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"Frank from Deeeetroit" <dadurweird@voyager.net> wrote:
>
> "Bret Ludwig" <bretldwig@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1138059938.931137.202300@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> Mike Hunter wrote:
>>> More importantly what about the need to make things small that let
>>> to better computers, cell phones, and microscopic surgery such as
>>> eye surgery,
>>> organ surgery and transplants. As well as the ability to reattach
>>> severed
>>> limbs etc?
>>>
>>
>>
>> Most of the things you mention had a tangential relationship to the
>> space program. It's true the space program speeded up many of those
>> things, but not that we would not have any of it without them. And
>> perhaps the pace of progress would have limited some of the regress
>> we have to face too, like offshoring of jobs, elimination of repair
>> jobs, and cheapening of all manner of products. It goes both ways.
>
> The Space Program's necessity of the materials, mapping, weather
> forcasting, etc. promted their development and the speed of their
> developement. The things mentioned may not be here today if it had
> not been for the Space Program. True, your point of jobs, it does go
> both ways, but , a basic economics class dictates if one has the money
> and needs labor, and one has a labor pool, but needs the money, a
> relationship will develope that will benefit both. Nothing new, been
> going on for thousands of years.
>
>> Once a company has derived most of its income from NASA or the Air
>> Force it is permanently spoiled and will never want to work again for
>> a living. You'd have to fire or kill all of the executives and most
>> of the management to get them to pursue gainful market endeavors at
>> reasonable per-piece profit levels.
>
> As long as the contractor is delivering their products within the
> contractual requirements of NASA and the Air Force, they are within a
> gainfull market.
>
>
>
And, tell that to Boeing... in this case, both Bret's and Franks' points
are made
Carbon fiber technology developed for steath bomber, used in commercial
aircraft. The issue: military secret or not?
Whatever the case, not only is the market global, but also the product
and manufacturing source.
No... it isnt as easy as just keeping it to ourselves... in the
competitive market, it goes both ways. The alternative is that, if you
DO attempt to keep such close to the vest, some politico just deals it
away without thinking, in return for campaign contributions.
See: Clinton Campaign/China - Missile guidance systems scandal.
--
Yeh, I'm a Krusty old Geezer, putting up with my 'smartass' is the price
you pay..DEAL with it!
Bret Ludwig wrote:
> John Horner wrote:
>
>>Gas turbine engines are very expensive to build. I doubt that we will
>>ever see significant application to automobiles. It has been tried,
>>many times, and came up short.
>
>
> And the V12 in the Lambo is a low build cost powerplant?? No, gas
> turbines are not necessarily incredibly expensive to build. My guess is
> the Allison 250 costs less to build than a Lyc or Continental recip of
> half the power: the P&W PT-6 is probably twenty or thirty thousand
> dollars of actual labor, materials, and other hard build cost.
>
> There are probably five hundred people who would buy a turbine exotic
> car in the $200-300K price class in the US any given year, enough to
> make it doable. The "Bugatti" Veyron is well into seven figures, at
> which point buying a off the shelf ST6 at market price from P&WC
> becomes a legit option economically speaking. However, it would make
> for a miserable road car, but the Veyron probably is that to begin
> with, to say nothing of the modified Stingray the Granatellis foisted
> off on some dumb yuppie idiot for a six-figure price with a junk runout
> training PT6 they mooched off P&W a decade earlier many years ago.
>
Well now you are talking about a whole different animal, a high-priced
vehicle for those with more money than sense. All in all not an
interesting topic of speculation. I would agree that the only way a
turbine has a fighting chance in automotive use would be as a fuel
burner to power a generator for a true hybrid powertrain where there is
no mechanical connection between the fuel burning engine and the drive
wheels. Trains have been built with such a powertrain for decades, and
AFAIK, none use a turbine engine. GE locomotives has made a bunch of
these trains and GE is also a top builder of turbine/jet engines, so I
bet they have looked at it in depth.
>>There are better options under development... one being the CAM-Vane engine
>>which developes a lot of power in a little space, runs on diesel without
>>sounding like one and is pretty light weight for power produced, thus is
>>economical...{being developed for unmanned drone aircraft} no word on the
>>pollution aspects, but I'd guess they're no worse that a wankel.
>
>
>
> Anything developed for, or primarily intended for sale to the DOD is
> going to be so overpriced due to contractor spoilage as to not be worth
> considering.
>
You are being rather short sighted and provincial. Many technologies
get their start in military applications where the development costs can
be borne, then later make their way to commercial use.
In fact, the Internet we are using started as a DOD project. Much of
the early funding for the semiconductor industry came by way of the
military as well.
