The problem lies in defining "political organization" and "contribution"...
Those would be whatever the relevant legislation says they are.
At a minimum, I'd include any elected official at any level; any agency of any government; anyone employed by, financially affiliated with, or related to, any elected official or government agency; any registered lobbyists and anyone employed by, financially affiliated with, or related to a lobbyists; ditto for public service organizations,....
You get the drift.
Using your example, Fox isn't contributing to your blog because you made them aware of it. An argument could be made that, if you tend to the blog on company time, they do, in fact, help support it. And, no, by my standards Fox is not a political organization. But, they can certainly engage in political activity. E.g., by lobbying for favorable legislation. So, if they give you $100k to write favorably about a piece of legislation they want, they ought to be obligated to disclose that. You, in essence, have become a paid lobbyist for Fox. (It is, in fact, the under-the-table payments that ought to be eliminated.)
The danger is not so much a blog "set up by a political organization" but one with an already established readership. If the author of that blog is paid by a political organization to slant his or her posts on a subject, readers who trust that blog need to know that.
This is particularly true since many people claim to get most of their news from blogs. (That strikes me as rather like getting all your news from the editorial pages, letters to the editor, and advertisements.) Add to that the tendency of people to continue reading only blogs that reinforce their own opinions and you have an easy opportunity for political money to buy dishonest bloggers.
Speech on blogs shouldn't be regulated. However, the public has a right to know when that speech has been funded by political organizations. The law should require such contributions -- of any amount; blogs are so low overhead -- to be made public.The blogger doesn't need to reveal it, the info just needs to be available so other bloggers can find.
If you'd read the article, you'd know that Vonage's 911 system does not provide the address of the phone used to make the call. Instead, it tells 911 that the emergency is in a Vonage server room, where the packets are converted to analog and dumped into the local 911 system.
I keep an old $10 "gets its power from the telephone line" phone plugged into an outlet, just in case. I've used it several times to call the local power company to report an outage following severe storms. None of my other phones would work because they're dependent on that AC and the local cellphone nets had gone over capacity and bellyup.
1. It isn't a "basic word game". It is a direct copy of Scrabble that leverages awareness and the popularity of Scrabble to attract business. In simple terms, they're playing on the Scrabble name without Scrabble's permission. That's a classic setup for drawing a lawsuit. Suppose you started a website called e-Yahoo or e-Slashdot that did the same thing as Yahoo and Slashdot. Do you really think you wouldn't be sued?
2. It isn't important if ancient Greeks played a game that involved putting little letter squares together to make words. Or, if they didn't. What counts is that Hasbro owns a specfic game called Scrabble that e-Scrabble copied.
3. The Times doesn't own crossword puzzles. They own the puzzles that appear in the Times. If you start a site called e-crosswords, they won't care. If you start a site called e-NYT-Crosswords, they'll send lawyers.
Your opinion of the quality of Hasbro CD's is irrelevant and doesn't have a thing to do with their right to sue.
Your silly notion that people ripping off Hasbro are doing it for love is also irrelevant. What they do counts, not why they do it.
Ditto your notion that seeking profit = greed.
Anyone who copies a product like Scrabble but expects not to be sued is naive beyond imagination. Get a clue. Copying someone else's business is just about the best way to be sued.
Sorry if you don't like all this, but most people who make your arguments just want free stuff. The others actually, and incorrectly, believe people operate out of love and altruism.
I simply disbelieve that it is possible to be productive 100% of the day for 100% of all working days...
Yes, that's why it is so important that management makes clear its expectations of each employee. If an employee can spend an hour a day goofing off and still meet expectations, then management has no grounds for penalizing the employee for lack of performance. They may decide that he is influencing less capable workers who spend even more time goofing off, or that he needs to be assigned to a job that can actually challenge his abilities, or that they'll begin a award/bonus program to encourage employees to exceed expectations.
Leaving aside the snobbery and bigotry of that "leaning on brooms" comment, this proposal is seeing some discussion here in North Carolina. Most that I've heard and read correctly points to this as a management issue, not something that merits legislation.
That is, if an employee is not meeting expectations because he is spending too much time trolling the net, that's his fault, not the Internet's. The same problem would exist if he spent too much time doing crossword puzzles are talking to his girlfriend on the phone. The core problem is the employee not meeting expectations, not what he's doing to divert his attention.
