West Jacksonville Thread

[scongro]

^^ I agree, it is not the most inspiring design I've ever seen. I think it addresses the street about as well as the average Wal-Mart

[bobliocatt]

St. Vincent's to break ground on medical offices

St. Vincent's Medical Center will begin construction on a three-story 55,671sf medical office building, an overnight facility for patients and a 168-space parking deck.

[asonj23]

Man! The hospitals in the city core just keep building thicker and thicker!

- New expansion to Baptist finished?

- New expansions to St. Vincents

- New expansions to Shands

- New expansions to Memorial (on University Blvd)

- New expansions to Mayo & St. Luke's (I'm not positive about)

- Satallite Baptist campuses on southside (finished) and Flemming island (proposed)

I wonder how we stand against other cities in healthcare availability?

[Viper]

St. Vincent's to break ground on medical offices

St. Vincent's Medical Center will begin construction on a three-story 55,671sf medical office building, an overnight facility for patients and a 168-space parking deck.

I really love the are around and entrance road to St Vincents. It has this great urban feel to it and this will only further enhance that.

[simms3]

where's all the westsiders at...we need to start up this discussion again!!!!

[DavePaulk]

There is a good deal of Westside discussion going on at the new forum. There are a few projects especially that are getting some attention.

[McGuireV10]

Where is "the new forum"?

[Viper]

You're already there, McGuire.

[Captain Obvious]

Commercial spaceport is being considered by Florida Space Authority at its Dec. 7 meeting.

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stor...met_cecil.shtml

"Getting the nod from the state space agency would be the first step toward Cecil receiving a license from the Federal Aviation Administration and approval from the Department of Environmental Protection, both necessary for it to be a site for launches. A memorandum of understanding between the state and local entity might take several months, JAA spokesman Michael Stewart said.

It's unclear who would pay for the construction of the spaceport, which could cost $10.5 million to $28 million, but airport officials stressed that the facility would be used by private businesses."

-------------------

This isn't terribly relevent news, since the market for private space travel doesn't actually exist yet. However, the process to get permits and approvals for a private commerical spaceport will probably take years and years of fighting government red tape. So it's nice to see that some people are being very forward-thinking.

The TU included pictures of Burt Ruttan's SpaceShipOne, but sadly it seems like they have nothing to do with this proposal. Now, if Cecil could land Scaled Composites or Virgin Galactic ... now that would be a story!

[Urban_Legend]

Hmmm....

I wonder if we'll see protestors launching bottle rockets in front of City Hall....lol

[McGuireV10]

LOL, nice. We get residents complaining about the noise from a jet base, but the loudest noise on earth short of nuclear weapons testing is A-OK.

[bobliocatt]

I wonder is this what they had in mind when they mentioned the potential of Cecil? I also wonder how many high paying jobs will a toursit spaceport bring and if its even realistic, then what's the time schedule?

[Captain Obvious]

Private commercial spacecraft are expected to "launch" by piggybacking on airplanes, then detaching and launching in the stratosphere. It's much cheaper than the way the government does it. So therefore noise is actually not a concern. The article even mentions that besides being so high up, the detachment would probably occur over the ocean anyway.

For those of you unaware of the new methods for private space travel, you should google "virgin galactic" or "spaceshipone".

As for timetable and economic impact? hmm ... I would venture to say "decades" and "next to nothing."

Nevertheless, I think it's refreshing that JAA and Cecil are being so forward-looking. Just in case private space travel actually becomes a real industry in the future, I would be great to have Florida's only pre-approved private "spaceport" in Jax rather than Titusville.

[McGuireV10]

Granted I didn't consider the Rutan SS1-style launches, but even those are very, very loud (the launch itself, not the "mothership" carrier, of course). If you've lived in Jax for any reasonable period of time, I'm sure you've experienced having your home or office shaken by the double-sonic-boom of Space Shuttle reentry, and that takes place far over the ocean, too.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for it -- but I just don't think it's especially realistic to expect VG to be interested. Even VG's over-optimistic projections are for commercial operation to begin in 2008 at $200,000 per ticket. I hate to say it, but folks who are laying out $200K for what amounts to a brief thrill-ride are not exactly flocking to the Jacksonville area on a regular basis. VG would be smarter to locate their operations in the region around LA, New York, or Miami, for example.

Between that and our real-world experiences talking to the folks charged with making something out of the Cecil Commerce Center... well, I love the idea, but I'll believe it when I see it...

[jjoshjl]

A few Quick Comments with regards to the pros and cons..

