I’m thinking Mt Chimborazo in Ecuador…at over 20000 ft, it’s peak it the farthest from the center of the earth (while not being the highest above sea level thanks to the equatorial bulge).
Sure, it doesn’t remove air resistance or friction, but halving it, even cutting it by 1/3 is a massive leap in efficiency and negates much of the extreme engineering and materials needed to overcome the friction….plus, as you mentioned, there’s the rotational speed advantage from launching on the equator vs Florida.
Also, while extremely minor, there’s also a slight reduction in gravitational pull at those heights. A joule saved is a joule earned!

"Lasch wrote that in 1995. Now, almost two decades later, the super-rich have achieved escape velocity from the gravitational pull of the very society they rule over. They have seceded from America."

LMFAHS.

I literally laughed out loud. Well done.

In reply to this comment by Hive13:
>> ^rottenseed:

That was heavy


There's that word again; "heavy". Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?

>> ^rottenseed:

That was heavy


There's that word again; "heavy". Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?

To me, she looks like she has her own gravitational pull...

I'm stuck in this channel's gravitational pull....

But the thing about science is that you are supposed to give out information willy-nilly. A central ideal of the scientific method and scientific experimentation is repeatability. You make a hypothesis, design a controlled experiment to test that hypothesis, and publish in an extremely open way the steps and procedure of those experiments so that other people can repeat what you've done, perform the same tests and verify your results for themselves.

So much of global warming science comes from computer climate models. The problem with modeling something as complex as climate with computers is that it is nearly impossible to understand the whole system well enough that you can isolate one experimental variable to vary and compare to a control group. As time goes on, we keep learning about more and more variable inputs to the whole system of climate. Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and other gases create a greenhouse effect. The sun has a periodic sunspot cycle and other random (as near as we can figure) fluctuations.

Climate Science is a good thing, because we will gradually learn to understand more and more of those contributing variables. But before anything radical is done in reaction to computer models, those models have to be proven viable. One way that can be done is to feed old, recorded data into the model and see if it can accurately "predict" the past.

For that to be done, the system that the computer models use must be fully disclosed, open, and accepted.

Johannes Kepler came up with some scientific, mathematical equations to describe the physics of how bodies in space interact with gravitational pull. By applying those equations, we've sent men into space and to the moon, maintained orbits of satellites, and done all sorts of fantastically useful things. Until climate science can take data from 2 decades ago and accurately describe what happened 1 decade ago, I think it makes sense to be at least a little skeptical in our reactions to what those models say will happen 10-100 years from now.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
This is heavy!


There's that word again, 'heavy'. Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?

>> ^Mcboinkens:
WHile I understand two galaxies wouldn't look like that, would you care to explain the physcis behind it? There have been no instances that we know of where two galaxies collide head on perfectly like the rings above. I'm assuming it's because galaxies are largely empty space that does not move like smoke?


It's prob because galaxies are hundreds of thousands of light years across, and the incredible gravitational pulls of each galaxy will act on each other long before they physically touch. They won't transfer all their momentum in a radial direction like those smoke rings cuz of the gravity.

That's my bs, but here is a page from the official hubble site with lots of pics of colliding galaxies:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2008/16/image

Over population, sure;

Resource depletion is mostly to blame on manufactures, we use what they produce and make us think we want - I directly attribute a lot of our wastefulness to over-packaging, disposable products and advertising;

As for climate change, that's a farce I'm not ready to believe, We can't control that. The earth has forever continued to evolve in cycles and it directly related to the heat from the sun and gravitational pull from the moon. Fifty years ago, they were complaining we were heading into another ice age and now the complaints are we're having a meltdown.

As far as worldwide chaos and destruction, I just can't see it.

I agree, there are always better ways to use our recourses, and the technology is there. It is up to the manufacturers and our governments to implement and use these alternatives and do it in a way that is economical to the general public. Have you ever noticed that the Green Choice always costs a few dollars more? If they made the right choice a few dollars less, that's what everyone would choose and the old way would become a way of the past.

I could write a book filled with all of my opinion but I'll stop now before this turns rant...
Whatever the issues are though, It's still communication through "fear." It is "Worst Case Scenario" mentality. They are trying to scare us into complying. They want us to take up the banner and spend all our resources to battle these wrongs in society.

I just think that most of us tow the line, if they actually want to change things, they need to START with governments and manufacturing, and we will continue to follow. But what they really want is to keep us busy, a population that gets bored and complacent start to think too independently, so they give us little projects to occupy our time.

I find the question to be loaded.

There's nothing anybody can do to prove the sun will come out tomorrow, Atheist or Christian.

There's always the possibility that the sun can supernova and that would A) First off, make it not come out the next day because there's no sun
and B)Not make it come out tomorrow because we just exploded.

There's the possibility that the earth can have an axis shift, in which case we'd almost all die anyway. For us, the sun wouldn't come out tomorrow, we'd be dead.

The REASON you can't win this bet, is because every time you say "And then the suns gravitational pull continues to keep earth revolving around the sun at a constant speed which therefore allows the sun to "rise""
they just say "And where did the sun come from?" When you say that it's not possible to prove, they go "God" laugh at you, and then send you away, without 1000$ in your pocket.

I'd have the Secret Service put her near the top of the "list".

Indeed, I too worry about the effects of her gravitational pull on Air Force One.

Black holes exert a gravitational pull that tends to rip matter right off a orbiting star, spinning at such high speeds into the event horizon that a funnel of x-rays shoots out... yeah I think that makes them pretty lethal.

>> ^videosiftbannedme:
I always loved the way Doc Brown continued with the conversation after Marty called the DeLorean a "sucker":
"Whoa, Doc! Are you saying this sucker is NUCLEAR?!?"
"No, no, this sucker's electrical! But I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity that powers the flux capacitor."
Just makes me laugh that he's so into what he's talking about, he just adopts Marty's vocabulary. Great writing and acting right there.


My favorite line from this movie is, "There's that word again; "heavy". Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?" The genuinely interested way he asks, gets me everytime.

I remember a post from FSTDT.com once where someone on a Christian Science Board was discussing that gravity doesn't exist. The reason we are stuck on the Earth is because of the "weight of our sins". When we have accepted Jesus as our savior and die, we rise to Heaven because the weight of our sins has been lifted from us. Those that have not accepted Jesus are pulled directly down to Hell from the overwhelming weight of their sins.

He argued that gravity cannot exist because the astronauts do not orbit the space shuttle when it is in orbit, and the Moon orbits Earth, and not the Sun, even though the Sun has a "supposed" stronger gravitational pull.

The final reason he disagrees with the Theory of Gravity is because he believes any scientific theory proven right gives Evolution more cause to be correct. So he spends his time trying to disprove all scientific theories to prove to people that Evolution isn't true.

Edit: Before MGR reams me for it, no, I do not lump all Christians into these "chimps with downsyndrome" piles. My father still professes his Christianity, and as I've said before, my uncle is a minister and one of the most intelligent people I know.