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I don't mean alpha particles. I mean neutrons. One source of the neutrons is generated from cosmic ray interaction with our atmosphere.

I do know the industry uses Neutron Flux as a unit of measurement:

A measure of the intensity of neutron radiation in neutrons/cm2-sec. It is the number of neutrons passing through 1 square centimeter of a given target in 1 second. Expressed as nv, where n = the number of neutrons per cubic centimeter and v = their velocity in centimeters per second.

The level of measurable Neutron Flux fluctuates with changes in altitude and latitude. Also solar flares can cause a 10 fold increase in measureable flux levels.

For soft error rates, the neutron particles are the most important.

I don't have a doctorate on this subject and cannot claim to be an expert in heavy ions. I would not be able to comment about half life and decay. A nice article by Dr. Eugene Normand is my source.

747-100's first flight date is Feb 1969. First in service date is Jan 1970. Boring Boeing link.

Ion thrusters actually are rapidly becoming the engine of choice for deep space missions. The only problem with them is that they are low thrust so you can't use it for an application that needs a quick boost. However for planet hopping where you can get away with long burn times and low thrust they're ideal. They're really nice because you can power them off of solar cells, such as with Deep Space 1. Plus they smaller then conventional chemical rockets, and can go faster!

More info here: http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/

Plus they're flight proven. DS1 used the NSTAR 30cm Ion Thruster which had a maximum power input of about 2.3 kW.

http://www.boeing.com/ids/edd/ep.html

Current research at NASA and other institutions is taking Ion Thrusters to power levels up to 30 kW with an Isp up to around 15,000-s. So while not being ramped up by an order of magnitude every few months, they are increasing by an order of magnitude every few years at the current rate. The problem that everyone is running into is the power supply for them. 30kW is a lot of juice, and if you bump that up to 300kW you're in need of a nuclear power plant.

Page is out of date by almost a year.

Wow. They've had a year to correct the typo "f light test" (first paragraph, second sentence)?

Maybe they should switch their proofreading staff to metric. :-)

I love how the pictures just have to include one of these plans shooting a missle. You'd think the atomic bomb would've taught us all a lesson.

No, I'd say that Bob is pretty obviously a concept that is fundamentally and irrevocably flawed. Bob attempted to translate the vast realm of symbolic-information-manipulation tasks down to the narrow realm of interaction-with-everyday-mechanical-artifacts.

Computers are hard. We can do a lot to make them more accessible, but Bob isn't it. You know what else is hard? Learning to read and write. We have all trained for many years to become profficent with this general-purpose communications tool. We haven't tried to invent cuter, more graphical hieroglyphics to tell our stories. We like photographs and diagrams, but text is the predominant encoding for anything serious. When graphics are used for expressing ideas, they tend to become more symbolic and less literal as their design is refined (examples here and here... human writing systems uniformly follow a simliar progression).

Primitive man could doodle a picture of himself spearing a bear. That was sufficent for documenting his exploits, and it was a lot simpler than "learn to read and write". But today, we're willing to pay that price because cave paintings are useless for conveying philosophical insights, complex narratives, and technological explications.

Computers are still very new, but they have opened up for us the world of Turing-complete computation. It is the most generalized tool that mankind has ever invented. You can't reduce it to a set of hyper-literal programs.

What I would like to know is why more research isn't being done on artificial gravity. So many of the health problems encountered in LEO gravity cound be sidestepped if you just spin the damn craft.

I would love to know why some of the effort being spent on watching things get sick in 0g isn't being directed to something as simple as spinning a glorified beer keg in orbit with some mice in it.

Check these links for more information;

• Centrifuge Accommodation Module
• Space Station Fundamental Biology Research Facility
• ISS Elements: Centrifuge Accommodation Module (CAM)

You are laughably ignorant. Let me know when someone actually shoots a stealth aircraft down. Furthermore, given the F-15's perfect combat record I'm not sure the F-22 would have anything to worry about regardless. (For those who didn't follow the link, the F-15 has 101 shootdowns with 0 F-15's lost.)

If by some sad mischance your country goes up against the U.S., good luck to you. You'll definitely need it. ;-)

-modern 'precision munitions' are still piss poor accuracy wise; 90% missed in the first gulf war, 75-60% did same in the second.

First of all, I don't think your statistics are remotely correct for the current war. Where did you get them? I don't think the U.S. has published too much BDA information publically (hint: it is all classified).

Secondly, I don't understand how you can characterize them as "piss poor" when it is widely recognized that they are the best weapons in the world, bar none. Please trot out some actual facts proving otherwise.

