The ship still needs propellant to get INTO orbit in the first place and it still needs an energy source to reel the wire in/out (and a 5 km wire must weigh quite a bit) Could this latter be provided by the inducted electro?
The first part of this staptement is true, you do still have to launch the thing, but there is no longer a need for stationkeeping propellant. The energy needed to raise the orbit is produced the same way energy is produced on orbit now, by solar panels. And 5km of wire doesnt "weigh" anything in space, it does mass quite a bit, but after you get it moving, power requirements for reeling/unreeling/ are negligable considering that you need several kW to raise the orbit of a craft, which can easily be provided by panels, but in the long run winding power isnt too important.
So would the space craft have to travel directly above the position on the earth where the wire is anchored? Wouldn't the wire break
You misunderstand the concept, the wire isnt connected to anything except the satellite, space station, shuttle etc. It isnt connected to the ground at all. Power is generated on board the orbiting object and used to create a magnetic field that reacts against earths and raises or lowers the craft.
Is there any limit to how many of these could be used per object, or on our atmosphere at one time?
No, there is no limit to how many tethers can be used at once, except of course by the square footage that can be pointed towards or away from the earth. There is a trade off however, the more power you generate, the faster you fall towards the earth, eventually burning up in the atmosphere, The more massive the object the slower the rate of decay, if you could get a good sized asteroid into LEO you might be able to generate quite a bit of power for awhile before it crashed into the earth (which would pretty much negate the whole purpose of generating power). If you want to go up, you need to use power, and generate it some other way, usually through solatr panels although nuclear would work. I dont know if this would work as well for general solar system travel, the suns magnetosphere is less dense out here than earths is, so youd need more power or a longer tether.
However, I can see MANY complications, IE you are moving some satellite and the tether breaks, leaving the device with a completely different orbit and speed
In a conventional satellite your engine could explode, your fuel could leak out, your gyros can fail, you can get hit with micrometeoroids, you can run out of fuel etc etc. The point is, sending a satellite into space is a risky venture, therefore you shoudl do all you can to ruduce your risk, and your cost exposure. Tethers are cheaper, tethers are simpler, and tethers can be made redundant so that they are more reliable. Space is risky, deal with it
Sure -- while you're up there, why not drag a 5km wire around for a while?
you may make light of this development, but it really is quite significant. The earth has a magnetic field, and as we all know from our basic physics class we had to slog through in college, that a conductor passing through a magnetic field generates a current, and from the current a force. If you play the wire down from your position, and let it generate electricity ( IE dont provide a stopping voltage) your speed decreases and your orbit drops, if you play the tether up from yoru position and apply a voltage to the wire, say from some solar panels, you increase your speed and your altitude increases (actually your speed goes down when you go up and up when you go down, just one of the kinks of orbital mechanics) All of this can be done WITHOUT PROPELLANT, which really kicks some major ass, because a huge amount of money is spent on propellant and complicated ion and regular rocket engines, and wire is really really cheap. THis is a major development for the space and satellite industries
how would they support the torpedos underwater? last time i checked torpedos are heavier than air, which is basically what you create about the torpedo(gas that is, not the molecular composition) what are they using to support the vehicle there? they dont mention any wings or anything.
Thats true, a vacuum probably would be impossible to sustain at low speeds, just like the cavitation bubble is impossible to sustain at low speeds, but the trick is if youre going fast enough the bubble doesnt have to be maintained for very long, as the air moves around the vehicle vanderwaals only have to hold the bubble together for a few microseconds before it collapses again around the back end. If you tried to make a bubble with water it doesnt work very well, but at high enough speeds, you can create a stable bubble around the vehicle, this is what im talking about in air. You would have to go much faster in air or than in water, but it might be possible. of course, since water is 1000 times denser than air, you may have to go 1000 times faster in air than in water, which makes the whole argument moot anyways, but its a good thing to look into
Actually it doesnt matter how much lift youre creating, how much lift does the body of a Delta rocket create? Just abut nil, and really, if youre gong fast enough, the cavitation itself could create lift, just as there are now designs for lifting body, this could be lifting cavitation, the problem is youd have to shape the cavitation somewhat so as to create the most lift, but id imagine fins or bumps on the nose cone could shape the flow to some extent.
