The Astronomy Thread

Really makes the "we never went to the moon" types seem justified. Can't even improve on something we built 50 years ago without spending a billion dollars and 2 decades of work.

Gravel said:

Really makes the "we never went to the moon" types seem justified. Can't even improve on something we built 50 years ago without spending a billion dollars and 2 decades of work.

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It shows in the report why. It isn't about progress and innovation, it is about waiting on 27 suppliers who were picked for favors to congressional demands X business goes to X place and they take in suppliers who can't, won't or deliver shit and have no other choice.

NASA must go to just a advisory role and stop building shit that requires they buy from Oldbased in KY for 25 million to supply 300 screws just because budget said so. Should make NASA the space FAA and have all data come to them like now and say goodbye to billion dollar space rockets that are reused shuttle parts and fly once.

Gravel said:

Really makes the "we never went to the moon" types seem justified. Can't even improve on something we built 50 years ago without spending a billion dollars and 2 decades of work.

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Tech not used rapidly disappears. Read a few years ago the US has now rapidly lost nuclear tech to build new plants like they were often in the 70's. Same for certain nuclear weapons.

I see it in pretty simple shit in refineries and chemical plants. Nobody knows what to do and how the safety factor was figured on stuff that was riveted at all anymore, not to mention no telling what alloy of steel they used. So it's start from less than square one and listen to people complain it's taking too long to replace a unit that worked fine until it was taken down as a precaution.

Borzak said:

I see it in pretty simple shit in refineries and chemical plants. Nobody knows what to do and how the safety factor was figured on stuff that was riveted at all anymore, not to mention no telling what alloy of steel they used.

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I consult in the pulp & paper industry; same deal in mills. There's always that one geriatric steam engineer who was around when the turbines were first installed in the 60's and is the only one who really knows how they interplay with the boilers in a crisis. When he dies, they're out $100-200M for a new energy back end.

BrutulTM said:

100%. This is why we would be back to the stone age if there was ever a real population level disaster that destroyed everything. All this shit is so complicated and relies on so many people doing so many different jobs it's unbelievable that it all works as well as it does. People say there's no one person that knows how to make a pencil. It's a lot more true if you're talking about a mac book pro or a Caterpillar D10, let alone a lunar lander.

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Never mind the capital and resources. Even if you had the perfect collection of people and the library of congress it would still take decades to make the machines to mine the iron to make the machines to make the machines to make the machines to build your chip fab.

The ability of a society to support uber-specialization is an idea that I'd never really thought about until I heard Musk talk about Mars colonization. He made the point that until you have a million people or more, it doesn't make any sense to build and maintain the knowledge base for, say, neurologists, because you don't see enough of the rare problems for their activity to be a net benefit. Similar ideas apply to most of the things we take for granted. Scale and technology base REALLY matter.

Captain Suave said:

I consult in the pulp & paper industry; same deal in mills. There's always that one geriatric steam engineer who was around when the turbines were first installed in the 60's and is the only one who really knows how they interplay with the boilers in a crisis. When he dies, they're out $100-200M for a new energy back end.

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That's my dad and to a lesser degree me. Before he got started in steel he did laminated beam detailing. Every so often like 3-4 times a year someone calls and wants one done. He did some laminated wood columns for a waterpark slide tower. I did the other half which was done in steel. It's just a bygone tech but every so often someone wants some really big laminated beam arches for a church or something. Making them is easy apparently. Designing and detailing so they can be erected and put together that tech just disappeared.

But even rinky dink easy shit a LOT of that stuff isn't available in the US or made in the US anymore. Pipe hangers used to cast that were used in a furnance or high heat area. That entire industry is gone overseas now and there's no "hurry up" available at all.

Saddest example is we let a LOT of shit just offshore for no reason. HRSG. Heat recovery steam generators used in power plant work and some chemical plant/refinery work. About the size of a house but normally taller. Sizable shit. The petrochemical work standards and bids call for US rolled steel. Companies buy US rolled steel, ship it to Corpus Christi and load it on a ship. Go to the Phillipines, Thailand, or somewhere else in Asia and fabbed them in shops where guys weld in flip flops holding a pie plate up to their eyes. Then ship it back all welded up and truck it from the port to the final destination. It's cheaper than fabbing it in the US.

I've been this kind of work 30-35 yeas. Just the amount of stuff that a lot of smart people look at and go "huh?" is a shitload. Now imagine my dad that is 80 and been working in it since he graduated high school. Stuff from 100 years ago, not a chance.