Cultural Power is fading, fading

 

They got a Buccee near Houston that's so big it needs its own zip code. Nope. Can't back that up. But it IS big. It's fine with me. Everything's big in Texas. So it fits right in.

 

 

Buc-ee's Is The Sickness At The Heart Of Americahttps://t.co/fmjC3e0shF

— Jalopnik (@Jalopnik) November 28, 2024

 

 

 

Starship update

 

Marcus House discusses Flight 7 and other Starship news as well as others.

Flashback from last year. ThinkOrbital got some NASA attention. I'd forgotten about them. A small Space station concept assembled in space?

What drives this madness?

 

Why do the neo-Cons and their erstwhile leftist allies want a world war?

A few facts that one may ponder upon: 1) These ATACAMS missiles are under the control of NATO. Ukrainians cannot operate them, or so I've read ; 2) France and the UK have threatened to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, and 3) The US Administration under Obama aided and abetted the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2014. The Europeans joined in that move.

One thing to consider is the motivation for such moves. Ukraine is not a NATO country. NATO is not in the EU, either. The reasons given are said to be about security, but the European nations do not spend their agreed upon contributions to their own defense. Trump complains and the neoCons and their allies have a cow. If you are going to act provocatively, then why don't you arm yourselves for the inevitable push back? Are we being maneuvered into an unwinnable and/or deadly and destructive war?

One might think that losing a war may be a part of the leftist strategy. Losing a war is definitely not in one's national interest. But it could be if one is a traitor. If not a traitor, then this is very unwise. Such a war cannot be won, and may well be lost. It makes no sense in provoking such a war unless self-destruction is the intention.

Cultural power is fading

 

They've lost their mojo, baby.

America rejects "the message"

Insurrection narrative was a failure

 

It cannot even hold on to their own people. Lost GOP'ers too.

Democrats spent a lot of capital trying to destroy Trump but it has totally failed. Instead of gaining ground against Trump, they lost ground.

JUST IN: More Americans will accept Donald J. Trump as the legitimate president than in 2016 - Gallup

Percent that accept him as legitimate:
🟡 2016: 84%
🔴 2024: 91% [+7]

Percent by party:
🔴 Republican: 96% ➡️ 99% [+3]
🔵 Democratic: 77% ➡️ 84% [+7] pic.twitter.com/nov2OP7pAD

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 25, 2024

That old dog won't hunt anymore

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Including the climate.

42 years of total bullshit on climate change.

Dan Rather spreads fear in this 1982 CBS News report featuring a young and stupid Al Gore, predicting that 25% of Florida will be underwater.pic.twitter.com/OSgQDj57gF

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) May 26, 2024

Morning Summary, 8/13 ( Islands in the Sky )

11/29/24:

The day after Thanksgiving.

It is Black Friday. Perhaps it is called that because it puts retailers "in the black". It's the biggest shopping day of the year, and it is the kickoff for Christmas season. Retailers are very happy about that, I'm sure.

I need to cut back on my food consumption. In my case, it can be called Fat Friday.

I'm still thinking about Zubrin's Direct Mars idea. His ideas are very conservative as compared with what Musk is planning, and executing. Musk will put hundreds of tons on Mars as opposed to tens of tons.

There will need to be an energy source. Interestingly enough, if methane can be found, it can become an energy source, and he won't need nuclear energy. Or not much of it.

An economic basis can be implemented on the basis of moving tradeable goods. What goods will Mars produce?





11/28/24 ( Thanksgiving Day ):

A good day that it is indeed. I pulled this old post out of the mix for a re-post. It includes an update to the original 2011 post, which was about a book, mentioned just under this 2024 update. The book is called Islands in the Sky, and includes Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct concept.

A quick glance and comment about the Mars Direct chapter: Since it appears that Musk is going to follow Zubrin's plan ( in the sense that it will be a Direct shot, as opposed to the Moon first, it makes sense to review Zubrin's ideas.

Zubrin's ideas include a nuclear thermal rocket. His concept is for a nuclear module which would dry mass out at 45 tons. That's interesting because Musk's Starship can carry that much and more. Therefore it is feasible to include that ship on one of Musk's launches to the Red Planet.

But there's no indication that this is a part of Musk's plans. If it is part of Musk's plans, Musk will need an okay from the government, which is a real sticking point. Unless Trump can get him a waiver. Such a nuclear powered upper stage can find great use onboard Musk's Starship. The concept was developed to near operational status during the Apollo Era ---only to be cancelled. (Nerva). Great days ahead! Enjoy that turkey and your football games, eh?

Updated (8/2011)::

With respect to the book, Islands in the Sky: Bold New Ideas for Colonizing Space, wikipedia has an outline of the chapters here.  I'm currently on a chapter about skyhooks and tethers, which I wrote about earlier.





8/13/11:

Good morning.

Yesterday, I did a few posts on SpaceX. I'd like to continue a bit with that here, and perhaps, if I think of it, a little more later on.

