Wow, so fuzzy math's been around for that long...

Is it possible that this administration has lost the Mandate of Heaven? As I recall, neglect of necessary public works maintenance in preference for spending money on Imperial favorites, or to gratify Imperial whims, with resulting natural disasters, was one sign that Heaven was turning its face away. Failing to respond promptly and effectively to crises was also a sign that the Emperor had turned away from the path of righteousness and was anyone's game.

Mencius was pretty direct about what the people were entitled to do when a dynasty has lost the Mandate.

Bother. Those percentages are tickling my memory, and I can't catch it. It's a line from either Shakespeare or Donne, about Princes who in war time increase taxes, then don't bring them back down in peace time. Not that that's this government's problem.

While Sun Tzu is certainly correct about this -- I can't figure out how to quote his remarks on the necessity of intuitive sagacity without quoting the whole chapter on spies -- I can't help thinking about Von Moltke's remarks on the suitability of energetic idiots for command.

(George himself is a lazy idiot, which means he is just what you want for guarding the paint depot, but most of the people around him are energetic idiots.)

"Have some tea my lord some chrysanthemum tea,
It's an herb that's superb for disturbances at sea...
When the shogun is weak, my lord,
The tea must be strong, my lord."

Quoting Sondheim's Pacific Overtures from memory, since it's been running through my head since reading this.

I think Rove's attention was focused on the next line: "Therefore a wise general strives to feed off the enemy. Each pound of food taken from the enemy is equivalent to twenty pounds you provide by yourself."

Princes who in war time increase taxes, then don't bring them back down in peace time. Not that that's this government's problem.

Any support for the notion that this administration has brought to a head the past 25 years' tendency back to the licensing of private tax collection?

The natural Bush response to disaster is, in so many words, cutting government programs while maximizing windfall profits to our corporate feudal overlords.

As someone mentioned in the course of another thread, the problem with that model is, feudalism recognized obligations in both directions.

A feudal system of government is characterized by four things.

1. Differing legal rights and obligations by class.
2. Automatic class change when specific quantified requirements are met.
3. Creation of legal or social bonds by means of public oaths, taken before witnesses.
4. Creation of hierarchy by the voluntary subordination of one of a pair of equals to the other.

What we're seeing now isn't feudal at all -- Wessex Model or even Red William style feudalism has a lot going for it -- but rather an attempt to impose an aristocratic autocracy. It's generally a very bad idea to confuse Ancien Regime France with a feudal system. It wasn't even close.

Stone Boats, built by Bechtel and Halliburton and guarded by mercenarie....

I was looking up NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle (and isn't that a really good name, folks) and thinking that I'd seen the ideas before.

About 30 years ago.

Shuttle-derived heavy lift...

Using the External Tank in orbit...

And it's going to be paid for by not flying the Shuttle.

Is manned spaceflight important? Maybe not. But they're talking about spending 7 or 8 years, minimum, to put a new manned vehicle into service, using technology which has mostly been thoroughly worked out. Which means that it's Russian launches which will have to keep the ISS operating, and, last I heard, that depended on American subsidies.

It looks like it's a good time to start offering evening classes in Chinese at Houston.

Vicki, I keep trying to make that scan to:

Excuse me, my lord.
May I request, my lord,
Permission, my lord, to speak?
Forgive me if I suggest, my lord,
You're looking less than your best, my lord,
There's powder upon your vest, my lord,
And stubble upon your cheek.
And ladies, my lord, are weak.

Did Andover not require David Copperfield? Micawber knew it too:

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds and six, result misery."

Of course, in his personal history, when expenditures exceeded revenues, some of Daddy's rich friends just bailed GWB out.

Tired old stupid old idiot ways of doing things that didn't get off the ground 30 years ago, either. Recycled junk engineering. Ptui.

Care to reference the quotation? Because whomever translated it has BUTCHERED the text to make it sound modern.

