I think Blade Runner is a little too much of a cult phenominon to grab a movie exec's interest. (I love the movie too, though. Anyone know where you can find the original theatrical release? I LOATHE the director's cut and it's the only one I can find.)
Oh no, if recent history is any guide they'd have Pixar re-make "Yellow Submarine" WAY before anyone would touch Blade Runner.
If you mean bolting what would have been the guts of a satellite to various points along the space elevator, you are correct.
If you mean that you could somehow launch a satellite from any point along the space elevator, you are mistaken. Satellites travel around the world every 90 minutes. Think about the speed required for that. Now, What speed, relative to the ground would the launching platform be? Zero. It [ideally] isn't moving at all.
Now, what happens when you drop an object from a relatively stationary platform. It falls. Height doesn't help you.
Think of bombers. They fly in the stratsosphere and let go of the ordinance. It travels at the same speed as the aircraft, only under the pull of gravity, until it comes crashing down on its target. Tactical bombers fly at about a quarter the altitute required to get into orbit.
Now, you could do something goofy like take a satellite REALLY high up, drop it, and use the accelleration of gravity to pick up enough speed to stay in orbit. I'm not going to even break out my napkin notes for that one.
I just re-ran my napkin-note figures, and consulted the X-prize rules.
You can only change out 10% of the craft's mass between lauches. If you re-use the baloon, it doesn't count agaist you. If you dispose of the baloon, it's mass count's against the 10% figure.
My physics was a bit pessimistic too. For starters you don't need to obtain orbital velocity, only altitude. Second, as you burn fuel, your mass decreases. So not only do you NOT need to achieve an increadible speed, your mass figure is dramatically less (though the calculation is a differential equation that I don't even feel like approximating.)
You only really need to overcome gravity for 30,000 feet. The pull of gravity does decrease as you go out, so again, we have a nasty differentail equation. (Man you really start to understand the expression "rocket science".)
Gravity is (M * m) / (G * r^2). G is the gravitational constant of the universe, m is your mass, M is the mass of the earth. If you work your math our right, you can cancel G and M out as a fudge factor K. Gravity at sea level (6400km from center) is 9.8 m/s^2. Keep m as 1 Kj (which weighs 1 Joule) and the radius constant you get K=M/(G*6400^2)=G/M = 4.10e7.
So to figure out the pull of gravity at any altitude we have an equation: F=K * m / (r^2). Keeping m at a constant of 1 Kg (god I love metric) we can calculate the % of the force of gravity at any altitude. For 100Km out it's 96%. Safely ignored.
BTW these calculations are part of why a space elevator won't work. Even if you can pull something up to the right altitude, once you let go it will fall straight down. The reason things stay in orbit is because they are flying horizontally faster than gravity is pulling down, resulting in a circular motion.
The way I see it, the final product is going to have a payload capacity in excess of 20,000 lbs. That's certainly enough to be the world's slowest "first stage" to orbit.
You avoid the most inefficient segment of a rocket's journey, pushing through the troposphere at sub-sonis speed.
You do have a problem to overcome, though. Despite the 70,000 foot head start you will be trying to obtain orbital velocity (17,000 mph) from a standstill. I'm too lazy to do the math at this point, but I'm not sure it would actually be that much of an advantage in the end.
Despite the innefficiencies of starting from the ground, the lion's share of the energy expended by a launch system is used to propel the craft to orbital speed. The magic equation is 1/2*m*v^2.
So lets say we max out the payload and have a launcher that has a mass of 1800Kg. (Metric is easier to work with.) We are trying to propel it to around 8750 meters/second. That's about 137e9 Joules of energy. 137,000 MegaJoules. Aviation fuel has an energy density of 47 MJ/Kg. You would need around 2910 kg of fuel (not including oxidizer.)
OTOH, gravity plays a lesser role at that altitude. I say lesser, gravity exists even in orbit, it's just that the orbiter is falling forward, which almost cancels the effect of gravity thanks to a loophole in physics with rotataional motion. Note the above calculation did not take into effect overcoming gravity.
Maybe you don't need to get the rocked all the way up to 17,000mph. Maybe you can find a fuel with a higher energy density. In either case, you are still at square one.
The road to ruin is wide and well paved. Say what you will about the Linux toolkits, they build on a tradition that is pushing 30 years old. Other system of this lineage control power generation, track enemy subs underwater, and operate the avionics for aircraft. Linux uses the same toolkits and methodologies as Unix and QNX.
