Google gives up on renewables

[freebeard]

Hold on a minute. The Paperclip/Nazis were responsible for everything up to Gemini. They consorted with German scientists in USSR to determine the first country into space.

Appollo was from the Yugoslavian space program. Study it out.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by freebeard

But...Universe itself is sustainable. Entropy doesn't rule everywhere, all the time.

But it does. The universe will run down in a mere 10^100 years or so.

Originally Posted by Nigel_S

Very misleading - don't forget that the prototypes for the propulsion system where not developed by the USA...

But the basic technology and original prototypes were, in fact, developed in the US. See e.g. Robert H. Goddard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But it does. The universe will run down in a mere 10^100 years or so.

Unless it doesn't ... ever

Like the 'something-from-nothing' origin theory described in physics.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by IamIan

Unless it doesn't ... ever

I'm really not all that bothered, either way. I know it's short-term thinking, but I just can't get worried over anything beyond 10^9 years or so.

[Nigel_S]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But the basic technology and original prototypes were, in fact, developed in the US. See e.g. Robert H. Goddard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rockets were invented in China thousands of years ago, from there they spread to Mongolia, then India and then to the UK, it was the UK that introduced them to America. Goddard may have had some good ideas but the USA population certainly didn't make it "beyond low Earth orbit" on their own as was suggested.

Wernher von Braun: Wernher von Braun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - born in Poland, a descendent of King Edward III of England and who unlike Goddard actually worked at NASA on the Saturn V rocket that took the USA "beyond low Earth orbit"!

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Nigel_S

Rockets were invented in China thousands of years ago...

Chinese &c rockets were all solid fuel, not useful for much beyond fireworks and short-range military weapons. By similar logic, you could just as well claim that squid are responsible for rocket engines :-)

Wernher von Braun: Wernher von Braun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - born in Poland...

Had you bothered to read a bit further in that article, you would have found that von Braun became a US citizen in 1955.

However, this is all nothing but a distraction from the point I made, which is that a population the size of the US population in 1970 could easily furnish the economic & technical capability to land people on other celestial bodies. Of course accidents of history and the interchange of ideas means that not everything was done by the US alone - but by the same token, there were many people in the US who had nothing at all to do with the space program.

Indeed, I think it could be pretty easily argued that the actual population needed (assuming they are committed to the goal) is a good deal less than the ~200 million US population in 1970. Even at the peak of the Apollo program, NASA's funding never reached 4.5% of the Federal budget File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and that budget was less than 30% of GDP.

Since the entire Apollo program was done for less than 1.5% of US GDP, that pretty well demonstrates that a larger population is not necessary.

[Nigel_S]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Chinese &c rockets were all solid fuel, not useful for much beyond fireworks and short-range military weapons. By similar logic, you could just as well claim that squid are responsible for rocket engines :-)

NASA still uses solid rockets and the space shuttle would never have left the ground without its solid rocket boosters!

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Had you bothered to read a bit further in that article, you would have found that von Braun became a US citizen in 1955.

So the USA imported most of the knowledge, expertise and experience used to make the Saturn V rockets and more or less stole many V2 rockets which it then carried out experiments and test flights with - the USA started with something that was already in mass production and proven to fly reliably. That obviously had a huge impact on the costs required while the country that paid for the development of the V2 went bankrupt, partly because of the cost of the V2 rocket.

[user removed]

Originally Posted by Nigel_S

Very misleading - don't forget that the prototypes for the propulsion system where not developed by the USA and did cost around 20,000 lives of the slaves who were forced to build them, many of them executed:


BBC - Future - V2: The Nazi rocket that launched the space age

Try 75+ million lives, but after reading through this thread, it's easy to see how THAT happened.

regards
mech

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Nigel_S

NASA still uses solid rockets and the space shuttle would never have left the ground without its solid rocket boosters!

Which have about as much relationship to Chinese gunpowder-fueled rockets as they do to squid :-)

So the USA imported most of the knowledge, expertise and experience used to make the Saturn V rockets...

By the same logic, you could claim that the entire world automotive industry was based on the knowledge, expertise and experience of Karl Benz.

Even accepting your claim that the US space program was entirely based on German work (whichis obvious BS: even if the Saturn V was a scaled-up V2, the work of actually building them was done in the US), the population of Germany in 1935-45 was between 66-72 million. Add that to the US population circa 1970, and you still have a total of under 300 million. That combined population could and did not only develop a space program; it did so while fighting major wars, and doing much other scientific research, and technical, industrial, and cultural development. So the idea that a population numbering in the billions is needed to develop a space program is pure unadulterated crap (ok, I'll be nice) badly mistaken.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Since the entire Apollo program was done for less than 1.5% of US GDP, that pretty well demonstrates that a larger population is not necessary.

Pretty awesome; when you think about it.