VictorSmith

VictorSmith

44p

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13 years ago @ Space Frontier Foundat... - Foundation Urges Suppo... · 0 replies · +1 points

The fact that NASA and the government are finally acknowledging, and actually promoting private space efforts is a major change in policy. This alone will result in more positive change and actual accomplishment on the space COLONIZATION front than any amount of NASAs runarounds. The X-Prizes started the ball rolling, getting NewSpace companies into suborbital flight, and, now with the Lunar X-Prize, involved with lunar landing and return. With the nod of the administration toward promoting NewSpace companies as one of the major players in providing LEO transport to and from the ISS, including at least a modicum of funding, I fully expect to see a greatly increased civilian presence in space. Given an opening, private sector aerospace companies are ready and willing to leap into the breach. Many, if not all, of the NewSpace companies share our vision of a spacefaring society and have been figuratively chomping at the bit to get any sort of official sanction, let alone funding, to help facilitate their programs. I believe that once we have private spacecraft regularly achieving LEO we will see a greatly accelerated program of industrialization in space, regardless of stated governmental goals. Once private industrialization of space begins in earnest we will see people living and working in space which will lead naturally to private missions to the Near Earth Asteroids, Luna and the Lagrange points for both profit and colonization.

13 years ago @ Austin News, Weather, ... - Textbook tussle attrac... · 0 replies · +1 points

Mrs. W, that's just the problem- not everyone or every side is getting fair representaion. The SBOE is giving undue emphasis to conservative ideals at the expense of the truth as historically recorded. By offering a skewed viewpoint on events, they make inferences that would tend to make a student believe that events were otherwise than they were in truth. Since these skewed viewpoints will be presented in students school textbooks, as absolute truth, students (who will be tested on this material) will naturally assume that they're being presented with the truth. And, worse still, because of the millions of copies of textbooks sold to Texas students, national textbook publishers usually publish ALL their textbooks to adhere to the recommended Texas guidelines and sell the same edition nationwide with the result that 80% of all school districts in America will be educated using Texas standards.

13 years ago @ Austin News, Weather, ... - Textbook tussle attrac... · 0 replies · +1 points

- A reduced scope for Latino history and culture. A proposal to expand such material in recognition of Texas’ rapidly growing Hispanic population was defeated in last week’s meetings, provoking one board member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out in protest. "They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist," she said of her conservative colleagues on the board. "They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."

- Changes in specific terminology. Terms that the board’s conservative majority felt were ideologically loaded are being retired. Hence, “imperialism” as a characterization of America’s modern rise to world power is giving way to “expansionism,” and “capitalism” is being dropped in economic material, in favor of the more positive expression “free market.” (The new recommendations stress the need for favorable depictions of America’s economic superiority across the board.)

- Language that qualifies the legacy of 1960s liberalism. Great Society programs such as Title IX—which provides for equal gender access to educational resources—and affirmative action, intended to remedy historic workplace discrimination against African-Americans, are said to have created adverse “unintended consequences” in the curriculum’s preferred language.

- Thomas Jefferson no longer included among writers influencing the nation’s intellectual origins. Jefferson, a deist who helped pioneer the legal theory of the separation of church and state, is not a model founder in the board’s judgment. Among the intellectual forerunners to be highlighted in Jefferson’s place: medieval Catholic philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, Puritan theologian John Calvin and conservative British law scholar William Blackstone. Heavy emphasis is also to be placed on the founding fathers having been guided by strict Christian beliefs.

- Excision of recent third-party presidential candidates Ralph Nader (from the left) and Ross Perot (from the centrist Reform Party). Meanwhile, the recommendations include an entry listing Confederate General Stonewall Jackson as a role model for effective leadership, and a statement from Confederate President Jefferson Davis accompanying a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

None of these proposals has met with final ratification from the board— that vote will come in May, after a prolonged period of public comment on the recommendations. Still, the conservatives clearly feel like the bulk of their work is done; after the 120-page draft was finalized, Republican board member Terri Leo declared that it was "world class" and "exceptional."

No Partisan group of political appointees should be given the power to say what will be included in textbooks for our public schools. Decisions of this scope should be made by a panel of accepted experts in the fields discussed- scientists, historians, mathematicians, and educators who have distinguished themselves as being competent in their subjects. Additionally, no one states politically appointed board of education should make decisions affecting textbooks nationwide. There should be a federal oversight committee capable of overruling partisan decisions that will adversely affect the educations of our student body.

13 years ago @ Austin News, Weather, ... - Textbook tussle attrac... · 0 replies · +1 points

Texas is a huge market leader in the school-textbook industry. The enormous print run for Texas textbooks leaves most districts in other states adopting the same course materials, so that the Texas School Board effectively spells out requirements for 80 percent of the nation’s textbook market.

