible as extension of the past technology) or it is altogether more wonderful, based on methods unforeseen. Consider this home office of the future, circa 1966. We can do almost everything predicted in that long ago year, but very little of it in the way envisioned.
Something of the sort could be said for imagined revolutions. Few people are quite so “conservative” as revolutionaries whose revolution failed to materialize. Who gets to say what is a revolution? That which is “revolutionary” seems to change every generation. One year it’s about liberty. Then, it’s about the proletariat. Then, it’s about culture. Then, it’s the “sexual revolution” and the “drug revolution”. Then, religious fanatics from the Middle East claim the mantle of revolution. Then, it’s revolutionary homosexuality. The topic changes, depending upon who controls the airwaves.
There was a time when “revolution” was a populist idea close to the Grange. Now, agrarian populism is declared regressive; it’s the latest trend from the cities that must be “progressive” or “revolutionary”. Who defines what a revolution is anyway?
By now, anti-Americanism is so hackneyed that it has become boring; anti-Americanism has practically become part of the World Order. It has come to the point where it may be a revolution for politicians to say “Yes” to America, for people to see the sheer creepiness in their midst that anti-Americanism has fostered for the last ninety years.
56. Marie Claude
Don Rodrigo
I read that 30 years was the engineering offices norm to get a new type of plane to come out as a commercial’s, at least, when Airbus sorts a new model, this model was already on the drawing desks 30 years before. Though prototypes are tested years before
You are almost certainly correct that this is probably the policy, and may be also for Boeing in the U.S., but it is a ridiculously long lead time for developing commercial aircraft, and still too long for developing advanced concepts. I suspect one of the primary reasons for these huge lead times is because these projects are meant to be “welfare” jobs for engineers.
wretchard @ 18,
I hope you keep at it a while longer. You are one of the best on these Intertubes, and we still need more positions to harden on our side.
59. mariner
It’s still true. You can argue the point with Boeing’s engineers — that’s where I got the figures — they’re not my guess.
SSTs do not compete with sub-sonic jumbos. They compete with other SSTs.
It’s a niche market.
SSTs would do particularly well the longer the flight.
As for air resistance: SSTs cheat by flying VERY high where the air is VERY thin.
Indeed, that’s how jets are less fuel intensive than passenger rail service! While freight trains are very fuel efficient — passengers expend plenty of fuel –on themselves: air-conditioning, heating, food, rest rooms… etc. These inputs — now stretched out over many, many hours — make Amtrak an energy pig vs any airliner.
Then you have to throw in track repair. Nature and use is not easy on it. By comparison, God takes care of the atmosphere. Acres of tarmac are peanuts compared to thousands of miles of steel rail.
Anyhow, the old Boeing SST was going to carry twice as many passengers as the Concorde — which freaked the British and the French out. They knew that the numbers would not work for them.
——-
Fly-by-wire and modern materials would make for a much superior SST. When the day comes that there is a demand for really long distance travel ( NY to Sydney, Frankfurt to Honolulu ) such planes will pencil out. Perhaps in two more generations?
unfortunately SSTs didn’t get a life, and still remain the regrets !
#48 Mongoose
There were a few VERY large Royal River Barges that may have been close to what you describe, but over all there is no strong support in the historical record for those huge ships in large and extended ocean going flotillas we hear about out of present day Chinese Chauvinists.
I’ll agree to disagree on this. As far as Western historical confirmation, I offer the writings of the medieval Venetian cartographer Fra Mauro [early to mid-1400's] who made some of the earliest planeform maps of the world in the West. These maps include Asia as found on contemporary Chinese maps, mistakes included; so it can be assumed that he had some sort of direct or indirect contact with China [by land or sea, as there were also land trade routes with China]. Included in his writings are descriptions of the Chinese junks of the type used by Zheng He’s fleet. He apparently got those from eyewitness accounts by Niccolò de’ Conti (1385–1469); a Venetian merchant who spent the years 1419-1439 posing as a Muslim merchant and traveling and trading through India, Southeast Asia, and South China; where he saw the ships. In addition, besides the Imperial archives in China, they are mentioned by Ming historians.
Zheng He, by the way, was Muslim by birth. When the Ming Armies moved to destroy the last of the Mongol holdings in South China [now Yunnan province], his family who had been minor officials under the Yuan was killed, and as a child he was captured by a Ming General. He was made a eunuch, and allowed to serve the general, eventually rising in the civil service until he came to the attention of Emperor Yongle.
