The Standard Model Imploding?

rcain · Post by **rcain** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 12:15 pm

Giorgio wrote:...
I am holding my best shots for when the James Webb Telescope will be functional. His data should clarify many points.
Sometimes I wonder what will happen if it will show objects quite beyond the supposed beginning of space and time. Maybe they will adjust the BB/Lambda CDM model by introducing also a "dark time" term.

Interesting times ahead as you said.

unfortunately James Webb Telescope's future/reality seems to hang in the balance at the moment - big calls in the USA to pull the plug on the project - even at this late stage.

Lambda-CDM Model certainly seems to be a 'rational' model, and a good way to start looking at the anomalies of big science - ie. what would it take of what we 'do' know about (in some other form), to correct the 'defects' we find in our own logical predictions of the universe as we 'find' it.

with things at the very small scale also looking very 'kooky' at the moment (eg: 'no Higgs' ), looks like some 'dark time' may well be on the agenda. its what we all need at the moment, lets face it

rcain · Post by **rcain** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 12:58 pm

Maui wrote:
rcain wrote:as to your second point - my belief is actually the opposite - that we will always be left with some form of 'hidden variable' theory, since it is fundamental and common to the languages of both mathematics/algebra and phenomenology - just another example of 'duality' as a basis/axiom.
But isn't the definition of a duality that it is valid to describe the subject in both ways? I highly doubt it will turn out that we can describe the universe both as expanding from a BB and as steady state.
...

not really what i was meant. i was using it in the sense of 'what is' and 'what is not' - 'something'. 'symmetry', 'analogy' i hadn't really considered.

I think you are right in that it is unlikely we will consider 'BB as steady state', but stranger things have happened - consider 'light - as particle and wave'.

Maui wrote:...
So what is the "hidden variable"? Is it that there is an unobservable form of energy and matter that when present in the right quantities make our equations work? Or is it that there is something fundamental about our observations and measurements of the universe that we don't understand?

Doesn't the later seem more likely? To me the former seems akin to measuring a rock in January, then measuring it again in July, then concluding that there must be an as yet undiscovered "dark energy" that is causing it to expand over time.

they may be the same.

nearest analogy i can think of - 'discovering radio waves for the first time in history' - without (having invented/discovered) an appropriate receiver/transducer, we'd be totally oblivious to the fact there's a whole RF spectrum out there.

if it isn't 'dark matter' then it has the effect of so much equivalent 'matter'- like quantity. or, could very well be gross systematic measurement error. or could it ?

i think we will be astonished by what we find, either way.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 1:03 pm

unfortunately James Webb Telescope's future/reality seems to hang in the balance at the moment

Yes, the Senators Hutchinson, Hatch, Nelson and shameless Shelby rather want their 60 billion pork SLS- rocket funded than the JWST. If they cancelled the SLS and only fully funded CCDev and other commercial ventures instead, there would be more than enough money for the JWST and several other projects like that.
While I agree with the tea party on the SLS- topic, I do not agree with them on the JWST topic (they want it cancelled). Yes there has been some really, really gross missmanagement on the JWST project but the thing is now 85% complete. Plus I think that the European partners would not be too happy to see their investment cancelled.

rcain · Post by **rcain** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 2:12 pm

Skipjack wrote:
unfortunately James Webb Telescope's future/reality seems to hang in the balance at the moment
Yes, the Senators Hutchinson, Hatch, Nelson and shameless Shelby rather want their 60 billion pork SLS- rocket funded than the JWST. If they cancelled the SLS and only fully funded CCDev and other commercial ventures instead, there would be more than enough money for the JWST and several other projects like that.
While I agree with the tea party on the SLS- topic, I do not agree with them on the JWST topic (they want it cancelled). Yes there has been some really, really gross missmanagement on the JWST project but the thing is now 85% complete. Plus I think that the European partners would not be too happy to see their investment cancelled.

wow! i see what you mean. a lot of politics going on there i was unaware of.

here are a few recent links i pulled up on SLS:

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/110401-b ... yoffs.html - april 1 2011

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2011/06/s ... et-na.html - june 7 2011

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/07/14/ ... ls-rocket/ - july 14 2011

http://satellite.tmcnet.com/topics/sate ... rocket.htm - august 29 2011

and here a few links for CCD/CCDev:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial ... evelopment

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/partne ... _info.html

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/110418-c ... today.html - april 18 2011

http://www.spacepolitics.com/2011/08/24 ... s-failure/ - aug 24 2011

Boeing involved also. Big bucks, and jobs, jobs, jobs...

rcain · Post by **rcain** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 2:31 pm

ps. maybe China, India, Arab states ought to be footing more of the bill for fundamental astronomy/science like the James-Webb?

