The question then becomes whether it is more cost effective to use the extra treated water or to create, retrofit for and maintain a complete duplicate water system for non treater water.
Honestly it MIGHT be if we are only going to use desalination, but under just about any other scenario using potable water for all household purposes is going to be less wasteful than the realistic alternatives.
I can see the University taking it down, I wouldn't want to be hosting that either. But as far as the fine goes, what the hell. I really do wonder how that would stand up in court, presumably this is being called some kind of disciplinary measure, but it's a hell of a weird form of academic discipline, and one that I would suspect opens them up to bias accusations (what with limited ability to way and all).
The thing that's been on my mind a lot over the last couple of days is that I've heard numerous accusations over the years that the whole Gulf offshore industry is a health and safety nightmare compared to European (notably North Sea) operations... While we don't know the cause of the explosion yet (and, obviously, North Sea rigs have had explosive accidents) does anyone have any real commentary about Euro vs NA safety, and/or the likelihood of an equivalent type of accident in Europe?
Without speculating on the why or the how of the thing, school districts are chalk full of a particular kind of authoritarian and bureaucratic mindset that does this stuff without consideration of much of anything but immediate control of whatever problem they have at the moment (and more to the point think of that immediate exercise of authority being crucial - they just don't particularly care about the implications even if they are pointed out). The anti lawsuit stuff comes from the poor lawyers who keep having to sort out the messes made; in other words it's two completely separate groups setting those policies and getting the boards sued.
Bear in mind I'm not saying all educators do this, any more than all cops are corrupt, but every school, like every police force, has at least one, and that one makes a hell of a mess for everyone.
Where have you found the bank that does charge backs on request? Mine makes me jump through obnoxious hoops amounting to me demonstrating that I have both disputed the charge where it originated from, AND given the "sufficient" time to respond. Then they do their own bloody investigation, which takes weeks beyond that. Really annoying when the local paper I haven't subscribe to in years decided to restart the subscription, but couldn't find any records of how it happened, or that the charges even existed.
More to the point, it's not part of the European Union, and as such has it's own space program. As such De Winn is the first form the European Space Agency, which imo makes calling him the first European within reason.
Keep in mind that geographically the Asia/Europe division is pretty much arbitrary anyway.
You know, tiered pricing seems fair enough given the realities of wireless technology, but any tiered system has a top tier, and that really, desperately, needs to be unlimited.
One day someone will design a machine that lets the user restore screwed up firmware externally. It really shouldn't be hard, just have something in a physical ROM chip that will load a firmware installer from a USB drive without needing working firmware or system software to do it. Quite frankly it is shameful that this keeps happening, screwed up firmware updates are a pretty obvious failure, and one that should be resolvable without an RTM.
Keep it mind it's not even just consoles that this happens to. I've heard stories of just about every piece of hardware that has firmware doing this at one time or another. For that matter my freaking mobo has a warning on it that screwing up a firmware update will brick the board. Sadly I can only think of one computer that actually DOES allow recovery from corrupted firmware, and that, of all thing, is the Lego RCX (a little 8 bit machine built into a Lego brick that you can build robots with), and I actually wonder in retrospect if what they call firmware was actually just some system software.
We should also have Dragon flying by the end of 2010 if things go as planned, which will amount to another supply ship on par with the ATV, but with payload return capability.
Yes, yes, model rockets are very nice, but lets see you put one in orbit:)
Seriously though, yes, there is, as there has been for the better part of a couple decades, hope. Virgin Galactic will certainly fly, but I'll believe their orbital plans when I see a spacecraft. As for the Space Adventures stuff, its not game changing for the simple reason that the demand is so low at $20 million a ticket that the Soyuz system is entirely able to carry it.
What I really want to see is the manned version of Dragon. I'm taking the cost that SpaceX talks about with a grain of salt ATM, but it is certainly cheaper than other vehicles. Once Dragon flies I expect Bigelow will get some kind of manned platform up, and then we'll have to see what happens./p
The law does allow a vehicle to be built, just not used for salvage. In any case, a vehicle that could do salvage well enough to have any chance of a return would amount to a revolution in cost to orbit, and there are plenty of companies who are or have tried to do that.
