Isn't the joy of the OSS model, that if this were truely a problem, a group of users (presumable corperations interested in the viability of thier 2.4 kernel) could get together to create and maintain a patch for the 2.4 kernel that would back port more then just the critical updates from 2.6? I thought that the whole point of having an open model was to allow everyone to mess with the code to make it fit their needs. I know there is always a fear of forking, and that someone will bring up the issue, but there are many patches some like the -ac patch even get posted on kernel.org.
There has alwasy been a gap between the needs of buisness for stable and realiable software and the desire of enthusiests for the latest and greatest. as Linux continues to gain share in diverse markets, I antisipate that the number of patches will likewize increase, making a kernel that can meet the needs of several different types of users.
The program uses Linux Userland File System (LUFS) which "moves the filesystem implementation to UNIX userland where the Microsoft Windows filesystem is completely unarmed by Captive jail of chroot(2), setuid(2) and setrlimit(2)."
Allow me to put this in More polite, but equally emphatic of terms: J.R.R. Tolkien is a better author then Peter Jackson, especially of his own Trilogy!
It is always inspiring to hear of someone who is knows what they believe and lives according to their beliefs.
When you say you were "raised not to drink, smoke, do drugs, or have sex outside of marriage" I can assume that your parents talked about sex, drugs, drinking and smoking with you in a way that meant something to you. I'm also willing to bet that they knew you were listening, and that meant that there was an element of trust in your relationship.
I would fall further down this slippery slope and go so far as to say that this element of trust meant you got the opportunity to live out your morals without your parents watching over you shoulder constantly. Unless I miss my guess, your parents knew about what was going on in your life because you told them about it and asked for their advice not because they wached ever action you took.
Now, consider what what it would be like if instead of an open and trusting communication with your parents, you were simply given a set of rules (don't drink, don't smoke, don't have sex) and were watch so closely by your parents that you had to opportunity to consider doing otherwise. Would you have the strong moral convictions you are now able to share with others, or would there simply be a set or rules that might be broken if not for your parents.
For many people, going to college simply removes the enforcer to a set of rules with no moral backing. When I wrote last night I had two particular people in mind who were in just that situation. One ended up dropping out of school when his girlfriend got pregnant, the other was nearly killed at a frat party by alcohol poising. Both were very nice people with good grades and lots of talent. Neither understood why they shouldn't drink or have sex out of wedlock, only that their parents would not even give them the opportunity.
A thought for you, no one goes out looking to sin. Sin happened when the opportunity to transgress Gods will is not countered by the moral choice to do otherwise. I worry that like my two friends the parent in the above post is the enforcer of a set of rules that need to be checked on and reinforced instead of the honored parent who can impart not just rules and consequences but understanding, communication and trust.
I used an extreme example because it was the theme of many of the posts here and because I could not help hearing the the original post in the voice of the parent of one of the two people I mentioned. There is however a far less extreme example that is far more common. How many of your friends from high school who attended church regularly with there parents still go as adults? In most Christian tradition the number is 25% or less. For the other 75% or more do you think gathering in the LORD's name on Sunday was a moral value or an enforced rule?
Faith is not a set of rules and morality is not something that can be legislated by governments or parents. I try to do the same thing I'll bet you campus Christian group did, encourage the people I am with to understand their faith and do everything in my power to support them in living out that faith.
I have no children of my own, but I get to meet yours when they go to college. Working as a campus chaplin, I get to see the results of may different up bringings in the real world. When your 4 kids go off to college, you are not longer be able to protect your gifted eagle scout honor student. With luck they will find a good group of friends some of whom have seen a lot more of the world then an eagle scout project and the subject of which p0rn site is the best will come up over a coffee.
On the other hand I've met far to many very bright university students who spend ther first year in the dorms with a roommate who just cant wait to rush Alpha Banga Bimbo or Omega Hunka Guy. The moral delima here is whether or not to tell you, there prud of a parent, that your going to be a grandparent sooner then you thought.