As for Solitaire, don't install it, OK? And if a manager thinks someone is spending too much time playing online games or whatever, ask the IT guys to verify it and then do a bit of "counseling".
Now, if this guy really wanted to enhance productivity, he'd propose outlawing watching NCAA basketball playoffs at work. Heh.:-)
Fair use does not encompass reproduction and distribution of the entirety of a work.
If Google News is indexing and presenting content on publicly accessible web sites, I don't think they've got much to worry about. If they are indexing content on sites that aren't publicly accessible -- intended for access by paying customers only -- and have not entered into an agreement with that source to access and index the content, that's another story, as well as an issue for that site's security guy.
AFP is not a web site. AFP was/is a wire service, just like AP, Reuters, etc. It really isn't in the retail news sales business. In effect, it wholesales its products to retail news outlets like newspapers, radio/TV stations, etc. Those purchasers are well aware of AFP's existence and don't need Google to remind them. So far as I know, AFP's products aren't priced for individual use, and it doesn't host any subscription-based intended for individual consumers.
In other words, there aren't any AFP sites for Google to drive customers to.
If Google is indexing AFP content on sites that pay for it, then perhaps AFP has a problem with those sites, not Google.
2) The X-15 program was not intended to lead to a follow-on vehicle capable of manned spaceflight.
Your wordsmithing about what is or is not "operational" or whether coasting to 100k for a few seconds represents space travel mean nothing.
You can consider the Shuttle operational, but that doe not alter Fact One. You can consider that the X-15 was a manned space vehicle, but that does not alter Fact Two.
If you can refute those facts, go ahead. I have no need to troll the web looking for specious and unreliable citations like you have from wikis.
You're the one playing semantic games, resorting to pointing to the dictionary for irrelevant definitions. I've said that NASA has never declared the Shuttle operational, which is a fact. If you think NASA needs a new dictionary, take it up with them....you have chosen not to cite any instances...
Shall I go back and cite all the statements you have not responded to? If you get off on keeping score, that's your problem.
-- I said the X-15 was not designed to lead to spaceflight because it did not lead to any follow-up program to dly a true space vehicle. I never said the X-15 was intended to fly above the arbitrary 100k barrier. My point -- whch you either can't fathom or choose to ignore -- is that the capability to reach 100k is not equivalent to leading to spaceflight. Likewise, for Rutan's craft. It also coasted to 100k. But, unless there is a follow-on vehicle that is actually capable of spaceflight (and I don't count coasting to 100k as spacefight) it will also lead nowhere.
I used the word "community" only in response to your post...
NASA and Defense consist of actual people in real buildings with shared interests interacting with each other. Slashdot is merely on online bulletin board, not a community.
The shuttle vehicles have been operational 112 times.
So what? NASA has never declared it operational. You're anal attention to dictionaries does not alter that fact. When you grow up you'll see that the real world is nothing like Slashdot; people don't bow down and roll over everytime someone says "You're a liar because my dictionary says you are."
if you have even one shred of evidence to prove your assertion that manned, winged spaceflight was not a purpose of the X-15...
Another scarecrow argument. Typical Slashdot trick: respnding to statements that were never made. Again, and again, I did not say that. I said the X-15 was not intended to lead to manned spaceflight. Evidence: It did not. Was it intended to conduct research into manned spaceflight? Certainly.
"The X-15 program was not intended to lead to manned spaceflight."
So you *are* saying it acheived spaceflight accidentally.
No, I'm not. As I've already pointed out, I said "lead to manned spaceflight". You said "acheived spaceflight". Not the same thing. The X-15 program was not designed to lead to anything. If it had been intended to lead to manned spaceflight, there would have be at least a proposal for a follow-on vehicle that did precisely that. The fact that, on a few occasions, it coasted about 100k is not evidence that the program was intended to lead to spaceflight. Any vehicle that can exceed 2000 mph can very likely coast to 100k, but that doesn't mean they're leading to spaceflight....you are expecting the overwhelming majority of english-speaking people to confirm to a little-known definition used by specific (and very small) subcommunities...
What do so-called communities have to do this? NASA is the only organization that can declare the Shuttle operational. It hasn't. If you want to consider that bureaucratic (presumably you intend it as a perjorative) fine. I don't care. What you think or anyone else in this imaginary community thinks "operational" means doesn't change the reality that the Shuttle isn't operational. If you don't understand the terms experimental, developmental and operational as they are applied in the aerospace industry, go learn. Your protestations that the Shuttle "OPERATES" are otherwise clueless.
