Yes, something like this Star Wars: Revelations project would
certainly be more doable. That's a much more modest proposal. It's
not IMAX so you don't have that overhead in super-sophisticated
camera hardware, it was filmed with just one camera, it was only 40
minutes long, it was made over 3 years, and it was produced in simple
media formats. That's probably doable 'passing-the-hat' as long as
there were at least a few key talents to drive the activity. If there
were people I knew were ready, able, and willing to do this I'd be
happy to put my own money into it. I also agree with the notion of
the virtual set approach. That's definitely most likely to be the
cheapest approach since it so reduces the necessary facilities scale
and the travel overhead. Thing is, the subject of making a movie or
TV show featuring TMP settings has come up a number of times in the
past and to date no one with the necessary skills has stepped-up to
say they want to do something like this. Ideas like this are always
being proposed by people who couldn't even get it started themselves
if their lives depended on it. That's OK, but it doesn't help. So I
would have to assume that were we doing anything along these lines,
we would have to hire all the needed talent up front. That changes
the picture dramatically. Revelations depended upon a circle of
friends who were all pretty talented and skilled. People who were
virtually pros to begin with. Talent leverages money. Then on top of
that that they had a Star Wars fan base of vast scale from which to
draw on for other amateur talent. Hiring that caliber of talent
probably puts this several times higher in cost and probably out of
reach.

Now, another option that could be considered is an 'audio play'.
Podcast audio dramas are getting increasingly popular simply because
they are now so easy to make compared to film and video. Some say
we're in the midst of an audio media renaissance because of this. The
technology has brought this down to the one-man pass-time venture
level. There are all these authors popping up doing their own voice
acting and getting friends to help them. Thanks to the record
industry's neurotic compulsion to hoist itself on its own petard,
there's also an explosion in copyright-free, buy-out, and 'pod-safe'
music and sound effects available on-line. And what's nice about
Podcasting is that it doesn't have to be purely audio. You can add a
slide show of images to the audio to enhance it. This is really
inexpensive. Something that you really wouldn't need more than one
person to initiate, a few thousand in equipment, and some friends
with weekend spare time to contribute. Indeed, there's a new trick
now where voice acting is done alone at home and emailed to the show
producer to be put together. (to synchronize an audio session, people
can listen to each other over conference call, while their recording
the 'master' for their voice locally with a computer) Some pro voice
actors are now selling their services on-line this way. This would
also be a good way to 'test market' a TMP related story in the hopes
of raising support for production in other media. Some people here
may recall that Douglas Adams' Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy
started out as a radio drama even before it was a novel. But -if
you'll excuse the vernacular- it does take some balls to be willing
to do your own acting and expose yourself to an open audience, even
if it's on-line. Again, I'd buy the equipment to do this out of my
pocket right now if I knew there were even 3 people ready, able, and
willing to carry it through.

I agree that persistence and determination are key, but right now we
are also dealing with a severe talent deficit. I mean no disrespect
to anyone in this group, but it seems like there really is no one
here especially skilled or talented at anything. No one is really
stepping up. It's like we're all middle-management from Prudential or
something. Like I said, talent leverages money. But without it all
you have to work with is money and you'll pay a premium to hire
talent. So while it's fine to think big, the immediate here and now
is limited to modest ideas the people proposing them ought to be
willing to develop a plan for and get their own hands dirty making
happen. It frustrates me a bit that I've seen the notion of a TMP
movie or TV show floated on these forums some dozen times at least
over the years, but never by anyone who has used so much as a super-8
camera or written so much as a classifieds ad themselves or who has
any intention of learning how and making this idea happen. Ideas are
easy. Plans take some effort.

Eric Hunting

hunting@...



On Aug 1, 2007, at 1:24 AM, luf-team@yahoogroups.com wrote:

> 1a. Re: Something to think about
>     Posted by: "Dave Williams" stuff@...
> davewilliams1947
>     Date: Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:42 pm ((PDT))
>
> --- In luf-team@yahoogroups.com, Eric Hunting <hunting@...> wrote:
>>
>> Even CGI can have a higher overhead with it.
>
> Off-the-shelf Lightwave can produce IMAX-size images. While it would
> take longer to render, it IS possible. The bigger problem would be to
> get an IMAX theater to even show it.
>
>> What might
>> be within our reach is producing a film script, storyboard, and
>> concept art portfolio -if we had some talented artists on-hand.
> That
>> you might be able to shop around for support from established film
>> producers.
>
> This film:
>
> http://www.panicstruckpro.com/revelations/revelations_movie.html
>
> was financed by the Director with credit cards and looks VERY
> impressive for an amateur production. Sonmething like this is quite
> feasible - especially given the "$10 from a thousand members"
> scenario.
>
>> But this isn't the most popular of topics in Hollywood.
>> For decades Hollywood has only been interested in dystopian and
>> apocalyptic visions of the future. Notions of a positive future
> are
>> more alien to these people than space aliens! It takes a higher
> level
>> of thinking to find drama in a world that actually more-or-less
> works
>> as opposed to a world where everything is out of a nightmare by
>> default. SciFi without things blowing up and malevolent bug-eyed
>> aliens to slaughter is a very hard-sell.
>
> True, but Star Trek managed to do a pretty good job within
> it's "positive future" framework. I don't know why someone can't come
> up
> with an interesting story that has dramatic elements AND uses the LUF
> settings.
>
>> I don't want to discourage a free flow of ideas, but given the
> number
>> of active people we have now and the limits on their individual
>> wealth and capability we really have to think a bit smaller at
> this
>> stage. As a guess, raising $50k is probably the outside maximum we
>> could hope for 'passing the hat' around the current group -and
> that
>> would take a VERY compelling project concept to win that much
>> support.
>
> It would take a great deal of coordination on the part of one or more
> individuals to move this project forward. It all comes down to how
> much people want it and how much they believe in it. Creating a short
> film or feature length film is not out of the realm of possibility,
> but a continuing desire to make it is essential. The guy who made
> Revelations used talent from all around the world. Considering the
> nature of this project...  that would be quite an appropriate source!
>
> But as has already been stated, you would need quite a few dedicated
> people...   to write the story...  to design what needs to be
> designed... to build (in 3D) what needs to be built...  etc. I
> consider myself to be more of a technician rather than artist - give
> me a detailed sketch and we can build it in 3D. Give me a general
> design and I have a VERY hard time translating it. I'm used to
> blueprints!
>
> Personally I would avoid IMAX and concentrate on standard film
> format. IMAX just opens up another can of worms. The quality of
> effects that the film Final Fantasy illustrated is possible today
> using off-the-shelf software so 3D actors could ultimately be used.
> Or you also have the techniques used in SkyCaptain, 300 and Sin City
> where you essentially have virtual sets. The possibilities are
> incredible but the TWO items that are required are persistence and
> determination.
>
> It would be interesting...   :)

This is the most practical ticket to space that I have heard of so far. I
myself am half way through a course in medical transcription. My plan is to
do all my work as a tele commuter so I will be free to enter and work from a
space habitat here on Earth, work from a balloon supported space lab or even
from space itself. That way I will have a steady income while I am learning
how to recycle air, water and nutrients,
and grow food. I have tried this myself but the work load is overwhelming.
Staying
in space will require a division of labor.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/3c082d2daa463110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdr\
crd.html

To get into space some are talking about putting a chair on top
of  ball shaped fuel tanks which sit on a rocket motor all of which are
held together by a tubular frame much like those in race cars. The amount of
fuel and oxidizer to boost a 120 - 180 pound gal or guy with such a rig
to 11 km/s cannot cost twenty million dollars. If this works it will make
space affordable. Once in orbit, collect the
jumpers, and bolt them together. Each family would then move into an igloo
sized ball/tank of their own. While the other tanks on each jumper are
donated to house
heating and air conditioning,  kitchen, food production, machine shops,
work rooms, power generation and storage areas. When the North American
wilderness
was first opened, some people did not wait for the Interstate Highway to be
built, they put a dish, a spoon, a knife and a loaf of bread in a sack and
just
walked into it. Are there any more gangsters out there who want to go to
space and live off the land so to speak. Nobody is going to get rich; I am
not thinking of a commercial venture. Ten couples with tele commute job
skills: computer programmers, medical transcriptionists or engineering
consultants etc. that can work over the internet i.e. bring in a paycheck
from space, plus mechanics, machinists, medical doctors, pilots. Ten couples
(American citizenship not required), 24 people with skills together would
have
some buying power for supplies which the Russians would be willing to lift
if
we could afford it(i.e. lathe, welding equipment, tool sets, chemicals to
make food grade plastic, a sewing machine, etc.).  If we could get one or
two of us up
there on a jumper, establish a closed bio-life-support-system, then
the rest of the gang could follow. We would have many engines and certainly
some
left over fuel/oxidizer. Maybe we could push off to Mars.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Turner" <josephturner@...>
To: <luf-team@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 7:53 PM
Subject: [luf-team] Re: LUF-TEAM Wake-Up Call


>  The good news is, I now work in a field that will never
> suffer from layoffs, downsizing, or cutbacks, and is unlikely to
> become very automated anytime soon.  Plus I can go to almost any town
> in the country and find work.  Yes, I am a Wastewater Treatment Plant
> Operator.  Aren't you all just green with envy?  (*sniffs pits*, or is
> that me making you turn green?)
> Anyway, the reason I mention my new profession is because I figure
> that recycling wastewater into fresh water and nutrients would be a
> highly desirable skill for any spaceman wannabe to have come the time
> we're ready to move off-planet, so that will be my in.  Sure, it's not
> glamorous, but what do I care about glamor, so long as I get to go.
> So that's what I've been up to.  Just wanted to chime in with an "I'm
> still here too" and give my full virtual support to any projects still
> moving forward.  >
> -Joe Turner
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> Don't forget to visit these LUF Sites!
> LUF Team     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/luf-team/
> LUF Home     http://www.luf.org/
> LUF Website  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/luf-website/
>
> Other sites:
> OTEC News    http://www.otecnews.org/
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

I was looking at this new on-line design center that was noted on the
NASA Tech Briefs (http://www.techbriefs.com/component/
option,com_ntbmicro/task,designcenter) and found this link to a
company in Germany that is making some very elegant solar powered
ferries.

http://www.kopf-solardesign.com/

Their larger Shuttle System series is almost exactly what I described
earlier as a likely Solar Ferry for use with the early near-shore
Aquarius settlements, though with a much more interesting solar
canopy structure than I ever imagined.