We actually might even be pretty close to the technology to do it, but theres a real chicken and egg problem for investors (no demand for orbital flight, but no vehicles that allow the demand to develop), no incentive for the current big players to ruin their current market share (wipe out the conventional launch market overnight), and far too high an entry cost for somebody to build a spaceship in their basement or otherwise appear overnight.
And in 50 years of orbital flight, or 30ish of intensive flight, how many actual collisions have there been? We clearly are at the point it's a concern; what I said is there is no crisis. If we are going to talk economics, we are nowhere near the point that the cost of damage, or even potential damage, outweighs the very marginal benefit of junk collecting missions.
In terms of salvage, no, there really isn't much of value up there even if it were legal. Certainly nothing likely to offer $60+ million payoffs to cover a shuttle flight with any regularity. Even defunct spacecraft are mostly outdated electronics and a not particularly heavy chunk of aluminum.
You've also got to realize that nothing about the shuttle makes it a good platform for any kind of debris control. We would need something that actually is able to operate day in day out, reliably and at short notice. The shuttle does none. Further, it needs EVA ability at less than 6+ hours notice; the Shuttle crews have very long decompression periods to go EVA (ok, a shuttle with Russian suites could get around that). It's also a really damn delicate ship to haul around near debris on a regular basis, as Columbia demonstrated. All in all, I'd argue that some kind of orbital tug, serviced in space, is a much better platform for this sort of stuff when the time does come.
It just not so bad that theres any need for something as expensive as the shuttle yet. No immediate crisis for government action, and certainly no profitability for the private sector.
In any case, the really dangerous stuff is too small to just go out and grab; if you can grab it, you can also detect and avoid it. Add to that that in general it's easier to knock things out of orbit than haul them back (there really isn't that much salvage value in most of the stuff floating around (dead satellites might have SOME value, not a modern day missions worth, and most are in geosynchronous orbits anyway; you'd have an easier time getting the shuttle to the moon as to those orbits).
It does in terms of flight dynamics, and that really what matters. It proves the damn pencil with a weight on the end can actually fly controllably. Ares I-X will tell us if the vibration problem is fixed, and if the vehicle is fundamentally stable. The rest of the issues come down to payload, and from what I here are being sorted out.
It's not so much a test of the Ares vehicle as of the Ares configuration, and it's the configuration that has a lot of people worried.
Agreed; although it might be better to specialize a bit more and use the lower stage shuttle tank derived structure as a base. The Earth Departure Stage is comparable to the S-IVB that we got Skylab out of, but is slightly smaller in terms of usable space as far as I know. There's not really a lot saved in using the smaller EDI stage as a base if the thing is going to be launched already converted to a station.
On the other hand, if we go for a wet workshop (stage is loaded with fuel, burned, then converted to a station once on orbit) Ares V could get us Skylab like station in lunar and martian orbits.
Actually, that all hits on my biggest wish about the Shuttle and ISS; the vehicle had (and still does have actually) every ability to drag the main tank with it to orbit. This could have been used to get a station larger in volume than the ISS, and do it in only one launch. I'll admit that a wet workshop, especially one that big, is hard, but so was the amount of EVA work needed on a modular ISS. Anyway, whats done is done, and theres no time for a tank derived program now, or a need for it with Ares V coming...
Makes sense, the MPLMs are built like modules anyway, and are going to be useless without the shuttle. Leaving at least one on orbit is the best use possible, marginally usable or not.
As for the talk of decommissioning, quite frankly it's not going to happen. It may well get effectively turned over to ESA and the Russians, but giving the station to Russia isn't politically feasible, the Russians aren't going to abandon it any time soon and we can't deorbit the station unilaterally.
Actually, I would not be at all surprised to see the other two launched as permanent modules at some point in the future; having a premade pressure hull does save quite a lot over a new build, and some kind of joint ESA/Russian lab would be a nice replacement for some of the stuff cut by the Russians and the abandoned joint capsule project.
Aside from the predictions and suppositions I have yet to see evidence of the insurmountable problems of Ares I. No, it was not necessary to develop a new vehicle, but at this point why waste the effort to turn around. Just about every launch vehicle and spacecraft ever developed have had weight and payload problem during development, frankly the only thing that seems different about Ares is that the internet has made the whole development process much more visible. I hate to imagine what people would have said if the internet had been around during development of the Apollo LM.
