From: roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: "trivial engineering"
Date: 17 Dec 92 06:16:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BzE45J.Iy7.1
Distribution: sci
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology formerly National Bureau of Standards
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU


-From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
-Subject: Re: "trivial engineering"
-Date: 16 Dec 92 17:00:10 GMT
-Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA

-In <BzA75H.6Lp.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes:
->I believe my post was in response to an argument that since designing a new
->engine for a comercial airliner (and establishing its reliability) is so
->easy, that therefore designing and proving a new rocket engine ought to be
->pretty easy too. I was pointing out that designing a new jet engine
->*isn't* particularly easy.

-I never said it was easy.  It's not.  That's why you have to *pay*
-people to do it.  

Once again, you have managed to construe sinister opposition from someone
who pretty much agrees with most of what you have been posting, to forget some
of the history of a post, and to pick an argument in which both sides are
saying about the same thing. (On the last, you're not alone - the people
involved in the current heated debate on the merits of DC pretty much worked 
it out to the extent that it can be worked out (with the information provided)
a week or two ago - they just haven't realized it yet. Much of what's left
is arguments about who said what, who understands math and who doesn't,
and various claims that really should be presented with extensive
mathematical analysis, but aren't. Not to say that *all* of the posts are
along these lines, but many of them are. The quality of the debate would
be improved if people would be as careful in the claims they make as they 
are in finding the errors in other people's posts. :-)

What you posted earlier could be construed as arguing that the supposed
straightforwardness of jet engine design implies that the design of
the rocket engines for DC won't be as much of a problem as Gary thinks it
will be, and that is how I interpreted it. I pointed out that design of
new jet engines *isn't* particularly simple, but I added that some of the
things that make jet engine design so difficult and expensive don't necessarily
apply to rocket engine design. I can drag up the original posts if you like,
but I don't really consider that worthwhile.

-I don't understand why you fail to see the
-difference between "not easy" and "impossible."  

I can't figure out where you got that. I think you're confusing something
Gary posted with my post.

-(Then again,
-I don't understand why you fail to see the difference between
-Al Gore and Albert Einstein. Perhaps the similarity of names
-has you confused. :-)

Very good - you're getting better, Ed. :-)

One distinction between the two that you probably don't realize - Al Gore is
not currently featured in a Claymation (TM) animated feature, discussing
some of the errors in physics in popular science fiction movies, as part of
a new permanent display at the National Air and Space Museum, in commemoration
of the sesquicentennial of Columbus' arrival in the New World, entitled
"Where Next, Columbus?", which discusses the prospects for human exploration
and colonization of space in the next 500 years, and which also features
two other movies, seven interactive multimedia programs, a "Mars house",
a hydroponic garden, and which also covers issues such as why people should
explore space, the proper balance of manned and unmanned exploration,
long-term health issues in space, contact with extraterrestrial intelligence,
and the ethics of interplanetary colonization. Einstein, however, is.

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
Newsgroups: sci.space