Not only that, but the only way americans could really set foot on EU soil is if they have a friendly port to use as a staging area.

Well, we do have Britain. ;-)

-the US is just as unsafe as any other place in the world...didn't 911 teach you anything?

Yes, it has taught me that the U.S. can successfully stop terrorist activity on it's soil for over two years, without a single incident. What did it teach you? Your statement is, once again, absurd.

-the US? Ethical? Have you even been following the news since the 1950's? As for that 'emprie'...wtf are you guys still doing in Iraq, a year after hostilities have supposedly (according to your own gov'ment) stopped?

We are in Iraq building a democracy. These things take time. BTW, it was never said that "hostilities stopped". It was "major hostilities", meaning a shooting war against another government.

As to our ethics, if it was like historical England, France or Germany, we'd now have an American Empire on which the sun never sets...

Fact is, the US could probably occupy the EU...at massive cost. And they wouldn't hold it for long; guerilla warfare would make the cost of a cross-atlantic occupation too high.

Perhaps. If we just conquered France, we'd probably end up with the modern equivalent of the Vichy government, and a nice stable colony. =)

This sounds like aeronautical vaporware. Boeing's attempt at a higher-speed "Sonic Cruiser" was scrapped last year when the company felt that economical flight at current speeds was the way to go (via the 7E7 project), and the Cruiser wasn't even planning to pass the sound barrier.

It's one thing for EADS to think speed is the way to go, and it's quite another to propose something as ambitious as they have. Based on the article I strongly suspect they're making token research into engine tech but aren't actually trying to design a plane at all here (no mention of fuselage design at all). It's just Fun with Public Relations.

That's why I buy all my keyboards pre-coffee stained from these guys, for 25c each.

Heh, you laugh, a Boeing 777 can fly for 5 hours on one engine. Oh well.

They want people who either have a track record or who seem to really be on top of things. As a result, I fully expect them to reject most of the last-minute entrants, small teams, or teams with known problems (like "it don't work yet").


First: "it doesn't work yet" has never been a problem for Defense. (Say it with me: Osprey)

Second: Limiting the competition to people "with a track record" is codespeak for: "The money will be deleivered to the usual suspects"

The page linked didn't have a date, but I'm guessing it is a year or two old. Boeing has dropped plans for the sonic cruiser, and is concentrating on building a high-efficiency aircraft instead (airlines showed very little interest in faster aircraft, and far more in cheaper to fly aircraft). If you look at their products page you will notice that they no longer even list the Sonic Cruiser in the product development section (which they used to). Their newest aircraft under development, the 7E7, is expected to enter service in 2008, and it is supposed to be a high-efficiency mid size airliner with a cruise speed of .85 mach.

Admittedly this is only what is listed on their website, but IIRC they used to list the soniccruiser (which was designed for mach .98 or so) and don't anymore, so it appears that they have dropped it.

If the military are working on anything, it should be the ability to fight without sat-aid.

They are. This , this, and a number of other projects, are effectively satelite substitutes.

And of course, when all American's TV broadcasts suddenly stop, the US will turn into a postapocalyptic cityscape with dazed citizens wandering the streets not knowing what to do without TV...

Maybe Homeland Defense should encourage people to maintain a supply of taped TV shows just in case.

No offense, but I'll trust my professors, who have flown multiple spacecraft for NASA, over you're estimate of the failure rates. That 1 in 20 is the number we were given, and I believe them.

And I'm not handwaving, you're just refusing to comprehend: the Apollo 1 fire occured during a simulated launch. It was NOT a test of the equipment.

If they'd been testing the equipment, they wouldn't have had the crew on board in the first place.

(If you're trying to see if some equipment will go wrong, you don't want extra people in the way, potentially getting hurt.)

We're not here to speculate about where it could have failed, we're looking at data.

747-400ER can carry 270,000lbs - source here :)

expend a significant amount of money to defend themselves against these bogus charges

Unfortunately this appears to be what happens when you combine a society fixated with junk science with a political class ruled by trial attorneys.

The State of Missouri had an issue a bit more than a year ago with a state legislator that was trying to get all communication towers banned. The reason? "It might harm children." A few folks did some research on the legislator pushing the bill and guess who one of his largest financial supporters was? Incumbant local telephone companies (the competition to wireless providers). Save the children unfortunately has become code for political and legal system payola.

Unfortunately this poster touches on the reality of the current US legal nightmare: many defendents cannot afford the fight for what is right due to the complete lack of financial accountability of irresponsible plantiff attorneys and their clients. I'm predicting the school will back out and turn off their wireless devices. Their students will lack the access to information that other students might have. Unless other parents get vocal and oppose this luddite activity, they'll further the progress of their children towards a future job at Burger King.

