know your friends well, but your enemies better, why the united states will fall Options

[sadolakced acid]

The United States of America.

the promise land?
land of milk and honey?
land of the mountain of gold?

maybe.

yet, like all empires, doomed to fail.

why, you ask? mayhaps it's politics. mayhaps it's terrorists. or mayhaps it's cultural.

So says the old joke, that people who only know one language are americans. This may be true for some, but with more and more high schools requiring foriegn languages, this is slowly changing.

yet to what purpose? sure, we might learn the culture of the romans, the french, the spanish (and mexicans), and the germans. but will this help us in the world?

if we consider the world as a whole, what is the greatest threat to the United States of America? Is it russia? they seem to be fading from the stage, their act over, exiting stage left.

is it the middle east? certainly they are the source for terrorists. Yet what do terrorists do? they kill people. They terrorize. yet this is not what kills a nation. Terrorist's actions unify America, they make it stronger.

then what is the threat?

let's look at recent events.

george bush annouces that the united states will return to the moon by 2019.
and china anounces that they will put a man on the moon by 2018.

a brilliant display of one-up-manship if it's pulled off.

this is a nation that has vast potential, and they are begining to tap it. Sure, there are growing pains, but it means they are growing.

so let's consider this for a second. most every nation, china included, teach thier children to speak english.

To do this, they read american books, learn from american teachers, and watch american movies.

American culture is exported to other countries. yet these countries don't completely ignore thier own culture. the two- american culture and local culture- coexist.

jump to america.

a country where youths make jokes based on racial stereotypes from 100 years ago.

a country where most children's knowledge of chinese is how to say a few bad words.

a country where other cultures are not valued, or studied.

let us look to the future. Is the united states going to be able to sell things to china? not anymore, not with our limited understanding of thier culture.

but they, on the other, they have hundreds of thousands of college graduates who know how to operate in a western buisness world, who know what americans want, and can give it to them for much cheaper.

So what, you ask. Why should it matter?

the answer is staring you in the face. America dominates because america innovates. the internet. automobiles. aeroplanes. all created here.

so what happens when america loses it's innovation? then it's military weapons cease to be the worlds best. It's industry ceases to do things others cannot. It's commerce soon depends on someone else. and it's dominence-- it's dominence fades.

and thus the empire falls.

[stryker76]

Yeah it is expensive to make rocket fuels but easy if you can get the materials. Also, No spaceship One is a way to get people into space and back with the same methods of an Airplane. It doesnt need to be done that was it could be done other ways. The reason it didnt go ne further then the outer atmosphere is because if it went too fast its wings wouldnt have been able to with stand the force and possibly caused the craft more difficulty to maintain control.

NASA doenst use nething to control there velocity leaving the earths atmosphere. The use to Solid rocket boosts which you can not control there velocity other then packing less fuel into its cylindars. the only controlled velocity is in orbit so that its doesnt fall to earth at the wrong angle, or go controllably out into space.

Early rockets had only a fuseloge(sp) and 3-4 fins on the lower ends to maintain stability. With the correct launch angle and the right amount of propellent its wouldnt be to extremly difficult to do. As for life support systems.....i never said what i sent into space would live....but it wouldnt take much more then a pressure suit and some well made SCUB gear.....So over all maybe it would take about 200k....

If you look at the Rockets that goin into space now you have to remember most of the instumentation on them is for experiments and because the crafts are made to be reusable. But to make a one time use craft that has not experimentation equipment then it wouldnt be to hard. It would wiegh less and take less to lift and less or move faster depending on how you make it.

I do acctually kno what im takin about...i live about 45 mins for Kennedy Space center. I kno ppl that are NASA payload specialist. I make model rockets for a hobby and i excelled in Chemistry in school. I made homemade rocket fuel for a final Project in my Chemistry class and launched a small rocket 5 miles to the other side of town with only 20 yards of in accuracy.

I kno rockets. Im good with rockets and such.