> Latency to LEO isn't more than about 300ms (I remember that Sattelite internet access has at least a 250ms latency, and IIRC the sats for that are higher up.
All NASA comms for this misison will go through TDRS. The major delay for TDRS comms isn't the radio waves, it's the processing on each end. Through TDRS, the communications delay is on the order of 2-3 seconds.
> I mean, it's not nearly as nifty, but it's also pretty fool-proof compared to sending up an AI.
Actually if you read closely O'Keefe specifically says they aren't looking at autonomous approaches (except for the docking). During HST servicing everything is going to be teleoperated. There's no way HST could be serviced autonomously, the technology isn't there yet.
I think it's important to look at exactly how much money we're talking here. I know this was a European roject, but I'm familiar with NASA's budget so I'm going to reference that.
A probe like this one is going to cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Let's say $500 million.
Nasa's yearly budget is $15 billion.
Seems like a lot of money. But then consider that the entire US budget is approximately $1.8 trillion. NASA's entire budget is a measly 0.7% of that. And this probe, if NASA were doing it, would therefore be... 0.03% of the federal budget.
We spend 50% of the federal budget on social programs. Adding another 0.03% isn't going to change anything. Heck, we lose more than 0.03% of the federal to lost productivity from people reading slashdot too much.
You are correct, the unknown atmospheric conditions would make it a challenge. I don't know what kind of entry system they have in mind; using a retrorocket (ala the lunar lander and the Viking Mars probes) would be less susceptible to atmospheric conditions that using parachutes and airbags.
I believe the ice is thought to be tens of kilometers thick. You are correct, nobody knows for sure. The plan would haave to be for the maximum end of the range.
The signal would be transmitted back by leaving an antenna on the surface and unreeling a line to it as the probe sinks through the ice.
And the other posters are right -- Jupiter emits far more radiation than any probe would. So any extra radiation the probe might add shouldn't affect any life that might be present there.
That'd be great, but every time they try it they get the anti-nuclear fanatics out in droves to protest the launch. See, for instance,
http://www.seds.org/spaceviews/cassini/rtgpages. ht ml
for information about the *huge* protests surrounding Cassini, the last spacecraft NASA launched that used RTGs (radioisotope thermoelectric generators).
We usually have scuba divers go in with the robots, for a variety of reasons. Often we're testing how to use humans and robots together, so we need divers as test subjects. Also, it's difficult to get high bandwidth comm underwater, so we run fiberoptic cables to the robots, and the cables tend to get tangled on stuff and you need divers to tend them. And with the big robots, we put them in a take them out with an overhead crane, and you need divers in the water just to hook and unhook the lift straps. Plus we want a diver available to retrieve a robot if it fails for some reason.
It's a lot easier to get hypothermic when diving than when swimming because mostly you're just sitting there watching the robots. Consequently, you need either warm water or a wetsuit. And our lab director doesn't like diving with a wetsuit. It turns out the 90 degree water has approximately the same thermal conductivity properties as 70 degree air, so it feels like room temperature. That's why we keep it that warm.
I work at a neutral buoyancy facility at the University of Maryland -- neutral buoyancy is how NASA trains astronauts to perform EVAs. It uses water to simulate weightlessness. Instead of training astronauts, we design robots to repair broken satellites and to assist astronauts on orbit. As a consequence, we put quite a few computers in very moist environments, and they actually get doused from time to time. The environment isn't salty, but it is highly chlorinated and really warm (the water is kept at around 90 degrees, for reasons I won't get into).
We tend to use embedded machines - PC/104, CompactPCI, etc. These systems are essentially the same technology as desktop machines, the same processors, memory, etc, but have a smaller footprint and tend to use less power. They are remarkably robust. We've had CPU boards that are actually flooded, with the power on. You turn everything off, douse it with WD-40 to dry it out (WD-40 was originally developed to prevent water-based corrosion in electronics, *not* as a lubricant), let it sit for 24 hours, and more often than not it's just fine.
The lesson from this I think is that unless the machine is going to be actually in the spray from the boat, you're going to be okay with a quality out-of-the-box desktop machine. Put one of those rubber membranes over the keyboard - keyboards do tend to die when they get wet. If the machine gets significantly wet, dry it out and maybe hit it with WD-40 or some other water repellant. Other than that don't worry about it.
I had the exact same problem. Luckily I had a friend who helped me figure something out:
(Nearly) everybody learns to drive. In the beginning it's really exciting and a lot of kids do it just for fun. But eventually the novelty wears off and instead you start driving to get to places you want to go.
