JB0

Ah, but in prison you don't propose after successfully stopping the shanking. ... Now MAX, he had some issues. That or a SERIOUS overabundance of hormones. It's pretty much exactly 30cm to a foot. *checks* Yup, the liner notes say 71. NEver noticed that before. Macross Compendium says 171, however. Yah. I think he loses a foot and a half with a haircut, though...

As a devout mechanical pencil user, I have to say... They still leave graphite powder behind. And you can break the lead fairly easily. So you've eliminated wood shavings and eraser turds, but not all debris. The ballpoint pen is the only truly clean writing utensil that I know of. And it has to be pressurized to work in space. Fisher's "space pen" went a few steps beyond what was needed for the task by making the ink so versatile. But that may have been a side effect of making it not spray out when the ball wasn't rolling. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle wrote a book called Footfall where space elephants attack the Earth ( Yeah I know, nutty plot) Anyway the humans on Earth launch and attack cruiser thats build on like a giant iron plate of metal. And underneath it they detonate nukes in progressive stages to get the thing into orbit. Obviously they were in a dire situation and the environmental fallout was less of a worry due to the killer elephants, however I read somewhere that the theory in practice was sound. That you wouldn't have to worry about weight at all. You just keeping detonating nukes under that plate. Maybe one of the guys who read the book more recently than me, or one of the guys who is better at math/physics could tell me Niven and Pournelle were full of it, or if that was a viable though toxic way into space. It's viable, and not even that dirty. Not very efficient, though. The third law of motion doesn't care whare the force comes from, just that it exists. The US government was actually looking into atomic rockets before nukes became a bad thing. Change the nukes out for chemical explosives and confine them in a chamber to focus and direct the force of the explosion and you've got... a rocket engine. Fallout is really only an issue if you're blowing the bombs up on the ground, as the vast majority of it is irradiated dirt. The amount of material the bomb itself sheds is negligible. Moreso if you're using fusion instead of fission. An airburst with a fusion weapon can be considered clean. *sighs* Metal Gear Solid did NOT invent the rail gun. And hell, Rex's rail gun wasn't even capable of intercontinental firing, if you paid attention to the game. Much less orbital insertion. You airdrop a Metal Gear into enemy territory, or march it in from a neighboring US-controlled facility, and fire the rail gun from there. The strategy hasn't changed with time, only the delivery mechanism. The first 3 Metal Gears* fired conventional missiles with rocket engines, Rex fired thrusterless warheads with a radar-absorbant shell. That was the only signifigant diffrence. *GBColor's Metal Gear: Ghost Babel{known in the USA as Metal Gear Solid, because Konami likes to confuse people} added another mech to the family tree between the Mk2 and Rex. A. Rail guns requires MASSIVE amounts of electricity. B. You'll quite likely fry any electronics you try to send up with a rail gun due to the EMP generated in the barrel.

You are an M7 fan, YOU are the homosexual. *I should note that I hate using the word "homosexual" as an insult. It just fit as a response here. 316255[/snapback] OMGWTFGNO!!!! Millia didn't have any angst issues. ... Well, aside from the whole "I'M GONNA KILL YOU BECAUSE YOU BEAT ME AT VIDEO GAMES!" thing. That was probably the most screwed-up courtship in history.

That could be argued as a test, I suppose. Wasn't what I was thinking of, though. 316249[/snapback] I know, but trying to make sense out of M7 is like trying to argue Michael Jackson's case for adopting children. 316251[/snapback] *chuckles*

That could be argued as a test, I suppose. Wasn't what I was thinking of, though.

A. I know that. It's some kind ramjet on steroids. B. Anyone know where I can find any info on that concept. It seemed like an interesting one, but I don't know what that idea is called. 316174[/snapback] Sorry, it sounded like you were presenting scramjet as the name of the ship. Anyways... a scramjet is just a high-speed variant of the ramjet. It burns in faster environments than a standard ramjet does. Part of the reason it was dropped may have been that it's not a single-engine atmospheric solution. Ramjets and scramjets don't work in a subsonic environment, necessitating the addition of a conventional jet engine to get them past mach 1 before they're ignited. Afraid I dunno where to find any info on the concept vehicle. ... Random google search for scramjet shuttle replacement gives me this... http://www.csa.com/hottopics/newshuttle/overview.php Which mentions a shuttle replacement named the X-33.

Fact: Everyone that didn't vote for Millia is a homosexual. Runners-up are Vanessa and Misa.

You forgot that the protoculture ruins in Macross 7 would only open if there was proof that the zentradi had been sucessfully reintegrated into protoculture society(or something remarkably close to the protoculture, like humans). But that may have been an intentional omission as opposed to an oversight on your part.

