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Telescope Will Have Images 10X Sharper Than Hubble
jangobongo writes "After a 20 year struggle, the University of Arizona's $120 million Large Binocular Telescope was dedicated last week. This unique telescope will have twin 8.4-meter (27.6 foot) mirrors that sit on a single mount. Using methods similar to a medical CAT scan, a technique of "tomographic" image reconstruction will be used to produce pictures 10 times sharper (example) than the Hubble Space Telescope for a fraction of its $2 billion dollar cost."
I don't really think it's fair to compare this with the hubble, unless this telescope can orbit earth.
We'll be able to see into the gaping black hole known as goatse.
Why don't they just spend a single sum of around $10 mil to build another Hubble, but better. The Hubble's old now, and they're spending tons of money to build better ground ones, but the ones in space have infinitely better headroom because theres not air in space...
The "example" image shows the upper left corner as "Seeing Limited", but it's not clear what that means. Not the human eye, obviously? Anybody know?
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
Here is a particularly good description of the LBT (Large Binocular Telescope) from an article in the Eastern Arizona Courier.
The LBT is made up of two 8.4-meter mirrors, which, when in place, will bring together the light, creating sharper images of faint objects in space. One mirror is in place at the Mount Graham International Observatory, and the other will arrive next spring. Each mirror is designed in a manner that allows it to reach the same temperature as the outside air up to two hours faster than any other mirror design. Under the solid glass surface are openings in a honeycomb pattern. Cold air is pushed up through those openings, cooling the glass to the desired temperature. The sooner the glass cools, the more science can get done, which is good from a business standpoint, assistant project director for LBT Jim Slagle said.
Not everbody is happy about this, though. The Apache people are protesting the use of the site for the telescope.
The U of A is finally dedicating it's Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), formerly called the Columbus Project, after years legal and money problems and at least a year before actual completion. (The U of A changed the name of the project after realizing it wasn't such a popular idea to name it the Columbus project and then, against the wills of the Apache people, place it on their most sacred site on top of the mountain.) The LBT is mainstay of the project. Investors will be wined and dined on Fri. at the La Paloma resort in the Catalina foothills and bused up to the mountain on Sat. to tour the scope site. Our job is to show the investors how controversial and unpopular this project is... and has been for decades.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Now all we need is 1X0 in the next title.
I thought the most troublesome part of Hubble is its maintenance costs/schedule? Is this telescope going to cost a lot to run in long term?
:)
Anyway, since this thing is so cheap, we can make 10 of these disposable
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
As amazing as Hubble has been, I fail to see how dumping huge sums of money into keeping it going is worth it if we can dump similar sums of money into earth-based technology with better results.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
This sounds interesting. Another step toward finding life on other planets!
A space-based telescope (like the Hubble) can be rotated and aimed at almost any object out there. In that sense, a Hubble is still superior in some aspects.
On the other hand, just the fact that adaptive optics and interferometry can clean up the images so spectacularly is simply amazing!
I wonder how long before I can get a consumer-grade version, to take pictures of the coeds^H^H^H^H <ahem> natural "scenery"... ;-)
Wow are x10 cameras that much better? .... oh wait 10x.
But what about the frequencies sucked up by our atmosphere? These wavelengths are pretty cool to stare at, right?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Pardon me for asking, but isn't atmospheric interference still a factor for ground-based observatories? Won't this affect their observations?
Granted, the telescope's location is a plus in this department (there are few locations more suitable) but the potential interference is still a consideration. I've read their page on ground versus space telescopes and it touches on this issue, talking about fast computers and adaptive optics that correct atmospheric blurring, but it's not an issue for which you can completely compensate.
Having said that, a ground-based observatory is a heck of a lot cheaper than an orbital one...
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
A new replacement built on new technology would likely be better then an old telescope, even if sent into space.
Also, Hubble has the ability to see some forms of radiation that our atmosphere filters out.