Suck is relative. I go by what has been done with it. I can't think of any killer apps that are written in.NET. And believe me, I do this stuff for a living.
Security codes for the starter have nothing to do with the table needed to properly calibrate the air-fuel mixture on a new fuel injector.
The small-time shop is looking for the same tables you pull out of the back of a chilten's manual for an older car, and what it means when the car computer dumps out code 0x315 (The driver is 3 week late on his payment.)
Well I bet they are more worried about repair shops discovering the difference between the "turbo" and the "standard" engine is a software patch and $20 in parts.
So which windows are you calling a "Standard Platform?". 95 was a different critter to support then 98/ME, which was different than 2k, and different still from XP.
And don't get me started on the various nefarious incarnations of Office. I have to support 97, 2000, and XP/2003 simultaneously because various access-based packages are tied to a specific release, and vendors think that every upgrade is a new purchase.
That's just plain dirty pool. And since when does an Attorney General have time to combat crap like this, in a state where illegal immigrants flow across the border, you have one of the largest open-air markets for drugs, and your state was just taken up the poop shoot by Energy producers.
Screw the media companies. They can fend for themselves. It's the citizens of California the AG is sworn to protect.
The long and the short of it. Rockefeller controlled tangible things: Railroads, oil rigs, distribution centers. Microsoft exists soley as a bunch of really restrictive contracts. It has mind-share going for it, and that is about all.
Computer can and do run without Microsoft. They are a brand. A company can decide, at will, to no longer purchase Microsoft.
Now, a good deal of that has more to do with anti-trust tussels between the DOJ and Microsoft in the past than a lack of trying on Microsoft's part.
The legal puzzle is thus. Microsoft is de-facto standard. People equate their crap with computers. To the mundanes out there Microsoft is to computers what gas is to cars. They have done a tremendous marketing job. You really can't build a case based on consumer buying habits. People do choose to buy Microsoft Products. It may not be a particularly wise choice, or even an informed choice, but the path to destruction is often wide and well paved.
Courts are loathe to step in and tell the average man how to live their life. Where Microsoft does get into trouble is in their dealings with computer makers. One of the things to come out of the Seatlement was that Microsoft was not longer permitted to have a different pricing structure for each supplier. Nor were they permitted to charge a license fee for every computer produced, whether or not windows ships with it.
As for Microsoft's stranglehold on industry, at this point it's more like those hitchiking seeds that velcro themselves to your trousers after a walk through the woods. There are a bunch of reasons people cling to them, all annoying, and all easy to pick off one by one.
Microsoft is the architect of their own destruction. They spend their time polishing shiny things, rather than sitting down and hammering out reliable products. By reliable I mean something that runs for 3 or more years without having to be completely reformatted and re-built.
Video standards, up until now, have been an open standard. Yes some parties may have had a patent on an element of, say, MPEG, everyone knew how it was supposed to work.
If someone designs a better motion compensator, it can be knitted into the open standard. Microsoft on the other hand has been trying to lock media behind a black box. This prevents anyone from creating content, save through microsoft licensed content creation tools, and prevents content from being played on non-microsoft licensed players.
My wife runs a business on the side similar to the one mentioned in the article. She does house calls for computers.
Most of her clients are more than happy to buy new equipment. It's their data that is the most important. They have pictures of the grandkids, accounting spreadsheets, books they are writing. All that is far more valuable to them than the physical cost of the machine.
She is usually hired after someone buys a new machine and realizes they don't have a clue on how to get the information from one computer to the other.
I prefer to maintain the "surfer dude" image with a pony tail, the long beard, and the quasi-religious references for dealing with the uncertain nature of the waves, man.
Besides, I'm one of those freaks you refuses to drive in the city if I can avoid it. All that walking has kept me pretty trim.
Bull. Simulators allow you to cheaply rule out possibilities. Nothing that doesn't pass a simulation will work in the real world. And a simulation doesn't have to be a digital simulation. A 1/32 scale model running through a sandbox is a simulation. As is a wind tunnel.
It is true that passing a simulated test is no measure of success in the real world. But it will certainly be more prepared, and in a faster time and with less expense than an "all up" design method.
Look at the space shuttle if you want an example of "all up" gone bad. I'm not talking about the end product, I'm talking about billions that were squandered during development. The waste of time and money during the engine testing was extraordinary.
Another example is the Mark XIV torpedo. Google around, but the long and the short of it is the navy deployed a torpedo without testing it. A series of design flaws kept them from working, and their failure cost us dearly during the early parts of the war.