As far the as the design goes, I've never loved it, but there is something to be said with commonality between Ares I and V (and we do need the V for realistic missions beyond Earth orbit). Assuming the I-X mission next month is succesful I think any doubts about the actual workability of flying an SRB solo will be dead. On the Orion front, quite frankly I am, and always have been thrilled. We are correcting the mistakes of the 70s, and getting Apollo back, with modern technology no less. Apollo and Orion are actual spacecraft; designed for SPACE, and able to explore. The shuttle is what happens when an ICBM knocks up an Airbus.
In all seriousness, while the shuttle was an impressive experimental vehicle, as an operational system anything but satellite retrieval could have been done just as well, and usually cheaper, by an enlarged Apollo capsule (read Orion) and unmanned launches of the Saturn V. Satellite retrieval is very impressive, but almost never used, and the experimental side of the program could have been done cheaper and faster with a mini shuttle launched on a conventional vehicle. All of this is moot anyway, since Obama could never survive the political hit of killing American manned spaceflight (the effective outcome of cancelling Orion), so only the Ares I is up for discussion in the real world. At this point we might as well take the vehicle that is being developed, and hope it will, as NASA claims, be operationally cheaper than Delta or Atlas. Switching now would drive up development cost for Orion, throw out the billions in work that has been done on Ares I, and quite possibly damage the badly needed 100+ ton booster (Ares V) program. In the worst case scenario Ares will be a comparable booster to the United Launch Alliance options that wasn't needed, but kept the SRB engineers employed while between cancelling the shuttle and starting up Ares V development.
At my school there's nothing about copyright being handed over (in fact, as to TurnItIn, faculty are enoucraged to use it, but have to make it optional; usually means doing an annoted bibliography if you refuse) but there is a clause that they will consider any submission of previously marked work as plagarism. E.G. if a single paper is valid as course work in more than one course, and you hand it in twice they will consider it plagarized (I think there may be something to the effect that written permission can void this actually, never seen it given though). Not exactly the same thing, and I can see the university having an interest in this not happening, but I find the very idea one could "plagarize" oneself laughable, and the policy is honestly just as insulting as TurnItIn requirements. If a prof really needs new work just put it in the bloody course requirements.
I'm pretty sure that it falls under right to decline business. My understanding (not that involved mind you) is that the rules are basically limited to some fairly obvious racial/gender/etc discrimination that can't happen and anti trust monopoly stuff. As bad as things are, one record label is most definitly not anyone's definition of a monopoly, so it looks to me like they are perfectly within their rights.
Now what would possess them to do it I have no idea.
Well, my top 5 are as follow:
Arcanum:
3d open world (ok, the original game WAS open world) ala Oblivion and Fallout 3. MMO followup. The time is clearly right for a new, GOOD, steampunk game.
X-Com:
Full 3d, turn based remake of the original. Keep the base building, keep the aircraft control and KEEP THE DESTRUCTIBILITY. Needs random map generation. I'd also love to see Rainbow Six: Vegas and a Full Spectrum Warrior like spinoffs too. Hell, even interceptor was a good idea, it just should have been the interceptors from the original game, and integrated into the game.
Red Baron:
Ok, no real reason to save the franchise, but a modern WWI flight sim would be incredible.
Elite:
Reboot, remake and combine the three games. Keep the realistic physics. Add an MMO sequel as EVE done right.
SimCity:
Ok,d oesn't really make sense, but the series has had real directional problems since 3000, and been going downhill noticably since 4. The game that shall go unmentioned killed the franchise in it's current form. City Life and XL just aren't cutting it. A serious attempt at a city simulator is needed; hell with modern tech it could zoom out to a national level. OTOH maybe I should do it myself, being a planning major.
But, seriously, Max Payne:
Well, alright, finish the trilogy first, but then we need the first game updated. Ideally I'd like to see a finished trilogy packaged together, all using the same engine and comparable resources.
Notice one consistent theme here?
THEY ARE ALL PC ORIENTED BIG BUDGET TITLES!!!!!!!!!!!!
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The question then becomes whether it is more cost effective to use the extra treated water or to create, retrofit for and maintain a complete duplicate water system for non treater water. Honestly it MIGHT be if we are only going to use desalination, but under just about any other scenario using potable water for all household purposes is going to be less wasteful than the realistic alternatives.