I love my computer -- You make me feel alright (Bad Religion)
This isn't intended to be a troll, but I just don't get space exploration. I mean, there are a lot of good causes that all these dollars could be going to right here on Earth: stopping wars, battling diseases, increasing literacy, fighting pollution.. What's the big deal with a vast area of unexplored vacuum? It's not like it's going to disappear anytime soon.
I didn't just do this post, I also did Yomomma!
when they build subdivisions around the telescope and the first astronomer reports a "weird galactical phenomenon that looks remarkably like a Blockbuster sign".
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
Slightly OT and perhaps a stupid question, but I always asked myself if hubble was turned against earth, would that give you the possibility to get a very detailed image (assuming no clouds)? Anyone here who knows why or why not at all?
Dude, if you can build another Hubble for $10 million, you're a miracle worker.
Hell, if you can LAUNCH another Hubble for $10 million...
Cripes, even launch the frickin' MIRROR for $10 million...
How about a box lunch for one of the workers? If you could launch THAT for $10 million, that'd put you into major miracle worker status.
...on the Hubble. Aside from the many fun times we've all shared in its ups and (almost) downs, it was only a matter of time before a better technology would be available for less money.
-Valiss
Sadly, I'm not qualified for any of them.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
Just lay off everyone and outsource it.
Could the data captured by this telescope and the HST be combined together to make a telescope with an even large "virtual" diameter?
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
In astronomy, resolution is not the only thing you have to consider. Sensitivity is also very important. You can get high resolution from a group of linked radio telesopes, but you won't get the sensitivity of arecibo. Being able to resolve things to a high accuracy is wonderful, but pointless if you can't detect the thing in the first place. I'd imagine, though I am not positive, that being in orbit would increase hubble's sensitivity by quite a bit. We may not be able to get pictures like hubble's deep field images from a ground based telescope.
I spy, with my $120m eye...
something black and vacuous!
It's only a model.
unless this telescope can orbit earth.
Technically, just about any object can orbit earth if you get them up there...
Just a thought
I had a person the other day tell me the moon landing was a hoax because they wont use Hubble to photograph the site and prove it. So now he will add this one to his collection, I imagine. Once he hears about it anyway.
Supposedly there is too much radiation to send a manned mission to the moon.. yet he beleives in a satelite which I think is above the radiation belt anyway.
Let's not forget this telescope almost didn't make it -- it nearly burned in July. And that wasn't the first fire to give the LBT a scare.
The story gives the impression that the LBT will completely replace Hubble, and do a better job, while being vastly cheaper.
This is an overstatement. There is lots that Hubble can do that no other telescope can, being a unique combination of aperature (light gathering power and resolution), instruments (many wavelengths, imaging and spectroscopic) and being above the atmosphere (no 'seeing', no atmospheric absorption or emission in UV and IR.)
(This is not to downplay the LBT - doing better than HST in some aspects, and as well but much cheaper in others, is very valuable.)
Having quickly scanned the website for this telescope, I can't see how they are counteracting the bluring of 'seeing' (atmospheric turbulance). It is inconceivable that they have neglected it, but I don't see where. Adaptive optics can help, but have limitations of their own.
Another limitation of the LBT is that the high resolution reconstruction will require 3 observations at different times - so it only works well with non-time-varying targets. This is a minor limitation, however - a large majority of targets for which you want high resolution are non-variable.
(IWAA: I was an astonomer. PhD, but no further.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I believe I heard once that some of this technology is derivative of the old SDI program. Can anyone confirm or refute?
Q here.
*snaps fingers* Ok, it's done. But bewarned Pickard, everything has it's price
This is just another example of where the government should stop doing its own projects and giving money to private firms and universitys instead to do all its biddings. Look at all the money we are going to save with private space vehicles and a telescope made by a university.
~~~
Hubble's famous law is nothing but a self-referencing fraud and paved the way to the most embarrasing theory since heliocentricity. Intrinsic redshifts are here - long live the steady state revolution!
Talk like that in person to enough people outside your mom's basement, and you probably won't have to worry about that.