The interest in SpaceX dovetails a bit with the last book I read and discussed here this past week. It seems that Elon Musk wants to succeed where NASA failed.

Musk wants his Falcons to be fully re-usable, while the Shuttle was not. It so happens that I wrote a series of posts on re-using the external tank of the Shuttle, and it has occurred to me that this could be a principle that may come in handy, if Musk decides to use it.  Those in charge of policy during the Shuttle era decided not to employ the principle, you see.  That principle, in effect, would be in situ resourcing, with the spent second stage as a resource to be used, rather than discarded.

The Shuttle ET nearly reached orbital velocity.  That's what made the idea of re-using it a possibility.  I am assuming that the second stage of the Falcon nearly reaches orbital velocity.  Because if it does, this may be analogous to the Shuttle ET.  If not, it may not be practical.  If it is the same as the ET, it would take only a nudge to get it up to a stable orbit.  From there, you can find ways to employ the spent stage.  This would only be limited to one's imagination.

If it is not desirable to reuse the spent stage, then it will have to be brought back in such a way as to allow it to be reprocessed and used again for its original purpose.

I've thought about that too.  It would seem that there may be a way to do it if you could design a heat shield that could pop out when you need it for reentry.  You could accelerate it so that it could make one orbit around the Earth, then pop out the shield to keep it from burning up during reentry.  Parachutes could deploy when enough speed has been bled off.  Then splashdown, and recovery of the spent stage.

Or either way could be used, in case you don't want to leave it in space.  Since you are getting it up to orbit anyway, you could keep it there, or have the option to reenter and recover.

That's all on that subject.  I just received another book, which I could be reading today.  If it seems interesting enough to post about, I'll put up some posts on it.

Be good out there, and I'll be checking in later.

Trump transition team doesn't trust the people who tried to destroy him, and the left says they are concerned? Why?

 

The left wants Trump to trust them.  Why should he?

We have a pretty significant development…

The Trump Admin finally signed the Transition Agreement with the Outgoing Biden Administration to hand off Control of the Government— but with a Twist…

The entire transition Will Be PRIVATELY FUNDED, Not to Use tax-payer Dollars, GSA… pic.twitter.com/cU2ljY0J09

— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) November 27, 2024

Rush Limbaugh tells the real Thanksgiving story

3:11 PM:

 

pass that turkey leg

8:33 PM:

Ground news labels this as a "blind-spot". Is it really?



The political left does not acknowledge this story to be true, or they cannot acknowledge this to be true. So it is labelled a "blind-spot". But who's blind? The authors or the people who read their stuff? This is plain and simple evidence that the political left is keeping information away from people, and/or the people don't care if they do. A "blind-spot" as it is defined here doesn't determine the accuracy of a story. Just because the left doesn't cover it doesn't make it false, but to cover it doesn't make it true either. I question the usefulness of Ground News, and I pick on them a lot.

It's a Trump victory, not a GOP victory

7:46 AM:

 

The GOP doesn't want to govern. The replacement for Romney is just another Romney type. These kind of political choices will only result in more of the same. The alignment has to continue a bit further before it can gather any steam.

 

The public has to realize that the old way is failing, and that we need a new way. Trump is a new way, but the old guard has succeeded in scaring the people back into line. Message to the fearful: Fear can make you stupid. The scare mongering is all the old guard has left. Even Hoover did stuff like that.

 

No word for it but...

Realignment. pic.twitter.com/ujDDtkEWzY

— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) November 25, 2024

 

 

11:12 AM:

 

 

The GOP is full of douche bags like Haley and Romney. Meh.

 

 

If the GOP runs one of these again, they'll lose like they really love to do. Trump proved that he can win, but the GOP proves that even when they win, you might as well lose.

 

 

What percentage of the popular vote do you think this ticket would have gotten, this year?

I'm thinking anywhere from 55 - 60%. pic.twitter.com/4zHRSAoAQM

— Dave Hale - Concerned Republican (@CountryFirstRep) November 25, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1:38 PM:

 

Exit the GOP Establishment out the door head first like this:

 

 

 

 

Rick Beato - The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse

Behind the Black blog post with youtube embed

Music was once a big deal to me. Somehow it has become less so. Perhaps the video linked here shows why, or it is because of other reasons.

I don't follow music like I used to. Developments have passed me by. I've seen comment section on youtube videos about how people hate modern music. When I saw those, I noted that the older generation hated our generation's music too. Maybe it is partly generational. So Beato's post has a lot of interesting information that I haven't heard about, and that goes into the mix.

And/or it could be that the internet has a dark side, and this is just one more facet of it. In the old days, there was no Big Tech spying on everybody all the time. If you wanted to spy on somebody, you had to do it the old fashioned way. Like a lot of things, it is just too easy to spy on people through the web. The same is true of music, according to Beato.