Speaking of the SBOEs recommendations for ammending textbook and curriculum standards, Don McElroy, who leads the board’s powerful seven-member social conservative bloc, explained that the measure is a way of "adding balance" in the classroom, since "academia is skewed too far to the left." In a 10-to-5 vote split right down party lines, the Texas State Board of Education approved some controversial right-leaning alterations

— On a 7-6 vote, the board decided to add “causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the National Rifle Association” to the curriculum.

– The Republican majority voted against requiring Texas textbooks and teachers to cover the Democratic late senator Edward Kennedy, the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and leading Hispanic civil rights groups such as LULAC and MALDEF. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Thurgood Marshall, the country’s first African-American Supreme Court justice, will be taught.

– Don McLeroy lost a battle to “remove hip-hop and insert country music in its place from a proposed set of examples of cultural movements.” Republican Patricia Hardy said that while she disliked hip hop music, pretending it wasn’t around was “crazy.” “These people are multimillionaires, and believe me, there are not enough black people to buy that,” she said. “There are white people buying this. It has had a profound effect.” Country music was added as a separate measure.

– McLeroy was successful with another of his noteworthy amendments: A more positive portrayal of Cold War anticommunism. Disgraced anticommunist crusader Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator censured by the Senate for his aggressive targeting of individual citizens and their civil liberties on the basis of their purported ties to the Communist Party, comes in for partial rehabilitation. The board recommends that textbooks refer to documents published since McCarthy’s death and the fall of the Soviet bloc that appear to show expansive Soviet designs to undermine the U.S. government.

– Republican board member Cynthia Dunbar unsuccessfully tried to strike the names of Scopes monkey trial attorney Clarence Darrow and Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey from the standards. Asked by another member about her opposition to Garvey, Dunbar explained, according to the Texas Tribune: “My concern is that he was born in Jamaica and was deported.”

– The board “included a requirement for students in U.S. history classes to differentiate between legal and illegal immigration.”

14 years ago @ Austin News, Weather, ... - Quintana\'s disciplina... · 0 replies · +2 points

Yeah, it's all about the money...that and the chance to scream about african americans being persecuted. The video was explicit in that the officers were reacting to aggression. These people were VIOLENT CRIMINALS WITH FIREARMS! These actions would have played out as they did regardless of race. If you live by the gun and by preying on your fellow man, you WILL eventually die by it as well. The officer acted in the best interest of society at large, and can be faulted only in his failure to engage his camera (which, incidently, I can well understand might slip ones mind under such circumstances). Even the CITIZENS REVIEW TEAM found him otherwise blameless, and that is a council of private citizens including representatives from the neighborhood in question. The parents are continuing to incite the public in the hope of garnering support for a bid for a large settlement when the civil case comes around. Personally I doubt they'll convince a jury based on the facts and will thus gain little in the way of financial remuneration, but they seem to be big opportunists so I'm sure they'll try.

15 years ago @ Change.gov - Space Solar Power (SSP... · 3 replies · +1 points

Post 2 of 2
4. Develop alternative launch technologies such as 'laser launch', 'mass driver technology', or investigate such concepts as the 'rotating sky hook' which are within reach of todays materials technology.
5. Establish permanent "SETTLEMENTS" in space and on the moon. Not only will these provide a ready labor pool for space industry, the humans living off planet will represent an insurance policy in case of a planetary disaster of the sort that we KNOW have happened at irregular intervals throughout the history of our solar system. From the moon, or a settlement at one of the Lagrange points, missions can be dispatched to anywhere in the solar system with little energy expenditure- as Heinlein once wrote: "Once in orbit, you're halfway to anywhere."
6. Investigate the possibilities of supplying Earths industrial base from (A) Lunar materials or (B) Asteroidal materials
7. Longer range goals might include establishing settlements on the Earth crossing asteroids such as VESTA that regularly travel from Earths' orbit to Mars' orbital space; Settlements on Phobos, Deimos and Mars itself; Establish settlements in the moon systems of both Saturn and Jupiter (both of the last options represent systems of worlds where (1) travel between the satellites of each system would be quick and easy enough to encourage the development of advanced civilizations , (2) the worlds of those systems have easy access to the greatest known supplies of easily accessible water and air anywhere in the solar system but on the surface of Earth itself, lending to a civilization established there all the necessities to sustain life easily, and, (3) settlements in both systems would have access to plentiful energy via solar collector or electromagnetic power drawn from the vast potentials of the gas giants around which they orbit.)

