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It was code named Merrimac. Of course the North's radar left something to be desired as well. CSA Stealth Ship The Merrimac (CSS Virginia) certainly bears a striking resemblance to the Russian Stealth Ship.

"Stealth ships" are a blue-water navy idea. But there hasn't been a major blue-water naval engagement in years. Today, the U.S. Navy is mostly used to project power onshore. Stealth isn't the primary criterion for that role. Armor matters more.

There's a good argument for heavily armored battleships for shore bombardment, but the old ones took thousands of people to run, and the Navy is short on people. The U.S. Navy had an "arsenal ship" concept in the early 1990s, but never built any.

Lockheed Advanced Technical Laboratories Page on the Sea Shadow

Naval Vessel Registry page on the Sea Shadow

Overhead View of Sea Shadow at sea - April 11, 1993, off of Santa Cruz Island, CA

Larger Picture of Sea Shadow

Sea Shadow berthed inside the "Hughes Mining Barge (HMB-1)", which was used to move Sea Shadow to and from it's Sea Trials area

Lockheed Advanced Technical Laboratories Page on the Sea Shadow

Naval Vessel Registry page on the Sea Shadow

Overhead View of Sea Shadow at sea - April 11, 1993, off of Santa Cruz Island, CA

Larger Picture of Sea Shadow

Sea Shadow berthed inside the "Hughes Mining Barge (HMB-1)", which was used to move Sea Shadow to and from it's Sea Trials area

Actually not all US stealth(y) ship designs are for special ops. The CVN 77 is a new stealthy Aircraft carrier design.

Right here, bitches

No, this aint a troll. See the headline.

>Not to mention the fact that one side of the
>moon faces the sun at all times! Any solar
>collectors on Earth are subject to day/night
>cycles. The moon would rarely be impacted, when
>the lunar eclipses happen.

Doh! One side of the moon always faces the EARTH! (synchronous rotation). We had never seen the far side of the moon until we sent something "back there" to take pictures.

So: that being the case, is it really possible that one side of the moon is always bathed in the light of the sun? If so, then how did we ever get visible pictures of the OTHER SIDE of the moon? Did we use a gigantic flashbulb, or something? ;)

Map of the entire surface including the far side

The Far Side of the Moon Consider how this picture would look if it had been taken during a "full moon:" since during a full moon the entire side of the moon that is facing the Earth is lit up, only the portion of the moon in this photograph that is said to be visible from Earth (see the pic's caption) would have any sunlight on it.

Far Side of the Moon, with animation showing the same side of the moon always toward the Earth. This doesn't show where the sun is in relation to the animation; but figure that the sun is way off the screen from the animation...the darkened part of the moon in the animation is representing the side of the moon we never see from Earth, NOT how the light hits the moon (the Earth does not illuminate the moon, although it does sometimes reflect a little of the sun's light onto the dark portion of the quarter moon...)

So, taking this into account, will it be useful to build these lasers on the moon, especially the power plant?

Apollo 11 Laser Ranging Retroreflector Experiment. "Laser beams are used because they remain tightly focused for large distances. Nevertheless, there is enough dispersion of the beam that it is about 7 kilometers in diameter when it reaches the Moon and 20 kilometers in diameter when it returns to Earth. Because of this very weak signal, observations are made for several hours at a time. By averaging the signal for this period, the distance to the Moon can be measured to an accuracy of about 3 centimeters (the average distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 385,000 kilometers)."

Add to this, the fact that the moon wobbles...

Ah yes, here's a thought... ;)

>Not to mention the fact that one side of the
>moon faces the sun at all times! Any solar
>collectors on Earth are subject to day/night
>cycles. The moon would rarely be impacted, when
>the lunar eclipses happen.

Doh! One side of the moon always faces the EARTH! (synchronous rotation). We had never seen the far side of the moon until we sent something "back there" to take pictures.

So: that being the case, is it really possible that one side of the moon is always bathed in the light of the sun? If so, then how did we ever get visible pictures of the OTHER SIDE of the moon? Did we use a gigantic flashbulb, or something? ;)

Map of the entire surface including the far side

The Far Side of the Moon Consider how this picture would look if it had been taken during a "full moon:" since during a full moon the entire side of the moon that is facing the Earth is lit up, only the portion of the moon in this photograph that is said to be visible from Earth (see the pic's caption) would have any sunlight on it.

