Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to I've totally made my case

The Decline of Aerospace Engineering
EnergyExpert — (archived)

You need to use 100% of the current Corn Corp to get the 25 billion gallons needed to meet your 10% ethanol requirement. And you will still need to import the SAME amount of petroleum to make the fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides AND dive the trucks and farm equipment needed to grow it. While the lack of Corn will send prices for Milk, Egg and Dairy product skyward.

And the only way to get your 75 % weight reduction is to FORCE everyone to drive your single seat cars. IF folks WANTED motorcycles they are able to buy them NOW!

Also cars only use 60% of the petroleum. The rest is used by trucks, construction equipment, agricultural equipment places where you single seat cars WON’T work.

As for you red herring on the hundreds of new nuclear power plants needed for the Hydrogen economy. Have you SEEN the winds farms springing up everywhere? Or the advances in solar that makes it practical as for baseline power? Or the CLEAN COAL technology the eliminates most of the C02 emissions? Have you looked at the progress made outside the stagnated aerospace industry in the last 30 years? Plenty of alternatives for increasing electricity generating capacity by the 30-40percent needed for hydrogen autos. As for the 300,000 price tag – that is because they are PRE-production prototypes and cost of the same as other prototype vehicles. When they are mass-produced the cost will be competitive with gasoline cars, the same as it now is with hybrids.

Really, I already thought aerospace engineers had little contact with reality.

Based on your example in this discussion and that of this clown Zubrin I now know aerospace engineers have NO contact with reality.

That is why you are recreating Apollo instead of moving forward with better spaceships. You have LOST the ability to innovate, just looking at lose-lose solutions based on outdated technology instead of using technology to create win-win solutions. Your Flow Charts, Viewgraphs and White Papers have only taught you how to see the reasons something is impossible, then how to make the possible real.

You say H2 stations are impossible, and yet there are over 100 proving the new technology and working out the bugs before going into MASS production. You say H2 cars are impossible, yet hundreds are on the road driven by ordinary people, again, providing the technology before it goes into MASS production. You say a 10,000 psi hydrogen tank is impossible because aerospace engineers have never built one. A regular engineering firm designed and built one in 4 WEEKS that was certified to the standards for highway safety. This means it survived the CRASH tests without blowing up like Zubrin claimed would happen based on the experience of the aerospace industry. MAYBE we should let the engineers at GM, Toyota, Honda or even Ford design the next generations spaceships to go to Mars, They COULDN’T do worst then the aerospace industry has with its negative attitudes towards inventing new technology that you and Zubrin have shown.

And No wonder Zubrin’s energy solutions have to be published on Discussion Boards and anti-technology tabloids like the New Atlantis instead of presented at Auto conferences or in professional journals. Any PEER review journal would laugh in your face if you submitted your papers with your “optimal” solutions supported by NO real world engineering tests. They are looking for articles that advance technology, not opinions on why any advance is impossible.

Yes, it’s a waste trying to inform you on where the technology is TODAY. You and Zubrin have proven that aerospace engineers belong in the museum with the Apollo spacecraft that were their last great achievement. They are clearly not going to be part of creating the post-carbon future or even America’s space future since they have clearly lost the courage to believe in the technology needed to make it a reality!

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