While unmanned spacecraft and science packages have a long and honored place in US civil space program, the case for the expansion of the Humans in Space programs can not be understated. We need a greatly expanded Human presence in space, both as workforce and inspiration. The future of Humanity lies, in large part, off this planet. This is not to say that the center of Human endeavors will at any time soon be removed from its' focus on Earth, but only that if Earth, and with it Humanity, is to survive with style in a setting conducive to Human well being, it will soon be necessary to obtain and process vast amounts of materials and energy from outside the Earth-there simply aren't sufficient resources extant on or within easy reach of the surface of our planet to maintain, let alone expand our current civilization. If we of the current generations fail in our responsibility to develop extraterrestrial resources, there is EVERY reason to believe that future generations will lack the resources to accomplish such development. This IS NOT an ongoing opportunity, but one with a rapidly shrinking window of accomplishment. If not begun soon, such development will NOT be begun at all.

15 years ago @ Change.gov - Space Solar Power (SSP... · 1 reply · +2 points

Post 1 of 2
Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program

A Joint Space Studies Board and Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board Study

Questionnaire for Public Input

Please provide input by January 30, 2009!
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ssb/rationale_goals_civil_space.html

**************
Some major goals of of the US civil space program should include, but not be limited to the following:
1. Design and manufacture of a large fleet of reusable, single-stage-to-orbit (ssto) spacecraft capable of multiple launches daily, and requiring a ground crew of fewer than 100 persons. The lower that the cost to orbit for cargo can be brought, the more profit and therefore more free enterprise interest that will be generated by the vast opportunities extant in space. If we wish to quickly ameliorate the effects of the energy and economy meltdown, and get employment and energy production back up and running healthily, there will be no better or faster way than to push the envelope in developing space industry and SSP. The spin-off benefits alone will doubtless run into the trillions of dollars over the next decade or so, and that's without the major thrust toward energy independence and a permanent, robust and thriving Human presence in space.
2. Begin the process of industrialization of space (with the end in mind of removing polluting industry, mining, refining and manufacturing from the ecosphere of Earth to an environment rich in easily accessible materials and unlimited free power) by government investment in large scale space architectures that can be utilized as a base for industrial processes.
3. Begin the process of manufacturing a large network of Space Based Solar Power Satellites that will, at power-up, beam electrical power to Earth via low density, low frequency microwave. This program has the potential, within 10-15 years, of supplying a very significant percentage of the US base power needs, and, as private industry takes over expanding on the initial network, the potential within decades of powering the world, cheaply and with no damage to the planet. This project, alone, has the potential to provide 1,000,000+ new high quality jobs for Americans, put America back into the forefront of world technology leadership, produce phenomenal amounts of energy in comparison with any alternative to fossil fuels or nuclear, and with no pollution, and provide a sense of pride to the American people that has been sadly lacking in recent decades. It will also provide an inspiration and incentive to Americas youth to undertake more education in math and the sciences, a necessary prerequisite for any American future in technology, and a new sense of 'FRONTIER' for those who need such to strive for.

15 years ago @ Change.gov - Space Solar Power (SSP... · 0 replies · +1 points

Kevin, Precisely the point I've been trying to make with Lee, Is1Voter, and E_Copenhaver. E.C. seems to be moderating his opinions, but the other two seem to be vociferously opposed, despite my efforts to answer their objections with details and explanations as well as directing them to data resources. This is, of course, their right, but I object to the fact that both continue to post outright fallacies, like Lee's assertion that SSP will "Blow the Ozone layer completely away" and other such ridiculous statements, particularly after having been repeatedly informed of their mistake in perception. Tends to make me feel that they have a malicious agenda...

15 years ago @ Change.gov - Space Solar Power (SSP... · 0 replies · +1 points

Part 3 Lee Church-,
Also, there are very capable people and systems available that would, no doubt, be up to a hacker attack that might shut off the power temporarily- the system elements don't produce anything that could be used as a weapon, so that isn't a concern.
Really, haven't you looked into this AT ALL? Did you just hear of the project and decide, in your own mind, that it couldn't be good just because you're a technophobe or afraid of space? I'd really like to know what's made you such a rabid attacker of what's probably the single greatest hope of Mankind at the present time. Why don't you fill us in?

15 years ago @ Change.gov - Space Solar Power (SSP... · 1 reply · +2 points

Part 2 Lee Church-__The receivers will be acre sized mesh sheets suspended or 50 feet above the ground or more, and will be so benign that you can quite safely graze cattle or sheep on the lush grass that will grow beneath them. This beam will be over 85% efficient, and will be just slightly more energetic than sunlight, so your imagery of a ravening bolt of energy blasting the ozone off the planet is ludicrous- the waste from the beam will be just enough to make the grass below the antenna a bit more lush than usual- kinda benign, huh?