Inserting P.I.C.C. - third times a charm

Just got back from a 50 miles ambulance ride (100 round trip at $1500 x 2 + 16.5/mile + $3000 for procedure.) I had to get another PICC line which is a surgical procedure for a long term two port I.V. line that is inserted just outside the heart. The first two got pulled out which is a minor emergency all by themselves.

I've been in the hospital for 33 days now and just today realized I could play VGAPlanets (VGA gives a hint to how old this game is) at planets.nu

One fifth of this hospital stay I will be paying forever and a few days beyond!

Feigned outrage

The headline is Trump failed to correct a person that called the president a muslim.

How is it his responsibility to do that, especially with the special circumstances behind this issue?

Trumps response was 'right' and 'we'll look into this.' Right doesn't always mean agreement. In conversation, right often means get to your point. That's the way I saw his 'right.'

The other point is a much bigger issue and deserves the real outrage. Are there Jihad training centers in America? Trump's response is exactly on point.

Obama has a muslim past which no idiot in the media can deny. Some people look at his words and actions and see a person hiding his loyalties. He says he's a christian. Fine, but the phony outrage at a segment of the population's speculation is because it's not so outrageous.

Obama is a liar. Would he be the first to lie about himself?

Muslims consider Obama a muslim, including world leaders. Why is that?

Holy cow. Did I luck out.

Midnight and I had to get out of bed. I sat in a chair tangling my IV line which pulled out my PICC line. I noticed the blood on my hospital gown sleeve and got the nurse in time.

I've got 3 bugs in my blood requiring 2 different antibiotics for 6 weeks. One bag every 8 hours. Each bag about $10,000 (not sure about the second antibiotic.) I drove to the hospital when my oxygen was about 65%. Not exactly smart but it got the job done. They noticed an elevated white count and the next day I had surgery on my left foot at another hospital 50 miles away. Now I'm back at the original hospital in what they call a swing bed (which indicates a longer term stay AFAIK.)

I don't know what my daily bill will be (20% I am responsible for... should talk to billing about getting preexisting coverage that.)

My good fortune is I live in poverty with medicare. How could a middle class rancher like my friends deal with something like this?

No CNN debate for me

I've been in the hospital for two weeks now, with four more weeks to go. For my foot is hollow and has a big hole on the bottom of it which lead to sepsis with a superbug and two others. They just announced I'm not contagious which I now have to get the word to my friends which I've been chasing away.

The hospital doesn't have CNN (this is a major Mormon community if that means anything... very conservative. John Wayne had a ranch here and was well known to the locals.)

When they change the bandages on my foot some of the nurses like to see the tendons move when I wiggle my toes. They removed three bones from my foot. I haven't missed them. I have a picture on my phone. When I can I'll post it here.

Sowell wrong?

A shoot-from-the-hip, bombastic show-off is the last thing we need or can afford.

It may be the only thing that can save us from the damage that Obama has caused. Trump is teaching the country how to play poker... a very dangerous game for international affairs, but thanks to Obama we live in a very dangerous time where the unthinkable is becoming a reality... nuclear destruction of American cities.

Trumps refusal to swear off a third party run is classic poker. Even if the GOP knows it to be a bluff, they can't call him on it. Using that kind of leverage is good negotiation which Trump will be able to use with other nations to advance American interests.

The worst thing you can do in poker is be predictable and Obama is more predictable than any we've ever seen. We want our enemies to view our next president and worry about how we will react to their actions. Iranian leaders are laughing at us when it should always be day 445 for them.

Would Trump have told Ukraine we'd pick up the defense tab if they gave up nukes? I guarantee not and the Crimea would not be part of Putin's Russia today.

Trump does not talk like a statesman. It's too easy to misinterpret his thoughts, but his main idea is what resonates... American can be what it once was and more if we quit surrendering to the 'progressives' and win negotiations with other countries. Trump will all but end US paying for imprisoning foreign bad guys. The Iran 'deal' is total surrender, no deal at all.

Last poll after the debate put Trump at 36%. Let Trump debate Hillary (the last thing she wants) and he'll get all 50 states (maybe 57?)

Does anyone else offer a real chance to turn around our runaway debt problem? How? No doubt in surprising ways. Eliminate whole departments and sell off federal land being part of it, I'd wager... this being poker after all.

Trump/Fiorina 2016. That would deflate the misogynist attacks.

My brain is back!

Ok, not quite, but I did learn something dramatic about my health this week. Monday I went to the hospital to find I have heart failure which has been having a cascading effect on me. They sent me home with an oxygen concentrator. Last night I slept with it.