I spent way more of my time then I think is good, helping college student come to grips with real world issues that should have been part of their upbringing. I spend a lot of time trying to convence emancipated eagle scouts and gifted musicicians that freedom from mom and dad means not only being able to make their own choices but having to find their own morals. For far to many there parents were far to oppressive to allow for moral development and once out of the parrents are out of the picture, young adults often experence freshman wiplash.
The good news is that most student recover by the time they get to be juniors and may even call home on the weakends their third year, just hope its not to ask for help with their kids.
This late in the posting, I'm still willing to risk being moderated off topic.
Has anyone ever though of getting a job where money isn't the best reason to get it? I honestly believe that most people place too much value on there money. I would urge people to take a job where they feel rewarded, and programming a computer for someone who doesn't respect your hard work ain't it.
Someone out there is going to read this and know what I'm talking about. Programming was cool paid well, and was easy for you. Now your realizing that where you have skills is not where you have passion.
My advice, follow your passion, espicially if your stuck in a job like that, get out and do what you've always wanted to do. A few more people living lives instead of just existing in them will change the world!
You apparently arn't getting married! "Professional" photographers are by and large no better then their 1/10th-the-price counterparts. Espicially for church weddings where "innovative angles" and action shots are limited, the differences become immesurable.
The real difference is the marketing. By printing a few buisness cards and photographing a staged wedding one can add an order of magnitude to the price!
By the way, If you are looking for wedding photographers ask to see the release on there sample albums. Most of the high dollar photographers shoot a mock wedding using modles, and the release contract will say so. If you wnat the real scoop ask for references and do some independant resaerch. Chances are you can find a local freelance journalist with all the right equitment and a pricticed eye for about $500.
90 perseent of all crimes are crimes of opprotunity. Someone sees a chance and takes it. If a GPS and kill -9 swithch in already highly regulated hazmat shipping industry keeps one drunk trucker from putting several tons of poison into a river, it's well worth it.
I would like to see some company morph this technology into a portable desktop PC. With a real USB keybaord and mouse and an easily setup 17" moniter (or even better portable head gear) I have a laptop, but because it's keyboard is too small and touch pad too clunky, I end up bringing my mouse and keyboard with me and if I have access to on, pluging into a real moniter. As far as I'm concerned, I think "Laptops" should be made into a backpack or carry on which hold the periferials.
The airbag deployment system is no more "actively compiling evedance agenst him[sic]" then is that persons odometer.
When you go to sell a car you don't accuse the auto maker of breaching your privacy by recording how far you drove. Neither, than, should you complain that a divice intended to save your life and ensure safe operations is breaching you privacy by recording your speed.
Airbag deployment is based on how much energy is added to your body, but the only thing that can be mesured is acceleration. To find energe you must integrate over a period of time. The so called "Black Box" simply keeps enough data to be able to make that calculation. This is why you airbag doesnt deploy when you hit the parking curb to spit the favt that it may briefly cause an acceleration greater then 5g's in the car.
Actually, sence you ask yes. My brother is a automotive tech and while working on my senion project in Physics I got him to give me a couple of used ones (they are always replace after the airbag deploys) hoping to use them as cheep data logers. As it turned out none of the ones I got my hands on could hold enough data to be useful.
I can also say from direct observation of the electronics that as of 2000 none of the 7 I played with could transmit or recieve data except through physical contact.
I will repeat what I told the other AC, there is a possibility that in the future devices migh be installed which would rase privacy issues, but this is not it.
The AC article is well taken, but off topic. There are two different concepts of what a "black box" is and will be. In regards to the current incarnation, my original statment is correct within an order of magnitude. No Airbag deployment sensor currently in production records more then 12 seconds of data. the vast majority prefering instead to record higher resolution data for approx 1.8 to 3.5 seconds before overwriting it. The purpose of this data is to give the airbag computer some sence of what is going on in the world in the event of a low speed (less than 5g ) crash. It also allows for minimal analysis in the event of airbag deployment.