I don’t doubt that Western ships were superior when they reached China in any numbers. Chinese society was such, that absent Imperial patronage, new things did not spread. Various Chinese invented all sorts of things, but absent Imperial patronage they did not spread and were frequently quickly forgotten. The merchant class is poorly regarded in Chinese culture, and did not have access to the money or permission to exploit new discoveries themselves. I mentioned that China did not discover the corporation. That is a key.
Absent the corporation and the concept of investing and risking a set amount and no more, for a set share of the profits; any failure means the individual or partnership has unlimited liability for loss. Thus fewer risks, including in foreign trade, are taken by very few people. And China believed itself, and was, pretty much self sufficient. Ask Lord MacCartney’s embassy.
In the West, merchants and trade were more highly regarded [although interest was frowned upon as usury, and had to be worked around] and multiple competing centers of power meant that new innovations spread as each group tried for an advantage. And once it was possible financially to send distant trading expeditions out without risking financial disaster; advances in shipbuilding technology spread. As did all science and technology.
While Chinese, I do not consider myself to have nearly the ethno-centricity of my fellow sons of Han. In the matter of sea voyages, I believe that pretty much every people who reached a certain low critical mass of seamanship tried to sail as far as they could. And that was a long way. Ships’ wakes do not leave fossils or archeological evidence. Man has been sailing for longer than they have been man. The recent discovery of a Neanderthal site on Crete, over 100 miles from the nearest mainland shore, shows this. The seabed of the Mediterranean has been found to be littered with shipwrecks from antiquity. And those are the voyages that failed. Most voyages succeeded.
I think that pretty much everywhere in the world has been “discovered” multiple times by multiple peoples. But until another critical mass in seamanship and technology was reached allowing long sea voyages to be reliably repeated; that they did not leave enough archeological signs to be found.
Of course, YMMV.
Subotai Bahadur
Don Rodrigo @ 61 said:
“I suspect one of the primary reasons for these huge lead times is because these projects are meant to be “welfare” jobs for engineers.”
If you’re a technology R&D organization then your “seed corn” are your engineers. Years ago when there was a huge pool of aeronautical engineers, companies like Lockheed and Boeing were ruthless about laying off surplus technical staff (the software and electronics industries are still that way). It used to be that being “unemployed” was almost synonymous with being a aeronautical engineer. (Un)fortunately for aeronautical engineers, they’ve become a dying breed so companies are less inclined to do mass layoffs (still happens and Lockheed-Martin is doing so now). The Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) is desperate to keep their engineering staff and will do almost anything to avoid a mass layoff. Case in point is the Mars Science Lab (MSL). The predecessor to MSL was the Mars Exploration Rover (MER). MER was wildly successful to the point of being one of the most successful interplanetary spacecraft in human history. JPL only made three of them, i.e. MER A, B and C. MER A and B are currently on Mars (MER-B is still functioning) while MER-C remains on Earth as an engineering test article. MER is a generic geological survey rover. Logically after MER’s extreme success and utility were demonstrated, JPL should have been cranking out MER’s like Volkswagen beetles and scattering them across the face of Mars. Instead JPL abandoned MER and proceed to spend over $2.5 billion developing MSL. MSL has lots of design problems (the Skycrane concept is insane) and IMHO will probably auger-in due to some known/unknown design flaw.
Why did JPL abandoned the beautiful MER design and go with the dodgy MSL design?
Mid-level JPL managers typically provide lots of lame excuses but the simple reality is they didn’t want to lay off their engineering staff, i.e. MER was an old vehicle that was already designed but MSL was new and undesigned thus keeping JPL’s engineers employed. The frustration here is the cost to produce the wreckage on Mars that will be MSL could have built about ten MERs and the JPL engineers will still end up losing their jobs.
http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_madeinchina/2005-09/16/content_72972_3.htm
The Chinese built many ships, the problem they had was they were all basically Lateen rigged;
http://www.answers.com/topic/lateen-1
Lateen rigs are OK for Shallow water and sailing within sight of land but the are not as efficient in the open sea.
Setting aside the politics, the Chinese had the magnetic compass but without the square rig, they couldn’t sail fast enough to get anywhere before they ran out of water. The Europeans had Square rigged ships with the speed to get somewhere before running out of water but without the magnetic compass they couldn’t navigate well enough to get where they needed to go.
Logic ( no hard data and no way to gain it) based on what little evidence available indicaters the Lateen rig was first invented in Greece about 200 BC. Next it shows up in pre-muslim Arabic sites, then India and China. That makes sense because before the Lateen rig, most ships were Galleys with a single mast and single square sail. Galleys are slow. less then 5 knots before the wind and maybe 5-6 under oar. At least until the rowers started dying. So any Galley captain who saw a lateen rigged ship blow by him at 9 knots on the reach while the crew was sunning themselves wanted a new ship. With the rig right out in the open it wasn’t like nobody could copy it. Most Galleys were flat bottomed so they would need a keel after re-rigging, but that isn’t hard to figure out.