~~~
It will permit formation of images of sufficient sharpness (diffraction-limited) that the planet could be detected against only a low surface brightness halo of residual scattered light. In this manner, a Jupiter-like planet could be detected, if present, around some fifty of the nearest stars. The interferometric mode will enhance the planet/background contrast even further, thus increasing the number of candidate stars and the sensitivity of the survey. The direct detection of such a planet would surely be counted as one of the major steps forward in determining the likelihood of life existing elsewhere in the Universe and in understanding our place in it.
So, gas giants, but no mention of anything Earth-like. Too bad. I'd definitely be psyched to someday hear about "Earth-sized planet discovered about an AU away from a Sun-sized star."
You could probably get the lunchbox to an orbit similar to Hubble for about $15M. Launches on Eurockot look pretty inexpensive, and China might be competitive, too. If you're lucky you might get the lunchbox to a decent orbit for almost nothing as a secondary payload on someone elses launch. It'd probably still cost more than $10M in management and paperwork in addition to the launch cost. There ain't no such thing as a free launch...
Sorry to say it, but it's already done.
Actually I think you are missing something... NASA was is space in the 60's. Private enterprise only made it in '04 because someone was willing to throw a lot of money at a prize. In fact NASA works with private enterprise on almost everything it does,,, it just happens to be very expensive doing it first.
but as an astronomer,
/me ducks
so, you took up space in college eh?
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
The radius of the earth is about 6400 km, and hubble only orbits about about 570 km above that. If you do the trig, hubble only has a 225 deg feild of view at any one time compared to 180 on the earth (disregarding the atmosphere in both cases).
Furthermore, both hubble and an earth bound telescop would have a somewhat limited view due to their "orbit". Concider a telescope on the equator. It would have a 180 degree field of view at any given time, and over the course of a day, everything would be in it's field of view except a cylinder the width of the earth, centering around the earths rotational axis, and extending to infinity in either direction. If you have telescope further north, it's daily field of view would have a cone shaped blind spot to the south. Hubbles orbital blind spot would be nearly non-existant over its orbit period, slightly better than the observatory at the equator, but that is easily solved by having two observatories - one in each hemisphere.
Concidering how inexpensive these are to build relative to a space based telescope, there is no reason why we can't do this. In fact we have hundreds of observatories across the world, each new or improved one slightly better than the one befores, but only one space based telescope. Improvements in ground telescopes will also be available to many more researchers, than with just one expensive space telescope.
At some point in the distant future, Humans will need to leave the planet to survive as a species. As long as we cannot leave earth, our survival is tied to the survival of the planet. The technology base required for space exploration will hopefully grow to allow us to one day leave the planet and settle elsewhere.
Although we probably won't need to leave in any of our lifetimes, it is never too early to start planning for that eventuality.
FYI, not trying to flame, but it's grammar, unless it's some other kind of Anglican bastardation of the President's English :).
I have seen several stories of telescopes that promise equal-or-better than hubble images. Usually there are some drawbacks. Here are some of the drawbacks that came up:
1. Limited range of sky
2. Frequencies different than hubble, such as only infrared.
3. Only works near bright stars due to "guide-star" anti-blur technology.
Let's see if new techniques get around these.
Table-ized A.I.
I know this is a pretty offtopic but I am now reading Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's "The Light of Other Days" where they introduce the concept of WormCams (*).
:))
;)...
The WormCams are worm holes stabilized with negative energy (!) which can be used (somehow) as video cameras... so they can have instant access to anywhere in the universe... (I won't tell more cos I've spoiled enough
Anyway, I'm so immersed in the book that all this Hubble things now looks soooo outdated
Actually the book is a remake, as stated here: Bob Shaw's small, perfectly formed story 'The Light of Other Days' has enjoyed a prolonged life. It appeared in Analog in 1966 to widespread acclaim, and Shaw cover scanlater wrote sequel stories and expanded the concept into a novel, Other Days, Other Eyes (1972).
Based on the intriguing premise of 'slow glass', glass through which light takes years to travel, it remains one of the finest in 60s SF, and it is a small scandal that it is not now in print.
mod me up scottie!