What's disappointing about the new shuttle-based program is that the current system of just handing out fat cheques to the Shuttle companies for every launch will probably continue. On the other hand, anything - anything - is a better idea than the Shuttle. Just doing Apollo again or adopting Soyuz would be a better idea.

The solid-rocket boosters, the external tank, and the Shuttle main engines are all pretty good technology. The Apollo-style capsule & lander similarly. And the "just scale it up" idea I've been reading about for decades finally seems to have taken root at NASA, even if they're stuck procuring it from the same tired old collection of subsidized aerospace firms.

My big question RE the new moon trips:

What are you going to do once you get there?

There are some vague hints at checking out the water reserves at the south pole, but then what?

Re: moon trips

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to finish the station and build the moon ships in orbit? Then the heavy lift wouldn't have to go nearly as far; the lift getting off the moon isn't as difficult. Or is this too simple for GW's little brain?

P J Evans:

Huh?

No matter where you put the parts together, you would still need to put everything that's going to the moon into orbit.

In fact, the ISS is in a bad orbit . . . highly inclined and expensive to get to. (It was a concession to the Russians.)

You'd be better off just using the most economical low earth orbit you can get to from Canaveral and putting the pieces together there.

No matter what you think of the plan, I can't imagine Bush had the slightest input. Thank God.

LEO is a good idea; higher might be better for launching, but, yes, the stuff does have to get there. I just thought it was dim to build heavy-lift just to get people to the moon. That's a lot of metal that's not being re-used. (Have you read The Moon Goddess and the Son by Kingsbury? He was using fuel tanks to build a station in LEO, with further travel using a yet-to-be-developed propulsion system, and underground bases on the moon.)

What are you going to do once you get there?

Firstly, thoughts about what happened to dinosaurs and phrases like "don't put all your eggs in one basket" and "blessed are the pessamistic, for they hath made backups" come to mind. This actually answers "why would we go?"

What would we do? A common science fiction theme, mining. Base to go to the asteroids, for mining. Dangerous medical research where the bugs can't get loose into the general population (see above about "eggs"). Maybe not so dangerous medical research for those times when one's experiment does not quite go the way one plans (aka "oops"). Materials research in an environment where vacuum is the norm, not created. And then there's the Hilton family, the Marriotts and possibly Disney, for where there is cash, there is a resort.

Reason #356 why I am a bad person: when Lin mentioned the Hilton family in conjunction with uses for the moon, my first idea was rather different from what he actually meant...

Well, they might do that also, since one particular member seems to be longer on money than sense. (Tourism may be a cash cow on the moon, also, if the hotels appear in any form.) Then there's Virgin Spaceways or whatever it's being called. I'd think they'd be very careful with the tourists, though, since it is a hazardous environment.

Argghhh!

Look, I'm old enough to remember whole hubristic L-5 deal. Read Destinies magazine, went to what in retrospect where kind of scary pep rallies for space at SF conventions. Never *wore* a "L-5 in '95" or "Lunar Mine in '89" shirt, but thought I they were kool.

I am still a rocket nerd.

I want to know what justification the U.S. government has for this particular proposed transportation system. Exploration? Testing out reactors and water harvesting gear?

I want to know that it isn't going to be another "Look what we can do!" exercise.

Taking our minds off Iraq, Afghanistan, and Katrina? Making us think there's a way out of the hole we're in?

That's what Reality TV and sports are for!

Look, that goofy semi-religious eyes-on-the-stars stuff doesn't cut it for me any more. Past a certain point, it won't cut it for taxpayers either, maybe when they realize that 99.9999% of them won't even be able to afford even a *suborbital* flight and once they turn off the CNN coverage will still be dealing with the same shit we're dealing with now.

I want space exploration, and eventually space settlement. That's not the point. I want to know *specifically* what *this proposed program* hopes to accomplish.

Spin.

Is that pun on "levees" purely accidental up there?

