Why Destroy the I.S.S.?

 Why destroy the Space Station instead of moving it to L-5 or L-3 for storage? Why did Biden-Harris give Space X a contract to destroy the I.S.S. by burning it up in the Earth’s atmosphere instead of lifting it up to L-5? Should N.A.S.A. have Boeing take up bodies for cremation on the station during its fiery descent in order to make a profit? At L-5 would the I.S.S. be useful as ballast for a tethered new station or for wreck ‘diving’ for future recreational astronauts? Is it as simple as putting up and taking down a pup tent? Does N.A.S.A. have so many places in space where people can live that they don’t mind destroying actual existing structure? What about sticking an ion engine on it for a slow boost upward to L-5?

N.A.S.A. seems to lack a high frontier psychology regarding camps and safe emergency places in case something went wrong and optimal plans didn’t develop without a hitch. Pioneers don’t treat frontier posts as disposable items to jettison as soon as they can build a new one somewhere else. Like old spare farmhouses of the west that were abandoned decades before when a new home was built, old forts and farm homes and space stations should remain in existence as just in case facilities.

The I.S.S. in safe storage at a Lagrange point might be used for some presently unforeseen purpose like being an anchor point for various kinds of telescopes or communications devices. Like an old English mansion in might have additions some day to give it a new use. One might set some housekeeping and construction robot to work in it and let out the atmosphere while new components are added. Just throwing away past projects is the mind set of urban consumers of a disposable culture rather than of those accustomed to frontier challenges. What would the first explorers of Antarctica have given for a safe, warm place with a food supply on their return from the South Pole?

Kamala Harris Wants a Soviet Approach to School Security

 

With another Democrat era school shooting in Georgia Vice President Harris has advocated for the Soviet state security apparatus of internal security including schools. That is to disarm the public and terrorize political opposition throwing them into the Gulag whenever possible. The late Soviet Union had great internal security because the public were too frightened to commit crimes. Democrats may admire the living in fear lifestyle with everyone effectively locked down. Plutonium was kept on shelves in an unguarded warehouse near Moscow with just a padlock on the door for security. With strict wage and price controls, being found with an unauthorized crust of bread in one’s coat pocket was enough to merit a five-year sentence.

One-party systems seek total control of the external social world as a way to enforce the absolute power of the state. Schools have great security with no violent crimes. Yet the approach is abhorrent to free people and one the U.S.A. should not follow. School security in the United States can be made emulating the way federal buildings across the nation developed security after the McVeigh bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.

Democrats cannot be serious about school security with a King Canute approach to rolling back the tide of the Second Amendment with a command. Democrats are so myopic on their approach to politics that they fail to understand the consequences of their political acts when taking rash, short-term proplits. When the Soviet Union restored to national control all of the nations and properties it have taken after they came t power a half century after the end of the Second World War the only nation that was left out was Russia- President Bill Clinton arranged to wrest the Ukraine from Russia and deem it an independent nation, that it never before in history had been. That rash, importunate act was reinforced by following Democrat party U.S. Presidents unto the present day, compelling Russia to fight for its homeland when other nations including East Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Serbia etc had it given to them with the support of the West and N.A.T.O.

Perhaps Democrats sought to neutralize the nascent free enterprise based Russian state and turn it back toward communism by forcing it to defend itself against the encroachment and terrorism of the west. Russia had no choice besides renewing strongest possible relations with Socialist China and North Korea while Democrat Presidents in the United States were trying to rebuild union membership numbers and power. Democrat politicians have a Closer my atheist Utopian Soviet Union god draw I unto thee fatal attraction.

Vice-President Harris’ husband recently said, in so many words, that now is the time for Israel to surrender to the demands of Hamas to return to power and to have control of the Gaza-Egyptian border in order to reload with weapons for another round of war in a year or two in exchange for the return of 100 Israeli hostages. I believe that spouses of political leaders generally should not be unelected loose canons on deck weighing in on political matters. Yet the V.P’.s spouse did provide a window into the unreasoning of the Democrat presidential candidate for 2024 who probably shares the same opinion as her bigger spouse. Restoring terrorist hostage takers to political power must be the dumbest possible choice. The hostages unfortunately aren’t likely to be returned unless Hamas is beaten and they are returned in exchange for safe passage to a country without extradition. political opinions can have disastrous consequences for future Israel. Another Hamas administration probably would have more drones than it could find space for in its vast tunnel network to send in a while to blow up Jews in Israel. Iran is pretty good at manufacturing drones.

Ecologically Renewing Old Building Like the Former Wrangell Hospital

 I have given some thought on what to do with the old Wrangell Hospital that is apparently costly for the city to keep in its inventory because of electrical and other costs. I ride a bike past the hospital sometimes when I am in town for shopping and hate to see the property’s neglect; it is aesthetically unsatisfying. It seems a fair item for a web blog. Sometimes repainting houses the exterior of the old building seems to be in pretty good shape considering that is might not have had any work on it since it was new. The fascia could be covered with marine plywood and some sort of metal because it seems to have worked like a drip edge ans is rusting away.

Environmentally speaking it is better to recondition and upgrade old buildings than build new ones generally. If a building is dangerous with unsound components it should be entirely replaced. Otherwise the manufacturing and transport costs of materials for something entirely new is greater than an upgrade. Refurbishing old buildings requires custom thought, innovation and design intelligence that isn’t necessary when building cookie cutter new units, so most people op for the later although it is environmentally and economically wasteful. The $50 per sheet. Building materials are quire expensive these days.