For the first time in years I slept through the night. If you don't think lack of oxygen and sleep is an impairment... try it sometime. When I shut the machine off this morning I was immediately gasping for breath. This means I've become accustomed to not having enough oxygen. This is why I've had no strength. Somehow I've avoided the rising panic that comes with choking (I have panic medication I've never taken, but handy just in case.) This is why the least bit of physical activity has me gasping for breath. I've been telling people for years that I'm oxygen deprived but my mental state didn't allow me to do anything about it.

This has also limited my thinking ability. I'm supposed to be on O2 24/7 and they did send me home with a portable tank but that has limited duration and I want to keep it available for emergencies. What I need is a portable concentrator but that's beyond my finances for now.

With oxygen I may have enough mental focus to look into Xojo and the Xojo Cloud. The showstopper I came upon with Purebasic was the slow speed of SQLite. So slow it's basically unusable. Xojo cloud may solve both deployment and database issues. We shall see.

It sure would be nice to be productive again. Additional income beyond half poverty level might be nice as well. It really sucks to be in this prison when it's only just my life. My friends keep me sane (which should come easier now being able to sleep and breath.)

Sleeping and breathing contributes to sanity... who'da thunk?

Utilizing existing assets to create contingency ISS crew capability.

Utilizing existing assets to create contingency ISS crew capability.

An excellent post by Henry Vanderbilt at the Space Access Society,

http://www.space-access.org/updates/sau144.html

and a lively discussion at Rand’s Transterrestrial Musings,

http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=61225#comments

has prompted me to write up something I’ve been toying around with for a long time; could the U.S. achieve manned access to ISS in a short timeframe, if it was required to avoid abandoning ISS if we lost access (for either political or technical reasons) to seats on Soyuz. This post assumes that ISS, a 150 billion investment, is considered worth taking a few risks to save.

First, let’s look at what we (the USA) actually get from Soyuz access. We get, for each Soyuz, a maximum of two seats up and down, because Soyuz must carry at least one Russian crewmember. Therefore, to replace what we get from Soyuz, Dragon needs to carry only two. 

For the sake of this post, I’m going to assume that Dragon 2, CST-100, and Orion, cannot be made flight ready in time enough to matter. That leaves us with Cargo Dragon, a tried and proven unmanned spacecraft. (Another ISS cargo transport, Cygnus, cannot be used because it lacks reentry capability).

So, what would it take to enable Cargo dragon to carry two astronauts? In a truly bare-bones, no-holds-barred concept, you’d place two padded mats and two astronauts  with scuba rebreather rigs in the Dragon while horizontal, then launch as normal. This is survivable, so it’s a baseline to show how close we are (or already there) to true emergency capability. With a few small changes, it can be made far better (safety equivalent to Shuttle) and that, IMHO, is more than good enough for a contingency plan.  

I looked into this in detail over a year ago, and I'll start with the obvious first objection; no LAS (Launch Abort System) on cargo Dragon. However, this isn’t exactly true, as there are survivable abort options for much of the assent profile. Cargo Dragon has Draco (not super dracos as used on the Dragon 2 LAS) thrusters. It thus has the ability to pull away from a non-thrusting stack once past stage separation (due to miniscule aerodynamic loading due to low air density). For an earlier LV loss, as we see on CRX-7, the capsule has a good chance of surviving; had the parachutes on CRX-7 been able to deploy, Dragon would have survived. So, in brief, with a few software changes, Cargo Dragon is far safer from an abort-during-ascent POV than Shuttle was (There were segments of the shuttle ascent profile where multiple engine-outs resulted in a "black zone" trajectory - non survivable for vehicle or crew. Further, pre Challenger, any ditching would have been non survivable, while post challenger it was merely probably unsurvivable, due to the egress pole system). In a case of emergency need, Cargo Dragon's existing capabilities (leveraged with a few software tweaks) are more than good enough IMHO.

Next, control systems; IMHO, a manned spacecraft needs a manual override capability. This would require some software changes to Dragon, plus the inclusion of a laptop computer (plus another for backup), joystick, and Ethernet cable (I think, but am not sure, that the connection port inside Dragon is Ethernet type). This is obviously bare bones, but for an emergency need, that’s good enough. The laptop could also serve as a data screen for the crew.   