1) Many People do NOT realize that space is where we are heading. And I do not mean in terms of Governmental space travel, I mean privatized space travel. It may still be 20 years off before we see middle class style space travel, but Upper class space travel is already happening. The main reason it hasnt picked up isnt realy money, but limited availibilty (US/Russia are the only ones). This is where SpaceShipOne comes into play. it is the first FULLY privatized space endevour. They are working with Virgin to develope a viable reusable verison for commerce. So, the while the need for a space port isnt there comeletly yet, it will be for the big time players VERY soon.

2) Transportation has always been one of the biggest catalysts for growth. if this is next big thing for transportation, If jacksonville is one of the very few with a true space port, then it puts us YEARS ahead of everyone else. Lots-o-Jobs

3) There are plans for permanant Moon Bases by 2020. Long way off. But once you have permenance, VERY soon after, some form of retail.entertainment will come. Within a few years, the permenant station will go from 5 or 6, ->30/40 -> 100 -> you get the idea. If there is land, if there are people, man expands and grows. A town will very quickly develope on the Moon. If we are one of the few viable space ports, that means they come through us. JOBS (Jacksonville - The gateway to Space)

4) Demand is going to force technology to become more effective. Rocket engines are nearing 100 years old. They have all but exceeded their usefulnes. New forms of propulsion will come out. If an E/M drive can be perfected, it will be almost cometly Silent. (and alot faster) Ive don some baby calculations on various types of E/M drives. If done properly, can get you to the moon in about 4 hours. (mars in about 2 weeks) Once these technologies are perfected, space will literaly take off... (sorry, physics guy in another life so I love playing with numbers)

Anyway, IF Jax can be forward thinking enough, in the long run, Jacksonville will benifit for DECADES to come...

Have fun

[McGuireV10]

I wouldn't exactly call that an examination of the pros and cons. Either way, you're way out in left field on most of those points.

This type of space travel is and will remain a tourist activity, even if the prices drop to 1/100th of their initial $200,000/trip figure ($2000 is still a lot of jack for a one hour ride). It's entertainment for the wealthy. I have no great reason to go to the edge of space, except that I simply want to go there. And before you think I'm ignoring the transportation angle, please bear with me and read on...

Tourist-grade space travel is "transportation" only in the technical sense of the word: movement inside a vehicle of some kind. It will never be the kind of transportation that people turn to when they want to travel. Speed is the sole benefit it has to offer, and the fact that the Concorde was allowed to die off is evidence that people aren't willing to pay a fraction of the ticket price for even a fraction of that speed. Ever priced a Concorde ticket? I have: NY to London one-way ran about $18,000, and that was their equivalent of a coach ticket. First-class ran about $21,000, and round-trip would lighten your wallet by about $35,000. Something like the SS-1 might be able to make that run twice as fast, but the risk level and expense (remember it won't be carrying 128 passengers like the Concorde) make the idea a non-starter. It isn't the next big thing in transportation.

The sort of moon bases proposed by the federal government are not civilian operations in any sense whatsoever. (And for other reasons, I doubt they'll happen -- but don't get me started on the moon/Mars argument.) Recreational travel to the edge of space is separated from something like a successful moon landing by a vast gulf of problems, expenses, complications, and risks -- ONE successful moon landing, let alone repeat travel, and definitely without getting into repeat *tourist* travel.

I don't know what "E/M" means, but the only "two weeks to Mars" engine I've ever heard anybody describe with a straight-face is a continuous-fission device proposed by an Israeli phsyicist around 2001. And that was just theory. It would run off Americium which is a staggeringly expensive man-made element (worth roughly five times as much as gold). Even if we make the irrational assumption that such advances are just around the corner, it certainly it can't reasonably be used as a basis to argue that Cecil Field is a great place to build a spaceport.

I'm very much a fan of all things technological. I'm a space buff. I'm a die-hard sci-fi fan. But the cold reality is that Virgin Galatic and Rutan are primarily building a new form of entertainment, and regardless of the success of that venture -- or even if I'm wrong and somebody finds a great reason for it to become mainstream -- all those things are so far in the future that Cecil is a very unlikely home for those activities.

That's my take on it, anyway.

All that being said, I wish I had $200K to burn on the first trip in the VG ship...

[Viper]

My turn.

There is more demand for space tourism than most people think and the launch pad is absolutely irrelavent for them. Those willing to spend $200k to go to space will flock whereever the launch pad is. They won't scoff just because it's in J-ville and not LA. Besides, the rich pay enormous amounts of money for entertainment and they will pay 200k to enhance their ego even further. To them, 200k is worth tellign everyone at a banquet that you're one of the elite few to travel to space. To be on top of the world, higher than others, etc..ego increasing phrases.