"[...] 10 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope for a fraction of its $2 billion dollar cost." is a claim that was made very recently of a concept for an optical telescope at the south pole. The great clarity of the earth's athmosphere there would also allow a next-generation-Hubble at a fraction of its predecessor's cost. At the time it struck me that a telescope at that position - virtually static - might be very limited in terms of what parts of the universe it could actually 'see'.
Thanks American pal!
The first day somebody put shoe polish on the eye peices and the guy walked round all day wondering why people were smirking at him.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
wakeup, look around for bifocal specs, life is pretty fuzzy at this point, no discernable features but you know there's something "out there"
put specs on, at least the various colored blobs have a certain vague meaning to them now
stumble to john, return, grab a coffee, head to mess...er, "desk in office-like area",human engine is warming up,optical sensors are starting to register in real time, although steroscopic vision is still askew
sit down in front of box, stare at screensaver as it slowly revolves around random patterns, then nudge the mouse, official "day" begins....ahh, all is well...still fuzzy and confusing, but now it's in a sort of focus-mode
Heck. we could even build a whole telescope _array_ on the moon... just imagine what we would be able to do with that!
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In other news, computers are cheaper and more powerful today than they were 20 years ago!
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
What needs to be done is to take all this new technology that is being used to build cheaper and better telescopes and put another one into orbit. Something that can replace the Hubble. Then we'd have hella good images and be able to see ALL forms of radiation.
Fact is, ground based telescopes are always going to be cheaper. But with this new and cheaper access to space tech maybe we can put something new up for a lot less money than a shuttle launch. And it can be bigger and better than hubble, so we can let that thing burn up and not have to maintain it anymore.
While this telescope may have even better resolution power than Hubble, there's another major problem with all ground-based telescopes
They cannot detect EM waves that's not either visible light or in the radio wave to the far infrared range
This is because Earth's atmosphere, contrary to what most people would believe, is not transparent to EM waves of all wavelengths. For example, common sense tells us that it blocks almost all extreme UV light. So if you want to observe an object that emits only extreme UV light with a ground-based telescope, you're not gonna see it.
Another example would be gamma ray bursters. Remember these objects weren't detected until the US sent survillence satellites into space? This is because there's no way you can detect gamma rays that originated from space inside the atmosphere. Granted it's now possible to observe the after-glow of GRBs with ground-based telescopes, GRBs must still be detected from space telescopes beforehand.
Apparently humor is now off-topic at /. Either cranky 4 year-olds (up past their bedtimes), or republicans are moderating tonight (if you make jokes, the terrists win).
I think we should just go back to the good old days, back when the church would tell us what the universe is like, and be done with it. Back then, at least we knew the Earth was flat and the center of the universe and that was the end of the discussion. No need to waste money on rockets or anything like that.
Children so stupid they think America invented the Internet, computer, motor car, light bulb, telephone etc ad infinitum....
Errr, I hate to break it to you, but...
OK, I think I've got it now:
Environmentalists and American Indians
hate
ground astronomers
who hate
space astronomers
who hate
astronauts.
Conclusion: A direct correlation between funding and criticism.
The two 8.4 meter (331 inch) diameter primary mirrors are mounted with a 14.4-meter center-center separation.
Nobody's eyes are that far apart.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Ahhh... wait a moment. Pizza is Italian. Hamburger patties are German, although the idea of putting them in a sandwich is probably American.
So in a way you are actually proving his point.
It's a pitty that he used "Fuck You America" as the subject, that all his rant is so negative and full of hate, and that it is completely out of topic. But quite frankly, this guy (who may very well be American) actually makes very good points. Maybe we should learn to be a bit more self-critical and less jingoists and self-centered (as a country).
I am only an ameteur astronomer but wouldn't a more valid comparison be to (the slightly lesser known) Keck Telescopes on Mauna Kea? For those of you who are not familiar there are twin 10-meter telescopes on Mauna Kea, which I'd be willing to be has infinitely better seeing (read: atmospheric conditions; the light is distorted less) than New Mexico.
