SH3RL0CK

Well, I think it is worthwhile to judge a program based upon its total effect on society in addition to its stated objectives. We are all aware of the effects caused by unintended consequences.

If you can get to the speed you want, why couldn't you supply sufficient thrust to maintain? The maintenance thrust required is considerably less than that required to reach the desired speed in the first place.

I would add the following for judgement of the program: 5) While the overall intent is stimulus, one of the minor objectives is a reduction of the greenhouse gasses produced. At least, according to some of the media reports I have heard. It would be interesting to compare the CO2 decrease caused by people driving more efficient vehicles with the increase of CO2 caused by more cars being manufacturered, or at least being manufactured at a faster rate (it does take a tremendous amount of energy = CO2 emissions to manufacture cars). 6) Safety is always an issue. Smaller cars (which are more fuel efficient) tend to do worse in crash tests than large cars (which burn more gas). But on the other hand, they are installed with more and better safety features. It would also be interesting to compare the impact on injury and fatality rates caused by the program.

I'd like to point out that at an age of the universe of 3 billion years old, the galaxies were considerably closer together than they are now. So a civilization at this time would have less trouble crossing between galaxies. So, I tend to ask as Arch does, where are they?

But it won't all be spent on Nov. 1. It will be spent throughout the year. fair enough.

still rather slow, imo still a year after the bill was passed... has it? how do we know this? But I'll conceed this point as it only reinforces the thought that we therefore only needed to spend 7% (or 14%) of the total. Well, you just said you trust them more than the public.

Well, the point of a stimulus bill is to stimulate the economy. Since only 7% of the money has been spent after 6 months (and, it seems to me, sometimes in ways that aren't by nature stimulus, but this isn't my point), clearly it hasn't really stimulated the economy like the full amount could have. Now maybe the 7% spent now has prevented a "Great Depression" and I don't disagree with this. However, the plan is to spend most of this money years from now, when the economy might be quite good (because who can predict what the economy will be in two years?) it can't be for stimulus. Because we might not need (or want if there is inflation ) "stimulus" then. My take on it is that the government took advantage of the sharp downturn in the economy to justify a massive increase that the public would never have permitted under normal circumstances. They provided just enough immediate "stimulus" to make it so they can claim the moral high ground of trying to help the situation. They claim the future spending is for the long-term restructuring for economic stability (but only when they are rarely forced to discuss this point of the bill). In my opinion, this is dishonest and disingenious on the part of all the politicians. And I am sorry you trust our politicians over the public. Maybe I'm naive, but I'd rather trust the public. Politicians are much more stupid and "jingoistic" than even the public.

Herein lies my problem with "stimulus" bill; it isn't a stimulus bill. A stimulus bill gets money to the economy quickly so the economy may be stimulated. IIRC, much of the spending isn't scheduled until 2010, 2011, and 2012 . This is a massive increase in the federal government bill, where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to reduce the spending down to the former levels. I don't have a particular problem with or without a true stimulus bill. I don't have a problem with increasing the size of the federal government if increasing it is truely justified. But I am bothered by the deceit in that this bill was (and is) called something it is not as I very much doubt the public would have approved of either 1) no stimulus bill (clearly something needed to be done) or 2) such a massive increase in the "normal" federal budget. (And no, I'm not a republican hack, I dislike both parties because they both lie to the public).

A baseball bat to the head will put someone to sleep.

Tolmosff - Many of the worst criminals have public defenders. You know, when the courts appoint a lawyer to them because they cannot afford one on their own. Yep, the lawyer who would prefer working on a case where they would be better paid and one where they could be proud of their work. Do you really imagine many lawyers really want to be known as the guy who defended "the Shropshire slasher"? Lawyers love publicity, but only when it is good publicity; they have lives (as well as family) outside the court just like anyone else. So should these lawyers (who really did not want to represent these people anyway, but someone needed to) be held accountable for the actions of the worst criminals? Also, its isn't always their lawyers who get these worst criminals out on parole. A parole board (not the criminals lawyer) determines when a criminal gets released.

I read a story a long time ago about a shipwrecked crew who lived on potatoes for over a year. I guess it wasn't completely potatoes (I'm sure the hungry crew caught a few fish too), but I would think you could go a long time on just potatoes; probably even longer on sweet potatos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato#Nutrition Since the sweet potato will provide Vitamin A and Vitamin D can be had from sunshine, maybe this would be good enough? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato#Nutrition_and_health_benefits

The bigger problem, IMO, would be how to transfer the hydrogen from the balloon to a tank so it can be compressed for a jet or rocket nozzle without falling to the ground first. You can't just suck it out of the balloon as you go because the balloon will distort such that it is in the jet exhaust and/or becomes a very large drag at any meaningful speed. Of course, since the balloon can be an arbitrary size, just hoist up the fueled rocket with a really big balloon.

We just discussed something similar regarding the bermuda triangle here: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=41122&highlight=bermuda which might answer your questions. Ditto Sisyphus, what is the alleged mystery regarding the Mariana trench?

hemantc007 - have you taken a look at the link posted by DH? You also stated: yes, but you can be 99.9999999999999999999% sure...unless of course you know the function is "valid" as I believe it to be in the case of the Apollo program. Which is more likely, that we went to the moon or that we set up this hoax? I say we went to the moon.