> > Once a company has derived most of its income from NASA or the Air
> > Force it is permanently spoiled and will never want to work again for a
> > living. You'd have to fire or kill all of the executives and most of
> > the management to get them to pursue gainful market endeavors at
> > reasonable per-piece profit levels.
>
> As long as the contractor is delivering their products within the
> contractual requirements of NASA and the Air Force, they are within a
> gainfull market.
When that market recedes the company is toast. Only bankruptcy allows
the company to go back to civilian reality, because the corporate
structure is geared to a process that spends $500 to qualify, approve
and document a $2 bolt (which was made to government standards at 5X
market price in the first place.)
Thew recent crash of a Grumman amphibian due to spar failure was an
example of this. No airline operator operates a 58-year old airframe
that has been in continuous use in a marine environment.....unless
there are no new ones. The Long Island plants that built these things
are sitting idle, the trained workforce is unemployed, underemployed,
retired early or moved elsewhere. The design of these things is paid
for, has been for fifty years. New Grumman amphibian airframes could be
built for very little in labor and materials. Some of the tooling still
exists, none of it was terribly expensive to build (except for
accounting purposes) and much could now be done on NC soft tooling
anyway. In fact a very much cheaper option would be to just build new
wings and horizontal stabilizers which (along with the gear forgings)
are all that has much of a fatigue concern. The hulls are way, way
overbuilt. I guarantee anyone at Northrop Grumman who suggested this
would be laughed out of the boardroom. Their corporate structure is
geared to selling a widget that costs $2,000,000 to build for
$76,400,300 and making it look plausible on paper. (Yes, it cost
$500,000,000 to develop....but the taxpayer already paid them in full
and more for that!)
I really believe now the only thing that can save America as we know
it is a monumental, sudden, and near-total implosion of Wall Street.
Most of the market cap in tech stocks and much in defense must vanish,
and suddenly. I don't make light of the impact: many innocent people
will suffer greatly. But the alternative is even worse. I'd rather see
a few dozen families mourn their stockbroker and investment banker
fathers that bounced off the Manhattan sidewalks and some 50-year-old
retirees depensioned while they can still re-earn a small sum to live
their lives out than...the current trends, where most of them will lose
it anyway and a few people will become multibillionaires and the
average standard of living in America plunge further and further.
Bret Ludwig wrote:
> Mike Hunter wrote:
>
>>More importantly what about the need to make things small that let to
>>better computers, cell phones, and microscopic surgery such as eye surgery,
>>organ surgery and transplants. As well as the ability to reattach severed
>>limbs etc?
>>
>
>
>
> Most of the things you mention had a tangential relationship to the
> space program. It's true the space program speeded up many of those
> things, but not that we would not have any of it without them. And
> perhaps the pace of progress would have limited some of the regress we
> have to face too, like offshoring of jobs, elimination of repair jobs,
> and cheapening of all manner of products. It goes both ways.
>
> Once a company has derived most of its income from NASA or the Air
> Force it is permanently spoiled and will never want to work again for a
> living. You'd have to fire or kill all of the executives and most of
> the management to get them to pursue gainful market endeavors at
> reasonable per-piece profit levels.
>
Don't confuse companies with technologies. Sure a company which focuses
on supplying the government is unlikely to do well in other areas, but
there are exceptions to that rule as well. Jet engine development was
all funded by the government early on and to this day both commercial
and goverment users are supplied from the same factories.
Then of course we have GM's Hummer division, which is clearly an
offshoot of government contract work. Of course AM General had to put
Hummer into GM's hands in order to maximize the commerical appeal, but
the roots are still clear.
It sounds like you have a particular bone to pick.
Backyard Mechanic wrote:
> "Bret Ludwig" <bretldwig@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>> Anything developed for, or primarily intended for sale to the DOD is
>>going to be so overpriced due to contractor spoilage as to not be
>>worth considering.
>>
>>
>
>
> Yeah.... like all that technology developed under NASA/ Space funding..
> total waste of money, considering we never saw any of it!
>
> Good Catch!
>
Yeah, just cable television (all of which uses commerical satellite
content), weather satellites, GPS navigation, XM radio, the Internet and
a huge amount of solar cell research and production. Damn NASA and the
military :).
> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ogy/2002754224
> _boeingitar22.html
>
> Copy and paste both lines.
>
> Carbon fiber technology developed for steath bomber, used in commercial
> aircraft. The issue: military secret or not?
>
> Whatever the case, not only is the market global, but also the product
> and manufacturing source.
>
>
> No... it isnt as easy as just keeping it to ourselves... in the
> competitive market, it goes both ways. The alternative is that, if you
> DO attempt to keep such close to the vest, some politico just deals it
> away without thinking, in return for campaign contributions.