Eric Hunting

hunting@...

The system they are describing in that PopSci article is a sub-
orbital system. While this concept of an open-cockpit sub-orbital
launcher does lend credence to the notion of 'minimalist' rockets
(something I think definitely deserves exploration), it will take
much more than a rocket chair to get to LEO.

It's certainly logical to recycle fuel tanks into habitats, but you
can't readily do that with tanks that are 'raw'. They need to be
tanks that have been engineered to allow this repurposing with as
little on-orbit work as possible because you're not going to be able
to do a lot of adaptation work in an open space environment. That
adds mass, which makes your launch system that much larger. And most
such scenarios still call for a couple of launches worth of equipment
to fully outfit any one tank module. So what do the first people live
in while building this first habitat? They can't live for weeks in a
space suit. So you have to start out by launching some kind of
rudimentary habitat whole to use as a work shed and you have to be
able to find and dock with it for each subsequent trip, which means
spacecraft with a high degree of on-orbit maneuvering capability.

While telecommuting from orbit is sensible on the face of it, I find
it hard to imagine anyone other than a top corporate mogul earning
enough money that way to support a living in space. A dozen of them
could afford a private space program, but the ultra-rich aren't known
for their ability to form communities and cooperate with each other.
You can't live off the fat of the land in orbit because there's no
fat. You must either constantly supply yourself from the Earth at
extreme cost or establish an infrastructure that can exploit
materials from different parts of the solar system.

So, while it's a nice dream, I fear the idea that a couple dozen
middle-class people could 'homestead' in orbit is fanciful at best,
given any current technology.

Eric Hunting

hunting@...


> 1a. Re: LUF-TEAM Wake-Up Call
>     Posted by: "William Starin" lupso@... bisbotba
>     Date: Thu Aug 2, 2007 6:54 pm ((PDT))
>
> This is the most practical ticket to space that I have heard of so
> far. I
> myself am half way through a course in medical transcription. My
> plan is to
> do all my work as a tele commuter so I will be free to enter and
> work from a
> space habitat here on Earth, work from a balloon supported space
> lab or even
> from space itself. That way I will have a steady income while I am
> learning
> how to recycle air, water and nutrients,
> and grow food. I have tried this myself but the work load is
> overwhelming.
> Staying
> in space will require a division of labor.
>
> http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/
> 3c082d2daa463110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
>
> To get into space some are talking about putting a chair on top
> of  ball shaped fuel tanks which sit on a rocket motor all of which
> are
> held together by a tubular frame much like those in race cars. The
> amount of
> fuel and oxidizer to boost a 120 - 180 pound gal or guy with such a
> rig
> to 11 km/s cannot cost twenty million dollars. If this works it
> will make
> space affordable. Once in orbit, collect the
> jumpers, and bolt them together. Each family would then move into
> an igloo
> sized ball/tank of their own. While the other tanks on each jumper are
> donated to house
> heating and air conditioning,  kitchen, food production, machine
> shops,
> work rooms, power generation and storage areas. When the North
> American
> wilderness
> was first opened, some people did not wait for the Interstate
> Highway to be
> built, they put a dish, a spoon, a knife and a loaf of bread in a
> sack and
> just
> walked into it. Are there any more gangsters out there who want to
> go to
> space and live off the land so to speak. Nobody is going to get
> rich; I am
> not thinking of a commercial venture. Ten couples with tele commute
> job
> skills: computer programmers, medical transcriptionists or engineering
> consultants etc. that can work over the internet i.e. bring in a
> paycheck
> from space, plus mechanics, machinists, medical doctors, pilots.
> Ten couples
> (American citizenship not required), 24 people with skills together
> would
> have
> some buying power for supplies which the Russians would be willing
> to lift
> if
> we could afford it(i.e. lathe, welding equipment, tool sets,
> chemicals to
> make food grade plastic, a sewing machine, etc.).  If we could get
> one or
> two of us up
> there on a jumper, establish a closed bio-life-support-system, then
> the rest of the gang could follow. We would have many engines and
> certainly
> some
> left over fuel/oxidizer. Maybe we could push off to Mars.

************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at
http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

lurkin since 96'... the first stuff i remember eric going on about was
seacrete i think...

On 7/2/07, Ingrid <hockeygoon@...> wrote:
>
>   Hello, all!
>
> Just a quick note to ask everyone to please update your membership
> status on LUF-team Yahoo Group. There are over 1000 people on this
> list and we don't know who's active, dormant, and long gone.
>
> Thanks!
> Ingrid
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

how about functional sails made from flexible/micro PV's?

On 8/3/07, Eric Hunting <hunting@...> wrote:
>
>   I was looking at this new on-line design center that was noted on the
> NASA Tech Briefs (http://www.techbriefs.com/component/
> option,com_ntbmicro/task,designcenter) and found this link to a
> company in Germany that is making some very elegant solar powered
> ferries.
>
> http://www.kopf-solardesign.com/
>
> Their larger Shuttle System series is almost exactly what I described
> earlier as a likely Solar Ferry for use with the early near-shore
> Aquarius settlements, though with a much more interesting solar
> canopy structure than I ever imagined.
>
> Eric Hunting
>
> hunting@... <hunting%40tigger.jvnc.net>
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I was at an investment conference the other week, and came
across an interesting energy company. While not of much use in
the context of Aquarius, its technology could be of interest
further down the road. The name of the company is Enviromission
and it is based in Australia.

In what is currently considered an example of extreme
engineering, they are building an extremely tall hollow tower,
that is designed to allow warm air to enter at the bottom, and
rise up to the top with mixing with other air on the way up.
Ideally, if the resulting wind velocities are great enough, it
should be capable of driving turbines at ground level so as to
generate power.


Two articles regarding the company and its process can be found
at
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/08/01/8382232/in\
dex.htm
and
http://dsc.discovery.com/beyond/player.html?playerId=203711706&bclid=958525258


I actually had a chance to speak with one of the engineers
involved, and discovered that they are currently examining the
Mojave as a possible location. They also have a prototype
project in China. However, thanks to politics it seems it is
being done in Shanghai, even though it really should be done in
the Gobi.

The company also has a website at
http://www.enviromission.com.au/index.htm

I just hope the current prototypes work out.

Kirk



________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's
Comedy with an Edge to see what's on, when.
http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/222

I recently learned of a Buckminster Fuller competition
(http://challenge.bfi.org/ <http://challenge.bfi.org/> ) that appears to
be tailor made for the sustainable village of 1,000 about which I have
made several posts to this forum. This competition permits proposals
consisting of a maximum of 1500 words and six sketches to be made in the
time frame from 4 September to 30 October; my plan is to have a draft
ready by the end of September, use the month of October to incorporate
comments from anyone who might want to review it, and then submit it so
as to arrive on the last day.



Rather than a village of 1,000 my proposal will be for a smaller test
community of 114 to consist of a standard module with a footprint of
120' by 175' containing 30 homes and 70 bedrooms to support 100 people
as described on Village Power page of the web site at
www.lowearthorbitnow.org <http://www.lowearthorbitnow.org/>  plus a
tenth size enclosed agricultural complex (at this time I estimate it to
be 65,000 square feet) plus a standard one, two, three, and four bedroom
home plus a 100 foot diameter domed community center plus an
orchard/park area with the total of all components occupying a land area
of about 10 acres. I hold no great expectations of winning the $100,000
prize, to be awarded next June, but the experience of putting together
the proposal should serve as a point of precipitation about which to
better define a standard village of 1,000. In fact, it might turn out
that this smaller community will elicit more interest than the village.



I am going to solicit participation in either preparing or reviewing the
proposal from many sources starting with earlier contacts I have already
made including, but not limited to John Todd of Ocean Arks International
(http://www.oceanarks.org/ <http://www.oceanarks.org/> ), the
Maine-based Chewonki Foundation (http://www.chewonki.org/
<http://www.chewonki.org/> ), and several I learned of through a Yahoo
forum (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/solaroof/
<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/solaroof/> ) consisting of Richard
Nelson in his development of solaroof as a greenhouse covering, Jeff
Buderer and his promotion of Open Source Ecology, George Chan with his
Integrated Food & Waste Management System, and Cimbria Badenhausen and
her green roofs in Blue Sky Design.



The intent will be to develop a standard design that can serve as a
template adaptable over a wide range of applications. This might be a
stretch, but one adaptation could be to set one up as a model Community
Investment Corporation catering to those interested in solar
colonization.



In any event, if this is of interest, I welcome the participation of
anyone in this group at whatever level anyone is prepared to give. Those
interested can respond by answering this post or to me privately
(ljan910 at yahoo.com).



Best regards,



Leon Neihouse



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

It's possible, but has the problem that they aren't yet really
'foldable' so you would have difficulty stowing them. However, the
racing yachts now commonly use kevlar sails which have a similar
problem. They have to be rolled up so they make stowing quickly when
the ships must change sails (particularly when they swap in a
'spinnaker' sail) a challenge. But maybe the solutions they use could
work with a composite sail using these flex-cells. It depends on how
small a radius of curve they will tolerate.

