Spaceflight news

A couple of news items came to my attention, and so I thought I'd pass it along. By the way, the title may not be the best one for this post. It's the best I could come up with on short notice. I'll dash this one off in a few minutes, cuz I'm always busy doing things that don't pay me anything. Like this blog...

Firstly, there's a  Space station concept , in which someone proposes to build as if on an assembly line in space. It involves constructing a torus-shaped structure, which is great, because it can simulate gravity. He believes he can build things FAST, and also a LOT of them. Attach a rocket to it, and you can go places in style. Battlestar Galactica, here we come. If you spin it up between 2 and 3 rpm, it can simulate Earth gravity. How 'bout them apples?

The second item that caught my eye was : Starship 2.0

It's not really news, though. Musk has been talking about this all along. The Starship CAN be scaled up further. Imagine getting a million pounds or more into orbit. You could supply the materials needed to build that humonguous Space Station with an equally humonguous rocket.

Since Musk wants to make many such rockets, then it is possible to supply materials for many such space stations.

Maybe they can build one of these some day:

It is something of a joke to mention the Death Star. But something like that might be feasible.   Maybe.

Off-grid post, 5-5-22

There's been a lot of cloudy weather recently. I've been keeping a log of the data that the charge controller generates. It is averaging just a fraction of what I thought it might. Such is the disappointment of these things. All of that effort and money for so little. Nothing has changed in my opinion of solar power, which wasn't favorable anyway.

Yet, I am considering going a bit bigger. As it stands, it isn't sufficient. Maybe it will never be, but it is certainly not that now.

I've come to the conclusion, maybe even long ago, that going small was the best way. The more you try to recreate the kind of lifestyle that you are accustomed to in the city, the more you'll have to spend. The amount goes up rather dramatically. You can spend tens of thousands of dollars on one of these solar powered systems. Even then, it is subject to intermittency at the whims of mother nature.

Not that I was ever really a fan of these things. I think the average person, who spends those tens of thousands, is doing it for reasons other than economics. The economics makes no sense at all. That's why subsidies are necessary.

If at all practical, I am going to try to go geothermal. To put it another way, I think the basement route will allow me to avoid the big cost of climate control. The other biggie is food preservation. That one can be trimmed back as well with old timey ways of preserving foods. A fridge just uses way too much energy. Running lights is trivial in terms of energy requirements.

Less is more. Smaller is better. Or cheaper, which to me, is better. To go fully solar and try to live the modern lifestyle, is nothing but sheer extravagance.

So the next step is being contemplated. Next stop could be more expenditures, which I don't like. But I've come this far, so I might as well finish the project. At least, this part of it.

More old fart scibblings

On a different tack lately. Here's another one. Since I've been watching a lot of videos about Roman history, I've come to a few conclusions. Not that this is new. I've done it before. In fact, I think I might adjust my opinion just a little in the light of new information.

One thing about me, I've always got an opinion. It may not be based upon expert opinion, but I guess I'm always willing to offer what I think anyway.

In the case of the Roman Empire in the West, it seems to me that there was always somebody WILLING, but not always somebody ABLE. Things would go to hell in a handbasket, and there was a need for someone to step up to the plate and do something about it. For instance, there was Nero. Nero was not deemed to be a good emperor by most standards. Not even in the standards of the time. The people then were getting fed up with him. Nero figured it out, and he fled. He ended up committing suicide. But the problem after that was this... who and what comes next?

In the case of Nero's fall, it was Galba. Galba was willing, but he wasn't able. So they did away with him, and maybe another one or two before they found somebody who was ABLE. The Julio-Claudio dynasty was dead and the Flavian dynasty was born. And so it went with the Flavians until they were gone and so on and so forth. The point is that there was a time IN BETWEEN the dynasties where there was instablity and nobody was able to fill in the gap until somebody was able to fill those shoes.

I see the same pattern with the death of Marcus Aurelius--the last of the Good Emperors. Aurelius broke the pattern of choosing outside of family and chose his son. His son was one of the worst. By the time Commodus was assassinated, Rome was on the way down. During all that time of his reign, nobody was WILLING NOR ABLE to do anything about him until the damage was so severe that Rome never really did recover from it.

There was a lesson in there somewhere. It could be that the ablilty to choose your own leaders is key to making changes before things go too far. The trouble is that this is not what the leaders want. Those in power are quite unwilling to give it up.

An example for us is with this election of 2020. Nobody seems WILLING NOR ABLE to deal with the controversy and to put it to bed permanently. Oh, they'd like to, but nobody can do this. The winners can't either. To do so would undermine their legitimacy. To do this on a permanent basis would require that they risk losing what they've gained, and they do not want to do that. But that is what it would take to end the controversy. To end the controversy, there needed to be a full accounting of what actually happened.

Complaining about a problem without truly addressing it will never solve it. This business with 2020 won't be solved, and it's going to happen again and again until it can't. By then, our nation will likely be shattered like in the Roman experience. Nobody's going to be ABLE to put back together something that is totally destroyed. The longer you wait, the harder it will be. It has probably gone on too long already.

Of course, if you leave to the left, they'd destroy the election process and so it won't matter anymore anyway. That almost happened. Yet nobody on the so-called "right" is WILLING NOR ABLE to do anything about it either. Unfortunately, this includes Trump. If he was truly ABLE, it wouldn't have happened in the first place.

I once compared Trump to Constantine. He might be more like Galba or the one that followed Commodus--Pertinax. Both those were good men, but they weren't up to the task at hand. I am beginning to think that also applies to Mr. Trump. But he is the best that is available. That is what it means when there is no one ABLE. Everybody can see something needs to be done, but nobody is ABLE to actually do it. And so it goes down the Commodus, which is a pun. Commodus looks like commode. That's what happened to Rome, and that is what is going to happen here if we don't get it together and soon--down the commode.

