Science Stories You'll Be Hearing About In 2019

[octave]

For science nerds (if there are any here)

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Wow, lots happening in space exploration. Everybody seems to be getting into space.

 

I guess my country might also finally get interested again, but no doubt we'll be beaten by NZ, Vanuatu, Samoa..

 

 

[nomadpete]

We can't be beaten - we aren't even in the race!

 

 

[willedoo]

It will be good for the pride of the Americans to be able to transport their crews to the ISS after an eight year break. The Russian's will miss the money, at 80+ million per seat on the Soyuz that they currently get (don't know if that's return trip or each way; I'd guess return). Although, they still get to sell the Americans their first stage heavy booster rocket engines which are used on the Atlas V to launch the Boeing crew vehicle. The Americans are planning to design one of their own, but it will be some time yet.

 

An interesting recent development from Roscosmos is their new trajectory designs for the Soyuz. They claim they've got it down to two earth orbits, giving a journey time to the ISS of three hours. First manned flights are planned in 18 months time.

 

 

[Yenn]

Everybody getting into space. I wish, we could do with a lot of people getting into space to lessen their impact on this earth.

 

 

[Bruce]

I wish we stopped supporting their stupid wars and instead gave NASA the money.

 

 

[Litespeed]

If we stopped spending on Military for just one year we could put solar panels and batteries in every home.

 

Would be a huge win for the planet and greatly reduce the cost of living.

 

And generate a lot of jobs.

 

 

[willedoo]

I wonder what it would be globally if the whole world had a 12 month amnesty and turned over their entire military budgets to something good for the world. It would probably be at least one and a half thousand billion US dollars. That would buy a few batteries.

 

 

[Litespeed]

Yes exactly, imagine how liberating that we be for the the people and how upsetting for big mining, big power and big merchant banks.

 

 

[Marty_d]

I love the thought of it. But fat chance. Imagine the boards of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon laughing their ar*ses off at the thought. They own too many politicians.

 

 

[willedoo]

On the other side of the environmental coin, with a US military budget of 700 billion, imagine how much mining and drilling it takes to feed a machine like that. And that's one country, albeit the biggest spender.

 

 

[Bruce]

For most of my life, the US outspent the rest of the world put together on its military. Strange huh that it is only in recent years that this has become generally known.

 

It would have been in the interests of the pentagon etc for people to think that Russia, for example, was spending nearly as much. Well it worked for me, I would have said Russia was as big, when they were in fact much smaller.

 

 

[Litespeed]

Very true, but you don't have to spend anywhere near that much if you don't endlessly pour money into local pollies pet projects for votes and welfare for defence companies.

 

Anyone for a $200 meal for a soldier who is even there?

 

 

[Bruce]

Why is it that governments everywhere pay too much for most things? Is there any jurisdiction inn the world where taxpayers money is treated with respect?

 

Even our local council pays fat cats too much and you would think the ratepayers would object, but they seem numb and just accept paying over $360,000 to the chief fat cat. And the council is small potatoes compared to the military.

 

 

[willedoo]

For most of my life, the US outspent the rest of the world put together on its military. Strange huh that it is only in recent years that this has become generally known.It would have been in the interests of the pentagon etc for people to think that Russia, for example, was spending nearly as much. Well it worked for me, I would have said Russia was as big, when they were in fact much smaller.

In the last few years, Russia has been about one tenth the budget of the US, around the 50-60 billion mark. For the next year, it's forcast to drop to only $17 billion. I think they can achieve that because most of the expensive development and upgrading has been previously done while oil prices were high. So now they can afford to sit back in maintenance mode for a while. Another reason is that the public are getting more impatient for social improvements, so the government has decided to cut military spending and boost community spending to shore up public support.

 

One difference is that Russia's spending has been going into rebuilding previously lost defense capabilities, whereas America's massive spending is necessary just to keep the current elephant fed.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Big businesses love to suck on the government teat. It really does make a joke of the conservative's propensity to favour private enterprise over public service.

 

It'd be interesting to know how much the government has spent on private security firms (eg Wilson Security) who they pay to do offshore detention.

 

 

[Bruce]

Thats interesting wille, I read that Russia's military spending was less than Australia's and found it hard to believe. But at 36 billion for Australia, that may well be the case on your figures.

 

 

[willedoo]

Thats interesting wille, I read that Russia's military spending was less than Australia's and found it hard to believe. But at 36 billion for Australia, that may well be the case on your figures.

Bruce, here's a chart of spending, ending in 2016, the peak post Soviet year which was nearly 70 billion. 2017 (55bill.), 2018 (42 bill.) and projected 2019 are the first drops since the end of the Soviet Union. Interestingly, you see on the chart the lowest point around the time Putin came to power and it's increased steadily ever since until the peak in 2016. No wonder the yanks don't like him.

 

I think like all statistics, they can be juggled a bit. Another reason the budget is able to drop now is that when oil prices and revenue were good a while back, the government opted to pay their debts to private defense contractors in full. Normally it would have been spread over following years which would have increased the budget figures on paper.

 

As it stands today, the Russian military is a lot leaner, but also a lot meaner. A lot of the necessary upgrading, new development and expenditure has been done. The U.S. on the other hand has yet to cross that bridge. They need significant development, upgrading and new acquisitions, costing a lot of money. A lot of their air and naval fleet is getting old and needs a lot of money to be spent. Having said that, Russia could do with a lot of work on their naval fleet.

 

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[willedoo]

Octave, apologies for thread drift. Back to science.

 

 

[octave]

Octave, apologies for thread drift. Back to science.

No problem, thread drifts can be fascinating

 

 

[willedoo]

Some of NASA's moon plans:

 

NASA head: "This time, when we go to the Moon, we will stay."

 

 

[willedoo]

The first payload of OneWeb satellites has just been delivered into orbit. OneWeb Satellites, a joint venture between OneWeb and Airbus, has partnered with Russian space agency Roscosmos in plans for 21 launches to place 650 satellites in orbit and hopefully provide world wide broadband internet.

 

The mission was completed by European launch provider Arianespace, which used a Soyuz launcher to put the satellites into space. They're planning to do it with a series of monthly launches.

 

 

[spacesailor]

Are these new internet satellites going to give us "international" I nternet Provider 's .

 

That is (when up & running) access british telecom, or The American (AT&T) provider's. (even Russian)

 

I can see our government Outlawing all this good international service, just to keep Australian consumers under their thumb of compulsory NBN

 

After all that, the "white elephant", NBN will be obsolete. (as soon as 5G is operating).

 

spacesailor

 

 

[nomadpete]

I suspect that 650 satellites would be low orbit? If that is the case, they will be expensive. Low orbit satellites are on a decaying orbit. So there must be a continued programme of sending up replacement satellites to replace the ones that fall down. Seems an expensive infrastructure project . They must be expecting most of the world to subscribe, to pay for it

 

 

[willedoo]

I think that's their business plan; it's a bit of a gamble.