Life support; Cargo Dragon has a life support system, sort of; it's enough to support mice, at least, as we saw on CRS-4.  However, to support two astronauts, let's assume it can (as it obviously does) maintain pressure and temperature, but nothing else. What's needed is therefor O2, and O2 can be carried in tanks (commercially available standard O2 tanks would be fine) simply secured inside the Dragon. Either the crew breaths through masks, or a CO2 scrubber in the form of a computer CPU fan plus a lithium hydroxide scrubber canister from a scuba rig would, with active monitoring by the crew, do just fine. Obviously, this system could be improved upon, and probably would be (just one example; computer monitoring of O2 levels coupled with computer control of an O2 release valve) but we’re talking bare bones capability here, where good enough is good enough.  

Communications; Dragon already has a comms system, but no voice comms. The existing data path can be utilized for voice comms via a headset attached to a laptop, or directly to a port in the Dragon. This would require some software changes, but not hardware changes. 

Docking; Cargo Dragon cannot dock, it berths to the CBM, and thus requires crew inside the station for both arrival and departure. This is a problem, sort of. The answer is, for arrival, the crew on ISS handles it like it does now for arriving cargo dragons. Emergency evac is a different issue, and absent some changes would require one crew-member to stay behind and unberth Dragon, then do an EVA to egress the station and enter Dragon. 

Thermal regulation; two astronauts should be within the Dragon’s thermal regulation abilities, as evidenced by Dragon already having flown several refrigeration units (which dump significant heat). The human body at rest puts out about the same heat as a 100 watt bulb, so for two, or for a short term, 4, astronauts, this should be manageable with the existing thermal control systems.  

Crew ingress to Dragon on the pad; this is problematic, because the current pad and TEL have no crew access features. However, all that is really needed is a way to get crew in, plus a couple of techs to button up the hatch. This could be achieved via welding a small platform to the top of the TEL, and using yacht-type bosun seats and pulleys to hoist the crew up (that’s how yachtsmen get up their masts at sea, a feat which is sometimes needful). Or, rent a crane and use a basket. As for emergency egress, ziplines from the TEL would be easy (terminating next to an armored personnel carrier). If the astronauts wore the zipline harness for launch, it’d actually be a faster egress than the shuttle’s basket style zipline. (which also utilized an APC at the bottom end).  

Seating; Dragon would need seats in order to carry crew. It would need two seats, though four would be preferable (in case of emergency station evac needs). Life support that’s good enough to get two people to the station could handle four for the far briefer time needed to get from the station to Earth. Cargo Dragon has the needed deck mount holes for seating, but it would need the seats themselves. It could either use some of the ones we saw in the Dragon 2 unveil, or, if those are unavailable, Apollo style couches of canvas strung between bars (basically a lawn lounger) could be used. If NASA handles it, NASA could have the emergency seating ready in just over a year and probably for less than 300 million. If SpaceX handles it, they can send somebody down to Walmart to buy them for $40 each.

My last line was tongue in cheek. However, it’s also illustrative of my main point; we already have, except for a few easily addressable details, manned emergency capability to ISS. The main barrier isn’t technical, it’s ossified procedures coupled with lack of will. (Which is why NASA’s current plan, if Soyuz becomes unavailable, is cry “abandon ship!” and evacuate ISS – and they can’t even do that without Russian help (a ride down on Soyuz) which they may not have access to if the reason for the access crisis is political.)  

If anyone can see any flaws in any of the above concept, please let me know and I’ll attempt to address them.

Weekend in NM

I had a nice weekend outside of Albuquerque visiting with friends at a 3 day imitate Jesus convention. Even an atheist has to be impressed by the life of Jesus and consequence of his life. The illogic is to apply what stupid things some that call themselves Christians do in the name of the Christian faith to the message in the bible. Unlike Islam, where the 'radicals' are doing exactly what the Koran calls for.

My brother is drinking again. I will have to tell him I will have nothing more to do with him. I will tell him he's getting ready to go back to prison because that's exactly where his drinking is going to take him. You can not imagine how upset I am. For all these months he's been out of jail I've been able to be proud of him, but he's flushing it all down the toilet.

I have no pithy wisdom here.

TX implements my idea

Although I didn't explain it well.

The basic idea is all deposits are considered gold with the bank managing any exchanges.

Is it true?

Americans have it within their power to make the federal government an insurable hazard.

I don't know about that because we can't seem to even come to terms with an even more basic truth...

American freedom is being gutted.

It's easy to find people that are oblivious to this truth, even willing to argue otherwise.

The general store

Many mars naysayers claim the colonists on mars will all die when they run out of some critical supply item. First, staying alive is an individual responsibility. Second, the general store and basic economics insures this does not happen.

The general store performs a number of beneficial functions. It buys in bulk and sells items at a markup. This provides a buyer for those that produce stuff. This provides a buffer of items for before they need replacement. It balances supply and demand. Competition establishes the best rates and a further supply buffer.