RTFA Seriously, the label has a second part, claiming all rights reserved, etc etc, no part of this work may be reproduced in any manner, etc etc.
I can see the University taking it down, I wouldn't want to be hosting that either. But as far as the fine goes, what the hell. I really do wonder how that would stand up in court, presumably this is being called some kind of disciplinary measure, but it's a hell of a weird form of academic discipline, and one that I would suspect opens them up to bias accusations (what with limited ability to way and all).
The thing that's been on my mind a lot over the last couple of days is that I've heard numerous accusations over the years that the whole Gulf offshore industry is a health and safety nightmare compared to European (notably North Sea) operations... While we don't know the cause of the explosion yet (and, obviously, North Sea rigs have had explosive accidents) does anyone have any real commentary about Euro vs NA safety, and/or the likelihood of an equivalent type of accident in Europe?
Without speculating on the why or the how of the thing, school districts are chalk full of a particular kind of authoritarian and bureaucratic mindset that does this stuff without consideration of much of anything but immediate control of whatever problem they have at the moment (and more to the point think of that immediate exercise of authority being crucial - they just don't particularly care about the implications even if they are pointed out). The anti lawsuit stuff comes from the poor lawyers who keep having to sort out the messes made; in other words it's two completely separate groups setting those policies and getting the boards sued. Bear in mind I'm not saying all educators do this, any more than all cops are corrupt, but every school, like every police force, has at least one, and that one makes a hell of a mess for everyone.
Where have you found the bank that does charge backs on request? Mine makes me jump through obnoxious hoops amounting to me demonstrating that I have both disputed the charge where it originated from, AND given the "sufficient" time to respond. Then they do their own bloody investigation, which takes weeks beyond that. Really annoying when the local paper I haven't subscribe to in years decided to restart the subscription, but couldn't find any records of how it happened, or that the charges even existed.
Except that NewEgg didn't send any cease and desists. They were sent by the distributor who shipped the units.
Technically true, but for most purposes it's reasonable to describe it as the EU's space program.
More to the point, it's not part of the European Union, and as such has it's own space program. As such De Winn is the first form the European Space Agency, which imo makes calling him the first European within reason. Keep in mind that geographically the Asia/Europe division is pretty much arbitrary anyway.
You know, tiered pricing seems fair enough given the realities of wireless technology, but any tiered system has a top tier, and that really, desperately, needs to be unlimited.
One day someone will design a machine that lets the user restore screwed up firmware externally. It really shouldn't be hard, just have something in a physical ROM chip that will load a firmware installer from a USB drive without needing working firmware or system software to do it. Quite frankly it is shameful that this keeps happening, screwed up firmware updates are a pretty obvious failure, and one that should be resolvable without an RTM. Keep it mind it's not even just consoles that this happens to. I've heard stories of just about every piece of hardware that has firmware doing this at one time or another. For that matter my freaking mobo has a warning on it that screwing up a firmware update will brick the board. Sadly I can only think of one computer that actually DOES allow recovery from corrupted firmware, and that, of all thing, is the Lego RCX (a little 8 bit machine built into a Lego brick that you can build robots with), and I actually wonder in retrospect if what they call firmware was actually just some system software.
We should also have Dragon flying by the end of 2010 if things go as planned, which will amount to another supply ship on par with the ATV, but with payload return capability.
Yes, yes, model rockets are very nice, but lets see you put one in orbit :)
Seriously though, yes, there is, as there has been for the better part of a couple decades, hope. Virgin Galactic will certainly fly, but I'll believe their orbital plans when I see a spacecraft. As for the Space Adventures stuff, its not game changing for the simple reason that the demand is so low at $20 million a ticket that the Soyuz system is entirely able to carry it.
What I really want to see is the manned version of Dragon. I'm taking the cost that SpaceX talks about with a grain of salt ATM, but it is certainly cheaper than other vehicles. Once Dragon flies I expect Bigelow will get some kind of manned platform up, and then we'll have to see what happens./p
The law does allow a vehicle to be built, just not used for salvage. In any case, a vehicle that could do salvage well enough to have any chance of a return would amount to a revolution in cost to orbit, and there are plenty of companies who are or have tried to do that.