Far Side of the Moon, with animation showing the same side of the moon always toward the Earth. This doesn't show where the sun is in relation to the animation; but figure that the sun is way off the screen from the animation...the darkened part of the moon in the animation is representing the side of the moon we never see from Earth, NOT how the light hits the moon (the Earth does not illuminate the moon, although it does sometimes reflect a little of the sun's light onto the dark portion of the quarter moon...)

So, taking this into account, will it be useful to build these lasers on the moon, especially the power plant?

Apollo 11 Laser Ranging Retroreflector Experiment. "Laser beams are used because they remain tightly focused for large distances. Nevertheless, there is enough dispersion of the beam that it is about 7 kilometers in diameter when it reaches the Moon and 20 kilometers in diameter when it returns to Earth. Because of this very weak signal, observations are made for several hours at a time. By averaging the signal for this period, the distance to the Moon can be measured to an accuracy of about 3 centimeters (the average distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 385,000 kilometers)."

Add to this, the fact that the moon wobbles...

Ah yes, here's a thought... ;)

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper.

When she retired in 1986 at the age of 79 she was the oldest commissioned navy officer onactive duty. The retiement ceremony was held on the U.S.S Constitution which is also still on active duty.

I guess any woman tough enough to do what they did when they did (not sit at home) doesn't like to quit.

Uh, Brainiac, this is the second year of the 21st century...

Um...no it isn't. This is the first year of the millinium. The century and millinium both started in 2001. See: The Offical Word from the USNO

See:
AIM-54 Phoenix Missile
AIM-120 AMRAAM

See this link.

and here's a a link with a map.

The ELF system transmits at about 1 bit per second, shifting the center carrier of 76 Hz only 4 HZ up or down to indicate a zero or a one bit. It takes about 5 minutes to send one character.
And you thought YOU had a slow connection.

nuclear submarines
...
submarines as early as the US civil war.

but they weren't exactly nuclear powered!

was Verne's submarine really nuclear powered?

either way, the first submarine was the Turtle, which was built in 1775 and saw action in 1776. Jules Verne wrote 20k... in 1870, quite a while after the first submarine had been built and tested.

Many discussion sites have marginal value because it is difficult to sort through the background noise to find intelligent, meaningful dialogue. Slashdot is interesting because it resists the typical Internet qualities of anonymity and egalitarianism. ...next thing ya know, they're gonna be using slashcode for missles

Let's not forget about PANSAT, an earlier success by the Navy. And it, too, uses Amateur Radio frequencies to communicate. It went up in 1998 on STS-95 with John Glenn.

The project's page here has pictures and links.

For the curious, here's Lockheed' page about the Athena rocket.

Just far, far underground...

Check out my URL - I am one of the "underground" sites (though I haven't had much time to do anything lately) - there are others out there.

Cybermind are the rebadged form of W Industries - and seem to still be a big player in the commercial entertainment uses of VR (mostly in Europe and some parts of the US).

Other areas VR is being used in is commercial and academic research - mostly CAVE-style setups. NASA helped start up (via a grant) Flogiston, which sells the "flostation", with an interest in using it to train astronauts. The DOD has their "Dismounted Soldier" training project (a good site is Rudy Darken's site, but it appears to be having problems).

One thing I desperately want to do is republish, in CD form, the entire PCVR magazine archive (of what I have - which is all of the back issues, and a bit of the software that came on floppy). I have tried to contact the original publisher through numerous leads, but no luck (his name is Joeseph Gradecki - if anyone knows of his whereabouts, please contact me). I tend to wonder what the response would be if I did something like this. I figure it would at the minimum help the homebrew VR community (what little is left of it).

Having said that, the current thought in naval design is a balance between low manpower automation USS Yorktown Smart Ship and the arsenal ship and manpower for flexibility and most importantly, damage control

Attacking during holidays is nothing new in warfare.

Firstly, my post was intened to clear up a common misconception (and someone's specific statement).
random mutations used in genetic programming are about as efficient as real random mutations. They get the job done eventually, but require a lot of screw-ups to make one improvement.

GA is NOT a pathetic mutation by mutation crawl towards a solution. I think you'll agree with me there :)

&GT Genetic algorithms produce results faster without mutations.
That is untrue.
I stand by what I said. Mutations slow the process of getting results. It disrupts the weighting of tested schema, and reduces fitness more often than it increases fitness.