Old fart story

There's no real point to this post. Why not do something a little different sometimes?

There was this mention on the webs that English is not a phonetic language. It reminded me of a time when I was in sixth grade, and somebody's mother came to talk to the class. She was from Italy, and she said that English isn't written the way that it is spoken. Yep, I've heard that English was not phonetic before.

Funny the things that you can remember, but other things are so quickly forgotten. Is that unique of me, or is everybody like that? The things that stick in your mind is what you remember. Other things that don't stick are the things that are forgotten.

When I was in sixth grade, the USA was embroiled in the Vietnam War. That war was lasting so long that I was wondering if I was going to have to fight in it. I did have to register for the draft, even though the draft was being phased out by the time I reached 18.

My memories might be getting jumbled up, but about that time, there was a lot going on. There were assasinations, riots, and the war. Not only that, but Richard Nixon was elected only to be ousted from office before his time was finished with his second term. And there was the landing on the moon.

Looking back in retrospect, that was a consequential time. As I've written before, it was the high water mark of this country in terms of economics. The Gross Domestic Product in terms of gold per capita has not been exceeded since that time. Several other things happened as well.

The late sixties was a turning point. It looks like it was a turning point down. It is hard to characterize it as anything else.

But all of that is from an old fart. Undoubtedly I've mentioned a lot of these things before. There's no point to it really. Maybe we are living in a time that things are turning again. Up or down- which way will it be? One thing I've been doing a lot of lately is studying Roman History. There's no guarantee that things will turn on the upside. It could get a lot worse. If the Romans are any example, we could be in for a rough road ahead. I've seen mostly good times. One can get fooled by that. It isn't guaranteed that things will continue as it is.

Moscow After Sanctions

Moscow After Sanctions

The link is to a video of a Russian-American girl in Moscow. YouTube says it was published about a month ago. Her name appears to be Sophia Clare, because that is what the channel says there.

Anyway, the thing that jumps out at me is that Russia has come a long ways since the fall of the Soviet Union. It was nothing like that during the Soviet era. In many ways, that country has been transformed.

Before all this began, I was thinking Russia wouldn't go to war because it would mean that the Cold War would begin all over. From the looks of it, times will get much tougher for the average Russian. The girls says she will be leaving soon. She doesn't want to go.

There's plenty of blame to go around. Namely, the government right here in the USA. You'll hear things like "Russia is not our friend." Yeah, but so what? Does that mean that we should go to war with them? Our government seems to think that the Russians are bluffing. If they are not, it could have some rather severe consequences for us all. If the Russians ARE bluffing, they get to look like geniuses. But I don't think of them of that no matter what happens.

It may be very repetitious of me to write this yet again. For the record, yet again, I do not like, respect, nor trust the people who are running this country right now. That will be the same even if they acheive victory in this conflict. You have to wonder what victory looks like to them. Also, I do NOT think that they are the rightful leadership of the country. They are NOT interested in democracy. They are NOT interested in freedom. In fact, I think their behavior is not too far removed from what we thought we defeated during the Cold War.

Yet people follow them and trust them. To me, this is inconceivable. It's gotta be some kind of tribal thing now. If anyone would just honestly look at the facts, then how in the hell do you defend this regime?

Nevertheless, the Russians did invade. It is hard to be persuasive if you give up on an honest discussion. As I wrote, there's plenty of blame to go around. But as far as I'm concerned, our country, and the Western block, is not at all blameless. If our country minded it p's and q's, and this happened anyway, I'd be on board. But that is not what happened.

Incidentally, I'd like to embed the video. But I have to use my netbook to go online to do that. It's been that way for some time now. It may be some of the reason my volume of posts has gone down. It's probably what the censors want. Keep in mind that we now have a Ministry of Truth. This is from people who care nothing for the truth. It is one lie after another with these people. That is what people are supporting when they support this government. More and more of this kind of thing, and a definite decline in living standards and basic freedom. What's happening in Moscow is going to come here. It is just a matter of time.

Off-grid post, 5-1-22

There's not a whole lot of news to report. This is still a process of gaining confidence in the solar powered scheme, and it is still a bit of a problem. This was mentioned previously as a shutting down of the power to the inverter, which shuts down the appliances attached to it.

It was perhaps a bit of wishful thinking to attribute the problem to a defective fuse. It did seem that way when the fuse was taken out and replaced with a new one. The questionable fuse was moved to another circuit, which was the one going to the panels. Lo and behold, the panels stopped producing current. An answer? Nope. Although the replacement of the offending fuse with a new one did clear up THAT problem, or appeared to, the previous one of shutting down the inverter RETURNED. The impression was that maybe there's something that is in the inverter circuit that is ruining fuses, and maybe the new one is being ruined, or is already ruined. To confirm this, I'll have to open up the power tote again, which I haven't done yet.

It is plausible that it could be the inline fuse holder. The last time I opened it up, it did seem a bit "frayed". It is an old fuse holder. Perhaps I could replace it, or just take it out altogether. There is already a protective device on that circuit, so maybe it could handle it. But that seems a bit shaky at this time. Another option is to get another fuse holder, and install that one in its stead.

All of that is tentative as I haven't inspected it yet.

There is another possible mode of failure. Temperature seems to be a bit on the high side. There are a couple of usb ports on the controller. I could get a usb powered fan, and let that cool down the controller. As of now, it is being cooled by a small fan, which is placed a foot or so away. This fan is too large to get in close, and so it may not be getting enough air. A small one could be maneuvered close in, and perhaps it could do a little better.

So the process continues. The closest thing I can find to a cause is excessive heat. I'll work on improving upon that situation in hopes that all issues have been resolved, and I can begin again in expanding the system a bit more.