In addition, one can add instrumentation and the like to ground based telescopes and not really to space based onces - hence, Keck would be a much better comparison.
Finally, I don't understand why such a big deal is made of the implied revolutionary methods that are used to combine the images from each scope. If anyone knows, is this different from any other dual telescope setup?
I've noticed something about people. Usually the people who are most likely to criticize something are the ones who are the least capable to do any better.
Hubble has produced some of the best science yet taken in space. While others complain about Hubble or NASA's achievements, nobody has been able to do any better.
The only reason that inept people like you complain is because you're not capable of reaching the level where you'd be able to see yourself fail the intended task. You can't lose the Superbowl when you can't even make it to the playoffs.
Risk is high, cost is enormous, benefits are insignificant. Does anyone have a good rationale for sending telescopes into space?
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Yes, there are things that Hubble can do that no other satellites can do, but not for the reasons you listed.
Hubble is one of multiple telescopes in NASA's Great Observatories project.
There are currently three space-bound observatories for astronomy.
For instance, Spitzer meets the qualifications you gave, the difference being that it operates in the IR range, while Chandra looks at x-rays.
Hubble works in the visible range. But that's not to say that it's the only space-based visible spectrum satellite, as there's also SOHO, which points at the sun, and isn't used to point anywhere but the sun.
[I'm not an astronomer, but I work on the STEREO and VSO projects]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
How can this be touted as superior to the Hubble? With the Hubble we can take multiple day exposures and see extremely faint objects.
Sure the AZ telescope may be sharper, but can it peer as far back into the universe as Hubble is able to do? It would seem to me that faint emissions would be impossible to detect through the Earth's atmosphere with AO, but of course, I could be wrong.
... only better, with 4 scopes, more light gathering ability, and better resolution.
Why do Earth based telescopes need "adaptive optics" to image thigns at high resolution? And why is the resolution limited?
I do some amateur video editing, and a lot of times I have to deal with VHS casette recordings that are full of static.
To remove that static, I use something called temporal filtering. You can try this yourself free with VirtualDub.
Temporal Filtering can take a still image on a cassette and completely remove the static in the image. You can take an old cartoon, and if you can find a section where the characters don't move, you can get an output image which looks as good as the original did.
Now, most video is in motion, so temporal filtering on the cheap can't yet perform miracles and doesn't work nearly as well on that... But I think some pro software can... or cresearchers are working on it anyway.
But I digress. My point is, when you look at a star through the atmosphere, it wobbles. But it doesn't change much. It's like a still image being viewed through water.
So why not just record the image, compensating for the rotation of the earth, and then average all those images together to produce a perfect image?
Also, I know that one of thsoe european mars probes gathered high res images of mars by rotating their sattelite slightly. However this only worked on one axis, because I guess the telescope could only rotate left to right and not up and down. But an earth based telescope should have no such limitation. What's preventing us from just rotating the telescope to improve the resolution of the digital camera like on the mars probes, and using the temporal filtering method instead of expensive optics to correct for atmospheric disturbance?
The fact that pizza and hamburgers originated from other cultures doesn't make them any less a staple of American culture. Most things considered America originated elsewhere.
Cost. That's the real reason for not doing mainly space platforms. They cost WAAAAAAY more money. A moon based one would be even worse.
The best location to grind a mirror is under zero gravity. The thickness of the mirror could be substantially reduced. You have a bonus of best environment to silver the mirror because of the vacuum. Your best bet is to transport the raw materials to the orbit and start melting/grinding/polishing the mirror in space. Start your own version of telescope-in-space X Prize challenge and you'll see results in a few years.
So this begs the question, what does a squirrel look like under an 8.4m magnifing glass focusing sunlight in its general vicinity...? Or for that matter, something larger...
The moon isn't that great a place to build a telescope -- it isn't as stable a platform as being in space-- things hit it and shake it, and there's dust falling all over. You also have the problem of having to land everything gently as it drops into the moon's gravity well, which ends up costing you more energy. You're also in a varying thermal and solar environment, which is hard on equipment and decreases throughput.