You've just proven you're a good driver. Now ask yourself: where do I want to go?
For me, that place was space exploration. After getting my CS degree I went to grad school in aerospace engineering, and I'm about to graduate with my PhD. I still write a whole lot of code, but now it's code to help spacecraft find their way around on other planets. I smile to myself every morning when I get to work because I love what I do. And having the CS degree has made me *very* valuable, since most aero engineers can't code worth crap.
Find a field you're passionate about. Do whatever it takes to get into that field, and then apply your hard won CS skills there. Unless you really love the process of coding, don't go to work pounding out somebody else's database code no matter how well it pays.
> If I want to configure my printer to work with RedHat 7, I:
> Su to root.
> Start up printtool
> Click the Add button
> Choose the printer make/model
> Check the "Fix Stair-stepping text" button
> Click OK.
> Choose the "Lpd | Restart lpd" menu option
And that's (way) too hard for the average user. I had an original NeXT. Here's what you did to add a printer:
1) Plug printer into printer port
and that's it. To add a hard drive, it was harder:
1) Plug hard drive into SCSI port
2) Turn hard drive on
3) Wait for OS to format hard drive
Admittedly they got away with the printer install because the hardware was a closed platform. Nevertheless, that's the ease of use the average user needs. And it's what Linux needs to do. No "fix stair-stepping". No "su root". Nothing. Nada. Plug it in, turn it on, and it works.
You are somewhat correct about the role of SLC in the westward migration; but the permanent nonMormon population was rather small (maybe 1 or 2 percent -- that's a guess), and didn't contact the Mormon population all that much. Those who passed through did exactly that -- they passed through. Also, the majority of Mormons at the time didn't live in SLC. They lived in Logan, or Provo, or Kanab, or even more isolated places, and didn't really see anybody much. In addition, the army was stationed at the far southern end of the Salt Lake Valley -- 30 miles from the city itself -- and was basically ordered not to have any contact with the population. A nonmormon population of a few hundred (thousand?), plus an isolated army post, plus a couple of thousand people a week stopping by to buy supplies does not an integrated community make.
Now, about Mormon persecution. I never said that Joseph Smith was perfect. Yes, I know he was mayor of Nauvoo, and he had more power than most mayors of the time. Yes, I know he was a polygamist. I also know the sordid history of the burning of the Expositor. And, yes, he was both imprisoned and killed at Carthage.
I did not intend to defend Joseph Smith, nor was I talking about his death -- I was referring to the persecution of the body of the mormon church. They were, in fact, forced out of their homes in New York at gunpoint. They went to Ohio. They were again forced out by violence. Then they went to Missouri, where not only were they forced out but several hundred were actually killed by mobs. All of those actions occurred *before* polygamy was introduced and *before* the burning of the Expositor. Then they went to Illinois, where they were forced out one final time by mob violence. Again, several hundred, including women and children, were killed.
So. Maybe Joseph's actions weren't legal. Certainly some of them weren't wise. But were his actions adequate cause to force an entire population from their homes, killing and raping in the process? *No.*
Revisionist or not, some facts are indisputable; that hundreds of Mormons were killed, including women and children, is one. That tens of thousands of Mormons were forced from their homes by mobs is another.
Finally, Jospeh had not sent anybody farther west that Missouri before he was killed. He may or may not have discussed going farther west -- the records are unclear because they consist mainly of personal journals. Heading for Utah was strictly Brigham Young's idea.
That's my point. Of course the Mormons who were persecuted aren't there anymore. The point is that the attitudes that the original generation came by honestly are passed down to the next generation.
In this case, the attitudes in question are isolationism and insularity. The current generation of Utahns (including the church leadership) aren't isolated, but they were raised by parents who were. It isn't so easy for most people to adopt radically different viewpoints from their parents; it has to be a gradual thing.
As a side point, the world view of the current leadership isn't really much distorted when compared to, say, evangelical Christians or other devoted religious groups. I think it's the other way around -- it's the "common" Utahns and the local leadership who cause the repression more than the guys at the top.
Unfortunately, most of the people posting have no understanding of the historical reasons why Utah is as messed up as it is.
I'm mormon. I think for myself, thank you very much. I lived in Utah for six years, and I'm never goin' back. I found it to be just as closed-minded as most of you. But you can't blame Mormons, the Mormon church, or a homogenous culture in general for Utah's problems.