Interesting videos

11/27/24:

The failure came with the quench for the one of the 7 that were tested; and the only one that bent to 90 degrees without fail. Therefore, I'd say this is an improvement of some sort without a clear application. (Unless the titanium needed to quench too. Methinks this is not necessarily so.) It MIGHT have an aerospace application that would require toughness of steel with less mass.



Forging titanium and steel together --- metallurgy --- forged in fire type idea. Titanium and steel don't play well together, so this guy is trying to find ways to deal with that.











11/26/24: Starship update

Up to 25 flights per year at Boca Chica? Not in 2025. That would be one flight every couple weeks. They aren't anywhere near that capability.

Swamp's gotta swamp

Yep. No Democrats are EVER held accountable. That's not likely to change even though Trump won. DC is still a SWAMP, and likely will continue to be until there's a sufficient enough political will to put an end to it.

“No one is above the law in this country” is a fucking lie. https://t.co/63iXsXbYDJ

— Jo (@JoJoFromJerz) November 25, 2024

Jurassic Park : Chaos Theory explained

Not a very satisfying answer for a scientist to hear, I suspect. But I'm not a scientist by trade, yet I tend to gravitate towards some scientific discussions from time-to-time.

I was reminded of this scene while I read the Belbruno book I mentioned recently. It seems that I took a rather lackadaisical approach to reading the book the last time, and this go-round isn't much better. If I read it 10 times, I might get it. Even then, it is dumbed down for the layman.

In essence, Belbruno says his ideas utilize the Chaos Theory.

How reassuring. Hopefully, we won't be overrun by dinosaurs.

P.S. I am not dismissing the book as bull-caca. Some of it is just plain old horse sense. Fer instance, if you go too fast, you have to slow down. Put on the brakes or you'll miss your exit. His ideas have found their way on to missions, he says. He could be exaggerating his influence or he could be a genius. Hard for a layman to tell.

Smarty boots? ( Peanuts reference )

If you don't get it, then forget it.

Bongino clip about stupid smart people. But it is not about the stupid people that I've posted about.

One question : if there are stupid smart people, are there any smart stupid people? Just wondering...

Wesa so mean

Suck it up, buttercup!

Devo --- Satisfaction

One of the comments said that he would like to visit the planet they live on. That might be a real possibility, and soon. Er, sooner than you might think.

"Fly Me To The Moon" --- Belbruno

11/25/24:

Here's a resource that can be exploited. Yep, that's not politically correct. You must not exploit anything, by golly by gosh. But here is something that can be exploited which doesn't harm anything at all. Or does it? Methinks no, how can it? Nothing gets used up, but that is always the case anyway. For you to think that things can be used up only means that you haven't learned your science lessons.

But wait! Your body can be used up. You only get one of those. However, experiments on the ISS have shown that stem cells get supercharged in space. Maybe they can build you a new body in order to replace your old one. Someday, maybe. But I digress. Let's get back to the subject...

Anyway, to go to the moon would take longer. It says 3 months, as opposed to 3 days. Better to take your time and save on the the launches than to worry about the time taken to move a lot of mass from the Earth to the Moon and back again. If Elon Musk is going to Mars, he is going to have to wait 2 plus years between launch windows, anyway. During that time, he could be collecting mass on the moon and transporting it back and forth between Earth and the moon in order to reduce the number of launches needed from the ground.

Since the moon is loaded with resources for the taking, it makes sense to process as much as you can within the 2 year launch window, and get it into position so that it can aid in getting a bunch of mass to Mars. Also, there's no impediment in using the same techniques to get to Mars, but that trip could take even longer. The moon will suffice for now.

9/17/13:

The book has just arrived.  It is a signed copy, which surprised me.

Anyway, I have read through the first five chapters.  It is an easy read.  Not too technical, but you still have to be something of a space geek to appreciate it.

I do appreciate it.  If there's one thing that I've learned over the past three years since I got interested in space, is that mass is your biggest hurdle.  The less fuel that you use, the better, since it means less mass.  Less mass means better economics.  To make it more popular and accessible to the public, it needs to be cheaper.   This should be quite helpful towards that objective of leaping that hurdle.  We'll need to know about these techniques if the promise of space travel is to reach its potential.

I am excited to finish reading this book.  But, as usual, I don't have time to read it all in one sitting.  Other things to do.

Fail Safe (1964 film)---Trailer

There seems to be chatter on the subject of a nuclear war. You might say it is trending. Politicians playing games with their toys.

There's a lot of blame-shifting going on because of the situation being the way it is. Biden is still president, but you'd think that Trump was with some of the commentary. In other words, they're nuts. Makes no difference though if everybody's dead.

The moral of the story: "Don't be a puddle fish."

OK..

I wanted to write something intelligent in response, but I'm having a problem with that right now. My puddle fish instincts might be kicking in.

The Trillionaires of Mars by Devon Eriksen

Head Up, Young Man!

Read on Substack