This is so obvious it shouldn't need a post, but naysayers never seem to acknowledge this... because they don't believe in free enterprise.

More to come from Musk

A series.

Dragon landing

Dragon 2 has 8 SuperDracos in pairs each producing 15,000 lbs of thrust and throttleable to 20% (10% effectively since they are paired.)

Lowest throttle would be 12,000 lbs (4 x 3,000) total. Which is about what the Dragon weighs (landing would be more difficult if it weighed less than minimum thrust. If you didn't contact ground at zero velocity and shut down you'd go up again.) Landing legs should compensate for some imperfection.

From the pad abort test we learn that Dragon has 5 seconds of fuel at full throttle which would last longer at lower throttle settings. We assume it was fully fueled.

It went from zero to 100 mph in 1.2 seconds and reached 345 mph.

What is its terminal velocity in one atmosphere? I don't know. Somehow it would have to slow down enough to land on land, probably in less than a minute. I'd like to see that.

On mars it would make a crater, but SpaceX may bypass the wider red lander (Dragon version 3?) for the MCT. I guess we shall see, when we shall see?

The 'Just do it' architecture

This dismal report starts with this paragraph...

Significant strides towards the goal of sending humans to Mars have been made over the last few years, not only through advancements in planning and capabilities, but also in the political realm. However, despite this progress, there is a common misperception that there has been little or no motion forward in humanity's efforts and ability to actually achieve this goal.

Probably because 'can do' people understand that planning, while useful, is what you do before any moving forward actually occurs. Current plans seem more like, 'running in place and getting nowhere' plans. We can do better by identifying a simple truth: all plans fall short. Plus, we can turn the naysayers to our advantage by making them part of the plan.

The 'just do it' plan is based on the simple observation that all plans should have two major phases. 1) Getting enough supplies to a base location. 2) Only send colonists after enough supplies are waiting.

But how much is enough? What should the mix include? This is where naysayer input is valuable. We aren't going to be able to predict perfectly all the things the colonists are going to need. Humbly acknowledging this means sending less than what is required for survival wastes the entire mission. Sending more is only marginally bad and can't be avoided anyway, so why not embrace it?

We already know how to send stuff to mars, but should lower the cost. What lowers cost? Competition. So let's have one using just a small part of NASA's mars budget. The best part is we can implement this plan today instead of 20 years from now and avoid costly, decade long detours as well.

Every 26 month launch window, NASA will pay for one Falcon Heavy launch to mars. On board will be two 5.5 ton landers, each with a ton of cargo. The lander that safely lands first within a target ellipse gets $50m, the second gets $30m. We do this every launch window until sending colonists becomes irresistible to some private company. Let the naysayers come up with the cargoes.

Let the Russians or Chinese get there first and steal our cargo. It doesn't matter because the point is learning how to survive on mars. We just keep sending cargo. If we have to embarrass ourselves to get our act together, that works. It's also magnitudes cheaper than the progress suggested above.

This also allows NASA to save face regarding SLS/Orion. They can continue telling us Orion will put crew on mars, spending billions, while $200m a year goes unnoticed actually doing the mars mission. We've put rovers on mars costing billions while gaining valuable knowledge. It's time to take a fraction of that cost and actually move forward.

Second Mars Affordability and Sustainability Workshop

I intend to comment on this report.

Overview

...guide space agency leadership and national policymakers.

So they don't really consider commercial interests. To avoid flags and footprints economic viability is essential.

Summary

...[does] not endorse one-way missions to Mars, where the humans on the first mission are settlers.

Otherwise known as F&F. It doesn't have to be either/or. A MAV and ERV can be considered a separate mission.

...forward and backward contamination...

Please... contamination is a given. Get over it.

science exploration of Mars should be a major element

A huge mistake. The purpose of the first to land is to insure the survival of those that follow which then may include scientists. Scientists will get a lot more done if survival is not their focus. Others should ensure this first.

telerobotics

Can be done any where near mars, including from its surface. This is not a required precursor for anything. However, it would be stupid not to include these tools in the mix.

the technical capabilities required for human lunar surface operations are of limited applicability to human Mars exploration.

Agreed.

I. Background, Goals, and Structure

stepping stones

Identify those that really aren't and eliminate them to achieve lowest cost.

science goals enabled by human presence in the vicinity of Mars.

Fine as long as they don't interfere with the primary objective: Learning to survive and thrive on mars. We can move a lot faster than 20 years from now. We could be landing essential precursor colonist supplies today.