We agree on the value of mutations. We both said they increase the search range and give better results in the end.

exploration would be critically curtailed
It depends on how fast you lose diversity. If you have a pop of 100 and kill 75% per generation, and have no diversity pressure, then yes, you're screwed.
If you have a pop of 2000 and kill 25% per generation, and have a diversity pressure (in my other post to you I mention I've used a virtual parasite cost based on similarity) then you can maintain high diversity and do an excellent job on search space even without mutation.

In fact, plain vanilla evolutionary strategies employ only mutation for solving problems
I know. They have their uses, but they lack the incredible power of massive implicit parallelism. I didn't mention them because implicit parallelism was my point.

mutation can be a more potent exploratory force than cross-over
Double Akk. It's a postcript file gzipped. I *think* I have gzip somewhere, but not a postscript reader. Nutz. I'm curious to read it. It must be talking about some sort of special case because in a diverse population crossover is generally thousands or millions of times more powerful.

The moral of this story is that you should prefer canonical sources for knowledge than quips made on /.
I agree with your moral, but I think you underestimated my knowledge on the subject.

Question: Have YOU programmed any genetic algorithms?

That is untrue. Solution space exploration would be critically curtailed with no mutation. In fact, plain vanilla evolutionary strategies employ only mutation for solving problems.

Also, mutation can be a more potent exploratory force than cross-over.

The moral of this story is that you should prefer canonical sources for knowledge than quips made on /.

Check out the GA Archive. Great collection of the more famous GA's and proceedings.

For those wishing to get an intro to GA, try The Hitchhiker's Guide to Evolutionary Computation.

Sigh.

As I said, "There is a field know as Genetic Programming where the defining feature is that the programs do evolve" and as I also said, I have DONE genetic programming and other genetic algorithms myself. It has NOTHING to do with viruses.

So before you go telling me what it isn't, maybe you should find out what you are talking about:

Genetic Programming FAQ
or
news:comp.ai.genetic
or
The Genetic Algorithms Archive is a repository for information related to research in genetic algorithms and other forms of evolutionary computation.
or
Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection" - by John R. Koza, MIT Press 1992
or
Evolutionary Programming Society (professional/research level link)

this is nothing new at all. You're being a bit vague when you say it's a "new standard." Think of it more like a report on the current state of GPS for civil users; the DoD is simply saying that their old estimates of average performance were off and they're correcting themselves. The numbers in that report only reflect what can be done right now with GPS (in terms of a stand-alone receiver, no differential GPS).

The next real improvement in GPS accuracy will come with the launching of the next few blocks of satellites (IIR, IIF, III). The Block III satellites aren't slated to be deployed until at least 2010 and will include the new M code for more accuracy. Even sooner, the Block IIF satellites will support the new L5 channel for civil users which will give the public sector a big improvement in their accuracy. The C/A code (for public users) will be turned on L2 in the release of the IIR satellites starting in a couple of years. Up to now, the L2 channel was only for P(Y) code which public GPS users didn't have access to (P(Y) is the military PPS code (precise positioning service) and is heavily encrypted). And more improvements will be made as the OCS (operational control segment - the Air Force group that monitors and controls the GPS constellation) that will make GPS even more accurate and reliable.

But don't expect any more significant improvements in GPS accuracy until these new blocks of satellites are launched. Of course, these improvements exclude things like WAAS and other differential GPS solutions which will give a much more precise position solution than any single receiver can accomplish.

Here's a good page describing some basic GPS terms I used. Also, for a good summary of the lastest GPS modernization efforts, read this article.

t.

You forgot to put the ® symbol after every "Tomahawk", and the statement "Tomahawk®, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Trm. Off., Property of the United States Government", they'll sue you for IP theft.

(This post is meant to be sarcasm against the page http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missi les/wep-toma.html about Tomahawk® missiles.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missi les/wep-toma.html

Millitary specifications on the tomahawk

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/bgm-109.h tm

A technical guide to how the Tomahawk works.

http://members.tripod.de/usnavy/weapons/tomahawk.h tm

Some statistics on Tomahawk missiles

http://www.howstuffworks.com/cruise-missile.htm

A less technical guide to how the Tomahawk works.

http://www.softwar.net/emg.html

Information on a cool EMG warhead that a Tomahawk can be
fitted with.