(even though it does sound hideously over budget, etc).

Giorgio · Post by **Giorgio** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 2:41 pm

I was going to suggest exactly the same.
Instead of leaving it in a storehouse maye they can check if some other country is willing to fork the bill to launch it in space.

rcain · Post by **rcain** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 2:55 pm

yep. nice prestige project project like that, great PR - the logo of PRC alongside that of NASA on every image published, perhaps ( i dont know if they would consider that a good thing?). chance to show off/leverage-in your own launch capabilities perhaps?

anyway, whoever IS sitting on large piles of cash, ought to stump it up in the name of 'humanity' - IMHO

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 6:12 pm

The SLS is probably the biggest waste of money in NASA history. It is a rocket without a mission, because it costs to much to fly that there is no money left for anything to be put on top of it. Calling it a backup for commercial crew is absolute BS! Flying crew to the ISS on it is a complete waste of money and probably the dumbest thing to do. It is like using a Saturn V to do a suborbital flight a la Space Ship One.
The thing is that NOBODY needs a rocket like this. You can do everything with multiple launches of a smaller rocket and orbital fuel depots. More frequent flights of smaller/cheaper/operationally more efficient rockts lower the cost per flight as well and open the path to RLVs (RLVS need frequent flights to reduce the operational cost overhead inbetween flights).
The SLS is going to cost billions just sitting there because of that, with a flight every two years unless NASA gets additional money to fly it more often. It is totally ridiculous!

rcain · Post by **rcain** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 9:01 pm

Skipjack wrote:The SLS is probably the biggest waste of money in NASA history. It is a rocket without a mission, because it costs to much to fly that there is no money left for anything to be put on top of it. Calling it a backup for commercial crew is absolute BS! Flying crew to the ISS on it is a complete waste of money and probably the dumbest thing to do. It is like using a Saturn V to do a suborbital flight a la Space Ship One....

i dare say. there is no money left is for sure.

but someone needs a heavy lifter in their fleet somewhere, surely?

fair enough, crew can go up on reliable Soviet rockets.

Skipjack wrote:...
The thing is that NOBODY needs a rocket like this. You can do everything with multiple launches of a smaller rocket and orbital fuel depots.
...

can i ask please... please could you keep your orbiting fuel depots orbiting around the moon, or the sun, or something - NOT the earth please! (too much shit up there as it is).

while we're at at, lets move all materials manufacturing to the moon - put the robots in charge

Skipjack wrote:...
More frequent flights of smaller/cheaper/operationally more efficient rockts lower the cost per flight as well and open the path to RLVs (RLVS need frequent flights to reduce the operational cost overhead inbetween flights)....

that's not always going to be the case though, is it. think economies of scale, vs economies of payload per launch - makes sense to get as much shit as you can get up there in one go - unless you mess it up of course - in which case it messes up big time. (think Beoing 747).

Skipjack wrote: The SLS is going to cost billions just sitting there because of that, with a flight every two years unless NASA gets additional money to fly it more often. It is totally ridiculous!

... big ole gas guzzler in the garage - its the American way I fear.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 1:31 am

but someone needs a heavy lifter in their fleet somewhere, surely?

Heavy lifter yes, Super Heavy Lifter like the SLS, no.
We have gathered enough experience with orbital assembly techniques that most things can be easily done with a heavy lifter like the Falcon Heavy which costs the US taxpayer almost nothing and only ~70 million per launch versus a couple of billions of the SLS.

fair enough, crew can go up on reliable Soviet rockets.

Well, there will be serveral commercial supplyers from the US, if the funding for that does not get cancelled in order to keep the SLS going. The SLS wont be flying crew until way in the 2020ies. So until then, it would be the Russians, unless commercial crew gets fully funded. SpaceX claims that they could be flying crew 3 years after funding gets approved.

can i ask please... please could you keep your orbiting fuel depots orbiting around the moon, or the sun, or something - NOT the earth please! (too much shit up there as it is).