Not really. Neither of the shuttles we've lost died due to age. One was a rocket being flown in an out-of-spec environment that failed to operate properly(hence why it wasn't spec'ed for that weather). The other was a chunk of foam that hit the heat shield at a relatve velocity of something like mach 20 and ripped a hole right through it. Stopping that chunk of foam would've been a major accomplishment for high-quality tank armor, never mind a heat shield that was never intended to take impacts at all. A. Scramjet is a kind of engine, not a ship. B. Like all the other replacement concepts, it got scrapped at one point or another.

I see. So you're saying that the US can print lots of bills, trade them for natural resources, and everyone wins? Not quite. But to a degree. Yes, they would be. Of course, we have little companies like Intel ensuring we've got something worth trading for. Not really. Economics = witchcraft.

Actually, the pen was freely developed by an independent company. And was developed to solve major problems with penccil shavings and eraser turds in a 0G environment. Rather than staying in teh sharpener, or falling politely to the floor, they drift through the air, until they A. are inhaled, B. get stuck in someone's sye, or C. drift into electrical parts and cause a short. That's why Russia and NASA BOTH bought space pens once they were available. The average item often doesn't work in space. Except only one fork is properly equipped to keep the spagetthi from floating off it between your plate and mouth. For that matter, only one plate is properly equipped to keep spagetthi on it. ... Actually, I think spaghetti in and of itself is not available in space. And underthinking it results in a lot of problems because you neglect to consider that things don't alway swork the same once you remove gravity. Has your GameBoy undergone a decade of testing to ensure long-term reliability in extreme environments including, but not limited to, rapid temperature shifts and irradiation? Is your home theater system quadruple-redundant so that if there's a catastrophic failure it continues to function normally? Is EITHER device something you would trust with your life? If you cannot answer yes to all three of the above, than the shuttle computer is superior to whatever it's being compared to for the task at hand. Furthermore, the shuttle computer has more than enough power to do EVERYTHING IT NEEDS TO DO. You do not upgrade a computer merely because you can. You upgrade because you NEED MORE POWER THAN YOU HAVE. Could they be running quad dual-core Opterons with the latest and greatest 64-bit OS in the shuttle? Sure. Would they use even a fraction of the available power? Not a chance. Are the odds good that the system could fail during a mission, leaving the crew up the proverbial creek? You bet your ass they are.

The hell? We haven't been on the gold standard for decades, at least. Fact: In the modern world, MONEY HAS NO ACTUAL VALUE. IT REPRESENTS NOTHING. That's why there's exchange rates. Because the only "value" it has is the ability to buy products in the nation that issued it. And that only works because the nation that issued a given currency passed laws making said currency "legal tender for all debts public and private." Which it had to do because no one wanted to take the non-gold-standard money. The modern dollar/peso/yen/whatever is little more than monopoly money, the only REAL diffrences being the quality of the paper used and who owns the presses.

I grant the sizing is about right on the first one, but there's no actual letters there.

Purely friction. Well... you're still within the atmosphere well after the balloon ceases to be an effective lift device. Remember, the balloon only lifts because helium is less dense than air, not because it is a magical negative-gravity source. As you get higher, the air gets thinner. Eventually it's the same desnity as the helium balloon. And then your balloon starts expanding, and eventually pops. And there's not a whole lot of lift there to start with. Balloons only work with relatively light objects. Of couse, going up isn't the fun part. It's coming down that matters, and no balloon in the world is gonna help that.

Dumbest. Comment. Ever.

Fortunately we arne't Ringworld. We have gravity holding air down. A hole in a space elevator will just leave it with air pressure equal to its surroundings down the entire length. 1 atmosphere at sea level, 0 atm at orbit. ... You know, unless you forget to turn the air pumps off.

Making a new Shuttle will not fix the problem of ice laden foam from damaging the tiles on the shuttle. But it fixes the problem of "there's only 3 orbiters, and they're old." (though Endeavour's not THAT old) Nice thought. The hole that killed Columbia was punched through a carbon shield, though, and there was likely enough power left to rip through something under it.

Could build a new one, as we did after Challenger. Hell, the Endeavour's the best one we have, precisely BECAUSE it's newer. Could also refit Enterprise and make it spaceworthy, though I gather that'd be as expensive as building a new one. Not that I really think either is a good option.

Depends who you ask. Majority opinion seems to be that the larger models are more reliable, though. (I wouldn't be surprised, given there's precious little room in the slimline for heatsinks or fans).

