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Autonomous Model Glider Flies from 60,000 Feet
saccade writes "A couple
years ago we read about a telemetry laden balloon launched
to 80,000 feet single-handedly built by a laid-off engineer. Here's an even more elaborate
one built at around the same time: A balloon launched model
glider taken to about 60,000
feet that autonomously finds its way home. It had an auto-pilot
and elaborate mission control system. Also impressive is the
extensive testing
done before launch."
It can correct its flightpath, but it can't react to obstacles. A cliff would kill it, as would a tree.
What would happen if we dropped something intrinsically warm like a slab of uranium on Titan
Quick! Somebody call the Dept of "HomeSec" on this evildoer, before he makes his "homing glider" plans available to terrerhists like that DIY cruise missile guy tried to. And if they find any Estes model rocket engines in his home (while he's away, of course), I they throw the book at him!
Power to the Peaceful
No it doesn't, you americans are so paranoid. Just stop invading every middle eastern country your president can pronounce and you wont have a bunch of terrorists who hate your guts, works for the rest of the world.
what is stopping? nothing really.
what's stopping them from gassing some public place? nothing really.
what is stopping a not-fit-for-driving driver from driving into a crowd by accident ? nothing really.
what COULD stop an intelligent man from turning the hell loose if he was determined, except maybe luck? personally i'm surprised how the big nations leaders can stay alive so well(proves that the world isn't as dark as you might think at first, there isn't a whole lot of people who are determined in breaking shit up like that, or that typical terrorists are narrow minded or uneducated.. which pretty much could be true, if you weren't narrow minded you'd find something more enjoyable to do).
just get over it.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
/.'s a little slow getting the headlines these days?
Research like this bodes well for future exploration of other planets. A glider, or better yet a powered aircraft, can cover more ground in an hour than Spirit and Opportunity have in a year. With the communications delay, it would have to be autonomous.
Landing to conduct experiments would be a one-time deal (unless it can take off again), but such a vehicle could do great recon for future rovers or human explorers, in addition to all sorts of atmospheric experiments.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
Uh, I don't know if you meant this to be intentional, but taking your "Drake's equation" and the last number I remember hearing for the US population:
(0.0001*0.001*0.1*0.5) * (population of US: ~200 million) = 1
I know that you were being cute, but figured some people wouldn't pick up on it.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
"I guess I'm just glad that when it "finds its way home" it doesn't define "home" as "the White House Lawn" - and that the laid-off engineer who built it isn't angry with the world."
Maybe I'm being incredibly naieve here, but wouldn't the payload for something like this have to be really really small? If true, what could he possibly do that is a larger threat than something less sensitive could be?
"Derp de derp."
To use this technology to "bomb" a target one would require a much larger payload capability than the design currently has, if ones intention were to do any serious destruction. This would require a much bigger glider. A larger, slow moving target would be easily detected by todays radars.
I wish Americans still had the freedom to experiment with such technology. Unfortunately, American freedoms have become severely curtailed for the political benefits they provide to the Republican Party. Notions of expanding freedom and democracy are now only to be used in muslim countries. Oh how far and how fast we have fallen.
But all it takes is one.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
The world IS a dark place. This stuff is happening all the time and it's going to keep happening, except so far it's been more economically efficient for terrorists to do things in more low tech ways. Your analysis of the terrorist psyche, if there ever could be such a thing, is pretty much wrong. Terrorists tend to be more educated than the average person and come from affluent families. Bin Laden, the arch-terrorist, is a perfect example, educated and extremely rich. Congress did a report on it in 1999 where they came to this conclusion. There are exceptions of course, tamil tiger child suicide bombers aren't educated or rich, for example but hardly anyone in sri lanka is. Your judgement of terrorists as narrow minded because they don't "find something more enjoyable to do" is tautological and thusly contains 0 information. The congressional report on who becomes a terrorist found that terrorists, on the whole, are sane and thus respond to conditions in the real world. Sane people don't knowingly sacrifice their lives unless they feel they have no other choice. Perhaps this guy should "just get over it." OR he could try to get into place a federal government whose foreign policy(economic and martial) wouldn't encourage people to commit terrorist acts.
More important than all this is that there is so much counter-terrorism work going on behind the scenes that we never hear about. We're not going to hear about failed assasination attempts on presidents unless it's completely impossible for it to be covered up. They don't want to encourage copy cats. You shouldn't assume something isn't happening just because you don't know about it.
Nothing.
We need to realise that we cannot have perfect security from our neighbours. Love they neighbour, so that your neighbour loves you. That's the cost of being social animals, and of living in society.
Sure, there will still be crazy people, nothing we can do about that.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
You can never eliminate the risk of terrorism. All you can do is minimize it. Some believe in locking down everything and everybody and trusting a few people with the keys. Others believe a truly free society produces fewer people inclined to cause trouble. The philosophy Americans live under depends pretty much on who raises the most campaign money.