After the LDS church was founded in 1832, most people who joined were ostracized from their communities and often were disowned from their families. Mormons were driven out of New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. Men, women, and children were murdered in cold blood. When they were forced out of Illinois by mob violence, it happened in the middle of a winter night. Finally the body of the church went to Utah because at the time (1846) it was such a godforsaken place that nobody else wanted it, and they figured they could live in peace there. And that's (mostly) what happened for the next hundred years. It's only been since about the 1950's that anybody who wasn't Mormon had any reason to even visit Utah, much less move there.
So. Utah has been "integrated" for about fifty years. Unfortunately, it takes a culture longer than that to correct it's problems How long did it take for white and black people to peacefully coexists? About a hundred years, and we still have major problems. It'll take Utah about that long to adjust as well.
So: I don't blame anybody for not liking Utah, or for having a negative impression about Mormons who live there. But before you judge, remember that hateful, closeminded people made Utah, and those people weren't the Mormons who went there.
There's two problems with the idea of building many identical probes and sending them all to Mars. First, accidents like those with the Polar Lander aren't independent. If one fails, it's highly likely that all of them will fail. What really needs to happen is that you build one, launch it, and if it doesn't work you modify it. And, in fact, that is what NASA's doing. All off the proposed Mars probes that are going to be built in the next 15 years are so are closely related. Second, unlike (say) Yugos, launch costs, support costs, and manufacturing costs are a big percentage of the total costs of the current generation of space probes. Consider that it probably cost about $35 million just to push the big red button on the launch vehicle that sent Polar Lander on it's way. That's 1/4 of the total budget. It probably costs on that same order to build the thing. Remember that it has to be constructed very painstakingly in a class 1000 cleanroom -- at least -- and then completely thermally tested and vibration tested, and then sanitized and kept sanitized all the way to Mars. Plus the costs of buying space-rated hardware is very high because there's no economy of scale for this stuff (and no, building more Mars probes isn't going to change that). Plus you have to pay all of the guys who guide the thing all the way through to the end of the mission. That millions of dollars more. The bottom line is that unlike most consumer items, the R&D costs of a space probe does not constitute the majority of the cost to perform a mission.
In fact, it's standard practice in the cattle industry. It's not even experimental -- big growers do it on a regular basis. It's also, I'm told, the way lab rats are produced. The only things that's different about this is that it was a primate. That's important because it can provide rtesearchers with genetically identical subjects. But as far as cloning technology is concerned, it's _way_ old news.
Slashdot Mirror
> Latency to LEO isn't more than about 300ms (I remember that Sattelite internet access has at least a 250ms latency, and IIRC the sats for that are higher up.
All NASA comms for this misison will go through TDRS. The major delay for TDRS comms isn't the radio waves, it's the processing on each end. Through TDRS, the communications delay is on the order of 2-3 seconds.
> I mean, it's not nearly as nifty, but it's also pretty fool-proof compared to sending up an AI.
Actually if you read closely O'Keefe specifically says they aren't looking at autonomous approaches (except for the docking). During HST servicing everything is going to be teleoperated. There's no way HST could be serviced autonomously, the technology isn't there yet.
I think it's important to look at exactly how much money we're talking here. I know this was a European roject, but I'm familiar with NASA's budget so I'm going to reference that.
A probe like this one is going to cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Let's say $500 million.
Nasa's yearly budget is $15 billion.
Seems like a lot of money. But then consider that the entire US budget is approximately $1.8 trillion. NASA's entire budget is a measly 0.7% of that. And this probe, if NASA were doing it, would therefore be... 0.03% of the federal budget.
We spend 50% of the federal budget on social programs. Adding another 0.03% isn't going to change anything. Heck, we lose more than 0.03% of the federal to lost productivity from people reading slashdot too much.
You are correct, the unknown atmospheric conditions would make it a challenge. I don't know what kind of entry system they have in mind; using a retrorocket (ala the lunar lander and the Viking Mars probes) would be less susceptible to atmospheric conditions that using parachutes and airbags.
I believe the ice is thought to be tens of kilometers thick. You are correct, nobody knows for sure. The plan would haave to be for the maximum end of the range.
The signal would be transmitted back by leaving an antenna on the surface and unreeling a line to it as the probe sinks through the ice.
And the other posters are right -- Jupiter emits far more radiation than any probe would. So any extra radiation the probe might add shouldn't affect any life that might be present there.
That'd be great, but every time they try it they get the anti-nuclear fanatics out in droves to protest the launch. See, for instance,
. ht ml
http://www.seds.org/spaceviews/cassini/rtgpages
for information about the *huge* protests surrounding Cassini, the last spacecraft NASA launched that used RTGs (radioisotope thermoelectric generators).
