Alan Boyle update

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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jrvz
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jul 09, 2009 5:28 pm

Re: Military organizations in space

Post by jrvz »

rjaypeters wrote:I think which model (e.g. air force or navy) will prevail will depend on the nature of the operations undertaken. Long-endurance, independent commands? The navies of the world do that kind of work. Short missions which are dependent on relatively local and centralized resources? Air forces operate in this fashion.
I agree, and would broaden the argument. Consider David Friedman's essay "The Economics of War" http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/ ... of_war.htm. He points out that in a land battle, each soldier can either stand and fight, or run away. Much of the organization, tradition, and training of an army is intended to ensure that he fights.

The navy has a different problem, in that a sailor cannot walk away from the battle. However, he has to be motivated to keep up his equipment and training so he can fight when needed.

The air force has a different problem yet, in that the vast majority of airmen are never even close to the battle. They need motivation to keep up equipment and training to ensure the effectiveness of the few people in flight crews that do go into battle.

If operations turn out to be more like the robot exploration of Mars (i.e. where at the end of the shift the pilots go home to their families), then it sounds right for the air force. But if it requires people in space for weeks or months at a time, it'll be a navy job.
- Jim Van Zandt

93143
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Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:51 pm

Post by 93143 »

That might depend on where the action is happening. Lightspeed delays mean that remote operation is only feasible over short distances. The Mars rovers are a pain to drive in large part because of the 6- to 45-minute signal round trip.

Skipjack
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Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

The Mars rovers are a pain to drive in large part because of the 6- to 45-minute signal round trip.
Yeah, 40 minutes is the worst case scenario though, from what I gather.
The shortest time should be 4 minutes (8 minute round trip).

CaptainBeowulf
Posts: 498
Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:35 am

Post by CaptainBeowulf »

There probably really will be a combination of roles. You'll likely have small automated vehicles for reconnaissance and exploration - UAV (USVs? Unmanned Space Vehicles), small landing craft that deploy surface rovers, etc. However, as others have pointed out, you'll need a manned ship nearby to do real-time teleoperation. Also, automated vehicles would return to the mothership for repair and resupply... and the mothership could deploy teams of people to do repairs on, say, a rover that gets broken or stuck.

Setting up bases, mining operations, all sorts of complex work, will need people on scene.

One question that comes to my mind is airspace control when the ships are entering or leaving Earth's gravity well. At low altitudes they'll have to cooperate with traditional air traffic. The Air Force has a lot of experience with developing mission plans to coordinate large numbers of missions over periods of days in campaigns... but then the Navy does as well, with its aircraft carriers. If groups of ships go on missions together a well developed aerospace control system aboard at least the command ship will be needed... perhaps drawing on aircraft carrier experience.

When I said 90 year interservice rivalry, I was basically estimating back to late World War I as the de facto beginning of Western air forces. However, technically the USAF only came into existence in 1947. IIRC the aeronautical division of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, created in 1907, could be taken as the beginning of the U.S. air force, though maybe someone could correct me on that. From my history reading I know that a lot of air power advocates were always very anxious to get their own service from WWI right through WWII, and chafed at air assets being under control of the Army or Navy. That's why I'm sure they'd get pretty upset if the Navy got a big hand in space...

93143
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Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:51 pm

Post by 93143 »

Skipjack wrote:
The Mars rovers are a pain to drive in large part because of the 6- to 45-minute signal round trip.
Yeah, 40 minutes is the worst case scenario though, from what I gather.
The shortest time should be 4 minutes (8 minute round trip).
I just Googled "mars earth distance" and used numbers from Answers.com. I do know Mars has been closer than 8 light minutes in the past; it just doesn't do it every year.

rjaypeters
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Location: Summerville SC, USA

Post by rjaypeters »

Although I generally like teleoperated equipment for some applications, beyond short ranges, the light-speed lag is probably too much of a problem as 93143 points out.

Also, the U.S.N. and U.S.A.F. are keenly interested in teleoperations because of advantages previously cited, so I don't think the presence or absence of teleoperations will drive the organizational models. Similarly with the army model, until there is some place to "dig in", I don't think there will a space military which emphasises army-style training, doctrine, etc.*
CaptainBeowulf wrote:That's why I'm sure they'd get pretty upset if the Navy got a big hand in space...
Well, Captain, that's why I'm thinking about different names for a notional space military organization. So I looked at a thesaurus. Some potential root words:

Code: Select all

star => stellar => stellary?
planet => wanderer => ?
Space => void => ?
Stellary is probably to grandiose since we haven't even made it to Mars yet. The other possible roots haven't inspired me either.
jrvz wrote:The air force has a different problem yet, in that the vast majority of airmen are never even close to the battle.
From what I remember, the enlisted folk of the Air Force consider this an advantage.

*Although, again, back in the day, there was a U.S. Army component command to the U. S. Space Command, but their emphasis was getting some good data to support the grunt on the ground.
"Aqaba! By Land!" T. E. Lawrence

R. Peters

CaptainBeowulf
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Post by CaptainBeowulf »

In terms of EMC2, I think that this most recent update shows that genuine research is continuing. The fact that it's behind schedule doesn't surprise me. Complex research usually takes longer than expected.