Heliocentric orbits (e.g. earth trailing) or the Lagrange points (cue ZZ top) are nicer, more stable environments to put your space telescope into.
To my eyes, that galaxy has the look of an artists
impression - are there any other sceptics out there?
"Jesus Christ, that's a big fucking telescope!"
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
Whats it been doing for the past two decades, taking a half-assed approach? Its about time it showed some dedication.
-Copyright law #69:Whenever Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain,copyrights get extended by 25 years.
This unique telescope will have twin 8.4-meter (27.6 foot) mirrors that sit on a single mount
Considering the ESO's VLT I dont understand why this is such a big deal.
The VLTI has four 8.2 meter telescopes supplemented with a further three 1 meter telescopes. All with adaptive optics, can be used as an interferometer etc.
http://www.eso.org/projects/vlt/VLT http://www.eso.org/projects/vlti/VLTI
Now if only the Irish government would sign up to the ESO
Responding to your sig, another reason to vote against W.: Government data compares Democrat and Republican economics.
(Slashdot should not allow sigs if it is not okay to comment on them.)
Using methods similar to a medical CAT scan, a technique of "tomographic" image reconstruction will be used to produce [sharp] pictures
Yeah right, like the LBT will do a revolution around the object to image it from all sides, then reconstruct its internal 3D structure? When science journalists go bad, they really stink.
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
I want to flame you to the crisp you deserve without launching a shotgun attack. To help me (and certainly some others) out, please tell us what country is burdened with your citizenship, where you live, and what your country has contributed to the world. Thanks!
From the article:
the LBT places fringes on each point-like portion of the image. When we combine pictures taken with these fringes at three different angles, the fringes cross and give information about the exact placement of the point of light, distinguishing other points of light close to it. It is the crossings of these fringes that allow us to reconstruct a high resolution image.
So, does this mean that video from 2 cheap webcams pointed at the same subject, can be combined to a single higher quality stream?
The Intel Intel Open Computer Vison library already uses binocular vison to track objects in 3D space. Can it be applied to this application?
Who are sick of everything.
:-)
Dude, get back on your medication and realize that if you keep focusing on all of the things that piss you off you will never be happy.
Smile
Ciao
The first AO systems were active by 1974 and used for astronomy (at the US Air Force Starfire range
in, umm, New Mexico) before 1980. See papers by
J Hardy et al.
-- Thus conscience does make cowards of us all - Hamlet
How about $10 million Canadian? And MOST is much larger than a lunchbox - it's about the size of a suitcase.
The http://www.astro.ubc.ca/MOST/
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
Would it be a good idea to bang out a few more of these telescopes and stick them on the same mountain, once the kinks in the first one are worked out?
Surely they would be much cheaper, but would that be regarded as a good use of astro-bucks by the observing community?
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
That's pretty cool. They got a nice deal on a multiple sat launch on Eurockot-- the pictures of the multiple payload fitting look cool. They also didn't have to deal with NASA bureaucracy-- you can probably do something like that at a university in the US still, except for the launch (unless you can get non NASA money for launch). The air force microsat program has probably done comparable stuff, but I haven't really followed it much.
They'll tear down the older, smaller ones to build newer, spiffier ones. It's already been done at Kitt Peak and at various university locations. And an astronomy complex in Australia was destroyed by wild fires a few years back, so that one is available.
IANAA, but my girlfriend is.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Okay, so we know that the speed of light = 670 616 629 miles per hour, Soooooo, if we were to create a spacecraft that were to travel at, let's say 3/4 the speed of light, and let that baby run in space for 5 years or more whilst training a camera/sensor/telescope thingy at any chosen galaxy which shows the development of planets occuring, and sending this info back to earth the whole time, then we should be able to get a remarkable video of the birth of a planet. Perhaps.
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
This isn't about science.
It's about watching chicks undress on the moon
after we've finally established those bases they've been promising us all these years.
Now where the hell did I park my flying car...