We usually have scuba divers go in with the robots, for a variety of reasons. Often we're testing how to use humans and robots together, so we need divers as test subjects. Also, it's difficult to get high bandwidth comm underwater, so we run fiberoptic cables to the robots, and the cables tend to get tangled on stuff and you need divers to tend them. And with the big robots, we put them in a take them out with an overhead crane, and you need divers in the water just to hook and unhook the lift straps. Plus we want a diver available to retrieve a robot if it fails for some reason.
It's a lot easier to get hypothermic when diving than when swimming because mostly you're just sitting there watching the robots. Consequently, you need either warm water or a wetsuit. And our lab director doesn't like diving with a wetsuit. It turns out the 90 degree water has approximately the same thermal conductivity properties as 70 degree air, so it feels like room temperature. That's why we keep it that warm.
I work at a neutral buoyancy facility at the University of Maryland -- neutral buoyancy is how NASA trains astronauts to perform EVAs. It uses water to simulate weightlessness. Instead of training astronauts, we design robots to repair broken satellites and to assist astronauts on orbit. As a consequence, we put quite a few computers in very moist environments, and they actually get doused from time to time. The environment isn't salty, but it is highly chlorinated and really warm (the water is kept at around 90 degrees, for reasons I won't get into).
We tend to use embedded machines - PC/104, CompactPCI, etc. These systems are essentially the same technology as desktop machines, the same processors, memory, etc, but have a smaller footprint and tend to use less power. They are remarkably robust. We've had CPU boards that are actually flooded, with the power on. You turn everything off, douse it with WD-40 to dry it out (WD-40 was originally developed to prevent water-based corrosion in electronics, *not* as a lubricant), let it sit for 24 hours, and more often than not it's just fine.
The lesson from this I think is that unless the machine is going to be actually in the spray from the boat, you're going to be okay with a quality out-of-the-box desktop machine. Put one of those rubber membranes over the keyboard - keyboards do tend to die when they get wet. If the machine gets significantly wet, dry it out and maybe hit it with WD-40 or some other water repellant. Other than that don't worry about it.
I had the exact same problem. Luckily I had a friend who helped me figure something out:
(Nearly) everybody learns to drive. In the beginning it's really exciting and a lot of kids do it just for fun. But eventually the novelty wears off and instead you start driving to get to places you want to go.
You've just proven you're a good driver. Now ask yourself: where do I want to go?
For me, that place was space exploration. After getting my CS degree I went to grad school in aerospace engineering, and I'm about to graduate with my PhD. I still write a whole lot of code, but now it's code to help spacecraft find their way around on other planets. I smile to myself every morning when I get to work because I love what I do. And having the CS degree has made me *very* valuable, since most aero engineers can't code worth crap.
Find a field you're passionate about. Do whatever it takes to get into that field, and then apply your hard won CS skills there. Unless you really love the process of coding, don't go to work pounding out somebody else's database code no matter how well it pays.
> If I want to configure my printer to work with RedHat 7, I:
> Su to root.
> Start up printtool
> Click the Add button
> Choose the printer make/model
> Check the "Fix Stair-stepping text" button
> Click OK.
> Choose the "Lpd | Restart lpd" menu option
And that's (way) too hard for the average user. I had an original NeXT. Here's what you did to add a printer:
1) Plug printer into printer port
and that's it. To add a hard drive, it was harder:
1) Plug hard drive into SCSI port
2) Turn hard drive on
3) Wait for OS to format hard drive
Admittedly they got away with the printer install because the hardware was a closed platform. Nevertheless, that's the ease of use the average user needs. And it's what Linux needs to do. No "fix stair-stepping". No "su root". Nothing. Nada. Plug it in, turn it on, and it works.
You are somewhat correct about the role of SLC in the westward migration; but the permanent nonMormon population was rather small (maybe 1 or 2 percent -- that's a guess), and didn't contact the Mormon population all that much. Those who passed through did exactly that -- they passed through. Also, the majority of Mormons at the time didn't live in SLC. They lived in Logan, or Provo, or Kanab, or even more isolated places, and didn't really see anybody much. In addition, the army was stationed at the far southern end of the Salt Lake Valley -- 30 miles from the city itself -- and was basically ordered not to have any contact with the population.
A nonmormon population of a few hundred (thousand?), plus an isolated army post, plus a couple of thousand people a week stopping by to buy supplies does not an integrated community make.
Now, about Mormon persecution. I never said that Joseph Smith was perfect. Yes, I know he was mayor of Nauvoo, and he had more power than most mayors of the time. Yes, I know he was a polygamist. I also know the sordid history of the burning of the Expositor. And, yes, he was both imprisoned and killed at Carthage.