Thanks Cap'n! iNow, it makes some sense. However, plant metabolism may slow down but nothing says there couldn't be more plants. Moreover, a lack of water certainly isn't present in the ocean which covers most of the surface of the earth (however, I can see a lack of nutrients being present in the ocean... ). Fung did this analysis by computer modeling, I will have to search to see if there is any actual testing which verifies this to be the case...perhaps more later... Another thought, does this mean if people were to reduce the carbon output via fossil fuels to 50% of todays levels (which I think is possible), the plants would eventually return the atmospheric CO2 levels back to pre-industrial levels?

This does bring up a question I have with regards to global warming. From John's post above: It seems to me that the ppm atmospheric increase in CO2 (shown by various ice core data) is because of the cumulative addition of industry year after year. Without burning fossil fuels, nature is in a balance; 770Gt produced and 770Gt sequestered in plant material. So why is it that a mere 3% increase in CO2 emissions isn't all taken up by the environment? Why don't plants simply absorb this additional carbon? Is the ecosystem this finely balanced that some kind of limit is reached? Mods: Upon reflection, this question is not relevant to the topic of this thread, please move to a new thread to avoid threadjacking. Thank you.

How did you get the answer without knowing how you got it?

Politics notwithstanding, the Apollo program was an incredible achievement for science. We are still trying to understand all the data and samples that were gathered 40 years ago. Mars is going to be out of reach for people for quite a while yet, IMO. Had we maintained the knowledge of how to build the Saturn V rocket, a NEO asteroid might be possible. And it will be possible again, assuming the Aries rocket is actually built (though I have to ask why not just re-construct the Saturn V?). A visit to a NEO asteroid would no doubt provide a scientific bonanza far beyond the application of how to prevent an earth-impact with one. I don't feel this would be a waste of resources.

The potential energy is the same between the two systems. You have X number of barrels of oil to lift Y meters. If you think this is a lot of petrol to lift just to get a drop, then keep in mind it is no different than with your bucket idea. Except that you bucket idea is much less efficient. And much slower. And more likely to have mechanical breakdowns. And needs a bigger hole. And needs a bigger "cap" to prevent gushers. And cannot work offshore. And requires more material to fill the hole back in when the well is depleted. And so on... But still, I'm sure you have answers for all the above concerns and will win the nobel prize. Why waste your time on this forum (where someone might steal this idea), get out and make this happen!

Not nearly as small as I can make a pipe. And not nearly as fast as I can pump oil through said pipe. But anyway, to be optimistic, I congratulate you in advance, for receiving the nobel prize...

With the $Billions currently being spent by oil companies on research, how is it that no one has come up with this idea before? Could it be because this idea isn't feasible? Not meaning to discourage your ideas, but I don't see it as solving anything. I'm not an expert on oil, however I see some potential problems with your idea: Are you proposing to dig a very large hole (say approx. 600 mm?) for your buckets instead of a small hole (approx. 150mm) for a pipe? For the distance of a typical oil well say 1500 m? That is very much more digging. Also, are you aware that a pump/pipe combination is much more efficient than your bucket mechanism? Again you will get less oil from more work... Some oil wells are under pressure and will erupt crude oil in a "gusher" once the overlying rock has been breached. This is an environmental nightmare as well as a waste of oil. Fortunately, this can be readily capped off when a pipe is used, resulting in no oil loss/escape. How do you propose to cap off your open pit required for your buckets? Additionally, modern oil wells often inject water, natural gas, CO2, and/or other substances to force the oil out more efficiently because of the higher underground pressure. Typically this is done to extend the life of the well when it becomes old and depleted. With are large open pit, how do you propose to maintain this additional pressure? Just some things for you to think about... I do notice you state "patent pending". Please do keep us informed. If you (or Paul Griifiths) are granted this patent, I will be the first to congratulate you!

Excellent link, thank you. I think the knowledge that is lacking is the following: 1) What will be the future temperature rise and the corresponding problems associated with this? 2) What should be done to reverse this trend, or at least mitigate it? These are really more economic and policy questions than science. The correct modelling is very important, IMO, because in setting policy the should be some kind of cost/benefit analysis performed. Even a few tenths of a degree rise seems to have big implications regarding sea level rise, rainfall changes, etc. in the computer models. Additionally, we need to be sure the models are correct because if they are wrong, our politicians might spend and regulate (same thing) more than necessary; might spend on proposals that don't work, or worse they might not spend enough to prevent a catastrophe. I'd rather err on the side of caution. But I don't want to throw money away on ineffective solutions either.

I suppose this could be argued. But since the farmers are free to buy rice seed (except perhaps the GM variety) from anyone, I don't see this as a strong arguement. True, the poor farmers will want to buy the seed once, then replant every year from the first harvest. Too bad (in these cases) companies need profits and design the seed to be sterile...though I don't know that this has actually happened.

I do think NOAA would be a respectable dataset and should not be lightly disregarded. If this differs from NASA certainly I would question both sets of data, even if NASA data was from multiple sources. As I have stated before, we need to know considerably more about climate than we do. A temperature increase difference of even a few tenths of a degree makes a big difference.

Then, there is the possibility of modifying crops to be more nutritous. This would have incredible value in many parts of the world where, for most people, the diet is almost exclusively one crop (such as rice). Even today, millions of people are vitamin deficient. This is something I find difficult to argue against.