-- Your comments about using winged space vehicels implied that gaining altitude was the only requirement for achieving orbit.
--I'm agnostic about how we reach LEO. I'd opt for the cheapest, most reliable, and most capable system, whether it had wings or not, whether it was reusable or not. I'm convinced that wings add extra cost, weight and complexity, and I'm not convinced they deliver commensurate advantages. I also believe we need to be able to put at least 100 tons in LEO at one go, and I'm not sure a vehicle launched from an aircraft can achieve that. But, if someone proves me wrong, that's OK.
-- The X-15 program was not intended to lead to manned spaceflight. Yes, it did, on a few occassions, coast above the arbitrary altitude taken as the beginning of space. However, the goal of the program was not the further development of a winged space vehicle. That's what the qualifying phrase "lead to" means.
-- I repeat, I did not say launching from a dead start from Earth's surface is a prerequisite to reaching orbit (speaking of reading thoroughly). I said the only means we have of doing that -- reaching orbit from a dead start on Earth's surface -- is a rocket. If you strap a rocket underneath an aircraft and launch it at 50,000 feet, that, obviously, is not a dead start nor is it from Earth's surface.
-- It's a common and childish Slashdot tactic to point people to dictionary definitions. The terms experimental, developmental and operational have specific meanings within NASA and the defense community. A vehicle is not operational unless it has been designated as operational, regardless of what some dictionary might say. Some dictionary definition does not establish NASA's criteria. The Shuttle has operated 112 times, but it has not been declared operational because it has failed to meet the criteria NASA established for it to become operational, as NASA defines operational. How you or I or any dictionary define operational is besides the point.
-- I'd be very happy if Rutan or some other private investor gets a crewed vehicle into orbit and back again. I really don't care how he does it. (I do know how I might try it, if I had the moeny.) But, since Rutan is only emulating what the X-15 did 40 years ago, he has a long way to go. More power to him, but getting a one-seater to coast to 100k at 2000 mph ain't no big trick. Frankly, my only interest in LEO is as a staging point for actual space travel. If private organizations can play a role in that, that's OK with me. But, as I said earlier, I want to see LEO payloads of at least 100 tons. Rutan, et al, are a very long way from doing that.
--Using aircraft as launch platforms can make sense, but altitude doesn't gain you orbit. Speed, and speed alone, does. If you built a tower 200 miles high and pushed something off the top, it would simply fall back to Earth. Likewise, the purpose of the Saturn's first stage, as for any rocket booster, was to provide acceleration.
-- The U.S. did not have a pre-Sputnik program to put people in orbit using winged spacecraft.
--Burt Rutan is a long way from reaching orbit. He sent a small craft (that is incapable of functioning in orbit or safely returning, even if it was accelerated to orbital velocity) to just over 60 miles altitude by reaching a speed of about 3600 mph and coasting. That puts him about 14000 miles per hour short of orbit, at any altitude. It's a worthy accompishment, but one that was first achieved 4 decades ago.
-- The O-rings (Challenger)and the graphite leading wing edges (Columbia) are specific to the Shuttle design. Neither are present in traditional liquid fuel boosters.
-- Name an X-series program that was designed to intentionally lead to winged manned space flight. You can't because up to and incuding the X-15, none existed. The research was applicable, but no program was ever created with that objective.
-- I've not assumed that launching from a dead start on Earth's surface is a prerequisite. You, however, seem to assume that simply gaining altitude is sufficient for achieving orbit, when it clearly is not.
-- The Shuttle has flown 112 times, but it has never been declared operational by NASA. The Shuttle was intended to be an operational spacecraft, flying approximately 30 missions a year with turn around times of less than two weeks. It has failed to come anywhere near those objectives. End of that discussion.
-- I did not say the Shuttle's were not "safe enough". I did not say we spend too much time making them safe. I said I expected another Shuttle crash and that I anticipate that would kill the program.
-- The Saturn V, as are all expendable boosters, was not recovered. The Shuttle, as I've said, was expected to deliver operational access to LEO with flight turnarounds of about 14 days. It's never come close. (It costs approx. $500-600 million to launch a Shuttle, not including amortization costs, far more than the expected cost. If the Shuttle was actually flying 30 missions a year, those costs alone would consume NASA's budget.)
-- A discussion of Shuttle engineering absent political realities is pointless.