I did not intend to defend Joseph Smith, nor was I talking about his death -- I was referring to the persecution of the body of the mormon church. They were, in fact, forced out of their homes in New York at gunpoint. They went to Ohio. They were again forced out by violence. Then they went to Missouri, where not only were they forced out but several hundred were actually killed by mobs. All of those actions occurred *before* polygamy was introduced and *before* the burning of the Expositor. Then they went to Illinois, where they were forced out one final time by mob violence. Again, several hundred, including women and children, were killed.
So. Maybe Joseph's actions weren't legal. Certainly some of them weren't wise. But were his actions adequate cause to force an entire population from their homes, killing and raping in the process? *No.*
Revisionist or not, some facts are indisputable; that hundreds of Mormons were killed, including women and children, is one. That tens of thousands of Mormons were forced from their homes by mobs is another.
Finally, Jospeh had not sent anybody farther west that Missouri before he was killed. He may or may not have discussed going farther west -- the records are unclear because they consist mainly of personal journals. Heading for Utah was strictly Brigham Young's idea.
That's my point. Of course the Mormons who were persecuted aren't there anymore. The point is that the attitudes that the original generation came by honestly are passed down to the next generation.
In this case, the attitudes in question are isolationism and insularity. The current generation of Utahns (including the church leadership) aren't isolated, but they were raised by parents who were. It isn't so easy for most people to adopt radically different viewpoints from their parents; it has to be a gradual thing.
As a side point, the world view of the current leadership isn't really much distorted when compared to, say, evangelical Christians or other devoted religious groups. I think it's the other way around -- it's the "common" Utahns and the local leadership who cause the repression more than the guys at the top.
Unfortunately, most of the people posting have no understanding of the historical reasons why Utah is as messed up as it is.
I'm mormon. I think for myself, thank you very much. I lived in Utah for six years, and I'm never goin' back. I found it to be just as closed-minded as most of you. But you can't blame Mormons, the Mormon church, or a homogenous culture in general for Utah's problems.
After the LDS church was founded in 1832, most people who joined were ostracized from their communities and often were disowned from their families. Mormons were driven out of New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. Men, women, and children were murdered in cold blood. When they were forced out of Illinois by mob violence, it happened in the middle of a winter night. Finally the body of the church went to Utah because at the time (1846) it was such a godforsaken place that nobody else wanted it, and they figured they could live in peace there. And that's (mostly) what happened for the next hundred years. It's only been since about the 1950's that anybody who wasn't Mormon had any reason to even visit Utah, much less move there.
So. Utah has been "integrated" for about fifty years. Unfortunately, it takes a culture longer than that to correct it's problems How long did it take for white and black people to peacefully coexists? About a hundred years, and we still have major problems. It'll take Utah about that long to adjust as well.
So: I don't blame anybody for not liking Utah, or for having a negative impression about Mormons who live there. But before you judge, remember that hateful, closeminded people made Utah, and those people weren't the Mormons who went there.
There's two problems with the idea of building many identical probes and sending them all to Mars. First, accidents like those with the Polar Lander aren't independent. If one fails, it's highly likely that all of them will fail. What really needs to happen is that you build one, launch it, and if it doesn't work you modify it. And, in fact, that is what NASA's doing. All off the proposed Mars probes that are going to be built in the next 15 years are so are closely related. Second, unlike (say) Yugos, launch costs, support costs, and manufacturing costs are a big percentage of the total costs of the current generation of space probes. Consider that it probably cost about $35 million just to push the big red button on the launch vehicle that sent Polar Lander on it's way. That's 1/4 of the total budget. It probably costs on that same order to build the thing. Remember that it has to be constructed very painstakingly in a class 1000 cleanroom -- at least -- and then completely thermally tested and vibration tested, and then sanitized and kept sanitized all the way to Mars. Plus the costs of buying space-rated hardware is very high because there's no economy of scale for this stuff (and no, building more Mars probes isn't going to change that). Plus you have to pay all of the guys who guide the thing all the way through to the end of the mission. That millions of dollars more. The bottom line is that unlike most consumer items, the R&D costs of a space probe does not constitute the majority of the cost to perform a mission.
In fact, it's standard practice in the cattle industry. It's not even experimental -- big growers do it on a regular basis. It's also, I'm told, the way lab rats are produced. The only things that's different about this is that it was a primate. That's important because it can provide rtesearchers with genetically identical subjects. But as far as cloning technology is concerned, it's _way_ old news.