Now, in Australia they have been running the Sydney Solar Sailor
ferry for a number of years.

http://www.solarnavigator.net/solar_sailor.htm

This is a very attractive but elaborate hybrid design that uses 8
articulated wingsails. The rigid wingsails host their own solar
arrays and are designed to both actively track the sun and provide
supplemental propulsion from the wind. (the sails are too small for
general propulsion) I like the look of the Sydney Solar Sailor but
its design is too specialized. The nascent Aquarius seed settlement
would need a very minimalist multi-use design for its ferry because
it would need to serve periodically as a construction platform and a
RoRo (roll-on/roll-off) cargo carrier for bulky equipment such as
individual ISO containers, large domestic appliances, 'bobcats' and
mini-excavators, fork lifts, and pallet-carried equipment like large
air conditioner units, generator units, etc. So I envisioned a
totally flat-deck catamaran with corner point electric azimuth
thrusters where its functional surface structures are all retrofit so
different features could be plugged-in and taken off on demand.
Generally, you would have this canopy supporting its solar panels and
seating units. Other times you would remove the canopy, use an on-
deck generator and mini pilot cabin and the rest of the space would
be completely open. This basic form would be scalable so larger
versions could be built as population grows, the catamaran switching
to a trimaran by simple structural expansion before being replaced by
successively larger pontoon and deck systems. This is something that,
in theory, could be easily built using off-the-shelf products. These
German boats suggest I wasn't too far off track.

Wingsails are a good mounting surface for solar panels since, at sea,
a vertical solar panel can get almost as much insolation reflected
off the water as a horizontal one can get directly while having two
facing surface to collect light from. And, for general wind
propulsion, a rigid wingsail is much more efficient and totally
automated. Operation of a wingsail ship requires no additional skills
over a motor driven vessel because the wings self-adjust for the wind
conditions. There was once a plan for a wheelchair bound person to
make a round-the-world solo cruise using one of these rare wingsail
catamaran ships. The Cousteau Society had one of the earliest ones,
but it was wrecked in a hurricane. I proposed the use of these with
solar panels for the Wingsail Cruiser; a relatively lower-tech
precursor to the EcoCruiser as a service ship for Aquarius. It would
have intercontinental reach, albeit slow. I've imagined it as a
direct evolution of the Solar Ferry, being another simple totally
flat decked SWATH catamaran or trimaran with 4 or more large PV
equipped wingsails at the corners directly above its higher
performance azimuth thrusters or along a central axis. The EcoCruiser
then evolves from this form by going to a larger scale but reducing
wingsails to supplemental function or eliminating them, focusing more
on container cargo, and incorporating primarily fuel cell based
electric propulsion using hydrogen, methanol, liquid borohydride, or
vanadium redox. This, of course, calls for an infrastructure for
these energy mediums to be established on the full scale Aquarius.

Eric Hunting

hunting@...

> 2a. Re: Solar Ships
>     Posted by: "Wayne Richardson" psiclone@... geniocrat
>     Date: Wed Aug 8, 2007 6:00 pm ((PDT))
>
> how about functional sails made from flexible/micro PV's?
>
> On 8/3/07, Eric Hunting <hunting@...> wrote:
>>
>>   I was looking at this new on-line design center that was noted
>> on the
>> NASA Tech Briefs (http://www.techbriefs.com/component/
>> option,com_ntbmicro/task,designcenter) and found this link to a
>> company in Germany that is making some very elegant solar powered
>> ferries.
>>
>> http://www.kopf-solardesign.com/
>>
>> Their larger Shuttle System series is almost exactly what I described
>> earlier as a likely Solar Ferry for use with the early near-shore
>> Aquarius settlements, though with a much more interesting solar
>> canopy structure than I ever imagined.
>>
>> Eric Hunting
>>
>> hunting@... <hunting%40tigger.jvnc.net>
>>
>>
>>

Actually, this does have some potential roles on Aquarius. This
technology is otherwise known as a 'stack effect' or 'chimney effect'
turbine and it is scalable. The systems have been built at scales
common to larger wind turbines going back into the early 20th century
and they supposedly produce comparable power output, though their use
has been limited because they demand tropical climates. (and until
recently the southern hemisphere wasn't especially important to
western nations inventing this tech) They have an advantage over
other forms of solar power in that they are lower tech and in the
right climate will run continuously day and night relying on latent
solar heat in the atmosphere and stored in the thermal mass of their
structures. Structures on this scale could be included on Aquarius
for supplemental power like wind turbines and would be ideally suited
to 'pylon buoy' structures which have many additional uses in
navigation, telecommunications, fish farming, carbon offset upwelling
pumps, etc. Today we now have a number of new phase-change materials
that could be employed in these systems to enhance their performance
but which still haven't been explored.

The largest form of this technology I recall seeing was a proposed
structure called the 'tornado tower'. This titanic structure was
intended to exploit low upper-atmosphere pressures to accelerate the
stack effect dramatically in order to create a contained artificial
tornado which not only would produce tremendous wind turbine speeds,
it would cause condensation producing water and suck down a huge
column of cool upper-atmosphere air to serve as a kind of city-scale
air conditioner -a variation of the 'chilling machine' effect
observed by Buckminster Fuller with highly reflective dome structures.

The Stack Effect has also been described as a natural consequence of
the use of very large atrium structures as one would realize in an
arcology. Many of Paulo Soleri's arcology designs have employed the
characteristic sloped cylinder shape of industrial cooling towers to
help create a constant internal updraft keeping the interior air
flushed. The full scale Aquarius may be sufficiently tall at its
mountain-like peak(s) that it too may employ the generation of an
internal updraft in its atrium spaces, this serving as a driver of
its entire ventilation.

Eric Hunting

hunting@...


> 1a. Tower of Power
>     Posted by: "kirk abbott" kirkabbott@... KirkAbbott
>     Date: Thu Aug 9, 2007 4:39 pm ((PDT))
>
> I was at an investment conference the other week, and came
> across an interesting energy company. While not of much use in
> the context of Aquarius, its technology could be of interest
> further down the road. The name of the company is Enviromission
> and it is based in Australia.
>
> In what is currently considered an example of extreme
> engineering, they are building an extremely tall hollow tower,
> that is designed to allow warm air to enter at the bottom, and
> rise up to the top with mixing with other air on the way up.
> Ideally, if the resulting wind velocities are great enough, it
> should be capable of driving turbines at ground level so as to
> generate power.
>
>
> Two articles regarding the company and its process can be found
> at
> http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/
> 2006/08/01/8382232/index.htm
> and
> http://dsc.discovery.com/beyond/player.html?
> playerId=203711706&bclid=958525258
>
>
> I actually had a chance to speak with one of the engineers
> involved, and discovered that they are currently examining the
> Mojave as a possible location. They also have a prototype
> project in China. However, thanks to politics it seems it is
> being done in Shanghai, even though it really should be done in
> the Gobi.
>
> The company also has a website at
> http://www.enviromission.com.au/index.htm
>
> I just hope the current prototypes work out.
>
> Kirk

hmm... very nice! i remember the wing sailing catamaran. surely a great
place for PVs there! does anyone have the specs on hydrogen eletrolysis? i.e.
what about using the PVs covering the vessel to generate hydrogen/oxygen
from the water instead of powering the prop directly. would a biomass
methane unit create enough to cool the fire of burned hydrogen oxygen so
ceramic engines would be unescessary? i'd like to see a propane engine get a
nice mixture of hydrogen oxygen and methane.

as far as the sails having stoage troubles; maybe an accordian fold...



On 8/10/07, Eric Hunting <hunting@...> wrote:
>
>   It's possible, but has the problem that they aren't yet really
> 'foldable' so you would have difficulty stowing them. However, the
> racing yachts now commonly use kevlar sails which have a similar
> problem. They have to be rolled up so they make stowing quickly when
> the ships must change sails (particularly when they swap in a
> 'spinnaker' sail) a challenge. But maybe the solutions they use could
> work with a composite sail using these flex-cells. It depends on how
> small a radius of curve they will tolerate.
>
> Now, in Australia they have been running the Sydney Solar Sailor
> ferry for a number of years.
>
> http://www.solarnavigator.net/solar_sailor.htm
>
> This is a very attractive but elaborate hybrid design that uses 8
> articulated wingsails. The rigid wingsails host their own solar
> arrays and are designed to both actively track the sun and provide
> supplemental propulsion from the wind. (the sails are too small for
> general propulsion) I like the look of the Sydney Solar Sailor but
> its design is too specialized. The nascent Aquarius seed settlement
> would need a very minimalist multi-use design for its ferry because
> it would need to serve periodically as a construction platform and a
> RoRo (roll-on/roll-off) cargo carrier for bulky equipment such as
> individual ISO containers, large domestic appliances, 'bobcats' and
> mini-excavators, fork lifts, and pallet-carried equipment like large
> air conditioner units, generator units, etc. So I envisioned a
> totally flat-deck catamaran with corner point electric azimuth
> thrusters where its functional surface structures are all retrofit so
> different features could be plugged-in and taken off on demand.
> Generally, you would have this canopy supporting its solar panels and
> seating units. Other times you would remove the canopy, use an on-
> deck generator and mini pilot cabin and the rest of the space would
> be completely open. This basic form would be scalable so larger
> versions could be built as population grows, the catamaran switching
> to a trimaran by simple structural expansion before being replaced by
> successively larger pontoon and deck systems. This is something that,
> in theory, could be easily built using off-the-shelf products. These
> German boats suggest I wasn't too far off track.
>
> Wingsails are a good mounting surface for solar panels since, at sea,
> a vertical solar panel can get almost as much insolation reflected
> off the water as a horizontal one can get directly while having two
> facing surface to collect light from. And, for general wind
> propulsion, a rigid wingsail is much more efficient and totally
> automated. Operation of a wingsail ship requires no additional skills
> over a motor driven vessel because the wings self-adjust for the wind
> conditions. There was once a plan for a wheelchair bound person to
> make a round-the-world solo cruise using one of these rare wingsail
> catamaran ships. The Cousteau Society had one of the earliest ones,
> but it was wrecked in a hurricane. I proposed the use of these with
> solar panels for the Wingsail Cruiser; a relatively lower-tech
> precursor to the EcoCruiser as a service ship for Aquarius. It would
> have intercontinental reach, albeit slow. I've imagined it as a
> direct evolution of the Solar Ferry, being another simple totally
> flat decked SWATH catamaran or trimaran with 4 or more large PV
> equipped wingsails at the corners directly above its higher
> performance azimuth thrusters or along a central axis. The EcoCruiser
> then evolves from this form by going to a larger scale but reducing
> wingsails to supplemental function or eliminating them, focusing more
> on container cargo, and incorporating primarily fuel cell based
> electric propulsion using hydrogen, methanol, liquid borohydride, or
> vanadium redox. This, of course, calls for an infrastructure for
> these energy mediums to be established on the full scale Aquarius.
>
> Eric Hunting
>
> hunting@... <hunting%40tigger.jvnc.net>
>
> > 2a. Re: Solar Ships
> > Posted by: "Wayne Richardson" psiclone@...
<psiclone%40gmail.com>geniocrat
> > Date: Wed Aug 8, 2007 6:00 pm ((PDT))
> >
> > how about functional sails made from flexible/micro PV's?
> >
> > On 8/3/07, Eric Hunting <hunting@...<hunting%40tigger.jvnc.net>>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> I was looking at this new on-line design center that was noted
> >> on the
> >> NASA Tech Briefs (http://www.techbriefs.com/component/
> >> option,com_ntbmicro/task,designcenter) and found this link to a
> >> company in Germany that is making some very elegant solar powered
> >> ferries.
> >>
> >> http://www.kopf-solardesign.com/
> >>
> >> Their larger Shuttle System series is almost exactly what I described
> >> earlier as a likely Solar Ferry for use with the early near-shore
> >> Aquarius settlements, though with a much more interesting solar
> >> canopy structure than I ever imagined.
> >>
> >> Eric Hunting
> >>
> >> hunting@... <hunting%40tigger.jvnc.net> <hunting%40tigger.
> jvnc.net>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>


