The reactor shielding required for a manned spacecraft is pretty large. There isn't any particular mass savings through using a nuclear power source... most of the mass for a deep space mission is reaction mass, and the specific impulse developed by a nuclear rocket is only about 2 times that of a chemical rocket... reaction mass savings ends up being on the order of 75%, but this is offset by the increased payload/structural mass.
Now, if someone could finally get fusion rockets to work, I think we could finally go someplace. But I am skeptical about using fission for manned missions.
It sounds like the system that is being described in the article is programmatically doing the type of data analysis that is performed manually by current intelligence agencies. This just speeds it up to where it would provide useful realitime data correllations.
The disadvantage is that it could potentially intrude on the public's privacy. Because it is so much easier to dig up unrelated facts, it would encourage law enforcement agencies to use such a system to go on "treasure hunts", just to see what dirt they could dig up.
What could get nasty though, is if the system could be tweaked by an unscroupulous operator to "plant" facts about someone they wanted to go after. It occasionally happens already, using physical evidence or data. This system could make it easier.
The amount of money required to identify asteroids that might hit Earth isn't that great. And IF one is identified as posing a potential hazard, it gives us the opportunity to think about how we could do something.
Anything else is like sticking your head in the sand, and hoping it will go away.
Don't plan on completing a CS degree in a year. Can't be done. As many others have pointed out, most universities will require the broad educational background. I know. I went back to school to get that BS in CS degree... and I already had a BS in engineering (Civil). So I already had many of the background courses. I took maybe a total of 5 PROGRAMMING courses during my 2 1/2 year tenture at school. The rest were Computer SCIENCE (about 40%), and non computer (50%) courses.
The advantages I had over someone earning a degree for the first time was that I could fill in a lot of my non-cs courses from interesting things that I wanted to take, rather than bone-head english, history, bio/phys/chem, etc. My choice, so I can't complain.
Think about it for a second. There are three elements of the equation here: Hardware, Software, and Operations. If we are talking about computers to be used by a school, then first you have to have the boxes, then you have to have something to run on the boxes, and then you have to have somebody who knows how to make it all work. Of the three, the last is probably the biggest expense, and certainly the one that you aren't going to get for free. Even if its just a tech savvy teacher who maintains the things, its going to take a lot of his time to do so... time taken away from his primary job of teaching the kids. QED, it has a cost.
I buy stuff on the Internet, and I buy stuff in brick and morter stores. Unless you don't look very hard, there isn't THAT much of a difference in price, and as anotehr poster pointed out, buying local doesn't result in shipping charges. Unless its something that isn't available locally (or is inconvenient), I would just as well go and check it out personally.
If you have to use MSN as an ISP, use something else as your mail server.
If you must have a hotmail account (for access to IM or whatever), just put in two filters: (1) If subject contains Free Pizza, send to Trash, and (2)If subject does not contain Free Pizza, send to Trash. This will keep those annoying mail notifications from popping up on your IM.
You are in the wonderful position of still being able to read TLOR for the first time. Yes, some fantasy novels do try to hard... but not these. Tolkien produced the original. All the others are just trying to recreate his masterpiece.
This article was also on CNN.com and Space.com yesterday as well, to name a few.
Ceres has a diameter of about 950 kilometers (590 miles), and is still (and always will be) the largest main belt asteroid. This new object, known as 2001 KX76 (representing its discovery year and code), is a member of the Kuiper Belt. Kuiper Belt Objects are the primitive remenants of the prestellar cloud that formed our solar system. They have been expected by planetary astronomers for years, and in the last few years, hundreds have been found, although this is the largest found to date (excluding Pluto). It is anticipated that hundreds of thousands more might be found as better telescopes are constructed.
Full-length CD units dropped 5.3 percent at mid-year 2001, representing a $5.5 billion dollar value within the market, a 2.7 percent decrease in dollar value from mid-year 2000.
Hmmm... we're in the middle of a recession and CD sales dropped. Who'd a thought it!
While it isn't likely that present day Earth will encounter another impactor such as may have formed the moon, legitimization of the theory behind this model goes a long way to giving planetary astronomers a better understanding of how planetary systems are formed. If they can't explain how WE got here, then its really difficult to conclude one way or another that similar systems are or are not out there.
Yup, I still have the simple slide rule I had for freshman year back in Engineering school. Also have my dad's HP-35 up in storage, although it needs a battery.
My wife and I just closed on a new house last month which I initially identified online last year. Some of the Real Estate search engines are pretty good at giving you an idea of where to start looking. Still had to go through an agent before buying the house, but at least we saved a lot of leg work.
if just once we actually had a plan to implement a system before the system was needed? I expect that it will be another 10-15 years before there will actaully be much demand for this, but once we do start operating out there, its going to turn into an explosion as big as the Internet of the mid-90's.
Your non-compete agreement requires you to not work in the programming field for the next five years. After that, you may again program. Have a nice day.
Pretty good article, but I got the impression that the person writing it didn't quite understand what was going on. He said this was the first time that neutrinos were detected, and then immediately quoted one of the AMANDA researchers as saying it was the first time a new, higher energy neutrino had been detected.
Interesting to here that they plan to construct a larger particle detector.
Slashdot Mirror
The reactor shielding required for a manned spacecraft is pretty large. There isn't any particular mass savings through using a nuclear power source... most of the mass for a deep space mission is reaction mass, and the specific impulse developed by a nuclear rocket is only about 2 times that of a chemical rocket... reaction mass savings ends up being on the order of 75%, but this is offset by the increased payload/structural mass.
Now, if someone could finally get fusion rockets to work, I think we could finally go someplace. But I am skeptical about using fission for manned missions.