The referenced artical is intended to be a standard for full, avation like, black boxes to be used in crash post mortems. It would be a compleatly seperate piece of equipment and would in theory give auto makers a much better sence of how there cars faired in the real world. It would also allow the kind of monitering many of slashdot's readers are so scared of.
In short, there is an effort underway to install dedicated black boxes in cars, but story is not about that.
About this time alternative fuel cars will start to look pretty sweet, right? Why wait? Go buy a ULEV today and laugh as all the rest of us slide down your slippery slope.
"The prospect that we're all under constant scrutiny has social effects and legal effects that we haven't even contemplated," said Stephen Keating of the Privacy Foundation at the University of Denver.
This is just plain wrong. The "black box" can only be used if/when the airbag deploys. Under any other circumstances it discards all information every 2 seconds. Even if it was to be removed from a parked car it would only tell the snoop that the car was stopped before it was shut off.
Just to make sure everbody get the point: Monitering is not constant but only availible after an airbag deploying crash.
There are two advantages you left out. Both have to do with being able to scale the manufacturing process. As the artical points out (you read the whole thing right?) It is far easier to regulate a relitivle small number of electricity generating plant compaired to the huge number of cars on the road. Instead of every viechial needing a catilitic converter and emission controls computers, there only need to be scrubbers et. al. on the plants. Bottom line big powerplants are more efficient both in turms of energy produce and emmissions per unit then are Internal combustion engines
Second, cars tend to be consentrated where people live. By moving the sorce of polution away from population centers we might be able to see San Francisco from Oakland again.
this is more of a personal interest, but I think it's relitive to the topic at hand.
I'm learning hebrew in school, and I'm wondering what it takes to be able to type. Do you have a keyboard with the hebrew charicters on it or to you use a keyboard maping (aleph = a, bet = b, gimel=g) ? How (or do you) use vowle points? I guess the big question is could I resonably leard to type hebrew with my standard us keyboard?
When I was in kindergarten I was taught that sharing was a good thing. My society told me that letting others use a garden hose or a newspaper or a record was not just acceptable but highly valued ethos.
Look now at what corprate culture has done to us. Will preschool teachers now tell there students not to share, but to go buy there own? Imagine on child playing with a doll and another wanting to play with it. Now we must tell the second to When I was in kindergarten I was taught that sharing was a good thing. My society told me that letting others use a garden hose or a newspaper or a record was not just acceptable but highly valued ethos.
Look now at what corporate culture has done to us. Will preschool teachers now tell there students not to share but to go buy there own? Imagine on child playing with a doll and another wanting to play with it. Now we must tell the second to purchase her own doll because sharing is the same as stealing. Imagine you preschool teacher saying to you "If you share that toy with your friend, the toy company will not be able to make money and they will go out of business and then you won't have any toys to play with."
There is a child's parable about a magic penny that when given away doubles. I have found references to this story in literature as far back as the 1870's and as recently as 2002. These types of stories are a reflection of a culture's values. What happens now that we actually have a musical magic penny?
Speaking as a Voter of San Luis Obispo County who voted in this election, I woul like to clarify that there IS a paper balit which is scaned and recorded. While having the electronic comprimised is a Big problem, there is paper to go back to (for the moment)
As a side note, you can bet I'll be calling the county clerks office tomorrow.
Notably however a 747 holds more then 10,000 gallons of jet fuel and burns it at a rate of 1219 gallons per minute at full throttle. My point was that if a jet engin worked in the absents atmosphere that there would be more then enough power in any comertial jet to accelerate to orbital speed. the problem ofcourse is that one neesd fuel that will combust in the absents of envriomential O2.
The long and the short of it is 85% of the force needed to put the shuttle into space is spent lifting it out of the atmosphere while only 15% is used to achieve orbital velosity. If aerodynamic forces could be used to get even halfway to orbital altitude it would eliminate the need for a craft like the shuttle to use disposable rocket engins.