> See: Clinton Campaign/China - Missile guidance systems scandal.
>
>
Personally I think that Boeing is making a mistake by outsourcing so
much of the 787 development and manufacturing. Boeing is putting
know-how into the hands of it's future competitors. Boeing saves some
money today but takes away from it's own long term value.
The government wasn't concerned about Boeing using the military
technology to build commerical products, it was concerned about giving
that technology away to foreign based companies. Since the US taxpayers
funded the carbon fiber R&D there are good arguments for not giving the
technology away.
Nearly anything you can name was either developed or vastly improved by the
needs of war, include the space program itself.
mike hunt
..
"John Horner" <jthorner@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:UCyBf.32199$RK3.23994@trnddc06...
> Backyard Mechanic wrote:
>
>> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ogy/2002754224
>> _boeingitar22.html
>>
>> Copy and paste both lines.
>>
>> Carbon fiber technology developed for steath bomber, used in commercial
>> aircraft. The issue: military secret or not?
>>
>> Whatever the case, not only is the market global, but also the product
>> and manufacturing source.
>>
>>
>> No... it isnt as easy as just keeping it to ourselves... in the
>> competitive market, it goes both ways. The alternative is that, if you
>> DO attempt to keep such close to the vest, some politico just deals it
>> away without thinking, in return for campaign contributions. See:
>> Clinton Campaign/China - Missile guidance systems scandal.
>>
>>
>
> Personally I think that Boeing is making a mistake by outsourcing so much
> of the 787 development and manufacturing. Boeing is putting know-how into
> the hands of it's future competitors. Boeing saves some money today but
> takes away from it's own long term value.
>
> The government wasn't concerned about Boeing using the military technology
> to build commerical products, it was concerned about giving that
> technology away to foreign based companies. Since the US taxpayers funded
> the carbon fiber R&D there are good arguments for not giving the
> technology away.
>
> John
"Nomen Nescio" wrote in message...
> Lack of fuel economy and pick-up was the principle operational deficiency
> of pure turbine power. Might not this be solved by using a gas turbine
> intermittently to charge a battery which then drives an electric
propulsion
> motor?
"John Horner" <jthorner@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:BryBf.32195$RK3.10499@trnddc06...
> Bret Ludwig wrote:
> > John Horner wrote:
> >
> >>Gas turbine engines are very expensive to build. I doubt that we
will
> >>ever see significant application to automobiles. It has been
tried,
> >>many times, and came up short.
> >
> >
> > And the V12 in the Lambo is a low build cost powerplant?? No, gas
> > turbines are not necessarily incredibly expensive to build. My guess
is
> > the Allison 250 costs less to build than a Lyc or Continental recip
of
> > half the power: the P&W PT-6 is probably twenty or thirty thousand
> > dollars of actual labor, materials, and other hard build cost.
> >
> > There are probably five hundred people who would buy a turbine
exotic
> > car in the $200-300K price class in the US any given year, enough to
> > make it doable. The "Bugatti" Veyron is well into seven figures, at
> > which point buying a off the shelf ST6 at market price from P&WC
> > becomes a legit option economically speaking. However, it would make
> > for a miserable road car, but the Veyron probably is that to begin
> > with, to say nothing of the modified Stingray the Granatellis
foisted
> > off on some dumb yuppie idiot for a six-figure price with a junk
runout
> > training PT6 they mooched off P&W a decade earlier many years ago.
> >
>
>
> Well now you are talking about a whole different animal, a high-priced
> vehicle for those with more money than sense. All in all not an
> interesting topic of speculation. I would agree that the only way a
> turbine has a fighting chance in automotive use would be as a fuel
> burner to power a generator for a true hybrid powertrain where there
is
> no mechanical connection between the fuel burning engine and the drive
> wheels. Trains have been built with such a powertrain for decades,
and
> AFAIK, none use a turbine engine. GE locomotives has made a bunch of
> these trains and GE is also a top builder of turbine/jet engines, so I
> bet they have looked at it in depth.
Actually there have been a few turbine powered locomotive engines have
been tried. The problem was and still is fuel consumption. Turbines of
ANY size use LOT's of fuel rapidly. There have also been a few turbine
powered autos built. They were dropped for two reasons, cost of
production and fuel use. There are also turbine powered motorcycles. Jay
Leno owns one and was telling on a show the other night that it is a
very difficult bike to get used to ride since the turbine has a very
high lag on both ends.
As for a turbine powered hybrid. Doubt you will ever see one. Heat
production and fuel use are both VERY high as is noise.
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