Two words: RAM remanence.

k.

It all depends on what part of the "agency" you're talking about. Certainly, there's a lot of push to move to MS on desktop-type systems.

But mission systems are a different matter. To start with, you're talking in some cases about systems that have been deployed for decades. What my company (and we're not alone) has been doing for the last 7 years is migrating these custom OS/HW systems to COTS platforms. In the sonar arena (think the sonar workstations in The Hunt for Red October), we have progressively moved the signal processing systems from custom systems to embedded (VxWorks and Mercury) to Solaris and SGI prototypes to Linux on Intel. Currently deploying systems are using Linux on Compaq Proliant 8500 8-way boxes. The next refresh will be to multiple dual-CPU P4 Xeon boxes communicating over Gigabit Copper Ethernet. Expect to see Itanium-based units in a couple of years. All of this is saving the Navy a lot of money while dramatically improving the capabilities of the fleet.

Do a quick Google search for Acoustic Rapid COTS Insertion.

And it's not stopping there. Plenty of other onboard systems, both in the surface and undersea communities, are moving from outdated one-of-a-kind systems to commodity hardware encapsulated in survivable enclosures.

It all depends on what part of the "agency" you're talking about. Certainly, there's a lot of push to move to MS on desktop-type systems.

But mission systems are a different matter. To start with, you're talking in some cases about systems that have been deployed for decades. What my company (and we're not alone) has been doing for the last 7 years is migrating these custom OS/HW systems to COTS platforms. In the sonar arena (think the sonar workstations in The Hunt for Red October), we have progressively moved the signal processing systems from custom systems to embedded (VxWorks and Mercury) to Solaris and SGI prototypes to Linux on Intel. Currently deploying systems are using Linux on Compaq Proliant 8500 8-way boxes. The next refresh will be to multiple dual-CPU P4 Xeon boxes communicating over Gigabit Copper Ethernet. Expect to see Itanium-based units in a couple of years. All of this is saving the Navy a lot of money while dramatically improving the capabilities of the fleet.

Do a quick Google search for Acoustic Rapid COTS Insertion.

And it's not stopping there. Plenty of other onboard systems, both in the surface and undersea communities, are moving from outdated one-of-a-kind systems to commodity hardware encapsulated in survivable enclosures.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missi les/wep-toma.html

Millitary specifications on the tomahawk

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/bgm-109.h tm

A technical guide to how the Tomahawk works.

http://members.tripod.de/usnavy/weapons/tomahawk.h tm

Some statistics on Tomahawk missiles

http://www.howstuffworks.com/cruise-missile.htm

A less technical guide to how the Tomahawk works.

http://www.softwar.net/emg.html

Information on a cool EMG warhead that a Tomahawk can be fitted with.

For $600,000 a pop we can rearrange the rocks in Afghanistan. Probably a good read would be Starship Troopers (skip the really dumb movie) Technology vs. experience + fighting on their home turf + emotional value of fighting for their way of life (however you want to define it) and the result is move very, very carefully. Also, the country is littered with mines from 10+ years of war, which are redistributed with each rockslide along mountain trails. Something to think about.

Because it was in Yemen, we just said "Oh, Well, Gee, Guess we better not fuel there anymore" and even though we KNEW it was bin Laden's work, the government sat on its collective ass!

Good News, though - she's been recommissioned (you'll have to find it - I gotta go) and I hope they can get sweet revenge!

You mean like Deep Space 1? Or Clementine? Yep, it's being done.

(3 minutes later, and atmosphere unexpectedly thickens) SP: oh no! Quick, recalculate! rocket, give me a 2 second burn then turn 43 degress for a 1 second burn!

Oop, doesn't work that way. Orbital mechanics is funny until you wrap your head around it. To change the perigee, you have to burn at the apogee. Once you're in the atmosphere, there's bugger all you can do about it until the next time around. (Well, unless you're carrying gobs of fuel, and if you can do that, the screw this aerobraking stuff.)

Of course, you can make the probe autonomously adjust the next pass based on the results of the current one. But I wouldn't want to even try until we have at least one more probe's worth of data on exactly how to model all this.