Actually acceleration isn't the problem. It's still being able to accelerate when drag in not a deturmining factor. Most modren jets, in the absents of friction, could get to orbital velosity before hitting the ground, if they got a lift to 100,000ft. the problem is lifting all the fuel and still being able to fly. I believe that a truely reusable lanch viechal will come only when the transition from conventional powered flight to orbital flight is possible. For a start however I still think a 2 stage system where stage 1 is a large plane and stage 2 is rocket is an underapricieated solution. JFMILLER
For the most part I see this as the perview of the unmaned research division. This is the place for pure reasearch where the hastles of maintaining a maned space program or orbital lanch capibilities can give way to the interests of further technological and scientific development.
Idealy the maned space program will live a couple iterations behind the research in the "Safe Zone" while the Orbitla flight folks will be back one or two more in the "Economy Zone." At the moment NASA must always play in the "Save Zone" because of there primary (self made) commitment to manned space flight.
In times past I looked favorably on breaking up MicroSoft. I now see a simular solution for NASA. I would like to see NASA divided like this:
Human Space Program: Takes over the space shuttle for the moment and rapidly develops a usable space plain. Also takes charge of the ISS operations. The resurch being done on with the shuttle is shifted to the ISS as soon as both it and the new space plain can handle the load. Long term goal--a manned mission to mars
Orbital Delivery Systems Program: Purpose to put stuff in orbit. Takes ovcr the opperation of Atlas and Delta Rockets. Responsible for constructing and supplyinf ISS. May contract out to HSP to use the space shuttle short turm. Long term goal--Low earth orbit for USD1000/KG or less
Remote Space Investigation Program: Takes over hubble, Pathfinder, etc... Contracts with ODSP for lanches. Responcible for all non-human space research. Long term goal--detailed remot exploration of mars and Jovian moons Io and Europa.
Each program should have an independent budget and managment system. This would ensure that Congress could cut or increase funding more spesifically and insulate each probram from desasters in the other.
I know this is not politically realistic but one can dream.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't the joy of the OSS model, that if this were truely a problem, a group of users (presumable corperations interested in the viability of thier 2.4 kernel) could get together to create and maintain a patch for the 2.4 kernel that would back port more then just the critical updates from 2.6? I thought that the whole point of having an open model was to allow everyone to mess with the code to make it fit their needs. I know there is always a fear of forking, and that someone will bring up the issue, but there are many patches some like the -ac patch even get posted on kernel.org.
There has alwasy been a gap between the needs of buisness for stable and realiable software and the desire of enthusiests for the latest and greatest. as Linux continues to gain share in diverse markets, I antisipate that the number of patches will likewize increase, making a kernel that can meet the needs of several different types of users.
JFMILLER
This is part of the FAQ
The program uses Linux Userland File System (LUFS) which "moves the filesystem implementation to UNIX userland where the Microsoft Windows filesystem is completely unarmed by Captive jail of chroot(2), setuid(2) and setrlimit(2)."
I hope this answers the question.
JFMILLER
Allow me to put this in More polite, but equally emphatic of terms:
J.R.R. Tolkien is a better author then Peter Jackson, especially of his own Trilogy!
JFMILLER
Congratulations,
It is always inspiring to hear of someone who is knows what they believe and lives according to their beliefs.
When you say you were "raised not to drink, smoke, do drugs, or have sex outside of marriage" I can assume that your parents talked about sex, drugs, drinking and smoking with you in a way that meant something to you. I'm also willing to bet that they knew you were listening, and that meant that there was an element of trust in your relationship.
I would fall further down this slippery slope and go so far as to say that this element of trust meant you got the opportunity to live out your morals without your parents watching over you shoulder constantly. Unless I miss my guess, your parents knew about what was going on in your life because you told them about it and asked for their advice not because they wached ever action you took.