We actually might even be pretty close to the technology to do it, but theres a real chicken and egg problem for investors (no demand for orbital flight, but no vehicles that allow the demand to develop), no incentive for the current big players to ruin their current market share (wipe out the conventional launch market overnight), and far too high an entry cost for somebody to build a spaceship in their basement or otherwise appear overnight.
And in 50 years of orbital flight, or 30ish of intensive flight, how many actual collisions have there been? We clearly are at the point it's a concern; what I said is there is no crisis. If we are going to talk economics, we are nowhere near the point that the cost of damage, or even potential damage, outweighs the very marginal benefit of junk collecting missions.
In terms of salvage, no, there really isn't much of value up there even if it were legal. Certainly nothing likely to offer $60+ million payoffs to cover a shuttle flight with any regularity. Even defunct spacecraft are mostly outdated electronics and a not particularly heavy chunk of aluminum.
You've also got to realize that nothing about the shuttle makes it a good platform for any kind of debris control. We would need something that actually is able to operate day in day out, reliably and at short notice. The shuttle does none. Further, it needs EVA ability at less than 6+ hours notice; the Shuttle crews have very long decompression periods to go EVA (ok, a shuttle with Russian suites could get around that). It's also a really damn delicate ship to haul around near debris on a regular basis, as Columbia demonstrated. All in all, I'd argue that some kind of orbital tug, serviced in space, is a much better platform for this sort of stuff when the time does come.
It just not so bad that theres any need for something as expensive as the shuttle yet. No immediate crisis for government action, and certainly no profitability for the private sector.
In any case, the really dangerous stuff is too small to just go out and grab; if you can grab it, you can also detect and avoid it. Add to that that in general it's easier to knock things out of orbit than haul them back (there really isn't that much salvage value in most of the stuff floating around (dead satellites might have SOME value, not a modern day missions worth, and most are in geosynchronous orbits anyway; you'd have an easier time getting the shuttle to the moon as to those orbits).
It does in terms of flight dynamics, and that really what matters. It proves the damn pencil with a weight on the end can actually fly controllably. Ares I-X will tell us if the vibration problem is fixed, and if the vehicle is fundamentally stable. The rest of the issues come down to payload, and from what I here are being sorted out. It's not so much a test of the Ares vehicle as of the Ares configuration, and it's the configuration that has a lot of people worried.
Agreed; although it might be better to specialize a bit more and use the lower stage shuttle tank derived structure as a base. The Earth Departure Stage is comparable to the S-IVB that we got Skylab out of, but is slightly smaller in terms of usable space as far as I know. There's not really a lot saved in using the smaller EDI stage as a base if the thing is going to be launched already converted to a station. On the other hand, if we go for a wet workshop (stage is loaded with fuel, burned, then converted to a station once on orbit) Ares V could get us Skylab like station in lunar and martian orbits. Actually, that all hits on my biggest wish about the Shuttle and ISS; the vehicle had (and still does have actually) every ability to drag the main tank with it to orbit. This could have been used to get a station larger in volume than the ISS, and do it in only one launch. I'll admit that a wet workshop, especially one that big, is hard, but so was the amount of EVA work needed on a modular ISS. Anyway, whats done is done, and theres no time for a tank derived program now, or a need for it with Ares V coming...
Makes sense, the MPLMs are built like modules anyway, and are going to be useless without the shuttle. Leaving at least one on orbit is the best use possible, marginally usable or not. As for the talk of decommissioning, quite frankly it's not going to happen. It may well get effectively turned over to ESA and the Russians, but giving the station to Russia isn't politically feasible, the Russians aren't going to abandon it any time soon and we can't deorbit the station unilaterally. Actually, I would not be at all surprised to see the other two launched as permanent modules at some point in the future; having a premade pressure hull does save quite a lot over a new build, and some kind of joint ESA/Russian lab would be a nice replacement for some of the stuff cut by the Russians and the abandoned joint capsule project.