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http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201311260


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201311260


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http://www.physorg.com/news105619522.html


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

True, it might be possible to put together an economic entity if an
individual had access to say the White House. But, at least to me, TMP was a
step by step process of attracting a group interested individuals that
wanted to go into space and live there.
It was a plan to build a cash cow that would fund its own construction and
leave enough money left over to begin the next step in the plan of
colonizing the galaxy. The first step was to build a floating island off
the coast of Africa and run a power cable to a mountain on mainland Africa.
If some public service employee on the mainland were to deny a request for
an import license to take delivery of 100 miles of power cable to TMP do we
just forget the project and fly home? Would the Chinese take "No!" for an
answer? The China National Petroleum Corporation has a low estimate of 4000
"guards" to secure its oil pipelines in the region. There may be 25,000
others "out of uniform" supporting them in the oil fields. If TMP used say
American ex-military personnel to secure its interests in the region then
the American government would control TMP. That means cost-plus contracting,
accountants, lawyers and no financial oversight. In the American Old West
that meant war parties, but in East Africa we would be dealing with
"terrorists." It might resemble Iraq. The Americans would eat the cash cow.
As a rule of thumb it takes 15 years to put together a credible deterrant to
a major power, and if your going to go that far why not just bull your way
into a national space program. They might even give you a couple of launches
just to get rid of you.






----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Hunting" <hunting@...>
To: <luf-team@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 11:33 AM
Subject: [luf-team] Re:Nation-Building


> You make valid points here. History is very plain about the
> difficulty and danger in trying to pursue sovereignty. No nation
> exists today except by the acquiescence of the rest of the world. But
> I would argue that it doesn't take a standing army or a nuclear
> stockpile to be a 'contender' on the global stage. Costa Rica has
> neither. One can defend oneself quite well being an economic
> contender. The flag of a multinational corporation carries just as
> much clout as the flag of superpower nation. Size and class also
> matter by virtue of the potential for global backlash. Pushing around
> a handful of 'hippies', 'cultists', or 'refugees' is one thing.
> Pushing around a thousand upper-middle class people with global
> social and business connections is another. This doesn't preclude
> simple political and military bullying, but it precludes it happening
> more than once. Global public awareness is another factor. If a small
> group of nobodies out of the blue declare themselves a new nation,
> they can be swatted like a gnat and John Q. Public will never know
> the difference. But make your creation of a new nation a global media
> event, then prospective bullies have to consider the potential of
> their bullying being instant news worldwide. This isn't to say this
> is simple or easy or that a community won't still need a civil
> defense system to deal with pirates and local nit-wit tin-hat
> despots. And one can't flaunt sovereignty by engaging in obviously
> antagonistic activity -like developing nuclear weapons or engaging in
> an overt drug trade- without expecting an extreme response. But it's
> not an impossibility by default.
>
> Most of the failed attempts at sovereignty in history relate to
> hubris, naivety, or religiously-inspired lunacy. A lot of people have
> created micronations as a deliberate attempt to antagonize, protest,
> or mock a parent nation or dominant culture. Others have been
> attempted on land that was known to be in contention, was perilously
> close to existing troubled nations, or in known areas of political
> conflict or frequent covert military or underworld activity. Some
> have been attempted in the midst of the territory of an established
> nation. And in the case of cults, there has been this tendency for
> believers to think they were protected by some divine force or to
> deliberately set themselves up as potential martyrs. Put simply, a
> lot of people were just plain asking for it.
>
> But consider this scenario; Disney Corp. decides to build a floating
> island theme park off the coast of California -they've already built
> artificial islands for their needs so this is not implausible. Due to
> cost-overruns they decide this island complex needs to radically
> increase its revenue. So they decide to add a Casinoland expansion.
> But to do that they have to move their floating complex out of the
> territorial waters, beyond the 25 mile limit. Well, the coastal state
> governments complain because they aren't getting their cut of this
> gambling money -let alone any property and sales taxes- while
> Disney's ferries are coming to their ports and so they force the
> federal government to exercise its EEZ rights and hassle the complex
> with litigation. This, of course, already happens with companies
> trying to setup casino ships. It happened in New York City as
> recently as the 90s. So Disney, realizing that they face years of
> hassles in court (not to mention hassles with sourcing ferries from
> primitive US shipyards because of regulations that prohibit
> commercial vessels from traveling between any two US ports unless
> they're built in the US), simply moves the complex out beyond the EEZ
> and declares it a sovereign nation, setting up its ferry service
> through Baja with the blessing of a Mexican government grateful for
> the tourist traffic and island-supply revenue. Is the US going to
> 'raid' or attack Disneyworld in retaliation? Imagine how that would
> play on the nightly news. They might hassle the existing land-based
> parks and facilities, but then they simply risk driving them out of
> the country too, losing all their tax revenue, and pissing-off all
> the Disney stockholders on Wall Street. Not likely. What would be
> more likely is a friendly little private meeting between the Disney
> CEO and the White House to negotiate a 'least embarrassing'
> arrangement -maybe one where Disney bankrolls a few public works
> projects like skating rinks or or kids playgrounds along the West
> Coast in exchange for the freedom to put their ferry ports in San
> Diego and token 'protection' from the US coast guard or navy on the
> premise that this new nation is still an 'economic interest' of the
> US. So here's one somewhat plausible -if imaginary- situation where a
> new sovereign nation might relatively easily be created.
>
> Eric Hunting
>
> hunting@...
>
>
> On Jul 23, 2007, at 1:26 AM, luf-team@yahoogroups.com wrote:
>
>> 3b. Re: Wake-up call
>>     Posted by: "William Starin" lupso@... bisbotba
>>     Date: Sun Jul 22, 2007 12:39 pm ((PDT))
>>
>> In the 1960s a few Hippies found a deserted island in the South
>> Pacific.
>> They named the island and sent a charter to the United Nations
>> asking for
>> recognition. Shortly thereafter, a chief  and his "marines" in
>> several ocean
>> going war canoes arrived and conquered island. I was at a party one
>> night
>> right after this happened and the revelers were talking about the
>> settlers
>> by name. Then, look at what is happening to Pitcairn Island where the
>> sailors from the Bounty landed. England is hassling the islanders with
>> lawsuits and threats of prison right now and they have been there
>> since
>> 1789. There is no reason to even mention all the religious communes
>> that
>> have been run into the ground.  Nobody is going to establish a
>> sovereign
>> entity any where for any reason period. To do so you would have to
>> be a
>> contender on the world stage. Even a commercial hotel needs a hotel
>> detective as well as a door man, a night staff and 911 on speed
>> dial and
>> that is just for petty criminals. If anyone is serious about
>> Aquarius I
>> suggest reading the history of Prussia. That country was started by
>> the
>> Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. Starting
>> with a core of religious fanatics he and his descendants built an
>> army. That
>> army, the Prussian army, was jokingly referred to as the only army
>> in the
>> world with its own country. Unless you can figure out what to do
>> when the
>> war canoes land, I say, "Forget about Aquarius!"
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> Don't forget to visit these LUF Sites!
> LUF Team     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/luf-team/
> LUF Home     http://www.luf.org/
> LUF Website  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/luf-website/
>
> Other sites:
> OTEC News    http://www.otecnews.org/
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Well, as you can see from how long it took me to respond, I am dormant,
but not long gone.  I recently got my Master of Science in Sustainable
Systems and am currently looking for a job.  I hope to become more
active again once I'm settled.