I used to work for British Airways as a reservationaist. Concorde is (was) $5,500 one way and 10k round trip (McQuire, if anyone told you otherwise, they either lied to you or that was a travel agent trying to rob you of thousands) but I can assure you that demand was not why it was cancelled, cost (believe it or not) was. I rarely had a Concorde flight at less than 75% booked. Maintainence and fuel costs killed it along with the recent headlines of Air France's Concorde crash giving a bad stigma to them. My point, when they killed the Concordes, demand was still very high.

Do not forgot though, the Concorde was structly a form of transportation where as space tourism is not. You won't have a 100 passenger cabin. It will be just a few rich people a year.

[McGuireV10]

Do not forgot though, the Concorde was structly a form of transportation where as space tourism is not. You won't have a 100 passenger cabin. It will be just a few rich people a year.

Even at $200,000 per ticket, that doesn't sound like a very enticing business proposition. Hell, our race track is projected to bring about $130 million per year into the local economy, and JEDC doesn't want us at Cecil.

[jjoshjl]

E/M = electromagnetic

People are working wiht ways to ustilize this force to create thrust. The ION drive on Deep Space one the first working example of one. its slow, but the potential is much greater...

th equation goes like this

f = i[n(qvBsin(x))]

---------------------------------------

f = force

i = number of electron beams used

n = number of electrons per beam

q = charge of an electron

v = velocity of electron

B = magnetic field strength

x = degree at which B field interacts with direction Electrons are moving

rough example

n = 10^17 electrons - powerful electron beam

q = ~10^-19 coloumbs (constant)

v = 3 X 10^7 m/s (constant)

B = .001 Tesla (constant)

x = 90 (constant)

i = 500 (can be as many or as few as you need)

Play with the numbers, and then through the force you get back into this equation

f=ma => f/m=a

get the mass in Kg of a large object, and you can see what type of acceleration

find out how long trip takes

a = m/ss

a = acceleration

m = distance in meters

s = secondsa

sqrt(m/a) = time in seconds

Have Fun

[McGuireV10]

I'm well aware of ion drives -- and while they can produce impressive specific-impulse numbers, they are considered one of the worst engine designs for producing thrust (with SI being defined as thrust relative to the quantity of propellant being expelled). In fact, SI is inversely proportional to thrust, so as your SI climbs (which looks good from a rocketry background) your thrust drops off -- and your power requirements increase to enormous proportions. The DS1 you mentioned in your response isn't even capable of 1G of acceleration. In fact, if I recall correctly, NASA measured the engine output in milligee figures...

Anyway, that's going WAY off topic.

Viper -- your response about Concorde tickets is, of course, dead-on accurate; I had forgotten that I was actually looking at ticket prices for three people: my wife and I and a friend were traveling to Paris and I thought it would be amusing to see how much it would cost. While you are also correct in that many Concorde flights were reasonably full, there were only something like five of them in operation. This alone probably plays a significant role in why they weren't cost-effective. Had there been overwhelming demand, somebody would have filled that role. Instead, the option that made sense was to simply remove them from service.

[jjoshjl]

True.. way off topic..

Jsut pointing out that if done properly, Ion propulsion can POTENTIALLY (not that it can in its current state) create a great deal of speed.

One more side note, you are 100% correct in that ION drives dont realy produce much acceleration... Dont care. They arent design for acceleration, they are design for speed. ill take 1/2 G's worth of acceleration for longer trips in a heart beat over short 45 burst at 10 G's

i think if you take .5 G's out to like 4 days, you get speeds of like .5% C. may not sound like much, but its emensly greater than anything out there right now

Anyway, Off topic

Back to the topic at hand

[jjoshjl]

By the way... all I was trying to say is that there are technologies in the pipeline that they are working on... We arent going to be using rocket fuel for the rest of our existance...

Back to topic

[Urban_Legend]

Impressive formula jjoshjl!

[Captain Obvious]

Yesterday, someone made the comment that Vigirn Galactic would never actually be interested in Jacksonville - and I didn't say anything because I pretty much agreed with you. However, it looks like they've actually met with the city after all!

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stor...t_20444070.shtm

Virgin Galactic has eye on Cecil

It's far from a deal, but Richard Branson's space tourism firm has met with Peyton about using the site as a spaceport

Virgin Galactic has placed orders for five spaceships and two launch aircraft with options on further systems, the company said in July, giving it exclusive use for the initial 18 months of commercial passenger operations.

In testimony to a House subcommittee in February, Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn said the company was looking to add a second U.S. location besides beginning operations in Mohave, Calif. They company was considering spots in Florida, Texas and New Mexico.

[Captain Obvious]

Just to be clear, for people who don't read the article ...

These talks were extremely limited, and both the city and VG really emphasize that any action is still very far off. It's still really more a "vision" than anything.