Posted on 11/03/2005 10:28:48 PM PST by TheMadLurker
If you have a sense of humor, and can poke fun at yourself:
http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/fear4republic/
(Yah? I still like to see where I'm going...)
Happy New Year, Bob! Will you have any books ready for publication in 2006?
That has potential, but it's still a little early. Plus James would probably turn up, and that would be a mess!
LOL!
Well, just keep plugging away on the laptop, stay put and sooner or later, it will be nap-time for SOMEone!
I'd like to take care of my celebrating now so I can be asleep my 8:00 PM and not hear the fireworks!
Is Patrick making progress?
Actually, if I knuckled down, (instead of being knuckle-headed), I could probably prepare and release four books.
That would include two books of the Poetry you've all been exposed to, and the ones I call Two and Three. All of this, after all, is already written, just not completely organized yet.
Books Four and Five, which are still only half-finished, should be able to be completed in the coming year, and theoretically could be released in 2006 also.
Some of this information is on my about page, along with samples of my writing.
Not fair, and not true, actually -- NASA's looked at using the moon for gravity assists, and has actually used it before. The downside is that for the present, NASA is constrained to launching from the ground, and using the moon would unduly constrain the launch window to a few days/month, which is undesirable when you've already got a very tight launch window to begin with.
I've seen them do some truly mind-boggling gravity assist profiles -- for example NASA has used them extensively with the Cassini and Galileo missions around Saturn and Jupiter, respectively. (And FWIW, they used gravity assists from Venus and Earth to get to the outer planets in the first place...)
I hate going to your About Page...I can never leave it until I have read it all. Again!
But it's good to know you are "working."
I'm trying to get a journal of my dad's sister transcribed, and also working on three different genealogies, as well as transcribing my OWN journals...condensing and making them "family" reading. And I still have my personal history to get down on CD...
*snort*
I'm going to be busy for some months I think, as I want to have most of it done before I move in June.
Not to argue with you, (and welcome to the UT!), but can you think of an example of a time they used a fast orbit change which preserved the Delta-V to the end of the journey?
I know they use gravitational assists, and spectacularly! I was referring to the "upside-downedness" of large scale deceleration at the end of the journey in a way other than aero-braking.
Hi! Welcome to the Undead Thread! I think we're about to move again, so I hope you'll join us.
We have several bars and kitchens that are open 24/7 and also have a workout room, a library, an observatory, and a "game preserve" for hunters. I guess about the only thing you might want to keep in mind as that in the lower levels, below the forges, you should take a "guide" of some sort as the halls have a tendency to "shift."
We don't want you getting lost, you know...
No accidents yesterday. He just needs to say when he needs to go, instead of, "Oh no! Too late!" Then we'd leave him alone and put James on the toilet all the time!
That may be new to you, too.
It sounds as if you're making progress with him, anyway! That's good!
James may be a lot easier to train...
James is two years younger. It wouldn't have been any worse doing this with Pat a year or more ago, but we just got distracted!
Are we moving the Undead Thread this evening? Any idea where?
This one is pretty good, and doesn't have a lot of keywords:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1547294/posts
You mean, other than going to the moon itself? No, but it's not for lack of understanding or imagination on the part of NASA.
The underlying issue has to do with the limited performance available, and a trade between propellant mass and payload mass. (See the rocket equation.)
The whole point of the unmanned interplanetary missions is to maximize scientific data -- which means, essentially, that you want to maximize your payload mass. We've already touched on the launch-window aspects of the problem, but you also need to recognize that a "fast orbit change" -- lunar gravity assist or not -- requires you to expend a lot of propellant up-front. And if you're marginal in terms of overall performance, then you'll have to sacrifice payload mass (i.e., data) and/or power mass (i.e., mission lifetime) to achieve the rapid transfer trajectory. So the trade for science missions ends up being in favor of lower performance/longer transfer times.
FWIW, there is a real-life example of the trade in practice. The Galileo and Cassini missions were originally designed to use a Centaur upper stage, which had enough performance to provide a direct trajectory; however, after the Challenger accident they re-baselined to an Inertial Upper Stage, which offered significantly lower performance. The payload mass was fixed (the vehicles were already designed and built) so they had to use the Venus-Earth-Earth flyby profile to make up for the performance difference. (See, e.g., here.)
Your mission, OTOH, is less "data" than it is "human transport." One of the trades you're facing is time-in-transit, which argues for more delta-V. Also, in our FReepmail conversations you indicated that performance was not an issue in the first place -- so the trade space is significantly different anyway.
Morning, Es!
How are you, today?
Ready for the New Year? *snort*
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