--- In luf-team@yahoogroups.com, "Ingrid" <hockeygoon@...> wrote:
>
> Hello, all!
>
> Just a quick note to ask everyone to please update your membership
> status on LUF-team Yahoo Group. There are over 1000 people on this
> list and we don't know who's active, dormant, and long gone.
>
> Thanks!
> Ingrid
>

--- In luf-team@yahoogroups.com, "starraider25" <jaro@...> wrote:
>
> I've learned long time ago not to argue with villagers. You keep your
> laughs and sarcasm, and I'll keep my chances of building antigravity
> devices.

If you build a working antigravity device, I'll be very interested.

--- In luf-team@yahoogroups.com, Eric Hunting <hunting@...> wrote:
> The Stack Effect has also been described as a natural consequence of
> the use of very large atrium structures as one would realize in an
> arcology. Many of Paulo Soleri's arcology designs have employed the
> characteristic sloped cylinder shape of industrial cooling towers to
> help create a constant internal updraft keeping the interior air
> flushed. The full scale Aquarius may be sufficiently tall at its
> mountain-like peak(s) that it too may employ the generation of an
> internal updraft in its atrium spaces, this serving as a driver of
> its entire ventilation.

The revolving door was invented in the early 20th century because the
skyscrapers they were building would have 20-30 mph winds through the
front doors from the stack effect. So, not too much fancy stuff is
needed to be useful.

John,

A Master of Science in Sustainable Systems - Wow!

Stay tuned to see what might happen with the following submittal by the
Dirigo Energy Institute (www.lowearthorbitnow.org
<http://www.lowearthorbitnow.org> . Of course, if this pans out it would
mean you would have to relocate to the Bath, Maine area.

Leon

The Dirigo Energy Institute, Inc. Response to

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge

14 August 2007

Introduction: The Fuller Challenge awards a "… prize to support the
development and implementation of a solution that has significant
potential to solve humanity's most pressing problems in the shortest
possible time while enhancing the Earth's ecological integrity."

DEI's Response: Build land and water based embodiments of a
sustainable community with a nominal population of 114 that grows food
locally for 300; recycles water and waste (plant, animal, and human);
derives energy from regenerative sources such as solar, wind, and
biomass; and is designed for volume production from kits. Provide a
potential to scale up the basic community design to a village of 1,000
and a town of 10,000. Replicate these communities, villages, and towns
worldwide under Do It Yourself (DIY) provisions by home owners so as to
be a major factor in providing cost effective food and shelter for the
world.

Living: A standard three story housing module will contain 30 homes, 70
bedrooms, and 100 residents in a footprint of 120 feet by 175 feet with
1, 2, 3, and 4 bedroom homes holding an additional 14. A domed Community
Center will permit up to 300 people to gather for common functions
associated with community life to include meetings, athletic contests,
recreational uses, and farmer market type of business arrangements under
which products are sold to visitors. Orchards, parks, and athletic
fields will be placed throughout the area, as appropriate.

Food: An enclosed agricultural complex will permit food growth from
sources that might include, but not be limited to greenhouses,
hydroponics, fish farms, and animal enclosures for chickens, rabbits,
etc. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen
within the enclosure will be adjusted so as to maximize plant, animal,
and human well being.

Ownership: Will be dictated by the rules and regulations in the country
of placement. For democratic countries, including the land and water
based prototypes, the land will be owned by a Community Investment
Corporation, or CIC, with the CIC owned by its stockholders to consist
of those holding CIC debt and those living or working in the community,
village, or town. For the prototypes, 80% of the homes will be owned
outright or leased in a long-term arrangement under an option-to-buy
contract with 20% owned by the CIC for rent to others.

Participation: Several ten acre plots of land in the area and a suitable
Bath location on the Kennebec will be evaluated for placement of a land
and water based prototype, respectively. Invitations to participate will
be sent to organizations like the Chewonki Foundation and Habitats for
Humanity, architect-engineers for a land based embodiment as well as a
floating embodiment using a combination of concrete and composites,
suppliers of solar cells and small windmills, and system designers of an
integrated food growth and water/waste recycling scenario.

Home Owners: Construction of the prototypes will be sought from DIY
elements such as, but not limited to the disadvantaged seeking home
ownership with no down payment at their disposal, newlyweds searching
for an inexpensive starter home, those interested in a sustainable life
style, and environmentalists wanting to minimize their carbon dioxide
foot print.


--- In luf-team@yahoogroups.com, "John Wheeler" <jdw27_42@...> wrote:
>
> Well, as you can see from how long it took me to respond, I am
dormant,
> but not long gone. I recently got my Master of Science in Sustainable
> Systems and am currently looking for a job. I hope to become more
> active again once I'm settled.
>
> --- In luf-team@yahoogroups.com, "Ingrid" hockeygoon@ wrote:
> >
> > Hello, all!
> >
> > Just a quick note to ask everyone to please update your membership
> > status on LUF-team Yahoo Group. There are over 1000 people on this
> > list and we don't know who's active, dormant, and long gone.
> >
> > Thanks!
> > Ingrid
> >
>




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Aug. 7, 2007

John Yembrick
Headquarters,  Washington
202-358-0602
john.yembrick-1@...

RELEASE:  07-172

NASA SOLICITS INPUT FOR COMMERCIAL SPACE TRANSPORTATION  SERVICES

WASHINGTON - On Tuesday NASA issued a Request for  Information
soliciting ideas and feedback to help shape the plan to procure  safe,
cost effective, and reliable logistics services to the  International
Space Station and other payload launch  services.

Sponsored by NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate,  this
request
seeks input from companies that are working to provide  commercial
transportation services to space. This information will be used  to
help structure future commercial launch services contracts as well  as
the second phase of the Commercial Orbital Transportation  Services
initiative to acquire commercial cargo services to the station  after
the space shuttle's retirement in 2010.

Responders are asked to  provide information and feedback, including:
- a description of the service  provider's current and planned
capability,
- existing NASA policies on  certification and oversight of launch
vehicles,
- any improvements NASA  can make in commercial transportation
services
contract structures that  would provide incentives, and
- recommendations on commercial contract terms  and conditions.

Comments should be sent to Celeste Dalton  at
celeste.m.dalton@...
by Sept. 7. To view the Request for  Information,  visit:

http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/synopsis.cgi?acqid=126269

For  information about the International Space Station,  visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station




************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Aug. 8, 2007

Sonja Alexander
NASA Headquarters,  Washington
202-358-1761
sonja.r.alexander@...

Debbie  Nguyen
Johnson Space Center,  Houston
281-244-1334
debbie.nguyen-1@...

MEDIA ADVISORY:  07-100

REGISTRATION OPENS FOR NEW NASA ENGINEERING DESIGN  CHALLENGE

WASHINGTON - As space shuttle Endeavour and 10 million cinnamon  basil
seeds are set to launch on a mission to the International  Space
Station, NASA has opened registration for the Lunar Plant  Growth
Chamber challenge.

Students participating in the challenge will  design and build their
own greenhouse chambers to analyze and study plant  growth from the
space-flown seeds following their return to Earth. Students  will
conduct classroom experiments that may help NASA find new ways  to
grow and sustain plants in space and on the moon - a critical need
for  future space exploration.

Educators may learn more and register for the  challenge at:

http://www.nasa.gov/education/plantchallenge

Seeds  will be available to the first 100,000 registrants for the
Lunar
Plant  Growth Chamber challenge. Registrants must be kindergarten
through 12th grade  educators who are residents of the United States
or U.S. territories and  outlying areas.

The challenge is a highlight of the flight of NASA's  first educator
astronaut, mission specialist Barbara R. Morgan, who will  travel to
the space station on space shuttle Endeavour.

The challenge  is part of NASA's Engineering Design Challenge program.
The program connects  kindergarten through 12th grade students with
the challenges faced by NASA  engineers who are designing the next
generation of space vehicles, habitats  and technologies. These
hands-on classroom experiments help students achieve  national goals
in science, math and analytical skills. NASA and the  International
Technology Education Association co-sponsor this engineering  design
challenge.




************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4220228.html?page=1


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19228/?a=f


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Source: bbc
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/6940007.stm


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The Tesla is an interesting car, not just because of its
demonstration of very high performance electric drive but because of
the way its fabricated. But I don't think I'll ever understand the
concept of automobile technology having to be 'proven' in the form of
rich men's toys...

Recently, I've been toying with an interesting notion; the
'appropriation' of an existing car model as a de-facto public-domain
design that can be produced freely by innumerable companies. Car
companies, like so many Industrial Age industries, tend to be in the
business of making profit on the deliberate production of waste,
deliberately engineering automobiles to obsolesce by designing them
to have a limited potential repairability and making those repairs as
costly as possible. I've been confronting this very problem myself
lately with the vehicle I inherited from a relative a couple years
ago and which is now, despite low mileage, on the verge of
obsolescence due to the minor yet ridiculously costly damage caused
by pack-rats.

In the 20th century there have been a few automobiles that almost
achieved the status of public domain cars by virtue of how long they
remained in production thanks to customer demand, their high
potential for repairability, and by the large after-market they
generated for their parts. The most well known are the Citroen 2CV
and the Volkswagen Beetle. These cars ultimately had to be
deliberately killed by their manufacturers against the wishes and
demands of their own market in order for their producers to get back
to the routine of producing self-obsolescing crap. Yet they continue
to hang on even to this day by virtue of the gigantic after-market
they created. You can today obtain new replacement components for
virtually every part of the Beetle save one; its chassis. And that's
what's interesting to me because it's like a computer's motherboard.