Now, consider what what it would be like if instead of an open and trusting communication with your parents, you were simply given a set of rules (don't drink, don't smoke, don't have sex) and were watch so closely by your parents that you had to opportunity to consider doing otherwise. Would you have the strong moral convictions you are now able to share with others, or would there simply be a set or rules that might be broken if not for your parents.
For many people, going to college simply removes the enforcer to a set of rules with no moral backing. When I wrote last night I had two particular people in mind who were in just that situation. One ended up dropping out of school when his girlfriend got pregnant, the other was nearly killed at a frat party by alcohol poising. Both were very nice people with good grades and lots of talent. Neither understood why they shouldn't drink or have sex out of wedlock, only that their parents would not even give them the opportunity.
A thought for you, no one goes out looking to sin. Sin happened when the opportunity to transgress Gods will is not countered by the moral choice to do otherwise. I worry that like my two friends the parent in the above post is the enforcer of a set of rules that need to be checked on and reinforced instead of the honored parent who can impart not just rules and consequences but understanding, communication and trust.
I used an extreme example because it was the theme of many of the posts here and because I could not help hearing the the original post in the voice of the parent of one of the two people I mentioned. There is however a far less extreme example that is far more common. How many of your friends from high school who attended church regularly with there parents still go as adults? In most Christian tradition the number is 25% or less. For the other 75% or more do you think gathering in the LORD's name on Sunday was a moral value or an enforced rule?
Faith is not a set of rules and morality is not something that can be legislated by governments or parents. I try to do the same thing I'll bet you campus Christian group did, encourage the people I am with to understand their faith and do everything in my power to support them in living out that faith.
JFMILLER
One should not post when one is too tired to differentiate between submit and preview.
Greatings Parrent of 4,
I have no children of my own, but I get to meet yours when they go to college. Working as a campus chaplin, I get to see the results of may different up bringings in the real world. When your 4 kids go off to college, you are not longer be able to protect your gifted eagle scout honor student. With luck they will find a good group of friends some of whom have seen a lot more of the world then an eagle scout project and the subject of which p0rn site is the best will come up over a coffee.
On the other hand I've met far to many very bright university students who spend ther first year in the dorms with a roommate who just cant wait to rush Alpha Banga Bimbo or Omega Hunka Guy. The moral delima here is whether or not to tell you, there prud of a parent, that your going to be a grandparent sooner then you thought.
I spent way more of my time then I think is good, helping college student come to grips with real world issues that should have been part of their upbringing. I spend a lot of time trying to convence emancipated eagle scouts and gifted musicicians that freedom from mom and dad means not only being able to make their own choices but having to find their own morals. For far to many there parents were far to oppressive to allow for moral development and once out of the parrents are out of the picture, young adults often experence freshman wiplash.
The good news is that most student recover by the time they get to be juniors and may even call home on the weakends their third year, just hope its not to ask for help with their kids.
JFMILLER
This late in the posting, I'm still willing to risk being moderated off topic.
Has anyone ever though of getting a job where money isn't the best reason to get it? I honestly believe that most people place too much value on there money. I would urge people to take a job where they feel rewarded, and programming a computer for someone who doesn't respect your hard work ain't it.
Someone out there is going to read this and know what I'm talking about. Programming was cool paid well, and was easy for you. Now your realizing that where you have skills is not where you have passion.
My advice, follow your passion, espicially if your stuck in a job like that, get out and do what you've always wanted to do. A few more people living lives instead of just existing in them will change the world!
JFMILLER
To get the updated firmware you must click through the ads that they were going to send you in the first place, right?
You apparently arn't getting married! "Professional" photographers are by and large no better then their 1/10th-the-price counterparts. Espicially for church weddings where "innovative angles" and action shots are limited, the differences become immesurable.
The real difference is the marketing. By printing a few buisness cards and photographing a staged wedding one can add an order of magnitude to the price!
By the way, If you are looking for wedding photographers ask to see the release on there sample albums. Most of the high dollar photographers shoot a mock wedding using modles, and the release contract will say so. If you wnat the real scoop ask for references and do some independant resaerch. Chances are you can find a local freelance journalist with all the right equitment and a pricticed eye for about $500.