The real question is can this be done in air? One of the big problems supersonic vehicles have is shockwaves and heating on leading edges, now while getting my Aerospace engineering degree i had to take a fluid dynamics course or two, and the gist of it is that fluids are fluids and both air and water are fluids. If you can create a blunt nosed craft that can reach high speeds with low drag, this can be an amazing breakthrough for air and spaceflight. it certainly has piques my curiosity and ill be following devlopments closely.
Ah yes, very Ironic that the US has the lowet tax rate of any industrualized nation on earth, sure we were neck and neck with turkey for awhile, but weve blown by them now. Oh wait, thats not ironic at all.
Granted, Mp3's are piracy, and so is divx, but only because the law is WRONG The framers of the constitution specifically said 14 years for copyright, then to the public domain. That means any MP3 of a song made before 1986 should be free now anyways. It was once3 a crime to sit at the wrong lunch counter if you were black, that didnt mean the law was right. It is the DUTY of any american to disobey laws we see as unethical, unfair or unjust, and to accept the consequences of that action. MP3 is just the groundswell of public opinion rising against the Sonny Bono copyright act among others, and until the law is changed ill be perfectly happy to go on listening to my mp3's
Apples site is being Slashdotted majorly, as just about every macolyte in existance is bombarding the site for views of the dang thing. QTVR's of the mouse are Here and QTVR of the cube is Here Both at Apples site, lets get some mirrors up people;-)
I can see whats coming, a barrage of Woz worship, now some people might think that all the affection slashdot readers show for woz is not appropriate, but if you know about computers and youve read some of the things that woz has done, you cant help but bend down on your knees and shout "were not worthy! were not worthy!" ala waynes world. How many of you out there could build their own arcade machine using only IC's and radioscrap? Who could Build their own computer from scratch, and I mean scratch, and how many of you would be as humble as Woz is after doing it? A truly great man.
They make quality products, but people pay an unreasonable premium for that;
Thats the point, they can charge more because they make quality products, why do you think a lexus is more than a geo? They both have engines, the both will get you from point a to point b both have 4 wheels, brakes, use gasoline etc, why is a lexus so much more than a geo? Because its a quality product, thats why Apple charges a premium for their computers.
Actually he still is, hes a consultant to apple and still technically on their payroll. And really, why put yourself through all that stress when you can teach High School;-) And he alrady has more than enough money kicking around im sure.
What happens when supply is infinate? Why we get the government to step in and protect capitalism of courseCaptialism is government free, at least lassiz faire capitalism is, which doesnt exist anywhere anyways, but is "true" capitalism. Once you get govenment regulating and putting price controls in a market, it becomes socialistic. Air is at near infinite supply, so it is free, government does not step in and regulate air so there is a minimum price. Music and software are like air, there is no inherent price to manufacture additional copies once the first copy is produced. Once government steps in to "protect" capitalism, it ceases to be true capitalism, once price controls are initiated, its socialism, i.e. grey, if ommunisim is white and capitalism is black, and theyre are many shades of grey (socialism)
Heeere trolly trolly its feeding time! Open source is not communisim, its capitalism, the market is setting the price of music or software or what have you, and that price just happens to be Zero. Corporations monopolistic practicies are skewing the market away from the ideal price of zero that the market desires. Open source just corrects that.
"He who trades Freedom for security gets neither freedom nor security" --Benjamin Franklin
it's people who live in their own idealistic little worlds and think that protest actions and their lofty goals make a damn bit of difference in this world. I'm sure Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr. Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Nader,Rosa Parks, etc would disagree with you. None of those people were members of the govt. Only Jefferson was reasonably wealthy, They all had "little protest actions" and lofty ideals and they all changed the world. Maybe you need to read some history books that havent been censored by the Chinese government.
The destructive ("hacker") proportion of the Chinese computer-using population is far lower than in the States, not even mentioning the drug-dealing and drug-using populations, and the violent criminals, and all the rest.
Yup, all the Violent criminals have government jobs running the gulags. Heres a good way to reduce crime, in america and otherwise, summary execution. You commit a crime, you get shot on the spot, no questions asked, no muss, no fuss, no court date, crime would plummet to zero, its evolution in action, we can evolve the criminal element out of society.
