General statistics
List of Youtube channels
Youtube commenter search
Distinguished comments
About
Tony Wilson
Scott Manley
comments
Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "" video.
I'm a bit younger and did Aerospace in the late 80s. I totally get the part about the program cuts. We expected to build Space Station Freedom in the 90s and be back on the moon circa 2001. Then one day we went to class and Challenger happened. The real issue is that AFTER Apollo the greedy slimy rats in the aerospace industry realised that NASA was a cow they could milk. Eventually it didn't even matter if they made stuff that worked just so long as they could convince their state's senators in Washington to keep the money going and keep the jobs. That's no longer just a NASA problem either its rampant across the developed world. I'm Australian but did my degree in America and our research organisations are now run by economists and they have made a mess of everything. This is why so many things seem to be grinding to a sluggish pace. Its the interference of economists who then convince the politicians what's good versus what's NOT. In most cases project success does not even enter the conversation.
50
@paulsearcy5994 I'm into energy economics at the moment because a few years ago I had this funny little consult job into Australia's energy system. For many years I avoided listening to or learning anything about economics because I knew they're all crazy. BUT THEN I realised they hold all the keys to all the money and even more they control the decision making processes in both government and the private sector. So I started listening to a lot of the content here on YouTube (especially during COVID) and found there are actually quite a few economists who also know their profession is out of control AND IT GOES RIGHT to your point. Sorry if this is longish but what you said is right in the middle of my current area of interest. Here's the point I want to make. They control all the business decisions because they dictate all of the business theory and especially they control the financing of everything. So if you don't propose things they understand and agree with (especially agree with) then NOTHING happens because you are dismissed. One of there most basic tenements is Milton Freidman's "Greed is good" but their real driver is his famous line about "companies have no other responsibility than to maximise the return to their owners." So if you are ANY SOR of start-up the most basic thing you can tell anyone you want to help finance it is to start with the basic premise of. Once we get this working companies like A, B, C..... will buy us out. So if you are into aerospace you want to start with the premise of: Our business plan is that once we get this working and prove its value we PLAN on selling it to Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Boeing or Lockheed. To the people with venture capital that's gold dipped music to their brain and quiet simply if you cannot describe some way it can be sold off you will often NOT GET FUNDING. A few years ago when Australia (my country) finally got a space agency I went and looked at their "Road Map" for future space technologies. It was a surprisingly sensible document. The very first item they had was space based water management for our ag sector. So I did a whole Space Program Proposal with the primary task of getting the next generation of Earth Observation Satellites into space. By knowing how to get projects done FROM SCRATCH I went a particular way and kept the costs significantly down. MY FINANCIAL justification was that it would HELP FUTURE PROOF a sector worth over AU$200 Billion a year that employs over 350,000 people. As a secondary benefit it would also help future proof Australia's tourism sector that's worth over AU$50 Billion a year and employs over 500,000 people. I thought that would work and get the program going. It didn't because I didn't understand another of the great economics concepts. The Government (any government) cannot solve problems. Only the free market can solve problems. So yeah Economists are the problem and they love what you point out that start-ups with a goal of being bought out are fantastic. Unfortunately the reality that they also create monopolies which hurts free market economies by stifling competition escapes their tiny little brains. Sorry for the long rant, but this is right in my area of current interest. I think it was Scott Galloway who explained on his podcast that the business model of start-ups aiming to sell out to big interests is now a standard practice for many.
1
AEROSPACE ENGINEER HERE: Sorry Scott but this time I am going to disagree a bit on this one. This is what I call a "zombie technology" and my definition comes form the concept of "zombie economics" which are the economic policies that no matter how many times they die in failure keep coming back to life. Likewise Zombie Tech is something that was put forward, then dismissed for some reason and then brought back to life later despite the initial issues NOT being handled. A good example of a Zombie Technology is the "Trains in Tubes" first suggested by Robert Goddard back in the 1920s, resurrected numerous times over the decades and most recently by Elon Musk. The main killer for the Trains in Tubes comes down to the simple reality of how many people it can move compared to a train on rails. The secondary killer is what happens when it fails, because at that point you have in a pod stuck in an evacuated tube. If the pod ever springs a leak all the passengers will arrive dead. After that comes the simple reality of what you do if a pod gets stuck in the tube. All these basic issues that killed of the Trains in Tubes each time were IGNORED each time it was re-birthed. The basic problems of putting these sorts of reactors into space are fairly well documented in numerous places. Most obvious is getting it into space in the first place. Uranium is heavy and shielding is heavy. Go and try to find the mass of an S9G reactor like those in the Virginia class submarines. Yes a rocket might need a lot less power but we are still talking about a massive lump of hardware to lift into space. AFTER that there's the issue of the vehicle itself. If you have to put the engines way out back on a boom to reduce the shielding then how many rockets do you need to launch the boom segments. Anyway you look at it there's a logistical nightmare to overcome and NOBODY is dealing with that because they all hops somebody else will. This is why hypergolic propellants were used on Apollo and many systems since. They require a lot less hardware to operate, which means the initial launch is far easier because there's less weight to launch. This was the great breakthrough that Buzz Aldrin and friends came up with that made Apollo feasible. They realised that it came down to how much mass do you need to move to get the men back from the moon. They then back tracked from there. What the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) flight profile did was REDUCE the logistical problem from unfeasible to feasible. Go see Destin's video (YT Smarter Everyday) on his talk to the NASA engineers on Artemis. On the subject of what happens inside a nuclear reactor with things like moderators I recommend that everyone tunes into the YouTube channel Illinois EnergyProf hosted by Professor David Ruzic from the University of Illinois. Just put "energy prof" into YouTube search. Disclaimer - I graduated from U. Illinois but that was before prof Ruzic was there. Prof Ruzic does a great job of explaining many of the issues across the entire energy spectrum INCLDUING nuclear. I believe he has 3 reactors (1 fission & 2 fusion) on campus for research and training as well as access to the Clinton Nuclear power station nearby. Sorry Buddy, I love the channel and hate that your flying while I'm grounded. Enjoy your plane because one day you might NOT be able to fly and that sucks - trust me.
1