Per the allegation that the school has been ignoring evidence that electromagnetic radiation from Wi-Fi networks poses health risks, I'd invite the luddite parents and their attorneys to have a radiofrequency engineer show them what the airwaves in the classroom (or better, at home) look like. 802.11b/a/g is background noise compared to many of the narrowband signals out there. Better shut off the FM, AM and TV broadcasters immediately. Throw away that cellphone (you don't hold that anywhere *near* your head, do you?) Better start packing candles in the kids lunch bag... those fluorescent lights are little RF monsters ("to quote: while the intentional radiation of fluorescent light tubes lies in the visible light range, such tubes also generate very low levels of microwave and RF white noise (Mumford, 1949)... microwaves? That's not a classroom lit by fluorescents, it's a Easy Bake Oven from Hell!). Lock up the school TV sets - what do you think that gunnplexer is firing at your eyeballs? Get weather, aviation and police radar shut off immediately (sure hope that speeder doesn't crash into the school bus). And god forbid you have one of those Air Force E-4B 747's fly over your home as they do mine... one of those bastards wipes out my TV amplifier every time it flies over my farm! Heck, we haven't even thought about RF experiments like HAARP that can probably melt a human in milliseconds!

Of course, the final step for the trial attorneys and their luddite clients will be banning the ultimate producer of raw RF. Once that's done, we can all rest assured that no RF deathrays will harm us.

*scoove*

There are also a least a few time a year where an aircraft hits turbulance and looses 40,000 feet in seconds, and then coming to a jarring stop before gaining altitude again. Imagine overhead and underseat compartments exploding.

-- Snip --

Um, dude - if a plane drops 40,000 feet in seconds, it will not be gaining altitude again and you won't have to worry about overhead and underseat compartments exploding - just whether you dotted the "i"s and crossed the "t"s in your will...

(See the last paragraph of this press release regarding the Boeing 737-800 - that is, an aircraft whose maximum cruising altitude is 41,000'.)

For the man who has everything, something to haul all his shit around in.

Boeing has also studied the problem. This article was published in March 2000.

A quick check at spectrolab's newest concentrator cell shows that they are getting around 37% efficient...not too bad.

So their claim of >50% may be a bit of a stretch...they were likely projecting their claims to what they expect to be available at the time they will ship. The theoritical limit of this type of cell is in the mid 70% range, so it isn't too unreasonable.

I've received sponsorship money from some pretty big companies for the development (or augmentation) of an open-source project I wrote.

Now, this wasn't a "here is some money, go write something useful" type of sponsorship, but more along the lines of "we like your work but need a certain feature added. Here is the money, add the feature".

It probably doesn't help you though, since they (the money) came to me...

boeing and airbus have diverging opinions on the evolution of the airline industry. airbus thinks bigger is better and has spent billions to develop the A380 super-jumbo jet. boeing responded to what was then the A3XX announcement by drawing up plans for a 747X stretch derivative that would make it almost equal in terms of capacity to the A380.

building the 747X stretch would have involved adding two new fuselage sections to the existing 747-400ER. i'm not sure if this would also mean having to modify the wing design or not, which of course would have been costly (but not nearly as costly as developing the A380 from scratch). after tossing this idea to the airlines, they decided that the super-jumbo just didn't have the interest to merit two competing airliners. superjumbos would require costly modifications to airports, and outside of certain southeast asian routes, won't have enough traffic to make an investment in a 747X worthwhile. boeing brass apparently decided that the future of aircraft development would be smaller, faster aircraft that would be able to service more direct routes (rather than megahubs that the A380 would service, requiring most passengers to transfer to other aircraft to reach their destination).

this philosophy brought about the sonic cruiser. the sonic cruiser was never meant to be supersonic, so any suggestion that the FAA ban on supersonic flight over US territories killed the sonic cruiser is false. boeing tossed the idea to the airlines and decided that such a revolutionary aircraft would be too expensive to develop at this time. right now the boeing company is looking at the 7e7 program, which is a more traditional, but more efficient, aircraft, using more efficient engines, airframe, and wing design, combined with technology to reduce maintenance time and costs.

who will win? who knows... anyways, this was a long digression, but your point that the FAA ban had anythign to do with killing the sonic cruiser is wrong

No commercial flights went over the pole until 2000.

No, not even close. Try 1954. I know I've seen on TV why they stopped but I cannot find the reason now. Fear of ballistic missiles or bombers doesn't fly (pardon the pun) since telling missiles bombers and civilian airplanes apart was the main reason there even is a NORAD. It was their main operational task. Even built huge analog machines, complete with PPI:s and light pens in the fifties to cope with the burden.