You are quite mistaken. The shuttle was NOT designed solely to build ANY space station. Certainly not the ISS, which was inconceivable at the time of its design. Actually, the shuttle is one part of the two part budget-tight NASA vision for space after Apollo (that is, after the whole permantent station on the Moon/mission to Mars ideas had been shed by the congress and the Vietnam War), which was having a huge space station up there and a Shuttle to service it. However, as it turned out, the budget was further restricted, and evetually there was only enough money to get one of those (and then some -__-), so NASA, instead of stepping back and doing a low cost-Russia style (highly successful, if not in scientific achivements or what not, at least in a LOT of experience) space station/expendable logistics approach, decided to push on with the low cost shuttle model, because without it there wouldn't be a not-so-costly way of putting their space station up there. Now, the jack of all trades - that's further cost problem. Even the Shuttle program was over the new budget, so NASA had to go to the Air Force and tell them they could launch their stuff on the shuttle and forget all about those costly expendable boosters. Problem was, the design required some extensive modifications (ei, more power for heavier payloads, enough thrust to launch polar orbits, enough cross range to be able to launch and land in Vandenberg doing just one orbit) That, of course, meant the shuttle was getting heavier, and suddenly it's recoverable booster was getting bigger (and more expensive to develop) than the Saturn V. NASA missed this second decision point and it's alternative (launching a Skylab like station on a Saturn V, service it using Gemini derivatives - like the Big Gemini - on Titan IIIs), and hoped than with a good enough launch rate, the development would pay off. But neither NASA or the Air Force could provide such a rate, so it was decided that practically EVERY US launch would be done with the shuttle. Of course, that's a flight a week launch rate -______-U Recipe for cr@p, I say. Further cut costs and weight limits decided that a big reusable booster would be impossible to develop and whatnot, so NASA went for smaller booster rockets (although they were supposed to be liquid, eventually they become solid as those are cheaper to design and fly - to be eventually replaced by liquid. Eventually) and external fuel to save weight on the orbiter. Bingo. The original plan was a thing of beauty. What ultimately arose was far less so. Of course, the Challenger launch was in an environment that was out of spec for a safe launch, if I recall. *quick search* Totally unrelated, but... Never knew the Challenger was a conversion job. Was apparently originally a test vehicle like Enterprise, and not space-worthy. Of course, NASA DID kludge a bailout system onto the shuttle after the Challenger accident, but it's useful in VERY limited situations(relatively low speed, orbiter seperated from fuel tank and solid rocket boosters, and in a controlled glide) and should be considered non-existant for most purposes. http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/techno...sts_egress.html Of course, there's not a bailout system in the world that would've saved the Columbia's crew, but the crew of the Challenger might could've been spared if there was any provision for a proper ejection system. I love the shuttle too, really. It just seems to be a fundamentally flawed design. My mistake. I was thinking SpaceLab. I know more than one of those was planned. As was a mission to bump the one we DID get up into a higher orbit.

You are quite mistaken. The shuttle was NOT designed solely to build ANY space station. Certainly not the ISS, which was inconceivable at the time of its design. It really never should've been flown. It was a jack-of-all-trades compromise that was created solely to appease a president that hated the space program and wouldn't approve anything more ambitious, and has never met most of its design goals. http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/html/start.html I strongly recommend reading the CAIB report, as it has a good deal of historical background information imbedded in it.

HAHA! I loved that movie.

Maybe they're doing it that way on purpose? Trying to set a standard? It would be a pretty low tactic, could it be possible? 315622[/snapback] Quite likely, actually. A lot of people in the position to make the laws haven't quite gotten over the "games are for kids" attitude. Of course, the fact that the ratrings board is complaining about it indicates that at least some of them rcognize the fact.

I'm gonna skip most of the post as I was being a dumbass last night. As I understand it, Atari programmers generate the vsyncs and keep track of 37 scanlines either by sending 37 wsyncs or using the Atari's internal timer. The latter lets you do some logic before the blanking period ends. The software doesn't need to be "informed" of anything, as it's driving the TV and rasterization itself. How to do all this is all pretty well documented, and I'd found that it was described pretty decently in a couple pages of text. Yes. I gather the timer was the preferred mechanism, for what it's worth. It's just an added piece of complexity. Though like many things on the VCS, it can be used to make effects that the hardware "can't" do. Interesting. Guess Australia has a different philosophy from the ESRB. Too bad they hate guns. Heh. It's possible they WILL revoke the game's rating. Just gotta wait for the beaurocracy to get moving and see what happens. One thing I DID notice rummaging through that site is the australian ratings board has on several occasions complained that the 18+ rating of their other media ratings devisions isn't available to their software division, essentially forcing them to outlaw any software that is deemed inappropriate for persons over 15. Seems tehir legislature needs to update the law.

I remember seeing this in the Mars base episode ("Bye Bye Mars?"). I think it's more likely a case of lazy animators. Probably. But wheels wouldn't be a bad idea for smooth terrain. It's both. It IS an alternate version of the events of Space War 1, but it's not the "real" version of them.