From the reports, I can't see much direct point to the plans for continued manned exploration by NASA. At best, there's the application of Rutanesque materials tech to the structures -- carbon fibre rather than aluminium honeycomb.

30 years ago, the tech they're talking about was the latest thing. Maybe it isn't worth a new engine design -- the Shuttle Main Engine is pretty good.

Apollo did pour a lot of money into a few places in the southern USA, and doing something like rebuilding the Michoud plant in New Orleans is going to put money into some pockets there. It all reeks too much of "trickle down", but most of the money NASA spends does get paid to Americans who spend it in America and get taxed in all sorts of ways.

And I'd be a little uneasy about relying on SRB technology. If they could ship it in one unit, so it dodn't have to have the sort of joint which failed... Shipping the parts is the downside of the NASA pork barrel.

And I'm not sure that it's a good idea to use the External Tank approach. Ride on top of the booster, not strapped to the side.

It sounds a lot as if Boeing were to build a new airliner by bolting a new passenger cabin to a set of 747 wings.

In Dutch, the expression "gone to the moon" has about the same meaning as the English "gone to the dogs", so.....

I got the impression of "quick, what can we build with the parts we have, that will get a crew to the moon and back?" I didn't get the impression of serious planning for "where do we go from here?" or "what will we do next?"

And how is this scheme "quick"?

OK, so this history of rocketry has a lot of complicated bits, like the actual rockets, reused. The Russian designers did a lot of it in the fifties. But it meant they could get the thing flying sooner.

NASA are talking 8 or 9 years, even using all the 30-year-old tech.

I meant quick in the sense of "how fast can we get an answer out?" And some of that tech is more like 40 years old. (There is a Saturn 5 engine in front of Rocketdyne in Canoga Park; anyone wanting to take it out will have the area up in arms: it's a landmark!)

Actually, I'd think there are people in NASA and other places who've been thinking about this for years, and could get it off the ground maybe a bit faster. Possibly there are plans somewhere in the files.

Vassilissa, it's the conclusion of Donne's "Love's Growth."

As princes do in times of action get
New taxes, and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate this spring’s increase.

"Well, they might do that also, since one particular member seems to be longer on money than sense. "

Ms. Hilton has actually done something with what she was given. She inherited money, yet works for a living. She's made a unique move; replacing "envy+lust" with "avarice+lust" as a road to modelling success.

She's famous for being famous, and getting rich from being rich. It is an achievement.

I don't like what it says about the rest of the US, but she has made far more than she will inherit [has inherited? ]

In short: I think she's a horrible tacky person, but I admire her pure capitalistic talent.

The moon would be a great site for astronomy. Craters provide natural shapes for large dishes, and if you build them on the far side, you're shielded from the earth's visual light and radio pollution. It would be easier to service than the Hubble.

"The moon would be a great site for astronomy. [snip] It would be easier to service than the Hubble."

Aside from the fact that the US can get to LEO with crewed ships currently in stock but hasn't had the technology to send people to the Moon for about thirty years.

They can service Hubble, but don't want to do it. Someone might get hurt. The astronomers and cosmologists aren't happy with that decision. (I'm not happy either; I think of Hubble as 'my idiot nephew' because of all the bits of optics my sister worked on.)

Someone could just as easily get hurt constructing/servicing a moonscope. Where hurt = dead.

No, the argument has to be, we're going to Mars, might as well stop at the Moon on the way out. The Moon is not an end unto itself.

But it's all just smoke and mirrors. The only reason I can think of for this country, let alone this administration, really pursuing either the Moon or Mars is, well, contractors. Somebody has friends at Lockheed as well as Haliburton, and with no tangible wars to fight they're going to need another source of income to keep their share prices high.

Public opinion and the polls certainly can't be the motivating factor -- it's too expensive, and there's just not enough support.

And the other piece of comment spam.

"Victorious warriors win first then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first then seek to win."

-Sun-tzu, The Art of War