And in response to the AC who thinks that rad-hard processors aren't up to this, all I have to say is HAW! Go look up what processing power the guidance computer on Apollo 11 had, and marvel at how much you can do when you're not spending cycles drawing aqua-colored drop shadows. I could make a useful aerobraking auto-adjust system with an RTX-2010 and half a meg of RAM. (That's an 8 MHz Forth processor, folks.) If that's not enough for you, Lockheed-Martin is selling rad-hard 250 MHz PowerPC 750 boards for only two arms and a leg.

As the father of a son aboard a smaller destroyer and whose enlistment buddy is aboard another larger one, I was priviledged to receive this copy of an email from an ensign aboard the USS Winston Churchill. An uplifting piece of sentiment - compared to Steven Erlanger's recent story, which you can read here

Dear Dad,

Well, we are still out at sea, with little direction as to what our next priority is. The remainder of our port visits, which were to be centered around max liberty and goodwill to the United Kingdom, have all but been cancelled. We have spent every day since the attacks going back and forth within imaginary boxes drawn in the ocean, standing high-security watches, and trying to make the best of our time. It hasn't been that fun I must confess, and to be even more honest, a lot of people are frustrated at the fact that they either can't be home, or we don't have more direction right now. We have seen the articles and the photographs, and they are sickening. Being isolated as we are, I don't think we appreciate the full scope of what is happening back home, but we are definitely feeling the effects.

About two hours ago the junior officers were called to the bridge to conduct Shiphandling drills. We were about to do a man overboard when we got a call from the LUTJENS(D185), a German warship that was moored ahead of us on the pier in Plymouth, England. While in port, the WINSTON S CHURCHILL and the LUTJENS got together for a sports day/cookout on our fantail, and we made some pretty good friends.

Now at sea they called over on bridge-to-bridge,requesting to pass us close up on our port side, to say goodbye. We prepared to render them honors on the bridgewing, and the Captain told the crew to come topside to wish them farewell. As they were making their approach, our Conning Officer announced through her binoculars that they were flying an American flag. As they came even closer, we saw that it was flying at half-mast.

The bridgewing was crowded with people as the Boatswain's Mate blew two whistles- Attention to Port- the ship came up alongside and we saw that the entire crew of the German ship were manning the rails, in their dress blues. They had made up a sign that was displayed on the side that read "We Stand By You".

Needless to say there was not a dry eye on the bridge as they stayed alongside us for a few minutes and we cut our salutes. It was probably the most powerful thing I have seen in my entire life and more than a few of us fought to retain our composure. It was a beautiful day outside today.

We are no longer at liberty to divulge over unsecure e-mail our location, but we could not have asked for a finer day at sea. The German Navy did an incredible thing for this crew, and it has truly been the highest point in the days since the attacks. It's amazing to think that only a half-century ago things were quite different,and to see the unity that is being demonstrated throughout Europe and the world makes us all feel proud to be out here doing our job.

After the ship pulled away and we prepared to begin our man overboard drills the Officer of the Deck turned to me and said "I'm staying Navy."

I'll write you when I know more about when I'll be home, but for now, this is probably the best news that I could send you. Love you guys.

-db

Nop. This is not flamebait. Karpov definitely has a point here. Over here in Germany, asking the wrong questions about the Holocaust can be cause for criminal prosecution. Organizations like the Jewish Defense League (JDL), Anti-Defamation League (ADL) or B'nai B'rith lobby aggressively for *zionist* Israel at the expense of everybody else in this world. The JDL itself is the front for a terrorist organization: The Rabbi Kahane Movement (Kahana Chai) which incidentally is outlawed even in Israel as a terrorist organization.

Don't believe me, go check it out yourself: US Navy Terrorist Profiles (Kahane) and straight from the horse's mouth (JDL site).Quoting directly from their site: "Rabbi Kahane founded the militant Jewish Defense League -- his greatest legacy -- in 1968[...]"

The name of the organization in question itself, B'nai B'rith = "Sons of the Covenant" stands for the age-old concept that Jews are especially favored by God. Zionism has exploited this religious angle for centuries out of political and economic considerations, much to the detriment of Jews and Non-jews alike as only a select few of the "chosen" profit. Zionism thrives in a climate of fortress mentality and will do anything to keep the walls of the castle standing, preferably up high but not high enough to shield the huddled masses from the angry attacks of those the Zionists have enraged and who for the most part unknowingly vent their anger and frustration on the common foot soldier in lieu of those responsible.