Just to bring it to peoples' attention, something in excess of 3,000 people are KILLED every year by cars and trucks in the UK... and yet the UK is considered to have a "good" road safety record. That figure is in the region of a hundred times worse per passenger mile than the rail or bus system, the equivalent of a fully-loaded 767 going down every single month.

Just you hold on right there! What class of fully-loaded 767?

In the article, the author makes the comment:

On May 20, 1927, the day Lindbergh's plane took off from New York, the young Boeing Corp. rolled out the Boeing 40-A, a simple plane used primarily to carry mail. By 1933, after thousands of flights and incremental improvements, that plane evolved into the Boeing 247, the first modern passenger airliner.

Looking at the Model 40-A (Boeing.com), you can see a fabric covered single engined biplane. Jumping to the 247 (Boeing.com), they are comparing to a dual engine, all metal monoplane with retractable landing gear.

I guess that you could say that the difference in the aircraft were a result of thousands of "incremental changes", but I would think that the difference is primarily the result of thousands of people being excited by the prospect of air travel - the incremental changes came later.

This should be the point of the X-Prize, rather than establishing a starting point for space travel, it should be an example of how low cost space flight could be achieved and then ignite the passions of many people with the result of space travel on a par with today's air travel.

myke

In the article, the author makes the comment:

On May 20, 1927, the day Lindbergh's plane took off from New York, the young Boeing Corp. rolled out the Boeing 40-A, a simple plane used primarily to carry mail. By 1933, after thousands of flights and incremental improvements, that plane evolved into the Boeing 247, the first modern passenger airliner.

Looking at the Model 40-A (Boeing.com), you can see a fabric covered single engined biplane. Jumping to the 247 (Boeing.com), they are comparing to a dual engine, all metal monoplane with retractable landing gear.

I guess that you could say that the difference in the aircraft were a result of thousands of "incremental changes", but I would think that the difference is primarily the result of thousands of people being excited by the prospect of air travel - the incremental changes came later.

This should be the point of the X-Prize, rather than establishing a starting point for space travel, it should be an example of how low cost space flight could be achieved and then ignite the passions of many people with the result of space travel on a par with today's air travel.

myke

It's not that hard you just need a big box and a big hole.

• Spy museum in Washington DC
• North of DC, The NSA crypto museum
• The manly Rocketdyne F1 Saturn V Booster
• More thrust at the Alabama Space and Rocket Center
• Spam king Alan Ralsky's house
• A Lake Washington cruise past Bill's humble abode
• While in Seattle, the Museum of Flight
• North of Seattle is the largest building under 1 continuous roof at Boeing
• That Holy of Holies: Xerox PARC
• Another park, but of the vertical daqueri variety the Ouray Ice Park

• Spy museum in Washington DC
• North of DC, The NSA crypto museum
• The manly Rocketdyne F1 Saturn V Booster
• More thrust at the Alabama Space and Rocket Center
• Spam king Alan Ralsky's house
• A Lake Washington cruise past Bill's humble abode
• While in Seattle, the Museum of Flight
• North of Seattle is the largest building under 1 continuous roof at Boeing
• That Holy of Holies: Xerox PARC
• Another park, but of the vertical daqueri variety the Ouray Ice Park

...is the ultra cool Boeing Factory Tour, where they assemble 747s, 767s and 777s in the "largest building in the world by volume." Here's a photo of what goes on inside.

...is the ultra cool Boeing Factory Tour, where they assemble 747s, 767s and 777s in the "largest building in the world by volume." Here's a photo of what goes on inside.

The boeing tour in Everett, WA is cheap (5$) and really great if you want to see 747's being built.

Don't forget about the Boeing plant! That's one worthwhile tour, watching them put together advanced passenger planes inside one of the biggest buildings in the world. Highly recommended, and it has to be high on the list of any geek touring guide.

Another cool Boeing thing to do is the factory tour. You can tour the largest building (by volume) in the world where they make different Boeing planes.

