Something new has grabbed my interest, but I cannot find any really detailed information about the subject. Nano-technology. I’ve mentioned it but I’d like to know more about the process, or to acquire a piece of this as raw material. Most intriguing is the TV reports of a “space elevator” that is now feasible because they say this carbon material is 100 times stronger than steel and one-sixth the weight. Does that translate into a tower 600 times higher? If the Eiffel Tower is 1,000 feet high, for 600,000 feet, that means over 113 miles.
There is an adage that outer space is only an hour away if you could drive straight up. I hope I live to see it. They say what makes the shuttle exhaust so hot is that it is really burning bales of $1,000-dollar bills. Trust me, they are not going to be allowing any college dropouts and welfare cases to immigrate to Mars in case some refuse to see that coming. The people preparing to leave know that Earth can’t be fixed.Here’s speculation. My guess is this elevator will have three towers (triangular), to continually work the counter-weight system, two at a time while the spare undergoes maintenance. I say the "single thread" projects are wrong because of the danger of collateral damage. The tower base has to be capable of retracting the cable from it's theoretical center of gravity. The base of something that tall has to be large, like a pyramid, but a full size pyramid is not needed. First, there will be a large triangular pyramid base 8 miles high. On top of that to another 28 miles, a series of geodesic dome-like frameworks. Then, the next 15 miles, the towers will be stayed with nano-cables, thereafter above most of the atmosphere, free standing but rigid because they are interlocked with a lattice, not shown.
Whatever is atop these towers gains orbital velocity from the Earth’s momentum on the journey up, eliminating the first two rocket stages. Working continually like a pump, the prototype will raise 1.4 million tons per cycle from the base in Texas. Later technology will slingshot payloads to escape velocity, but initially the job will still involve chemical rockets, which will become very cheap once they use ordinary kerosene and compressed air. I’m no engineer, but the rules must still be obeyed. Bear in mind, my diagram is two-dimensional for I’m no artist either.
The tour tomorrow will be called off if I don’t shake this flu. Head, throat, upper chest. I optimistically went shopping for the sandwich supplies, where I ran into Maude. Remember Maude, wants me to meet her husband? She’s be great alone in an advanced state of nudity but otherwise, I’d rather avoid the whole “loved her, hated him” scenario. I stayed home near the coffee pot and lots of chicken soup. It does not get more exciting today, so only read on if you must. Oh, and congratulations to the Chloraseptic people for devising a container for their sore throat strips that lets moisture ruin the product while it is still in the foil wrapping.
This next Monday afternoon, I do believe I’ll be joining a workforce placement service. I would really rather avoid any type of management job but those are the only offers I’m getting. If I wanted to manage, I’d start my own shop. However, I remember getting plenty of help over at the workforce department in early 2005 and I honestly believe I’m a lot more qualified by far than any of the people I saw in their meetings. Some of them looked like they’d have trouble figuring out a parking meter. It is worth a shot since all the same supervisors are still there and they get paid by the placement.
You know what I have against management jobs? Easy, because like clerical work, it never ends, never progresses, never gets better, and the challenges are not work but the ever shorter deadlines the other manager’s cook up as long as they don’t have to do the job themselves.
Not to waste the unexpected break, I used the day to listen to music. I have a theory why I don’t know Hendrix’s “Red House”. Because you have to be totally blasted and vegetate to get through that four minutes and I never did do drugs. It is neither rock nor blues but without a little chemical assistance, it is a real judgment call whether it contains the best or worst of both. To me, it drones on. To paraphrase U. S. Grant, “I only know two Hendrix songs. One of them is “Hey Joe” and the other one isn’t.”
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