The propriety elements of a computer -the elements that comprise the
exclusive intellectual property of their manufacturer- are confined
to its motherboard, or often just a ROM chip. Everything else in a
computer is generic with replacement parts available from countless
sources because in order to make something as complex as a computer
one had to cultivate an industrial ecology of modular parts
producers. No one company -not even IBM- could do it all. Early in
the history of the IBM PC platform, a kind of world war broke out
over the territory of its motherboard. The community that made-up the
industrial ecology of computer parts makers systematically took
control of the PC motherboard away from IBM to create a truly generic
computer hardware platform. They did this by designing motherboards
of their own that could duplicate all the functions of the few
proprietary elements in them. Everything else was already 'open'.
Once they accomplished this, the PC industry really took off because
it enabled an explosive proliferation of competitive manufacturers
world-wide, driving the cost of a computer down, driving innovation
at an incredible pace, and creating a new industry of a scale larger
than anyone had imagined possible.

Well, supposed you did that with the chassis of a Beetle? It's the
only part left that Volkswagen actually controls the production of
and holds exclusive intellectual rights to. It's the only part you
can't by COTS. Replace that with a functional but generic equivalent
and the whole car now becomes free for anyone in the world to
manufacture -albeit under another name- and, more importantly, to
improve in part-by-part competition just as with the competition
between PC parts makers. Thus one could realize a generic automobile
anyone could locally assemble and sell and made by the world,
cultivating a global industrial ecology of car parts makers and
compelling a new parallel automobile industry producing a burgeoning
diversity of vehicles all based on standardized components. And the
resulting cars would be more environmentally sustainable because they
wold perpetually repairable and recyclable. Only their individual
parts would age and fail. Little companies could frelly experiment
with any number of possible environmentally better power plants,
whether Volkswagen ever considered them or not. Electric, hybrid, gas
turbine hybrid, fuel cell, you name it. If you can make a power plant
that can be attached to this generic chassis you have a market.

Could one actually engineer, from tubular steel or cast aluminum for
instance, a generic Beetle chassis all the other parts that people
still make for it around the world could be attached to? Anyone game
to create another industrial revolution?

Eric Hunting

hunting@...



On Aug 15, 2007, at 1:20 AM, luf-team@yahoogroups.com wrote:

> 8. jlokhijuytr
>     Posted by: "Wayne Richardson" psiclone@... geniocrat
>     Date: Tue Aug 14, 2007 11:00 pm ((PDT))
>
> Source: bbc
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/6940007.stm
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The safety testing and DOT approval is probablly the limiting factor.  To get a
custom car licensed in MD requires approval by an engineer.  You also need the
powerplant to be approved for emissions purposes.

How about other states?

  -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Eric Hunting <hunting@...>
> The Tesla is an interesting car, not just because of its
> demonstration of very high performance electric drive but because of
> the way its fabricated. But I don't think I'll ever understand the
> concept of automobile technology having to be 'proven' in the form of
> rich men's toys...
>
> Recently, I've been toying with an interesting notion; the
> 'appropriation' of an existing car model as a de-facto public-domain
> design that can be produced freely by innumerable companies. Car
> companies, like so many Industrial Age industries, tend to be in the
> business of making profit on the deliberate production of waste,
> deliberately engineering automobiles to obsolesce by designing them
> to have a limited potential repairability and making those repairs as
> costly as possible. I've been confronting this very problem myself
> lately with the vehicle I inherited from a relative a couple years
> ago and which is now, despite low mileage, on the verge of
> obsolescence due to the minor yet ridiculously costly damage caused
> by pack-rats.
>
> In the 20th century there have been a few automobiles that almost
> achieved the status of public domain cars by virtue of how long they
> remained in production thanks to customer demand, their high
> potential for repairability, and by the large after-market they
> generated for their parts. The most well known are the Citroen 2CV
> and the Volkswagen Beetle. These cars ultimately had to be
> deliberately killed by their manufacturers against the wishes and
> demands of their own market in order for their producers to get back
> to the routine of producing self-obsolescing crap. Yet they continue
> to hang on even to this day by virtue of the gigantic after-market
> they created. You can today obtain new replacement components for
> virtually every part of the Beetle save one; its chassis. And that's
> what's interesting to me because it's like a computer's motherboard.
>
> The propriety elements of a computer -the elements that comprise the
> exclusive intellectual property of their manufacturer- are confined
> to its motherboard, or often just a ROM chip. Everything else in a
> computer is generic with replacement parts available from countless
> sources because in order to make something as complex as a computer
> one had to cultivate an industrial ecology of modular parts
> producers. No one company -not even IBM- could do it all. Early in
> the history of the IBM PC platform, a kind of world war broke out
> over the territory of its motherboard. The community that made-up the
> industrial ecology of computer parts makers systematically took
> control of the PC motherboard away from IBM to create a truly generic
> computer hardware platform. They did this by designing motherboards
> of their own that could duplicate all the functions of the few
> proprietary elements in them. Everything else was already 'open'.
> Once they accomplished this, the PC industry really took off because
> it enabled an explosive proliferation of competitive manufacturers
> world-wide, driving the cost of a computer down, driving innovation
> at an incredible pace, and creating a new industry of a scale larger
> than anyone had imagined possible.
>
> Well, supposed you did that with the chassis of a Beetle? It's the
> only part left that Volkswagen actually controls the production of
> and holds exclusive intellectual rights to. It's the only part you
> can't by COTS. Replace that with a functional but generic equivalent
> and the whole car now becomes free for anyone in the world to
> manufacture -albeit under another name- and, more importantly, to
> improve in part-by-part competition just as with the competition
> between PC parts makers. Thus one could realize a generic automobile
> anyone could locally assemble and sell and made by the world,
> cultivating a global industrial ecology of car parts makers and
> compelling a new parallel automobile industry producing a burgeoning
> diversity of vehicles all based on standardized components. And the
> resulting cars would be more environmentally sustainable because they
> wold perpetually repairable and recyclable. Only their individual
> parts would age and fail. Little companies could frelly experiment
> with any number of possible environmentally better power plants,
> whether Volkswagen ever considered them or not. Electric, hybrid, gas
> turbine hybrid, fuel cell, you name it. If you can make a power plant
> that can be attached to this generic chassis you have a market.
>
> Could one actually engineer, from tubular steel or cast aluminum for
> instance, a generic Beetle chassis all the other parts that people
> still make for it around the world could be attached to? Anyone game
> to create another industrial revolution?
>
> Eric Hunting
>
> hunting@...
>
>
>
> On Aug 15, 2007, at 1:20 AM, luf-team@yahoogroups.com wrote:
>
> > 8. jlokhijuytr
> >     Posted by: "Wayne Richardson" psiclone@... geniocrat
> >     Date: Tue Aug 14, 2007 11:00 pm ((PDT))
> >
> > Source: bbc
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/6940007.stm
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In the 1960s, I had a muscle car, modified far from stock, and lately have
thought about building another car. My plan was to buy a rather
sophisticated model with excellent handling and a high performance engine
intact. Then, set up a benchmark
and take detailed measurements of crash impact control structures, cooling
system mounts, engine supports, drive train geometry,  and steering and
suspension attachment points. After that, design and build a light-weight
tubular frame that would allow all major items to be simply bolted to this
chassis. Next, take a large sheet of aluminum and fold the front up to form
the firewall and the back to form a wall behind the driver thus creating a
passenger compartment. Make some light weight aircraft style doors and add
glass to the windshield. The front and rear fenders would therefore be
unstressed and purely decorative clip-ons. Yes, it would be a toy, I admit.
The frame would, however, meet your requirements for a motherboard. The
legal problems and liability insurance would probably kill the plan from the
start. For sure, the company would have to be registered out of the country,
and the frames imported. I had decided on using the Honda S2000 for the
donor. It exceeds the Boxter in every respect and even matches the weight of
the Porsche, but I believe the Honda really compeats with the Corvette. And,
no matter
how good it is, it only has four cylinders. The original was just too heavy
for that little motor. I thought the weight could be brought down to 1500
pounds and that it could become a low cost super car. I even thought of a
promotional video with a girl mechanic pulling components out of the donor
and attaching them to the space frame in a logical order. I know a male
mechanic that takes a frame from one pick-up, a motor from another and a
body from a third and makes a rolling vehicle in a couple of days. He simply
loosens a few wires, hoses and bolts and drops compete drive trains on the
floor. Drags away the donor and puts another frame on jack stands above the
pieces on the floor. Then he hoists entire system up and bolts them
together. If you compare what he does with amount of time it takes to get
anything repaired in a garage, you would think it would take years to swap
frames. But, done right, it is quick. Honda has decided to discontinue the
S2000 this year and I cannot think of any other car this business plan might
improve. To work this successfully you would have to find another model that
had been the victim of a poorly conceived marketing strategy. The Honda
S2000 is over weight, over priced, wanting a couple of cylinders and aimed
at a German make. Delusional. Drop the price and the weight. Add an inline
six cylinders engine and chase the Corvette. That would be a better
corporate strategy. The BMW roadster has the right engine but not the
Honda's suspension, and more status than the Corvette so it would not be
worth the effort. I think your idea might work, but you would have to
exploit some tactical mistake by a major manufacturer. Volkswagen is rumored
to be coming out with a rear engined car to compete with the Smart, but I
don't know what advantage replacing the unibody with a tube frame would
accomplish. Not to criticize, but automotive writers tend to laugh at tube
frames as 1950's technology. A poisoned pen could kill the project on the
spot. Also some companies do not want you using there hardware. Chrysler,
for example, does not want people building bodies for its Viper chassis
while GM seems happy to sell Corvette chassis to coach builders. All in all,
I think the motherboard idea is a good one, on condition of a good strategic
plan of course. The only problem I can see is that anything special will
only be of interest to the rich, because only they can affort to pay for it.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Hunting" <hunting@...>
To: <luf-team@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 11:07 AM
Subject: [luf-team] Re: jlokhijuytr