Noone ever said freedom came without a price, and one of the prices we pay here is that we have a higher crime rate. i would much rather live here, with the slight risk i run of being victimized, than live in china where i would live in constant fear of being victimized for speaking my mind. By the way, what would happen to you if you posted the opposite opinion, that the Chinese government was unethical and improper?
There is a difference between protecting your source and protecting the guilty.
No theres not, say for example two high ranking govt officials conspired to commit election fraud, and got elected on this basis. Then one of them decided to come forward to report it. In this case the person who came forward would be just as guilty as the person he was reporting on, and it would be More important to protect the source than if they had just witnessed the events. Or say a mafia hit man came forward to a reporter that Don so and so had ordered the hit. How would you think the mafia would take to that if the reporter was forced to reveal his source because the police wanted to talk to the hit man so they could nail don so and so. The hit man would be by his own admission guilty of murder, but the reporter should not be forced to reveal the source, in order to save the innocent (say the hit man has a family)
Microsoft is the primary cause for the proliferation of viruses in the past few years.
This is not neciserally true per se, the reason why Microsoft coputers are most vulnerable is not just because theyre Microsoft computers, but because everyone uses them. If everyone used Mac's I would think that we would have the same problem. The only solution is to not have a computing monoculture, we need to have multiple different operating systems preferably non regional in nature, so that its much harder to bring down the whole system. Heres the kicker These operating systems cannot be significantly interoperable, if you can write once run anywhere, then youve defeated the purpose of the diversity. As long as only one os, or a system of interoperable oses are out there, there will be the risk for UberViruses like ILOVEYOU. Its the same problem in nature, something like 90% of the corn grown in america comes from a few genetically similar hybrids. If a virus or disease comes along that significantly affects a species, a huge amount of the corn crop can and will be wiped out. Humanity runs a fine line between prosperity and extinction.
A bit OT, but you mention that any MSCE could create such a virus, An ad has been running in my area (DC) about computer training courses to become MSCE. The best line in the ad is "No computer knowledge required" Which pretty much says it all;-)
Like your gas tank wouldnt explode in a massive ball of hellfire if it got the chance, oh the humanity!, thats why they have things like engineers to design fuel tanks so this doesnt happen. Hydrogen is actually less explosive, real world, then gasoline is because its atoms have a much higher velocity than gasoline (because they weigh less) This means that hydrogen will disperse about 10 times faster than gasoline will. A leak in a gas tank is much more dangerous than a leak in a hydrogen tank.
Slashdot Mirror
The first part of this staptement is true, you do still have to launch the thing, but there is no longer a need for stationkeeping propellant. The energy needed to raise the orbit is produced the same way energy is produced on orbit now, by solar panels. And 5km of wire doesnt "weigh" anything in space, it does mass quite a bit, but after you get it moving, power requirements for reeling/unreeling/ are negligable considering that you need several kW to raise the orbit of a craft, which can easily be provided by panels, but in the long run winding power isnt too important.
You misunderstand the concept, the wire isnt connected to anything except the satellite, space station, shuttle etc. It isnt connected to the ground at all. Power is generated on board the orbiting object and used to create a magnetic field that reacts against earths and raises or lowers the craft.
No, there is no limit to how many tethers can be used at once, except of course by the square footage that can be pointed towards or away from the earth. There is a trade off however, the more power you generate, the faster you fall towards the earth, eventually burning up in the atmosphere, The more massive the object the slower the rate of decay, if you could get a good sized asteroid into LEO you might be able to generate quite a bit of power for awhile before it crashed into the earth (which would pretty much negate the whole purpose of generating power). If you want to go up, you need to use power, and generate it some other way, usually through solatr panels although nuclear would work. I dont know if this would work as well for general solar system travel, the suns magnetosphere is less dense out here than earths is, so youd need more power or a longer tether.