The Experience Music Project is another fun thing to do. The have all kinds of music exhibits enhanced with technology. The place is largely funded by Paul Allen, so most of the computers use Windows (but you can't see their interface). Actually, I have seen some of the demonstration computers have a BSOD :). They have lots of memoriblia. A section called Northwest Passage details the history of music in the Pacific Northwest. All along the exhibits they have relavent music and videos playing. They also have a new section following Jimi Hendrix's life. A really cool place is the Sound Lab where you can learn instruments and other music things. They have keyboards, drums, guitars, vocal rooms, mixing boards, DJ equipment, and record scratching gear that you can learn to use. All of these includes video screens that give step by step instructions on how to play. Once your are confident, you and your friends can get together in a jam room consisting of multiple instruments and just play around. You can also be your own band in another section (I don't remember the name). You go onstage and have your choice of songs. The songs play and you play along on your instrument of choice in front of an "audience." Finally, you can chill out in the Sky Church which is a very tall room with tons of lights, fog machines, jellyfishes on the ceiling, video projectors, and other things. Plus, half the room is covered by a huge LED screen.

If you wait long enough before coming here, you can see the scifi museum that is set to open in a year or two (talked about here on /. a while back). Also funded by Paul Allen and in the same building as EMP.

For hiking, I would suggest stuff over by Lake Chelan and Glacier Peak. They have a bunch of trails there which are away from civilization and have great views.

I know someone who owns an airport in Walla Walla. He took us up in his small plane. He flew my brother of the wind farms which is really cool.

If you know anyone with a boat, have them take you out on Lake Washington so you can see Bill G's house.

EMP is supposed to be fun, too. I've never been, but I've heard good things.

The rest of the state:
Washington state is very ecologically diverse. You've got rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula, more temperate climate in the Seattle area, the mountains (which are beautiful), and then the central and eastern parts of the state are desert. The San Juan islands are an excellent destination, especially if you wanted to do some sea kayaking.
There are some good wineries in the south central part of the state, and one of the biggest wind farms down by Walla Walla.

The St. Louis Science Center has free admission.

The Missouri Botanical Garden is pretty cheap, and is a premiere research and conservation institution. It's also nice to be outdoors once in a while.

Boeing has a free museum here. Aerospace is somewhat geeky.

The Museum of Transport is pretty geeky. Plus you can see lots of old trains!

Who said they are missing it? Lufthansa is going to offer Wi-Fi, and Connexion by Boeing is going to have both an ethernet port and Wi-Fi component.

Wi-Fi has the opportunity to be a major cash cow for airlines, and from what I see, they're moving in for the kill.

The concept of "defying gravity" by generating an upward force larger than the force of gravity pulling the object down is indeed very exciting.

May I interest you in a Boeing 747?

Oh Christ, well, you'd better hurry and tell that to the NSA, US Navy, US Army and Boeing since they're all apparently terrorists.

Thank you for submitting your idea. We found it interesting but currently have a system in place that accomplishes the similar goal. Our solution involves working with an in service "vector delivery system" that quickly removes any possible threat from our skies. Our flight "escort" service have even been warmly received by the flying public. Clearly our system has cost advantages over yours.

Thank you again for your time.

"Darpa says: "This capability would free the US military from reliance on forward basing to enable it to react promptly and decisively to destabilising or threatening actions by hostile countries and terrorist organisations.""

Someone should let them know the solution is 50 years old.

A) MillionManLan is just really large lanwar, which was started, and continues, in Louisville.

B) Louisville does have a Six flags, and a minor league baseball team or two if you really want to get out for a while.

C) It's a lan party, not a family vaction. 98% of the attendies are between the ages of 16 and 24 or so.

D) It's a central location in the US, so more ppl can attend.

D) Your there to play games!

E) I've been to a few lanwars, and the first mml. They totally kick ass, and there really is no reason to leave. ever. period. I wish I could be there right now with a couple of my really good friends, but I haven't earned enough vaction time at work yet to get a few days off and drive down.

It's not exactly what you desire, but XSS-10, a microsatellite launched as a secondary payload on a Delta 2 GPS satellite launch in January, took images of the Delta 2's upper stage in orbit.

Yes. It's a current model.

Skipped a few digits, though, din't they?

My question is, there was 707 and 727... Was there a 717?

Initially, no, but Boeing did make a 717 more recently (info here). It's a small 100-seater that started service in 1999. The 707 and 727, on the other hand, aren't in production anymore (AFAIK).

• Advances in materials are allowing the team to evaluate new composite and aluminum possibilities
  
• the team is looking at incorporating health-monitoring systems that will allow the airplane to self-monitor and report maintenance requirements
  
• It is expected that advances in engine technology will contribute as much as 8 percent of the increased efficiency
  
• New technologies and processes are in development to help Boeing and its partners achieve unprecedented levels of performance
  

From The Dreamliner site:

Program Milestones:

Authority to offer: Late 2003/Early 2004
Launch: 1st Half 2004
Assembly start: 2005
First flight: 2007
Certification/Entry into service: 2008

Enjoy