Well stuff that has power to control its orbit and at the end of its use to deorbit, is not much of a problem. The real problem is chunk that was put up there without a plan for getting it down again at the end of its lifetime.
An orbital fuel depot or maybe two wont really add much to the space chunk problem either way.

that's not always going to be the case though, is it. think economies of scale, vs economies of payload per launch - makes sense to get as much shit as you can get up there in one go - unless you mess it up of course - in which case it messes up big time. (think Beoing 747).

That is unfortunately not quite so simple. You also want to be able to fly people and materials frequently and on demand. So if you would not have enough stuff to fill up your 130 ton payload SLS, you will have to fly half empty. Also, unfortunately, you do need the workforce for the launch activity either way, whether you launch once a year or 100 times a year. You have to pay them and the guys that build the rocket too, whether you fly one rocket or 10. This problem is even worse with rockets that are not fully reusable, or not reusable at all as would be the case with the SLS (reusing the SRBs is not really cost efficient and more a work programme than a cost saver).

big ole gas guzzler in the garage - its the American way I fear.

Well there are several commercial companies including Boeing that dont think it has to be that way.

Maui · Post by **Maui** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 1:48 am

The underlying problem is that we need to recognize there's no point to sending humans beyond earth orbit (and even then its benefit is questionable). We stand to learn so much more by focusing all money on probes rather than all the immensely expensive systems required to send humans (including SLS).

Giorgio · Post by **Giorgio** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 10:27 am

Skipjack wrote:The SLS is probably the biggest waste of money in NASA history. It is a rocket without a mission, because it costs to much to fly that there is no money left for anything to be put on top of it.

Now, don't be so harsh... I can clearly see SLS main scope and mission.
At least a dozen companies and a couple of hundreds of individual will become extremely rich with little effort thanks to al the money NASA will waste in consultancy. Call it an "Economic Stimulus" mission.

But really, NASA stopped being a Space Administration right after the Saturn V project. All the rest has been bad ideas, bad implementations and, mostly, bad jokes.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 10:44 am

But really, NASA stopped being a Space Administration right after the Saturn V project. All the rest has been bad ideas, bad implementations and, mostly, bad jokes.

Yepp, they seriously pissed off von Braun in the process. Ever since he left, NASA has sucked. The space shuttle was a big fail and any launch vehicle project that NASA has ever done since has failed as well.
Most of them due to crappy management and politics.
This administrations original plan for NASA was very good (and actually quite libertarian in nature), but both republicans and democrats did not support it, but rather wanted to make sure that the shuttle- pork kept flowing into the same pockets via SLS contracts...
The thing is that this sort of thinking will actually hurt states like Texas and Florida in the long term, since the commercials would have probably brought more money and more real jobs (not government wellfare jobs) into these states.

rcain · Post by **rcain** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 10:58 am

@giorgio - blimey! now who's being harsh

lot of dead astronaut's might agree with you there, though none publicly, i dare say.

but we must remember NASA for it's achievements, not only it's failures. and they have had a bit of a rough time lately (...past 40 years).

NASA still means 'Space'.

@Maui - i think, human missions do have a benefit - but only if they are intrepid enough. they 'stir' the human spirit, gain network time, spawn other industries, etc. what's more, they make better subjects for science fiction movies.

i rest my case.

(though i am also much in favour of using probes wherever the imagination will allow. if that isn't extraordinarily rude to suggest. there is little limit to where a probe may go.)

@Skipjack - re: fuel depot's falling out of orbit - it wasn't the empty ones i was worrying about .. landing in my backyard..., besides, you still got to haul it all up there.

re: economies of scale - its a linear programming problem - exact/optimal solutions will depend on the circumstances prevailing - demand, competition, down-time, fuel, etc, etc. but when you got as many rockets going off the pads as ground facilities can cope with, then you start putting up bigger rockets. or some mixed (payload) strategy. depends what you are hauling, and to where.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Sep 11, 2011 7:00 pm

fuel depot's falling out of orbit - it wasn't the empty ones i was worrying about .. landing in my backyard..., besides, you still got to haul it all up there.

LOL, as can be quite clearly seen with the space junk problem, once something is up there, it is kinda hard to get it down again