In a conventional satellite your engine could explode, your fuel could leak out, your gyros can fail, you can get hit with micrometeoroids, you can run out of fuel etc etc. The point is, sending a satellite into space is a risky venture, therefore you shoudl do all you can to ruduce your risk, and your cost exposure. Tethers are cheaper, tethers are simpler, and tethers can be made redundant so that they are more reliable. Space is risky, deal with it
you may make light of this development, but it really is quite significant. The earth has a magnetic field, and as we all know from our basic physics class we had to slog through in college, that a conductor passing through a magnetic field generates a current, and from the current a force. If you play the wire down from your position, and let it generate electricity ( IE dont provide a stopping voltage) your speed decreases and your orbit drops, if you play the tether up from yoru position and apply a voltage to the wire, say from some solar panels, you increase your speed and your altitude increases (actually your speed goes down when you go up and up when you go down, just one of the kinks of orbital mechanics) All of this can be done WITHOUT PROPELLANT, which really kicks some major ass, because a huge amount of money is spent on propellant and complicated ion and regular rocket engines, and wire is really really cheap. THis is a major development for the space and satellite industries
In other words, a geek ;-)
Thats the point, they can charge more because they make quality products, why do you think a lexus is more than a geo? They both have engines, the both will get you from point a to point b both have 4 wheels, brakes, use gasoline etc, why is a lexus so much more than a geo? Because its a quality product, thats why Apple charges a premium for their computers.
--Benjamin Franklin
it's people who live in their own idealistic little worlds and think that protest actions and their lofty goals make a damn bit of difference in this world.
I'm sure Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr. Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Nader,Rosa Parks, etc would disagree with you. None of those people were members of the govt. Only Jefferson was reasonably wealthy, They all had "little protest actions" and lofty ideals and they all changed the world. Maybe you need to read some history books that havent been censored by the Chinese government.
The destructive ("hacker") proportion of the Chinese computer-using population is far lower than in the States, not even mentioning the drug-dealing and drug-using populations, and the violent criminals, and all the rest.
Yup, all the Violent criminals have government jobs running the gulags. Heres a good way to reduce crime, in america and otherwise, summary execution. You commit a crime, you get shot on the spot, no questions asked, no muss, no fuss, no court date, crime would plummet to zero, its evolution in action, we can evolve the criminal element out of society.
Noone ever said freedom came without a price, and one of the prices we pay here is that we have a higher crime rate. i would much rather live here, with the slight risk i run of being victimized, than live in china where i would live in constant fear of being victimized for speaking my mind. By the way, what would happen to you if you posted the opposite opinion, that the Chinese government was unethical and improper?
No theres not, say for example two high ranking govt officials conspired to commit election fraud, and got elected on this basis. Then one of them decided to come forward to report it. In this case the person who came forward would be just as guilty as the person he was reporting on, and it would be More important to protect the source than if they had just witnessed the events. Or say a mafia hit man came forward to a reporter that Don so and so had ordered the hit. How would you think the mafia would take to that if the reporter was forced to reveal his source because the police wanted to talk to the hit man so they could nail don so and so. The hit man would be by his own admission guilty of murder, but the reporter should not be forced to reveal the source, in order to save the innocent (say the hit man has a family)
This is not neciserally true per se, the reason why Microsoft coputers are most vulnerable is not just because theyre Microsoft computers, but because everyone uses them. If everyone used Mac's I would think that we would have the same problem. The only solution is to not have a computing monoculture, we need to have multiple different operating systems preferably non regional in nature, so that its much harder to bring down the whole system. Heres the kicker These operating systems cannot be significantly interoperable, if you can write once run anywhere, then youve defeated the purpose of the diversity. As long as only one os, or a system of interoperable oses are out there, there will be the risk for UberViruses like ILOVEYOU. Its the same problem in nature, something like 90% of the corn grown in america comes from a few genetically similar hybrids. If a virus or disease comes along that significantly affects a species, a huge amount of the corn crop can and will be wiped out. Humanity runs a fine line between prosperity and extinction.
Like your gas tank wouldnt explode in a massive ball of hellfire if it got the chance, oh the humanity!, thats why they have things like engineers to design fuel tanks so this doesnt happen. Hydrogen is actually less explosive, real world, then gasoline is because its atoms have a much higher velocity than gasoline (because they weigh less) This means that hydrogen will disperse about 10 times faster than gasoline will. A leak in a gas tank is much more dangerous than a leak in a hydrogen tank.