Aside from the predictions and suppositions I have yet to see evidence of the insurmountable problems of Ares I. No, it was not necessary to develop a new vehicle, but at this point why waste the effort to turn around. Just about every launch vehicle and spacecraft ever developed have had weight and payload problem during development, frankly the only thing that seems different about Ares is that the internet has made the whole development process much more visible. I hate to imagine what people would have said if the internet had been around during development of the Apollo LM. As far the as the design goes, I've never loved it, but there is something to be said with commonality between Ares I and V (and we do need the V for realistic missions beyond Earth orbit). Assuming the I-X mission next month is succesful I think any doubts about the actual workability of flying an SRB solo will be dead. On the Orion front, quite frankly I am, and always have been thrilled. We are correcting the mistakes of the 70s, and getting Apollo back, with modern technology no less. Apollo and Orion are actual spacecraft; designed for SPACE, and able to explore. The shuttle is what happens when an ICBM knocks up an Airbus. In all seriousness, while the shuttle was an impressive experimental vehicle, as an operational system anything but satellite retrieval could have been done just as well, and usually cheaper, by an enlarged Apollo capsule (read Orion) and unmanned launches of the Saturn V. Satellite retrieval is very impressive, but almost never used, and the experimental side of the program could have been done cheaper and faster with a mini shuttle launched on a conventional vehicle. All of this is moot anyway, since Obama could never survive the political hit of killing American manned spaceflight (the effective outcome of cancelling Orion), so only the Ares I is up for discussion in the real world. At this point we might as well take the vehicle that is being developed, and hope it will, as NASA claims, be operationally cheaper than Delta or Atlas. Switching now would drive up development cost for Orion, throw out the billions in work that has been done on Ares I, and quite possibly damage the badly needed 100+ ton booster (Ares V) program. In the worst case scenario Ares will be a comparable booster to the United Launch Alliance options that wasn't needed, but kept the SRB engineers employed while between cancelling the shuttle and starting up Ares V development.
At my school there's nothing about copyright being handed over (in fact, as to TurnItIn, faculty are enoucraged to use it, but have to make it optional; usually means doing an annoted bibliography if you refuse) but there is a clause that they will consider any submission of previously marked work as plagarism. E.G. if a single paper is valid as course work in more than one course, and you hand it in twice they will consider it plagarized (I think there may be something to the effect that written permission can void this actually, never seen it given though). Not exactly the same thing, and I can see the university having an interest in this not happening, but I find the very idea one could "plagarize" oneself laughable, and the policy is honestly just as insulting as TurnItIn requirements. If a prof really needs new work just put it in the bloody course requirements.
I'm pretty sure that it falls under right to decline business. My understanding (not that involved mind you) is that the rules are basically limited to some fairly obvious racial/gender/etc discrimination that can't happen and anti trust monopoly stuff. As bad as things are, one record label is most definitly not anyone's definition of a monopoly, so it looks to me like they are perfectly within their rights. Now what would possess them to do it I have no idea.
Well, my top 5 are as follow: Arcanum: 3d open world (ok, the original game WAS open world) ala Oblivion and Fallout 3. MMO followup. The time is clearly right for a new, GOOD, steampunk game. X-Com: Full 3d, turn based remake of the original. Keep the base building, keep the aircraft control and KEEP THE DESTRUCTIBILITY. Needs random map generation. I'd also love to see Rainbow Six: Vegas and a Full Spectrum Warrior like spinoffs too. Hell, even interceptor was a good idea, it just should have been the interceptors from the original game, and integrated into the game. Red Baron: Ok, no real reason to save the franchise, but a modern WWI flight sim would be incredible. Elite: Reboot, remake and combine the three games. Keep the realistic physics. Add an MMO sequel as EVE done right. SimCity: Ok,d oesn't really make sense, but the series has had real directional problems since 3000, and been going downhill noticably since 4. The game that shall go unmentioned killed the franchise in it's current form. City Life and XL just aren't cutting it. A serious attempt at a city simulator is needed; hell with modern tech it could zoom out to a national level. OTOH maybe I should do it myself, being a planning major. But, seriously, Max Payne: Well, alright, finish the trilogy first, but then we need the first game updated. Ideally I'd like to see a finished trilogy packaged together, all using the same engine and comparable resources. Notice one consistent theme here? THEY ARE ALL PC ORIENTED BIG BUDGET TITLES!!!!!!!!!!!!
A modern WWI sim... *drools* There is a new Battle of Britain era game supposedly coming from the IL2 team.
Again, I don't want a reboot per se, just a straight, from the ground up, remake of the first 3 Wing Commanders.