> The Tesla is an interesting car, not just because of its
> demonstration of very high performance electric drive but because of
> the way its fabricated. But I don't think I'll ever understand the
> concept of automobile technology having to be 'proven' in the form of
> rich men's toys...
>
> Recently, I've been toying with an interesting notion; the
> 'appropriation' of an existing car model as a de-facto public-domain
> design that can be produced freely by innumerable companies. Car
> companies, like so many Industrial Age industries, tend to be in the
> business of making profit on the deliberate production of waste,
> deliberately engineering automobiles to obsolesce by designing them
> to have a limited potential repairability and making those repairs as
> costly as possible. I've been confronting this very problem myself
> lately with the vehicle I inherited from a relative a couple years
> ago and which is now, despite low mileage, on the verge of
> obsolescence due to the minor yet ridiculously costly damage caused
> by pack-rats.
>
> In the 20th century there have been a few automobiles that almost
> achieved the status of public domain cars by virtue of how long they
> remained in production thanks to customer demand, their high
> potential for repairability, and by the large after-market they
> generated for their parts. The most well known are the Citroen 2CV
> and the Volkswagen Beetle. These cars ultimately had to be
> deliberately killed by their manufacturers against the wishes and
> demands of their own market in order for their producers to get back
> to the routine of producing self-obsolescing crap. Yet they continue
> to hang on even to this day by virtue of the gigantic after-market
> they created. You can today obtain new replacement components for
> virtually every part of the Beetle save one; its chassis. And that's
> what's interesting to me because it's like a computer's motherboard.
>
> The propriety elements of a computer -the elements that comprise the
> exclusive intellectual property of their manufacturer- are confined
> to its motherboard, or often just a ROM chip. Everything else in a
> computer is generic with replacement parts available from countless
> sources because in order to make something as complex as a computer
> one had to cultivate an industrial ecology of modular parts
> producers. No one company -not even IBM- could do it all. Early in
> the history of the IBM PC platform, a kind of world war broke out
> over the territory of its motherboard. The community that made-up the
> industrial ecology of computer parts makers systematically took
> control of the PC motherboard away from IBM to create a truly generic
> computer hardware platform. They did this by designing motherboards
> of their own that could duplicate all the functions of the few
> proprietary elements in them. Everything else was already 'open'.
> Once they accomplished this, the PC industry really took off because
> it enabled an explosive proliferation of competitive manufacturers
> world-wide, driving the cost of a computer down, driving innovation
> at an incredible pace, and creating a new industry of a scale larger
> than anyone had imagined possible.
>
> Well, supposed you did that with the chassis of a Beetle? It's the
> only part left that Volkswagen actually controls the production of
> and holds exclusive intellectual rights to. It's the only part you
> can't by COTS. Replace that with a functional but generic equivalent
> and the whole car now becomes free for anyone in the world to
> manufacture -albeit under another name- and, more importantly, to
> improve in part-by-part competition just as with the competition
> between PC parts makers. Thus one could realize a generic automobile
> anyone could locally assemble and sell and made by the world,
> cultivating a global industrial ecology of car parts makers and
> compelling a new parallel automobile industry producing a burgeoning
> diversity of vehicles all based on standardized components. And the
> resulting cars would be more environmentally sustainable because they
> wold perpetually repairable and recyclable. Only their individual
> parts would age and fail. Little companies could frelly experiment
> with any number of possible environmentally better power plants,
> whether Volkswagen ever considered them or not. Electric, hybrid, gas
> turbine hybrid, fuel cell, you name it. If you can make a power plant
> that can be attached to this generic chassis you have a market.
>
> Could one actually engineer, from tubular steel or cast aluminum for
> instance, a generic Beetle chassis all the other parts that people
> still make for it around the world could be attached to? Anyone game
> to create another industrial revolution?
>
> Eric Hunting
>
> hunting@...
>
>
>
> On Aug 15, 2007, at 1:20 AM, luf-team@yahoogroups.com wrote:
>
>> 8. jlokhijuytr
>>     Posted by: "Wayne Richardson" psiclone@... geniocrat
>>     Date: Tue Aug 14, 2007 11:00 pm ((PDT))
>>
>> Source: bbc
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/6940007.stm
>>
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> Don't forget to visit these LUF Sites!
> LUF Team     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/luf-team/
> LUF Home     http://www.luf.org/
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>
> Other sites:
> OTEC News    http://www.otecnews.org/
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

(psiclone; on your message title, how the HECK does that make it past the
spam filters? :o)

Tubular frame vehicles: As long as they can pass certian crash impact
tests.... IIRC didn't the Delorian have a tubular frame?

Eric: I bow to your superior writing skills... I thought "I" tended to  reply
in novella volume in email responses :o)

I have NOT read everything yet, (been one of those weeks all day now ;o)  but
I think the MAJOR need is improvement in the power plant. IF you can make a
modular power plant that will not only power your new 'uber' car AND can be
retro-fitted in a standard vehicle with minimum modifications to the vehicle
frame and power train, and if that power plant can give comparable performance
to the engine it replaces and hopefully be more fuel efficent as well as less
  polluting, your looking at burying the 'conventional' auto industry in a
decade  or so. Not to mention billions of dollars in sale possibilities :o)

The hang-up is we're still tied to the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE)
which at MOST can never be more than 40% efficent, and EVERYTHING else about
ground vehicles is predicated on that basis.
As one co-worker of mine pointed out yesterday, the car he first owned as a
'kid' in 1969 got better gas milage with a carburator and non-computer
controlled fuel flow than his new 2007 mid-size car!
His dad finally had to give up his 1975 full size model truck and replace  it
with a new 2007 "full-size" truck with basically the same engine with LESS
power and LOWER fuel economy!!??!!

Our entire vehicular infrastructure is tied to the ICE and its manufacture,
maintenance, care, and feeding and while I understand that any changes costs
the  manufacturers millions of dollars to make, and that such a change as would
be  needed to completly replace the current ICE power plant with something
more  efficent would probably cause the major auto makers to go under
financially,  really, I GET that. But something HAS to change, things have been
static
to long  and we've reached pretty much technical dead-ends where the ICE is
concerned.

Turbine power plants while not as good in a direct power mode, (though by
the time the GM turbine engine project was shut down in the early '80s it should
  be noted that they had an acceptable to the consumer working model for
passenger  cars and large trucks ready to go into production should anyone fund
such a  change) they are orders of magnitude more effcient than ICEs. They are
also very  highly more fuel efficent when run at a constant speed, but also have
torque and  power efficincy over the ICE if actually used (even if only
'part' time such as  in a hybrid system) in the direct drive mode.
And they are already mass manufactured and are in fact less technically
challenging than the higher end ICEs are. (Many ICEs have 'turbos' bolted to 
them
to improve THIER performance when those simple turbines are in fact AS
capable with the right attached systems if not MORE so than the ICEs they are
placed on! With most of the mass market models costing less than a few hundred
dollars for the basic turbo and equipment required to turn them into power
plants running a few hundred to a thousand dollars more possibly it's a wonder 
no
one has started making conversion kits or turbo based power plants other than
  the 'hobby' jet engine market :o)

I'll bring up hybrids, (because if I don't someone will :o) as an example  of
'change' in current terms. Hybrids cost more to make and to buy, we are
constantly told this and the prices of a hybrid model versus a standard power
plant model also reflect this. A lot of folks wonder why replacing the ICE with
a battery pack and a smaller more compact engine should cost MORE than the
large  engine and all its attachments, to be honest it is because the car is
MADE
to be  based around that large ICE engine and all its components. On a mass
manufacturing scale it costs more to replace that engine with a smaller
engine,  smaller radiator, etc, and find a place to put a battery pack than it
would
to  leave the car 'unchanged' with its larger engine.
This of course is one of the major 'flaws' in large scale manufacturing
itself as well as a major cost savings factor, the more you make of a standard
model the less each copy costs. When you begin to make changes, each one
increases the costs per model, couple this with lower over all units built of 
the
"changed" vehicle and all those extra costs fall onto the non-standard  model.

With the amount of money that a major auto maker would have to front as a
loss to change such a major item as the Power Plant of vehicles it is no wonder
that few if any changes are actually made beyond such 'stock' items as the
body  style or layout. THOSE changes are cheap, a paltry few million dollars per
model  car production line, meanwhile changing something major like the power
plant  effects not ony the auto makers production, but the engine makers, all
his  sub-contractors, all of their contractors... On and on.

About the only way this CAN change is from the outside, much like the
"normal" aerospace giant companies could not have built and flown the WK-1/SS-1 
for
anything near what Scaled Composites managed to do, so too with major
changes in the auto industry have to come from someone outside the normal chain.
But as Delorian showed, Space-X IS showing, and Tucker Automobiles proved,
change can be a hard thing to effect even with NO influance or manipulation by
the 'powers-that-be' timing, economics, and the real social need for a change of
  paradigm are the reality check for anyone with dreams of a "new-and-better"
way  to do things.

Having said that, I have of recent noticed that we currently have much of
the technology needed to effect this type of change with commercial
off-the-shelf parts combined in out-of-the-box-thinking ways :o)

It might perhaps be a 'good' idea to brain-storm some ideas on projects to
do this, we can use Garage Labs as well as the list to stir the pot?
(Might want to change the subject line though ;o)

Randy



************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at
http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I agree that power plants are a key area for improvement, but while I
agree that overcoming the limitations of the internal combustion
engine is very import, I'm personally more interested in the way a
car might be fabricated because I tend to see the realization of the
former as contingent on the transformation of the latter. As you
point out, the system and the architecture of the car is designed
around the ICE. Retrofitting new technology to an architecture
designed around old technology is difficult. So, obviously, if you
can start from scratch you have an easier time of doing that from an
engineering standpoint. But getting an industrial ecology of parts
makers cultivated from scratch is at least as difficult a
proposition. Few, if anyone, in the computer industry actually
understood how its industrial ecology worked as it was forming -few
executives in the industry understand this even now. it was a largely
self-organizing phenomenon resulting from the constraints and
challenges of a new technology and emergent marketplace. If the
computer had been less complex a technology, it might not have
evolved to favor an industrial ecology and ended up exactly like the
automobile. Deliberately creating an industry ecology is new.