The Navy refused to believe there was a problem. The weapon worked 50 percent of the time for the 2 shots that were fired before the war. When they tested the torpedos properly they found numerous problems with the design of the guidance system and the detonators.
Slashdot Mirror
Depends on your opinion of the poster, I guess.
Oh no, if recent history is any guide they'd have Pixar re-make "Yellow Submarine" WAY before anyone would touch Blade Runner.
Glad I didn't have lunch yet. The thought of that love scene brought on more dry heaves than being on a dive boat in 12 foot seas.
They'll shoot it in some Eastern-European country where they can get extras cheap, and tons of tax breaks for production.
If you mean that you could somehow launch a satellite from any point along the space elevator, you are mistaken. Satellites travel around the world every 90 minutes. Think about the speed required for that. Now, What speed, relative to the ground would the launching platform be? Zero. It [ideally] isn't moving at all.
Now, what happens when you drop an object from a relatively stationary platform. It falls. Height doesn't help you.
Think of bombers. They fly in the stratsosphere and let go of the ordinance. It travels at the same speed as the aircraft, only under the pull of gravity, until it comes crashing down on its target. Tactical bombers fly at about a quarter the altitute required to get into orbit.
Now, you could do something goofy like take a satellite REALLY high up, drop it, and use the accelleration of gravity to pick up enough speed to stay in orbit. I'm not going to even break out my napkin notes for that one.
You can only change out 10% of the craft's mass between lauches. If you re-use the baloon, it doesn't count agaist you. If you dispose of the baloon, it's mass count's against the 10% figure.
My physics was a bit pessimistic too. For starters you don't need to obtain orbital velocity, only altitude. Second, as you burn fuel, your mass decreases. So not only do you NOT need to achieve an increadible speed, your mass figure is dramatically less (though the calculation is a differential equation that I don't even feel like approximating.)
You only really need to overcome gravity for 30,000 feet. The pull of gravity does decrease as you go out, so again, we have a nasty differentail equation. (Man you really start to understand the expression "rocket science".)
Gravity is (M * m) / (G * r^2). G is the gravitational constant of the universe, m is your mass, M is the mass of the earth. If you work your math our right, you can cancel G and M out as a fudge factor K. Gravity at sea level (6400km from center) is 9.8 m/s^2. Keep m as 1 Kj (which weighs 1 Joule) and the radius constant you get K=M/(G*6400^2)=G/M = 4.10e7.
So to figure out the pull of gravity at any altitude we have an equation: F=K * m / (r^2). Keeping m at a constant of 1 Kg (god I love metric) we can calculate the % of the force of gravity at any altitude. For 100Km out it's 96%. Safely ignored.
BTW these calculations are part of why a space elevator won't work. Even if you can pull something up to the right altitude, once you let go it will fall straight down. The reason things stay in orbit is because they are flying horizontally faster than gravity is pulling down, resulting in a circular motion.
YMMV
You avoid the most inefficient segment of a rocket's journey, pushing through the troposphere at sub-sonis speed.
You do have a problem to overcome, though. Despite the 70,000 foot head start you will be trying to obtain orbital velocity (17,000 mph) from a standstill. I'm too lazy to do the math at this point, but I'm not sure it would actually be that much of an advantage in the end.
Despite the innefficiencies of starting from the ground, the lion's share of the energy expended by a launch system is used to propel the craft to orbital speed. The magic equation is 1/2*m*v^2.
So lets say we max out the payload and have a launcher that has a mass of 1800Kg. (Metric is easier to work with.) We are trying to propel it to around 8750 meters/second. That's about 137e9 Joules of energy. 137,000 MegaJoules. Aviation fuel has an energy density of 47 MJ/Kg. You would need around 2910 kg of fuel (not including oxidizer.)
OTOH, gravity plays a lesser role at that altitude. I say lesser, gravity exists even in orbit, it's just that the orbiter is falling forward, which almost cancels the effect of gravity thanks to a loophole in physics with rotataional motion. Note the above calculation did not take into effect overcoming gravity.
Maybe you don't need to get the rocked all the way up to 17,000mph. Maybe you can find a fuel with a higher energy density. In either case, you are still at square one.
You got ripped. The next week it came bundles with the MS Longhorn OS and Half-Life 2
The road to ruin is wide and well paved. Say what you will about the Linux toolkits, they build on a tradition that is pushing 30 years old. Other system of this lineage control power generation, track enemy subs underwater, and operate the avionics for aircraft. Linux uses the same toolkits and methodologies as Unix and QNX.
