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Post by JayUtah on May 7, 2008 19:40:23 GMT -4
Other specimens were also sent. The turtle is just the most famous. The point of the exercise was to determine biological survivability in space as a prelude to human exploration. That's not accomplished by sending very hardy species, but rather species whose susceptibility is commensurate to humans.
During a solar max period, the heliopause is extended and deliniated. You get less GCR during a solar max than during periods of solar quiescence, which is a good thing. Astrophysicists know this; Greg Diempsey does not. And to be fair, the solar max peaked just before Apollo 11; most of Apollo's operation period occurred during the solar radiation decline toward solar minimum.
And yes, the ambient solar radiation is not significant over a two-week period. The hazard is not from that so much as from the solar events. Those are discrete, measurable events that have been tracked by every observatory on the planet since Victorian times.
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Post by Grand Lunar on May 10, 2008 7:24:19 GMT -4
Oh the fun never ends.
An encounter with one HB shows he really needs to read "Death from the Skies" when it comes out.
He believes that gamma ray bursts make the enviroment of space dangerous outside of the VABs, and thus Apollo is faked.
Then we have the usual "No other nation claimed to send manned spacecraft outside the VABs, so because other nations have radiaiton data doesn't mean that Apollo was real!"
Neither one appearently knows what the inverse square law is either. Few HBs, it seems, ever do.
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on May 10, 2008 8:28:48 GMT -4
He believes that gamma ray bursts make the enviroment of space dangerous outside of the VABs, and thus Apollo is faked. Earth's magnetic field doesn't do anything to block gamma rays. This is evident by the fact that the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory orbits beneath the VABs at an altitude of about 450 kilometers. Gamma ray exposure above the VABs will be higher than LEO only because the apparent size of the Earth blocks less of the view to deep space. At the altitude of the ISS, for example, Earth blocks about 33% of the sky. Traveling beyond the VAB shouldn't increase exposure to gamma ray bursts more than 50%.
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Post by Grand Lunar on May 10, 2008 18:52:17 GMT -4
Every HB I meet seems to not understand that the magnetic field doesn't effect EM radiation.
Is it any wonder that this fact was skipped in the movie "The Core"?
Not that "The Core" was made by HBs, mind you.
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Post by Data Cable on May 10, 2008 19:04:31 GMT -4
Not that "The Core" was made by HBs, mind you. Hollywood Bunglers?
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Post by Grand Lunar on May 11, 2008 6:27:21 GMT -4
Not that "The Core" was made by HBs, mind you. Hollywood Bunglers? Okay, maybe THAT sort of HB. Certainly those were also the makers of Armageddon. *shudders*
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Post by nomuse on May 11, 2008 17:47:34 GMT -4
Not to rush to defend or anything, but my understanding was The Core was scripted by someone who knew the physics involved quite well. As he saw it, he was writing a spoof of those 50's super-science movies -- you can see evidence of this attitude in such things as the blatantly-named "Unobtanium" hull material.
Trouble was, the studio heads didn't quite see it the same way. They treated the material too seriously (or would that be, not seriously enough to be camp?) And the promotional materials were all about "Big serious disaster movie!"
Makes me think. If only the film had staged itself as a campy send-off of bloated stupidity-barges like "Armageddon," it might have been much better appreciated.
(Another insight to how the scriptwriter got it right...a moment where one of the geologist characters points out just how stupid it would be to try to alter the spin of a ball of iron the size of the Moon. Promptly followed by the next line, which is basically..."and here's how we're going to do it.")
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Post by Mr Gorsky on May 12, 2008 4:54:26 GMT -4
Absolutely, my main problem with The Core is precisely that the movie took itself that seriously. The tone was certainly not one of gentle parody or tongue in cheek spoof, but "Big Serious Disaster Movie". You can't blame the studio for promoting it that way, since that is how it comes across.
That said, Armageddon does such a good job of camping up itself ... the "Russian" cosmonaut, the canyon leap, the swooping, banking shuttles, etc. ... that I fear any sensible parody (if that isn't an oxymoron) would be doomed to failure.
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Post by JayUtah on May 12, 2008 11:49:47 GMT -4
My biggest problem with The Core is that it was rendered on my former company's equipment. We tried for years to get into the entertainment market, which was locked up effectively by Apple, Sun, and SGI, then later by Dell. So we were excited to see a feature film that we could claim significant ownership in. The entire company went to see it on its opening day, and afterwards there were a lot of serious discussions about whether we wanted to continue having our name attached to a "disaster" of a movie.
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Post by Cavorite on May 13, 2008 0:13:38 GMT -4
Is there a corporate version of Alan Smithee for companies that wish to distance themselves from a turkey? Yes, I know the use of that moniker has been discontinued in the US in favour of different ones for each production, but it's the one everybody knows. As I understand it, it's actually somewhat difficult to get a directorial credit smitheed (I just verbed the name!), as lack of creative control has to be proved, but is there any way for a company to dissociate itself from a production it feels would bring it into disrepute? I'm guessing no.
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Post by JayUtah on May 13, 2008 10:53:11 GMT -4
The Alan Smithee route is open only to members of the Directors' Guild of America where the producer's contract for directorial services is with the guild. The aggreived director must petition the DGA for relief, whereupon -- if successful -- the guild invokes a provision in the contract compelling the producer legally to dissociate the director. The director's burden of proof is heavy. Not all directors have creative control anyway; he must prove that he was offered a certain degree of it, allowed to exercise it, and then undermined later by conflicting creative efforts after it was too late for him to withdraw from the production. He must prove that the final product differs substantially from his original intent and expectation due to the actions of others. Simply being roped into a bad deal is not sufficient grounds.
Corporations have no such opportunity because their image and associations are matters of public attention and market forces, not a contractual arrangement. A corporation or company is a collective entity, not an individual, and is presumed to display enough internal variance to ensure that the final offering represents the company's final intent. There is little room to claim that the company's intent was overridden by nefarious forces over which it had no control. Public companies are democratic entities governed by their shareholders and operated by boards of directors. "No wait! That's not what I meant," isn't really a defense.
The traditional method for distancing one's company from a spectacular failure is to change the company name. But that is a heavy-handed remedy that is usually saved for the end of a long string of failures from which there is a clear need to create distance. A lesser remedy is to change the titular leadership of the company. "Under new management," has value in apologizing for failure, whether an actual functional change occurs or not.
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Post by AtomicDog on May 13, 2008 11:14:52 GMT -4
Harlan Ellison uses "Cordwainer Bird", but it is uniquely his, not a general writer's pseudonym.
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Post by gillianren on May 13, 2008 12:38:27 GMT -4
Harlan Ellison has about a half-dozen pseudonyms.
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Post by wdmundt on May 13, 2008 17:50:27 GMT -4
David Gerrold, probably most famous for Star Trek's "The Trouble with Tribbles," uses "Noah Ward," which I always thought was rather clever.
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Post by Mr Gorsky on May 14, 2008 5:34:54 GMT -4
Personally, I always liked J Michael Straczynski's choice of pseudonym for his much messed around with TV show Crusade ... "Iben Scrood". Unfortunately, the WGA wouldn't let him use it.
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