>>...we need to build, if not more shuttles, more advanced craft capable of entering into low Earth orbit like an airplane, instead of like a rocket...
First, the only way to achive orbit is to accelerate to orbital velocity. The only propulsion system available today, and for the forseeable future, that can reach orbital velocity from a dead start on Earth's surface is a rocket engine. So, even if you put wings on the thing, it is still a rocket.
Second, if the objective is safe, routine and inexpensive access to LEO, then winged spacecraft need to demonstrate an advantage over other types of spacecraft. Typically, that advantage is touted as reuse. But, reusability does not come automatically with a winged design, while it is quite possible to design unwinged spacecraft that are full reusable. Putting wings on a spacecraft adds extra layers of cost, complexity, and risk (e.g., the leading edges of the wings must be protected from destruction during reentry). And, of course, wings are of use only in the last few minutes of flight. They are functionless deadweight during the rest of the mission.
Winged spacecraft and undeniably glamorous. At first glance, the notion of a vehicle that takes off from a runway, achieves orbit, and returns to a runway seems inherently safer and more routine than launching unwinged spacecraft from vertical boosters. But, in fact, the wings are useless in space, and the alleged safety benefits have not been demonstrated.
(Consider that the losses of both Challenger and Columbia are directly attributable to the design of a vehicle to support a reusable winged spacecraft, i.e, the Orbiter. The causes of both losses were specific to the Shuttle's design and would not have been possible in an expendable liquid fueled unwinged vehicle.)
The purpose of the X-planes was not to move gradually to spaceflight. It was, and is, in large measure to test new technology for military and civil aviation. In the early 1960's, the USAF had a nascent program called DynaSoar. This was a one-seater winged spacecraft that would have been launched by a modified Titan ICBM (much as in the Gemini flights). DynaSoar never flew and, to the best of my knowledge, no vehicles were ever built. (Again the fundamental issue with reusable winged access to LEO is that you need a rocket, and all that necessary fuel, to get it there. So, wings or not, if you want to put, say, 20,000 pounds in LEO, you need to produce the thrust that can do that. The engine that can do that will be just a large whether it is part of an expendable booster or part of a reusable booster. Except, of course, that wings add extra weight that requires even more thrust.)
So, winged or not, reusable or not, the only way to get to LEO is sitting "on top of thousands of tons of liquid and solid explosive..."
Operational is, indeed, an offical category, but there is nothing bureaucratic about it. The Shuttles are not operational vehicles because the malfunction or crash to often. If they were military aircraft, they would not have been accepted into the inventory. If they had been, they would have been grounded. (Look at the prep time and cost of getting a Shuttle launch done. That's not operational; the craft is essentially rebuilt after each flight.)
Of course, more frequent Shuttle flights would produce more information, leading to increased safety. But, that's and engineering paradigm. The fact is that one of the remaining Shuttles would almost certainly crash during that ramped up flight schedule, and the program would be killed. Let me make that clear: There will be another Shuttle crash and it will mark the end of the Shuttle program. That's a political paradigm, and it trumps the engineering paradigm.
There aren't enough Shuttles left to test, in practice, your notion that each disaster will result in less risk. My point has been simple: If we lose another shuttle, no shuttle will ever fly again. That's my take on political reality. You're argument could be completely accurate but it would make no difference.
The Shuttle has never been classified as operational because it has never been able to fly with the frequency or the brief turn-around time that was intended. NASA considers it to be experimental in the same sense as all the X-series aircraft have been experimental.
As for the 110 safe flights out of 112, do the math. That extrapolates into 20 total losses of crew and shuttle in every 1120 flights, etc. If commercial aircraft were operational in that sense, they'd be falling out of the sky dozens of times every day. No military aircraft would be accepted as operational with that kind of record.
I have no issues with American tech and engineering skills, but those do not determine what missions we undertake in space. That's the realm of politics. I'm sure we could build bigger and more sophisticated space stations. But, right now, I don't know what they'd be good for. Now, since I believe the purpose of space travel is to actually go someplace -- to travel in space -- a space station that functions as a construction and fuel facility for missions beyond LEO would be a different matter. In fact, I think the only reason to launch people from Earth should be to get them to that kind of station. No missions outside LEO should start from Earth; they should all start and end in LEO, at that station.
...If we flew as many shuttle space flights as military airplane flights, I'm sure the safety record would reflect our greater practice and experience...