This method for manipulating society is now again set to work in the US itself. For years the US have brought great anguish onto most of the world's population (just think of the Marcos regime in the Philipines... Haiti... Iraq... South America... to name a few). The US has for years systematically set back the economic and cultural development of third world nations. Now these people are striking back, and the US government is exploiting that exactly in the same way Israel has profited from Palestinian aggression.

I remember hearing that in WWII they used other languages, like some american indian language to do encryption.

They used Navajo, hence the Navajo Code Talkers. They were very highly regarded. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima." [Taken from the first link on my list.] Good websites are easily findable on Google:

The Navajo Code Talkers

Navy's FAQ on the Code Talkers.

Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary Scroll to the end to see the Marine Hymn translated into Navajo.

The Code Talkers have their own permanent Pentagon exhibit.

I remember hearing that in WWII they used other languages, like some american indian language to do encryption.

They used Navajo, hence the Navajo Code Talkers. They were very highly regarded. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima." [Taken from the first link on my list.] Good websites are easily findable on Google:

The Navajo Code Talkers

Navy's FAQ on the Code Talkers.

Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary Scroll to the end to see the Marine Hymn translated into Navajo.

The Code Talkers have their own permanent Pentagon exhibit.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about the Tuskeegee Airmen, The Navajo Code Talkers, and the Japanese "Nisei" who fought in Europe.

I think one point needs to be emphasised from your post:

The allied nations are not interested in putting a halt to all terrorism: they just want terrorism to "stay at home."

There has been absolutely no sign that the USA has even remotely considered assisting Britain in ridding itself of the IRA/Orange terrorists, nor the New Yorkers who fund them. That's because the IRA/Orange are good little terrorists: they don't leave the borders of the nation.

Nor is anyone talking about getting rid of the Basque freedom fighters, Tamil Tigers, or any other of the documented terror groups .

The clear message I'm getting: If you're a terrorist organization, you can continue killing people, as long as you keep doing it within your own nation.

Terrorist Group Profiles -- let's wipe 'em all out.

gaah... I mean this site, ssax.sourceforge.net

this is the master site, and also contains lots of other cool stuff.

What's This then??? They're hiring, you know.

Hmmm - which unfortunately comes back to a density of photons, and a length cubed, which unforteunalty comes back to that damn platinum bar in Paris. IIRC - it has a chip in the corner of it too - Ooops. I just dropped your metre - my, how you have just grown!

Check out this text about the cooling experiment, referenced off the main PCsat page:

So we put 80 RED LEDS on the bottom of PC sat as a 3W thermal radiator for this test. And just for fun, at night we can also turn them on as
power permits as a visual experiment. Calculations suggest a magnitude of about 6 if it is pointing straight down. Eight, if it is off to one side or the other. Magnitude 8 is visible with binoculars.

So...

Which middie will be the first geek to cobble together a scrolling LED sign seen from space?

Check out this text about the cooling experiment, referenced off the main PCsat page:

So we put 80 RED LEDS on the bottom of PC sat as a 3W thermal radiator for this test. And just for fun, at night we can also turn them on as
power permits as a visual experiment. Calculations suggest a magnitude of about 6 if it is pointing straight down. Eight, if it is off to one side or the other. Magnitude 8 is visible with binoculars.

So...

Which middie will be the first geek to cobble together a scrolling LED sign seen from space?

For those interested in the communications protocol (APRS) this sat is going to use, check this web site out. I've been using APRS for about 1.5 years, and it's a blast to play with. :)

• The satellite is called PCsat (Prototype Communications Satellite, went cheap on the name, too, I guess)
• Information on the Kodiak Launch Complex
• Information on Starshine III, the "1,500 hand-polished mirrors that will study orbital decay" satellite

Actually, that [navy.mil] you linked spells it both ways on the same page... "German Navy installed the first schnorkel snorkel)", but then futher down the page, "1,000 feet and included a schnorchel (snorkel)". A simple search on an online german dictionary however seems to favour Schnorchel over Schnorkel... because Schnorchel means snorkel [diving related] while Schnorkel is listed as something like twirl...

schnorkel? Make that either Schnorchel or snorkel :-)

Nope, it's schnorkel. At least that's how it's spelled among all the history texts I've ever seen. Even the Navy spells it that way here.