Basically, if they are still playing with WB-8/8.1, leave them alone to play with it. Once it seems that they've wrapped up the WB-8 series experiments, then it will be entirely reasonable (not just legally appropriate) for U.S. citizens to demand to know what the results were with FOIAs.

CaptainBeowulf
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Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:35 am

Post by CaptainBeowulf »

Problem is, in the English language most phrases other than "space force" or "space navy" sound a bit silly, just as you found with "stellary."

Space command is a good compromise for the time being, but it won't really sound right as a description for an entire organization operating right out into the Kuiper belt or Oort cloud.

Enginerd
Posts: 189
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:29 am

Post by Enginerd »

GIThruster wrote:Tom, that's all true and makes good sense, but it is certainly a violation of the rule of law. Because the project is not classified, and is funded by USG, it is subject to FOIA. The way Navy is thwarting the law is to get EMC2 to claim ALL the work is proprietary when it is not. EMC2 is claiming it's the Navy that wants it hushed, and the Navy is claiming it's EMC2 that wants it hushed. The law of the land says that since we're paying for it, we have a right to know what's going on unless there is a national security issue at hand--and there is not. So even though Nebel's reasoning makes perfect sense to me, it still leads to a violation of the law.
I would expect that the statements by Park in the recent Boyle interview:
Currently all our funding comes from the Navy," Park said. "That's our customer. Our customer desired that we keep most of our progress confidential. ... They're somewhat concerned about making too much hype without delivering an actual product."
could be used in a renewed FOIA request, since this directly contradicts the statements from EMC2 in the previous FOIA request, stating that the Navy was perfectly happy to release the final WB-7 report but that it was EMC2 that did not want to release anything. Here, EMC2 is openly stating on the record that the Navy asked them to keep things confidential...

93143
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Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:51 pm

Post by 93143 »

rjaypeters wrote:Also, the U.S.N. and U.S.A.F. are keenly interested in teleoperations because of advantages previously cited, so I don't think the presence or absence of teleoperations will drive the organizational models.
What I was getting at is, it may affect where you need humans to be and for how long. Space is big, and transit times in our solar system tend to be in months even for advanced propulsion and power systems. Even Mach-effect thrusters wouldn't change this too much; a 4-gee brachistochrone sprint to Mars at closest approach would still take about a day, and one gee at the furthest remove would be almost five. Bring the Kuiper belt into the mix, and you're talking weeks even at one gee.

You could just use a fully-autonomous robotic force, I suppose...

Betruger
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Post by Betruger »

Enginerd wrote: could be used in a renewed FOIA request, since this directly contradicts the statements from EMC2 in the previous FOIA request, stating that the Navy was perfectly happy to release the final WB-7 report but that it was EMC2 that did not want to release anything. Here, EMC2 is openly stating on the record that the Navy asked them to keep things confidential...
Sounds like a good way to make EMC2 clam up even more than it has already.

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

93143 wrote:
Skipjack wrote:
The Mars rovers are a pain to drive in large part because of the 6- to 45-minute signal round trip.
Yeah, 40 minutes is the worst case scenario though, from what I gather.
The shortest time should be 4 minutes (8 minute round trip).
I just Googled "mars earth distance" and used numbers from Answers.com. I do know Mars has been closer than 8 light minutes in the past; it just doesn't do it every year.
At the risk of being scolded for being off topic, and since this issue has a few posts, it's worth noting that if the advent of M-E technology is the thing that disrupts and enables the kind of move into space we're here considering, that M-E tech ought also to enable real time communications over any distance via passing a signal through a small wormhole.

"Absurdly benign" wormholes are those with so much negative mass that the openings do not cause severe gravitational distortions that would kill a person passing through, but wormholes intended only to pass an EM signal would be much easier to build. It's quite possible they could be used for GN&C in real time at any distance, with a wormhole generator the size that would fit on a desk.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

GIThruster
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Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

palladin9479 wrote:GIT,

Try to think about it the other way. Do you ~want~ it made into a "national" secret? That is very easy to do, only requires the stroke of a pen from the nearest flag officer. I for one would much rather then use the back-door hush method then the official secret hush method, the first being easy to dispel the later being much more difficult.
I do appreciate the point, but what I'd really like is for everyone in USG to respect the rule of law. There are plenty of people who could classify Poly with the wave of a hand. Failing this, it is hard to take that EMC2 is claiming everything is proprietary. Seems to me the best solution is for EMC2 and the Navy to agree upon a larger data set to release, and so serve both their need for some privacy and the rule of law.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Ivy Matt
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Joined: Sat May 01, 2010 6:43 am

Post by Ivy Matt »

I'm not sure I see a point to issuing a FOIA request while the deliverables required by the contract still have yet to be delivered.

Or would this FOIA still be for WB-7 results?
Temperature, density, confinement time: pick any two.

rjaypeters
Posts: 869
Joined: Fri Aug 20, 2010 2:04 pm
Location: Summerville SC, USA

Post by rjaypeters »

93143 wrote:You could just use a fully-autonomous robotic force, I suppose...
We've had that discussion elswhere, I believe. Few believe a fully-autonomous robotic force would do just what we want, but then neither does any military organization do just what the civilians want.

Your idea now has suspiciously more merit...
"Aqaba! By Land!" T. E. Lawrence

R. Peters

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