My minds a-boggled

All the fun ‘youth kick’ going on last night, I dove back into other curiousities of my youth.     Some of y’uns might be Heinlein Fans (and if you aren’t, WHY NOT?) and recall “The Rolling Stones”

Yah, NOT the band (though I still get my digs in with them blaring over the sound system.)

If not, the Stone family are Miners.  Asteroid belt miners. 

And I got to thinking, How feasible IS asteroid mining?

Not very in reality.   The asteroid belt is Frellin’ HUGE,,, and in reality, pretty damned empty.    The average distance between asteroids is 600000 miles.   To put that into a comparison that makes some sense to us rock hounds (what I am going to term planet locked humans for now, IE All of us,,,,) there would be only TWO asteroids between mama Earth and Luna.    Thats a rather large distance to be scooting between flying debris in search of bounty.  

Advantages to space bound searchers,,,,   zero G, NO drag, and a continuous thrust engine can move you large distances in short order. (Heinlein covers this frequently, and includes the math involved)   BUT, when you are searching for a rock, that may only be a meter (or less) wide, in distances that size,,,,   And your best friends are radar and spectrographs,,,

and that section of space (all space really) is pretty damned cold,,,,

NO, Not saying it ain’t doable,, but there are some hoops that need addressed before it would be economically feasible.   Even so, a miner could lay claim to one minute of arc in the belt and still have a lifetimes worth of work ahead of him to root out his claim.   Except the belt moves, alot, and not as uniformly as the planets. (though still in predictable fashion, for the most part.   About like you can predict what a country might do, but look at any one individual, without background on them and you’re making wild guesses for prediction.)

BUT, the asteroids tend to be much more pure in content than what we find on earth.

…………………..

Some of the biggest problems mentioned above have nothing to do with the physics of the situation.  Most have to do with our indoctrination via entertainments.    Take our expectations of how war would take place in space.    We have all these shows and movies showing dogfights like you would expect in air to air fights. Our imagination using something we have as fact, but not applicable to ‘out there’.   That ain’t gonna happen when you can detect objects moving to you (in less than FTL speeds)  from THOUSANDS of AU (astral units, roughly the distance of the earth from the sun, 47 million miles.)    Then you have the totally primitive methods we use to apply thrust to our craft.   I say primitive even though we are at the pinnicle of tech there, but it still takes MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF FUEL to move things; that is, if you want things to move quickly.   Fuel takes up a lot of realestate in a craft.   (Note,,, the Voyager craft had Ionic thrusters that delivered micro thrust, but continously, for long periods of time.   Enough to acclerate them and guide them into slingshot paths with panets where they were able to get even MORE speed.   It took years to get up to the speeds they are currently moving, and they have no way of stopping (and thats okay, since they never planned on stopping anywhere).    That is the sort of thing we have on the table currently, along with the vacuum engines (rockets) we currently use for larger craft within earths orbit.   Compressed gasses work for thrusters/attitude thrusters etc, but once used up; gone, worthless junk until a refill can be managed.)

My brain is a tickin’ with scenarios, ideas, and what not, and No, I ain’t a rocket scientist/engineer.   But I am curious as all get out as to what plans are being laid in how to handle moving things around out there.   And I know there are people that are digging into those very things, hoping for that chance one day to play amongst the stars.(the REAL stars)

AND NOW, I am going to turn my attention back to ‘here and now’ for a minute, using the opening of this post for ammo.

There has been some agenda pushing going on in the spheres. and I agree with large portions of it, but this one. I had a couple of issues with.   I like Bill, have been a fan for years, but there was one point in particular that struck me as narrow minded as all get out.

All Federal Employment of non-STEM college graduates is forbidden in the first ten years after graduation.   That to me spells a problem.   The US is nearly dead last in STEM graduates these days.   We pump out massive amounts of other degrees, but only a small percentage of STEM, AND, that doesn’t seem to be making corrections anytime soon, with our pre-college education system being zeroed in on Indoctrination, not EDUCATION.   Many of our STEM oriented employees are H1B holders.  Not all mind you, but a significantly noticable amount.  

Maybe the current launches will inspire some kids to push harder at the ‘Hard maths’ and other sciences.   One can only hope.     There may be a generational lag, with a sudden burst of “new minds” in the next 10-20 years,,, but it won’t happen overnight, and the leftist mentality is going to take even longer to weed out of the Institutions of higher learning.  (and I would bet good money, it never ever goes away entirely,,,)

And then again, there is the animosity I have for “Public Servants”,,,,   The only people fit to serve are those that have no desire to serve, and those that desire to serve, should NEVER be allowed the chance.  IMO,,,,   To many instances of power hungry manipulators in our history, old and current.   Too many instances of LIFELONG POLITICIANS, that are uber-rich and never, NEVER did a damned thing to improve the world beside spewing hot air and promising bullshit.  (there are some exceptions, those that chose to serve to combat the current trend of career politicians,  not for self serving interests,,,  May this trend grow and ripen into something more akin to the “citizens” profile as described in Heinleins Starship Troopers.    Earn it, not given cart blanche by virtue of birth.)

We are one weekend away from the Inaugeration,,,   The Corpse in Cheif is leaving the offal office, and there are crews and crews in overdrive to prepare the residence for Trump, fam and Krew to take over come Monday.

How many crews are in overdrive to bury the dirt still in circulation from the last four years (eight in reality, since the first tour of Trump was such a frenzy of ‘fuck you’ by Obamas appointtees and the BLOB.)

We’ve a long way to go before we get off this rock, and even longer to go before we start migrating off as ‘Homesteaders’.

If  you have young’uns,,, start trying to inspire them now, homeschool if you have the means, (make the means,, they are out there) and if you are a grandparent, take the time for the kids.  Time was, the parents were the breadwinners, the grans were the teachers.  Slow evolutions in change that way, but it carried culture much better than our current ‘latest trend’ way of the world; where you don’t know what to expect month to month, and tech drives us at such a pace, only the dedicated can stay on top of it all.  (Don’t need to go all Amish on us, but do take that lifestyle as a model to build from,,,)

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