One can make old buildings very modern. The city might need to find some incentive for a party to become interested in investing in the old hospital when they presently haven’t a business revenue return model to do so. The Stikine River Wilderness, decline of fisheries and Old Growth forest might provide an incentive for some environmental non-profit to develop the property with ultra-modern green energy production and insulation technologies to convert the structure into a showpiece for green technology while providing a base for restoration of fishing and enhancement of forest and water quality. Maybe just getting someone like the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) of Amory Lovins to entirely convert the old hospital to green tech would require the property to be donated in exchange for fulfilling some contract to refurbish the structure.

The City need be cautious about selling the property at a discount to anyone that says if X then Y such as building N units for housing will follow Z conditions. Once the title is transferred, without some formal contract the owner needn’t do anything. For a city assembly the lure of dozens of new housing units could be an attractive bait. I Pink salmon are in the water presently.

Th 36,000 sq foot building out to have room for 15 apartments of a thousand sq feet each with ample leftover space for storage units. Maybe it could be the Jay Hammond Center for Environmental Research, or another Pioneer Home or a place to move Wrangell Law Enforcement, Fire Department and other government offices. The present Wrangell Police and Fire station is a better site for business or some kind of transportation hub and intermodal connectivity.

Vice President Harris said that if she were elected president she would build three million new homes to alleviate the ‘housing shortage’. That would employee hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens working as construction crews and drop quick proplits to Democrat party donors and building developers. Consider for a minute the environmental and economic consequences.

Rapid tract home expansion is an amazing thing to watch. While riding a bike 35,000 miles around the country looking for a job I repainted quite a few buildings. In a new suburb of Houston I rode each morning past a new home being built by a crew. After the concrete set it took just six days to put the building up, and it was a large home selling north of $300,000. From framing to setting down tresses with a cherry picker and roofing specialized crews completed a phase of construction. Its nothing like the way carpenters of old would build a home with an apprentice or two.

That style of housing is boom and bust. Refurbishing old homes is sustainable and done with local workers creating jobs in the U.S.A. to replace so many lost overseas. Millions of workers specializing in upgrading old homes is a different approach than expanding into near urban farmland with new housing tracts while leaving old homes to become new slums, ghettos and barrios closer toward urban cores.

Everything in an old home can be replaced by entirely new materials with the limit being the intelligence of the redesigner. Perfectly clear, transparent roofs could replace old ones and plug in to new support tresses wherein wiring for plug in solar voltaic roofing would go, Roofs could change color as if they were adaptive optics to let in or filter out light. Creating new materials that can upgrade old homes is a good way to sell environmentally rational materials for export to second and third world nations looking to upgrade to a western style quality of life. What cannot serve global interests at all well is the idea of using the old housing ways favored by the Biden-Harris people to clear-cut undeveloped foreign forests and build new tract homes with asphalt absorbing streets across Africa, South America and Asia.

It is important to put intention on present political actions toward present and future structural designs. Scaling up old housing patterns nationally and globally can have disastrous consequences environmentally as well as economically. Building new subdivisions requires substantial investment of public resources, probably with inefficient technologies such as flush toilets instead of solar-powered electric toilets installing miles of pipe, electrical wires, water flow management and so on. All of the new instant lawns placed by the square yard and the lawn mowers, weed eaters and chem lawn treatments are completely avoidable when old buildings are refurbished to better-than-new condition with advanced tech.

For Sale; Decommissioned Wrangell Alaska Hospital

 For the price of a used home a 36,000 sq foot former city hospital with a great location just a mile from the airport and a half mile from a salt-water port may be had for purchase (if the price agreed to with the last developer who wanted additional properties free and let it fall through when he didn't get them still holds). I would think a non-profit could refurbish the building with a great metal roof and not pay property taxes. An estimate of the cost to build a new one like it is 14 million dollars U.S.

Apparently the city wants to sell the building in order not to pay for utilities annually. It is not a bad looking building at all though the city has let the grass go un-mowed and the exterior needs to be maintained. The inside could be gutted and just lad bearing elements retained so one could make numerous small condo units and a few stores within it, and outside on the grounds. There is adequate parking space and garages for storage.

Instead of heating the building while empty several quality dehumidifiers might have been place to keep the humid environment dry for less cost. I specialized at repainting buildings so I am completely amazed at the unwillingness to maintain it or convert it into some other purposed public structure.

https://www.wrangell.com/community/sale-old-wrangell-medical-center-and-property-over-counter

Od hospital buyers might not see the throughput of customer volume sufficient to support commercial purposes. Wrangell has fewer than 2000 people although the cruise ship industry is rising annually while fisheries are in decline. The site might be a good place for a remote small resource based technical college annex, executive retreat two hours from Seattle etc. A Large wind generator could supply off grid power occasionally (it should turn slow enough to not bother common bald eagles and ravens flying past.

The former Wrangell Hospital is at any rate an excellent place for a retirement project to make a few stores and condo spaces. With the passing on of the boomer generation there will be millions of existing buildings that will become vacant that need be refurbished rather than destroyed so new homes can be built. Getting rid of perfectly fine structures to build new ones is quite a bit costlier and wasteful of human and material resources.