Suck is relative. I go by what has been done with it. I can't think of any killer apps that are written in .NET. And believe me, I do this stuff for a living.
Where did you learn newspeak? And yes, I AM the thought police.
The small-time shop is looking for the same tables you pull out of the back of a chilten's manual for an older car, and what it means when the car computer dumps out code 0x315 (The driver is 3 week late on his payment.)
HAL: Dr. Chandra has taught me a song, would you like to hear it?
DAVE: No, I want disk one in the CD player.
HAL: Here it goes: Daisy, Daisy,...
Well I bet they are more worried about repair shops discovering the difference between the "turbo" and the "standard" engine is a software patch and $20 in parts.
And don't get me started on the various nefarious incarnations of Office. I have to support 97, 2000, and XP/2003 simultaneously because various access-based packages are tied to a specific release, and vendors think that every upgrade is a new purchase.
That's just plain dirty pool. And since when does an Attorney General have time to combat crap like this, in a state where illegal immigrants flow across the border, you have one of the largest open-air markets for drugs, and your state was just taken up the poop shoot by Energy producers.
Screw the media companies. They can fend for themselves. It's the citizens of California the AG is sworn to protect.
Computer can and do run without Microsoft. They are a brand. A company can decide, at will, to no longer purchase Microsoft.
Now, a good deal of that has more to do with anti-trust tussels between the DOJ and Microsoft in the past than a lack of trying on Microsoft's part.
The legal puzzle is thus. Microsoft is de-facto standard. People equate their crap with computers. To the mundanes out there Microsoft is to computers what gas is to cars. They have done a tremendous marketing job. You really can't build a case based on consumer buying habits. People do choose to buy Microsoft Products. It may not be a particularly wise choice, or even an informed choice, but the path to destruction is often wide and well paved.
Courts are loathe to step in and tell the average man how to live their life. Where Microsoft does get into trouble is in their dealings with computer makers. One of the things to come out of the Seatlement was that Microsoft was not longer permitted to have a different pricing structure for each supplier. Nor were they permitted to charge a license fee for every computer produced, whether or not windows ships with it.
As for Microsoft's stranglehold on industry, at this point it's more like those hitchiking seeds that velcro themselves to your trousers after a walk through the woods. There are a bunch of reasons people cling to them, all annoying, and all easy to pick off one by one.
Microsoft is the architect of their own destruction. They spend their time polishing shiny things, rather than sitting down and hammering out reliable products. By reliable I mean something that runs for 3 or more years without having to be completely reformatted and re-built.
If someone designs a better motion compensator, it can be knitted into the open standard. Microsoft on the other hand has been trying to lock media behind a black box. This prevents anyone from creating content, save through microsoft licensed content creation tools, and prevents content from being played on non-microsoft licensed players.
This kind of stuff doesn't play well in Peiora.
Hmmm. Maybe we should rework the "Every time you fap god kills a kitten" cliche to "Every time Someone exposes a bug Microsoft pays a dime"
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point
We go 'round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe...
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth
Most of her clients are more than happy to buy new equipment. It's their data that is the most important. They have pictures of the grandkids, accounting spreadsheets, books they are writing. All that is far more valuable to them than the physical cost of the machine.
She is usually hired after someone buys a new machine and realizes they don't have a clue on how to get the information from one computer to the other.
Besides, I'm one of those freaks you refuses to drive in the city if I can avoid it. All that walking has kept me pretty trim.
You literally shoot out character codes to it, and it turns them into printed characters on the page.
You took a reliable output device, they works for years on a good ribbon and replaced it with a flaky device that burns through ink.
Some computer expert!
It's what you do outside with it.
It is true that passing a simulated test is no measure of success in the real world. But it will certainly be more prepared, and in a faster time and with less expense than an "all up" design method.
Look at the space shuttle if you want an example of "all up" gone bad. I'm not talking about the end product, I'm talking about billions that were squandered during development. The waste of time and money during the engine testing was extraordinary.
Another example is the Mark XIV torpedo. Google around, but the long and the short of it is the navy deployed a torpedo without testing it. A series of design flaws kept them from working, and their failure cost us dearly during the early parts of the war.
The Navy refused to believe there was a problem. The weapon worked 50 percent of the time for the 2 shots that were fired before the war. When they tested the torpedos properly they found numerous problems with the design of the guidance system and the detonators.