SLS/Orion are white elephants that will have nothing to do with mars.

II. Humans-to-Mars Architectures (they consider three.)

  (1) an “Apollo-style” mission (ruled out.)
  (2) an outpost w/ rotating, non-permanent crew.
  (3) colonization or settlement of Mars.

Colonization was not considered viable because they were doing it wrong. They had outpost thinking from the start and could not imagine anything else. The irony is an outpost is hugely more expensive and easier to abandon than just focusing on colonization.

Solar electric propulsion

Not essential, but could enable larger cargo mass to mars orbit. As long as we use existing technology rather than cause delay for something better, why not?

SLS-class heavy lift vehicle is required

Otherwise known as cognitive impairment and puts all other conclusions in question. Of course HL increases options. But SEP reduces the need for HL. The cost of one SLS launch cost about what 20 or more FH launches will. SLS will not fly at the frequency required either (if at all.)

sample return

Is not required. We already know general composition and the sample will not be from the actual crew landing site and wouldn't be representative even if it were.

2 to 3 SLS flights per year

Pure fantasy. Demonstrates not being serious about colonization.

Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM), fully utilizing the ISS, the highest-prioritynear-term “stepping stone” should be a long-duration, crew-tended habitat near the Moon

What are they smoking? Distractions that give more evidence they are not serious. These distractions cost ten years according to the report.

III. Humans in the Vicinity of Mars
All based on outpost thinking. This section can be ignored.

IV. Affordability and Sustainability
All about how to turn this into a jobs program to get political support.

Artemis project

Just for my reference.

How obtuse am I?

Rand could not have seriously meant that I was ignoring asteroids.

So here I will make the comparison (between a planet like mars vs. asteroids as a mining source) that a comment in a post simply would not do justice to.

Consider your location to be fixed. Where ever you are, there you is. Even so in space (and I'm not being obtuse about orbits, so please.) A mine on mars is a fixed location away from you and can be mined for years. Other minerals, in other mines are also fixed positions relative to you. Even more important economically is you are the master of your own fate. You can individually exploit these resources.

Not so in space. Everything is in motion relative to each other. You live in a can of people, where chances are, you're not the captain. But let's make you the captain because that's an unavoidable fantasy for some. How do you exploit the asteroids? Your choices are... 1) move your can to the asteroid, 2a) move the asteroid to your can, 2b) move some of it to you.

Either option has a delta V cost. No asteroid is going to have the diversity of minerals you need, even if you don't deplete the minerals it does have. So you're back to making that choice again, captain. Your best hope is an ecosystem where other cans of people trade with you... meaning more delta V costs. Which is no where near as economical as hopping into your mars truck and picking up a load from the mine. Planet industry wins.

Well that was a lot shorter than I thought it would have to be?

Other factors? Getting colonist into space is basically the same cost other than landing. But with cans of people, more people means more cans. For planets you can reuse the ships, even landers when they're SSTO, used to transport colonists to a planet. So initially, because reuse takes some development, asteroids win; but soon thereafter planets win again.

The Emdrive may be the game changer.

Sounds foolish, but couldn't be more serious

When I say here, I could do an entire mars settlement program (evergreen) with just one year of SLS/Orion funding using just the FH for launch (13.2 ton is not only enough but preferred to larger vehicles.)

Assuming each year the interest pays for a FH launch with payload. That's two landers every 26 months leaving a habitat in mars orbit for a growing space station.  Assuming just one ton of payload per lander to the surface of mars or two crew with a month of supplies and personal property.

Supplies will continuously be sent until there is absolutely no doubt the colonists have a good start. Only then will colonists follow.

We will wait until we can send a minimum of six colonist on the first mission, then those colonist will decide what we send in the following landers.

It is expected that once living on mars is demonstrated, others will fund colonists in addition to those we send every launch window.

Emdrive looks more promising

It works in vacuum.

We essentially did ARM by doing Dawn

Dawn is a science mission producing fantastic results. ARM is political masturbation. ARM is another example of government dysfunction.

Electric Propulsion is great for long duration missions like Dawn and for station keeping. But chemical propulsion is how we currently get to orbit so the marginal cost to go a bit farther is not much greater (F9 gets 13 ton to earth orbit for $60m. FH gets the same mass to mars orbit for $120m. Add to that the cost of the 13 ton payload... [a craft with a payload of its own] means the cost of a $60m craft to mars orbit is only about 50% more than to LEO.)

Where EP could be very useful is to recover a humans to mars orbit transporter for reuse which also serves as emergency backup thrust.