This is why I used the examples of the Beetle and the 2CV. No
question these are antiquated designs. But they are designs from a
time before automobile engineering was as refined and overspecialized
as it is now. As a result, engines and many components were still not
being custom-engineered for every car model. Cars were being designed
with a high number of pre-existing parts to save time in development
and maximize ROI in component line tooling costs. During the hey-day
of the Beetle some half of its components were used as-in in other
car models. Its engine was sufficiently modular that it got
repurposed in countless ways. People were putting them in dune
buggies and kit planes. The infamous Africar -the project for an all-
wooden car for the Third World that went tragically awry- took the
engine and drive train of the 2CV ad-hoc. This is what allowed these
vehicles to cultivate such huge components aftermarkets. And it's
this aftermarket industry that I tend to see as a kind of culturing
tank for an industrial ecology. If you can use what they already make
to create something new that is out of the control of the Big Boys,
you can trigger this revolution.

Now, one thing interesting about race cars is that with them you have
a components industry based on generic vehicle architectures -
especially for the lesser classes of racing based on smaller cars and
for the highly regulated classes of racing like NASCAR where
everything is controlled with the intent of making a level playing
field. I personally have never been interested in auto racing. I
don't like cars. They make too much noise, they smell bad, and
driving is an often for me just a frustrating chore. But I've always
been intrigued by the way these cars are made. You don't have to be a
big corporation or a billionaire to get into these lesser classes of
racing. There are different shops where you can by a chassis, an
engine, and all the other parts off-the-shelf and put them together
yourself if you're handy enough. This is another potential culturing
tank for an industrial ecology. Thing is, none of the 'racing
enthusiasts' making up this industry have ever thought about the
ramifications of being able to make general purpose vehicles in the
same fashion. They seem to have always made the assumption that race
cars get made one way at outrageous cost, regular cars get made
another to make them more economical. But there are some exceptions.
There seem to be some 'novelty' vehicles that bridge the gap.

When I moved here to New Mexico I noticed something peculiar on the
roads; a surprisingly large number of what I thought at first were
home-made motor-trikes. I had seen vehicles like this in NJ. Thanks
to Malcom Forbes, the region I lived in had a huge 'buppy'
population. (biker-yuppies) so one would occasionally see these motor-
trikes among the Harley Davidsons. But then I noticed these motor-
trikes in NM were different. These things were big. As long as a
sedan. Based on putting a large auto engine in an open tubular frame,
they had minor differences in parts but all seemed to be made from
the same parts standards. They all had one or two variations of the
same tubular frame and the same configuration. They were all based on
the same design. A lot of the parts look like parts common to the
lesser classes of race cars as well as to the 'hot rod' hobby. This
is apparently something that has branched out of those. And it seemed
that not everyone who owns these was especially handy. I saw people
bringing these seemingly 'home made' vehicles in to conventional auto
shops for relatively minor repairs. So not everyone was making these
themselves. I haven't yet figured out the whole story of these
vehicles -I haven't personally met one of their owners or seen a shop
selling them like regular vehicles. (I still tend to be rather
isolated by my MCS even here) But it appears there's some kind of
small industry of at least a few people making these vehicles for
retail from a collection of COTS OEM parts -just like PC clones. And
it doesn't look like these things are especially expensive because
there're so many of them. This all suggests to me that there's this
unexplored potential for a new class of vehicles if only these people
will make the mental leap to devise a practical vehicle instead of
just novelty machines. Maybe there actually is enough generic and
economical hardware out there to make a generic and economical car
off-the-shelf. Perhaps it's simply a matter of no one having the
notion to try it. Maybe the regulatory problems are the only thing
holding this back. But then, that's only a barrier in this country.
You could probably make whatever you want here and just sell it to
the southern half of the continent or the rest of the world, just
like the pesticide companies do with pesticides they can't sell in
but still make in the US. So it's still plausible from a business
standpoint -plausible enough that you'd think someone else would have
already arrived at the same conclusion.

Eric Hunting

hunting@...


> 1d. Re: jlokhijuytr
>     Posted by: "RanulfC@..." RanulfC@...
>     Date: Wed Aug 15, 2007 4:43 pm ((PDT))
>
> (psiclone; on your message title, how the HECK does that make it
> past the
> spam filters? :o)
>
> Tubular frame vehicles: As long as they can pass certian crash impact
> tests.... IIRC didn't the Delorian have a tubular frame?
>
> Eric: I bow to your superior writing skills... I thought "I" tended
> to  reply
> in novella volume in email responses :o)
>
> I have NOT read everything yet, (been one of those weeks all day
> now ;o)  but
> I think the MAJOR need is improvement in the power plant. IF you
> can make a
> modular power plant that will not only power your new 'uber' car
> AND can be
> retro-fitted in a standard vehicle with minimum modifications to
> the vehicle
> frame and power train, and if that power plant can give comparable
> performance
> to the engine it replaces and hopefully be more fuel efficent as
> well as less
>  polluting, your looking at burying the 'conventional' auto
> industry in a
> decade  or so. Not to mention billions of dollars in sale
> possibilities :o)
>
> The hang-up is we're still tied to the Internal Combustion Engine
> (ICE)
> which at MOST can never be more than 40% efficent, and EVERYTHING
> else about
> ground vehicles is predicated on that basis.
> As one co-worker of mine pointed out yesterday, the car he first
> owned as a
> 'kid' in 1969 got better gas milage with a carburator and non-computer
> controlled fuel flow than his new 2007 mid-size car!
> His dad finally had to give up his 1975 full size model truck and
> replace  it
> with a new 2007 "full-size" truck with basically the same engine
> with LESS
> power and LOWER fuel economy!!??!!
>
> Our entire vehicular infrastructure is tied to the ICE and its
> manufacture,
> maintenance, care, and feeding and while I understand that any
> changes costs
> the  manufacturers millions of dollars to make, and that such a
> change as would
> be  needed to completly replace the current ICE power plant with
> something
> more  efficent would probably cause the major auto makers to go under
> financially,  really, I GET that. But something HAS to change,
> things have been static
> to long  and we've reached pretty much technical dead-ends where
> the ICE is
> concerned.
>
> Turbine power plants while not as good in a direct power mode,
> (though by
> the time the GM turbine engine project was shut down in the early
> '80s it should
>  be noted that they had an acceptable to the consumer working model
> for
> passenger  cars and large trucks ready to go into production should
> anyone fund
> such a  change) they are orders of magnitude more effcient than
> ICEs. They are
> also very  highly more fuel efficent when run at a constant speed,
> but also have
> torque and  power efficincy over the ICE if actually used (even if
> only
> 'part' time such as  in a hybrid system) in the direct drive mode.
> And they are already mass manufactured and are in fact less
> technically
> challenging than the higher end ICEs are. (Many ICEs have 'turbos'
> bolted to  them
> to improve THIER performance when those simple turbines are in fact AS
> capable with the right attached systems if not MORE so than the
> ICEs they are
> placed on! With most of the mass market models costing less than a
> few hundred
> dollars for the basic turbo and equipment required to turn them
> into power
> plants running a few hundred to a thousand dollars more possibly
> it's a wonder  no
> one has started making conversion kits or turbo based power plants
> other than
>  the 'hobby' jet engine market :o)
>
> I'll bring up hybrids, (because if I don't someone will :o) as an
> example  of
> 'change' in current terms. Hybrids cost more to make and to buy, we
> are
> constantly told this and the prices of a hybrid model versus a
> standard power
> plant model also reflect this. A lot of folks wonder why replacing
> the ICE with
> a battery pack and a smaller more compact engine should cost MORE
> than the
> large  engine and all its attachments, to be honest it is because
> the car is MADE
> to be  based around that large ICE engine and all its components.
> On a mass
> manufacturing scale it costs more to replace that engine with a
> smaller
> engine,  smaller radiator, etc, and find a place to put a battery
> pack than it would
> to  leave the car 'unchanged' with its larger engine.
> This of course is one of the major 'flaws' in large scale
> manufacturing
> itself as well as a major cost savings factor, the more you make of
> a standard
> model the less each copy costs. When you begin to make changes,
> each one
> increases the costs per model, couple this with lower over all
> units built of  the
> "changed" vehicle and all those extra costs fall onto the non-
> standard  model.
>
> With the amount of money that a major auto maker would have to
> front as a
> loss to change such a major item as the Power Plant of vehicles it
> is no wonder
> that few if any changes are actually made beyond such 'stock' items
> as the
> body  style or layout. THOSE changes are cheap, a paltry few
> million dollars per
> model  car production line, meanwhile changing something major like
> the power
> plant  effects not ony the auto makers production, but the engine
> makers, all
> his  sub-contractors, all of their contractors... On and on.
>
> About the only way this CAN change is from the outside, much like the
> "normal" aerospace giant companies could not have built and flown
> the WK-1/SS-1  for
> anything near what Scaled Composites managed to do, so too with major
> changes in the auto industry have to come from someone outside the
> normal chain.
> But as Delorian showed, Space-X IS showing, and Tucker Automobiles
> proved,
> change can be a hard thing to effect even with NO influance or
> manipulation by
> the 'powers-that-be' timing, economics, and the real social need
> for a change of
>  paradigm are the reality check for anyone with dreams of a "new-
> and-better"
> way  to do things.
>
> Having said that, I have of recent noticed that we currently have
> much of
> the technology needed to effect this type of change with commercial
> off-the-shelf parts combined in out-of-the-box-thinking ways :o)
>
> It might perhaps be a 'good' idea to brain-storm some ideas on
> projects to
> do this, we can use Garage Labs as well as the list to stir the pot?
> (Might want to change the subject line though ;o)
>
> Randy








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