It sounds like the system that is being described in the article is programmatically doing the type of data analysis that is performed manually by current intelligence agencies. This just speeds it up to where it would provide useful realitime data correllations.
The disadvantage is that it could potentially intrude on the public's privacy. Because it is so much easier to dig up unrelated facts, it would encourage law enforcement agencies to use such a system to go on "treasure hunts", just to see what dirt they could dig up.
What could get nasty though, is if the system could be tweaked by an unscroupulous operator to "plant" facts about someone they wanted to go after. It occasionally happens already, using physical evidence or data. This system could make it easier.
The survey is inherently flawed. It asks you to choose among a list of missions, but its still NASA's list.
When you have to choose between a rock and a hard place, I'd rather have a third choice.
The amount of money required to identify asteroids that might hit Earth isn't that great. And IF one is identified as posing a potential hazard, it gives us the opportunity to think about how we could do something.
Anything else is like sticking your head in the sand, and hoping it will go away.
Don't plan on completing a CS degree in a year. Can't be done. As many others have pointed out, most universities will require the broad educational background. I know. I went back to school to get that BS in CS degree... and I already had a BS in engineering (Civil). So I already had many of the background courses. I took maybe a total of 5 PROGRAMMING courses during my 2 1/2 year tenture at school. The rest were Computer SCIENCE (about 40%), and non computer (50%) courses.
The advantages I had over someone earning a degree for the first time was that I could fill in a lot of my non-cs courses from interesting things that I wanted to take, rather than bone-head english, history, bio/phys/chem, etc. My choice, so I can't complain.
Think about it for a second. There are three elements of the equation here: Hardware, Software, and Operations. If we are talking about computers to be used by a school, then first you have to have the boxes, then you have to have something to run on the boxes, and then you have to have somebody who knows how to make it all work. Of the three, the last is probably the biggest expense, and certainly the one that you aren't going to get for free. Even if its just a tech savvy teacher who maintains the things, its going to take a lot of his time to do so... time taken away from his primary job of teaching the kids. QED, it has a cost.
Hey, I've got all these 5 1/4" floppy disks sitting in boxes in a back closet. I bet if I added them all up, they would amount to close to 100 GB.
It will never happen! What do they think this place is? NASA?
I buy stuff on the Internet, and I buy stuff in brick and morter stores. Unless you don't look very hard, there isn't THAT much of a difference in price, and as anotehr poster pointed out, buying local doesn't result in shipping charges. Unless its something that isn't available locally (or is inconvenient), I would just as well go and check it out personally.
I guess I won't be reading anything on MSN anymore.
If you have to use MSN as an ISP, use something else as your mail server.
If you must have a hotmail account (for access to IM or whatever), just put in two filters: (1) If subject contains Free Pizza, send to Trash, and (2)If subject does not contain Free Pizza, send to Trash. This will keep those annoying mail notifications from popping up on your IM.
I would just jump all over this deal, except that right now, my stock options aren't worth as much as they used to be...
Yup... green and purple ketchup... the kids love it.
You are in the wonderful position of still being able to read TLOR for the first time. Yes, some fantasy novels do try to hard... but not these. Tolkien produced the original. All the others are just trying to recreate his masterpiece.
This article was also on CNN.com and Space.com yesterday as well, to name a few.
Ceres has a diameter of about 950 kilometers (590 miles), and is still (and always will be) the largest main belt asteroid. This new object, known as 2001 KX76 (representing its discovery year and code), is a member of the Kuiper Belt. Kuiper Belt Objects are the primitive remenants of the prestellar cloud that formed our solar system. They have been expected by planetary astronomers for years, and in the last few years, hundreds have been found, although this is the largest found to date (excluding Pluto). It is anticipated that hundreds of thousands more might be found as better telescopes are constructed.
Full-length CD units dropped 5.3 percent at mid-year 2001, representing a $5.5 billion dollar value within the market, a 2.7 percent decrease in dollar value from mid-year 2000.
Hmmm... we're in the middle of a recession and CD sales dropped. Who'd a thought it!
While it isn't likely that present day Earth will encounter another impactor such as may have formed the moon, legitimization of the theory behind this model goes a long way to giving planetary astronomers a better understanding of how planetary systems are formed. If they can't explain how WE got here, then its really difficult to conclude one way or another that similar systems are or are not out there.
In related news, FBI investigators said that they would be questioning scientists in a search for suspects, and motives for the murder.
After all, softie probably has a copyright on the word "soft".
Yup, I still have the simple slide rule I had for freshman year back in Engineering school. Also have my dad's HP-35 up in storage, although it needs a battery.
Hi everybody. My name is Mike, and I'm a geek.
My wife and I just closed on a new house last month which I initially identified online last year. Some of the Real Estate search engines are pretty good at giving you an idea of where to start looking. Still had to go through an agent before buying the house, but at least we saved a lot of leg work.
if just once we actually had a plan to implement a system before the system was needed? I expect that it will be another 10-15 years before there will actaully be much demand for this, but once we do start operating out there, its going to turn into an explosion as big as the Internet of the mid-90's.
Bad as some some of Microsoft's stuff is, at least it works (usually). AOL provides crappy software that doesn't even pretend to do what I need it to.
Your non-compete agreement requires you to not work in the programming field for the next five years. After that, you may again program. Have a nice day.
Pretty good article, but I got the impression that the person writing it didn't quite understand what was going on. He said this was the first time that neutrinos were detected, and then immediately quoted one of the AMANDA researchers as saying it was the first time a new, higher energy neutrino had been detected.
Interesting to here that they plan to construct a larger particle detector.