JFMILLER
90 perseent of all crimes are crimes of opprotunity. Someone sees a chance and takes it. If a GPS and kill -9 swithch in already highly regulated hazmat shipping industry keeps one drunk trucker from putting several tons of poison into a river, it's well worth it.
I would like to see some company morph this technology into a portable desktop PC. With a real USB keybaord and mouse and an easily setup 17" moniter (or even better portable head gear) I have a laptop, but because it's keyboard is too small and touch pad too clunky, I end up bringing my mouse and keyboard with me and if I have access to on, pluging into a real moniter. As far as I'm concerned, I think "Laptops" should be made into a backpack or carry on which hold the periferials.
JFMILLER
The airbag deployment system is no more "actively compiling evedance agenst him[sic]" then is that persons odometer.
When you go to sell a car you don't accuse the auto maker of breaching your privacy by recording how far you drove. Neither, than, should you complain that a divice intended to save your life and ensure safe operations is breaching you privacy by recording your speed.
Airbag deployment is based on how much energy is added to your body, but the only thing that can be mesured is acceleration. To find energe you must integrate over a period of time. The so called "Black Box" simply keeps enough data to be able to make that calculation. This is why you airbag doesnt deploy when you hit the parking curb to spit the favt that it may briefly cause an acceleration greater then 5g's in the car.
JFMILLER
Actually, sence you ask yes. My brother is a automotive tech and while working on my senion project in Physics I got him to give me a couple of used ones (they are always replace after the airbag deploys) hoping to use them as cheep data logers. As it turned out none of the ones I got my hands on could hold enough data to be useful.
I can also say from direct observation of the electronics that as of 2000 none of the 7 I played with could transmit or recieve data except through physical contact.
I will repeat what I told the other AC, there is a possibility that in the future devices migh be installed which would rase privacy issues, but this is not it.
JFMILLER
The AC article is well taken, but off topic. There are two different concepts of what a "black box" is and will be. In regards to the current incarnation, my original statment is correct within an order of magnitude. No Airbag deployment sensor currently in production records more then 12 seconds of data. the vast majority prefering instead to record higher resolution data for approx 1.8 to 3.5 seconds before overwriting it. The purpose of this data is to give the airbag computer some sence of what is going on in the world in the event of a low speed (less than 5g ) crash. It also allows for minimal analysis in the event of airbag deployment.
The referenced artical is intended to be a standard for full, avation like, black boxes to be used in crash post mortems. It would be a compleatly seperate piece of equipment and would in theory give auto makers a much better sence of how there cars faired in the real world. It would also allow the kind of monitering many of slashdot's readers are so scared of.
In short, there is an effort underway to install dedicated black boxes in cars, but story is not about that.
JFMILLER
About this time alternative fuel cars will start to look pretty sweet, right? Why wait? Go buy a ULEV today and laugh as all the rest of us slide down your slippery slope.
JFMILLER
I wonder what happens though if I have an accident once with my car, and then have it repaired. Is the box reset by the car repairman?
Yes. If your airbag deploys the entire system is normally replaced including this sensor/recorder as it is what triggers the new airbag.
from the article:
"The prospect that we're all under constant scrutiny has social effects and legal effects that we haven't even contemplated," said Stephen Keating of the Privacy Foundation at the University of Denver.
This is just plain wrong. The "black box" can only be used if/when the airbag deploys. Under any other circumstances it discards all information every 2 seconds. Even if it was to be removed from a parked car it would only tell the snoop that the car was stopped before it was shut off.
Just to make sure everbody get the point:
Monitering is not constant but only availible after an airbag deploying crash.