NO the real problem the Chinese had (they still have it today) is lack of competition.
Chinese had no need for innovation. Europeans HAD to. The Vikings were going to destroy Europe if they didn’t figure out a way to stop them. The best way was at sea. That meant large fast powerful ships.
Thing about the Concorde is that it still took the same time getting on and off, to and from the airport, and so saving two or three hours in the air was costing you a ton extra.
bell curve. According to Morison, the Portagee captain spotted Brazil but didn’t stop. Told folks when he got home. Morison tells us that the Portuguese found that working down the coast of Africa was much slower, more dangerous, and thus more expensive than swinging wide into the South Atlantic and picking up the trades. The first Norseman we know of to spot the Americas was a merchant heading for Greenland who went a bit south, coasted north for three days without landing,and told Ericson.
Ashe–”Land to The West”–makes the claim that the saga–actually imrama–of St. Brendan the Navigator,once shorn of talking whales and whatnot, puts the good father in the sailing directions for the northern route to North America. You’ll recall he didn’t discover anything much that was new and many of the places he landed contained his own folk where he could rest, hear Mass, and carry on.
Also, according to Morison, just prior to Columbus, the city of Bristol would send out a small fleet every few years stooging around looking for the mythical island of Huy Brasil. Eventually, they’d have found America, or first the Grand Banks and then America. My own view, uninformed as it is, is that they had the Banks and North America already but would find it more convenient and less susecptible to interruption by the locals if they could find a place on the way home to haul out and dry their catch instead of going further west for the purpose.
It was a jumping place, Europe, and eventually somebody would have stumbled on the continents with sufficient economic and political backing to make colonization inevitable.
“MER was wildly successful to the point of being one of the most successful interplanetary spacecraft in human history.”
Evidence that the Space Industry still hasn’t figured out the problem. MER was a failure. It did not add a penny to the coffers of JPL, NASA or the USA. The boffins say, it advanced science! SO WHAT?
Science isn’t the goal here. Putting humans into space to stay is. Until that is recognised, there will be no progress.
IF that had been a man instead of a robot, you would need a leaf blower to get thru the 100$ bills to make coffee every morning at JPL. How many 6 year old boys dream of growing up to become a robot on Mars?
You don’t need science projects, you need flashy get the money givers involved projects. Once the dream mill is cranking out dreams of space, there will be lots of time and money for science. You have the cart in front of the horse and are surprised about going nowhere!
stoicheion @ 69 said:
“Science isn’t the goal here. Putting humans into space to stay is. Until that is recognised, there will be no progress.”
For what it’s worth, I agree with you that “putting humans into space to stay” is the goal. The mid-level managers at JPL would say that keeping their engineers employed is the goal. The NASA funded university exobiologist would say that searching for nonexistent Mars bugs is the goal. The CEO of Lockheed-Martin would say that keeping Lockheed-Martin’s quarterly earnings positive is the goal. Obama would say that Space Exploration has no relevant goal in the context of progressive politics and the money would be better spent on government funded programs aimed at traditional Democrat voters.
Who’s goal is the correct one? Funny thing is it may not matter since the US federal government is probably insolvent. No bucks means no Buck Rogers.
jd 31,
*cough* 21 *cough*
Eggplant #70:
The way I put that is we need to explain that “It’s the excitement, stupid.” And even then that the Mars rovers were at least 10 times more exciting than endlessly repeating the Gemini program using a bus instead of a fighter plane.
As I wrote in one article, manned space exploration needs to be treated as Self-Actualization for the entire human race.
Speaking of ramjets and rockets, have you seen the idea Aerojet came up with for a combination of turbojets and ramjets to attain hypersonic capabilities? Might make a good reusable first stage for a booster.
66. Eggplant
Thanks for that illuminating post, and yes, the skycrane concept is insane. Apparently, just landing the whole craft on the Martian surface is too easy and doesn’r employ enough engineers to get it right.
72. RWE
Speaking of ramjets and rockets, have you seen the idea Aerojet came up with for a combination of turbojets and ramjets to attain hypersonic capabilities? Might make a good reusable first stage for a booster.
Which idea was that? You’re not talking about air-turbo ramjets, are you?
The moon bases, flying cars, and undersea cities I thought were going to happen will not in my time. The iPad thing I am writing this on is a wonder I never would have thought of. We are moving .