JFMILLER
There are two advantages you left out. Both have to do with being able to scale the manufacturing process. As the artical points out (you read the whole thing right?) It is far easier to regulate a relitivle small number of electricity generating plant compaired to the huge number of cars on the road. Instead of every viechial needing a catilitic converter and emission controls computers, there only need to be scrubbers et. al. on the plants. Bottom line big powerplants are more efficient both in turms of energy produce and emmissions per unit then are Internal combustion engines
Second, cars tend to be consentrated where people live. By moving the sorce of polution away from population centers we might be able to see San Francisco from Oakland again.
JFMILLER
this is more of a personal interest, but I think it's relitive to the topic at hand.
I'm learning hebrew in school, and I'm wondering what it takes to be able to type. Do you have a keyboard with the hebrew charicters on it or to you use a keyboard maping (aleph = a, bet = b, gimel=g) ? How (or do you) use vowle points? I guess the big question is could I resonably leard to type hebrew with my standard us keyboard?
JFMILLER
When I was in kindergarten I was taught that sharing was a good thing. My society told me that letting others use a garden hose or a newspaper or a record was not just acceptable but highly valued ethos.
Look now at what corprate culture has done to us. Will preschool teachers now tell there students not to share, but to go buy there own? Imagine on child playing with a doll and another wanting to play with it. Now we must tell the second to When I was in kindergarten I was taught that sharing was a good thing. My society told me that letting others use a garden hose or a newspaper or a record was not just acceptable but highly valued ethos.
Look now at what corporate culture has done to us. Will preschool teachers now tell there students not to share but to go buy there own? Imagine on child playing with a doll and another wanting to play with it. Now we must tell the second to purchase her own doll because sharing is the same as stealing. Imagine you preschool teacher saying to you "If you share that toy with your friend, the toy company will not be able to make money and they will go out of business and then you won't have any toys to play with."
There is a child's parable about a magic penny that when given away doubles. I have found references to this story in literature as far back as the 1870's and as recently as 2002. These types of stories are a reflection of a culture's values. What happens now that we actually have a musical magic penny?
JFMILLER
Speaking as a Voter of San Luis Obispo County who voted in this election, I woul like to clarify that there IS a paper balit which is scaned and recorded. While having the electronic comprimised is a Big problem, there is paper to go back to (for the moment)
As a side note, you can bet I'll be calling the county clerks office tomorrow.
JFMILLER
Notably however a 747 holds more then 10,000 gallons of jet fuel and burns it at a rate of 1219 gallons per minute at full throttle. My point was that if a jet engin worked in the absents atmosphere that there would be more then enough power in any comertial jet to accelerate to orbital speed. the problem ofcourse is that one neesd fuel that will combust in the absents of envriomential O2.
The long and the short of it is 85% of the force needed to put the shuttle into space is spent lifting it out of the atmosphere while only 15% is used to achieve orbital velosity. If aerodynamic forces could be used to get even halfway to orbital altitude it would eliminate the need for a craft like the shuttle to use disposable rocket engins.
JFMILLER
Actually acceleration isn't the problem. It's still being able to accelerate when drag in not a deturmining factor. Most modren jets, in the absents of friction, could get to orbital velosity before hitting the ground, if they got a lift to 100,000ft. the problem is lifting all the fuel and still being able to fly. I believe that a truely reusable lanch viechal will come only when the transition from conventional powered flight to orbital flight is possible. For a start however I still think a 2 stage system where stage 1 is a large plane and stage 2 is rocket is an underapricieated solution.
JFMILLER
You are correct.
For the most part I see this as the perview of the unmaned research division. This is the place for pure reasearch where the hastles of maintaining a maned space program or orbital lanch capibilities can give way to the interests of further technological and scientific development.
Idealy the maned space program will live a couple iterations behind the research in the "Safe Zone" while the Orbitla flight folks will be back one or two more in the "Economy Zone." At the moment NASA must always play in the "Save Zone" because of there primary (self made) commitment to manned space flight.
JFMILLER
Each program should have an independent budget and managment system. This would ensure that Congress could cut or increase funding more spesifically and insulate each probram from desasters in the other.
I know this is not politically realistic but one can dream.
JFMILLER