The two Shuttle losses were caused by bad design, bad engineering, and bad construction. No amount of "practice" by astronauts or ground crews would have prevented those acidents. There is no reason to believe that it can prevent similar accidents, from the same causes, in the future.
The space shuttle has been operational 112 times...
The Shuttle has flown 112 times, but it hasnever been declared an operational system. It has always been an eperimental/developmental vehicle, a vehicle that has met few, if any, of its original objectives (e.g., way over budget, far fewer flights than intended.)
Since the moon landing, scientfic research has been the SOLE purpose of American space flight...
Unfortunate, to the extent it is true. People will do science in space, but that, of course, assumes that people are actually in space. Otherwise, it makes no more sense than it would have to explore North America with 16th Century robots. (GTW, the ISS is a bigger boondoggle than the Shuttle. Little science of any value is going on there.)
...how would losing a shuttle during any other kind of mission not have political repercussions?
Of course, it would. That's the point: Hubble missions are the riskiest missions and the missions least likely to be rescued. It's a judgement call, and my judgement is that it is not worth risking the entire human space program to attempt repairs on an aging satellite as it nears obsolescence....if the purpose of space travel is to put people there then what the fuck has NASA done lately?
The Shuttle is only capable of LEO missions (including to Hubble, which is also in LEO). For more than 3 decades, NASA has had no means of sending people beyond LEO. It lacks those means because no administration since the 1960's has been willing to give it that kind of mission and to fund it appropriately.
Even if a second pad was available for HST launches, plus the needed ground crew, and you stood up and prepped a second Shuttle on that pad as a standby rescue mission, what happens when the first flight goes off without a hitch? All of a sudden, you've got a Shuttle on the pad with no mission.
Discounting the testosterone-laden bravado that shows up everytime/. runs one of these Hubble stories, the proper way to do space flight is to build reliable spacecraft, not vehicles that are so unreliable that you need to consider outlandish and foolish options like flying a second vehicle in case the first one goes belly up.
Can you please explain to me why a Senator representing her constituants who, like most of us, want jobs, is a BAD thing?
I didn't say it was a bad thing. In fact, I didn't venture an opinion about her motives at all. If I was a Senator from Maryland, I would take the same position....you'll have a hard time convincing me that the astronauts aren't willing to accept those risks.
The issue is political in nature. What an astronaut is willing to do isn't relevant.
The safety record of shuttle flights is exemplary.
No, it isn't. The safety record of the Shuttle is far worse than what would be acceptable for any military aircraft. The Shuttle has never been reliable enough to become operational. It has always, and will always, be an experimental vehicle.
Scientific research is a very valid purpose for space flight.
Science is a reason, in the same sense that science was done in North America after the European migration. But the real motives for that migration had little, if anything, to do with science. Likewise, the reasons to put people in space, ultimately, have little to do with doing science. Science, wonderful science, will be done there, but it will be done by people.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem lies in defining "political organization" and "contribution"...
Those would be whatever the relevant legislation says they are.
At a minimum, I'd include any elected official at any level; any agency of any government; anyone employed by, financially affiliated with, or related to, any elected official or government agency; any registered lobbyists and anyone employed by, financially affiliated with, or related to a lobbyists; ditto for public service organizations,....
You get the drift.
Using your example, Fox isn't contributing to your blog because you made them aware of it. An argument could be made that, if you tend to the blog on company time, they do, in fact, help support it. And, no, by my standards Fox is not a political organization. But, they can certainly engage in political activity. E.g., by lobbying for favorable legislation. So, if they give you $100k to write favorably about a piece of legislation they want, they ought to be obligated to disclose that. You, in essence, have become a paid lobbyist for Fox. (It is, in fact, the under-the-table payments that ought to be eliminated.)
Political organization backing should need to be disclosed anywhere by anyone at any time.
I've no reason to disagree with that.
The danger is not so much a blog "set up by a political organization" but one with an already established readership. If the author of that blog is paid by a political organization to slant his or her posts on a subject, readers who trust that blog need to know that.
This is particularly true since many people claim to get most of their news from blogs. (That strikes me as rather like getting all your news from the editorial pages, letters to the editor, and advertisements.) Add to that the tendency of people to continue reading only blogs that reinforce their own opinions and you have an easy opportunity for political money to buy dishonest bloggers.
Speech on blogs shouldn't be regulated. However, the public has a right to know when that speech has been funded by political organizations. The law should require such contributions -- of any amount; blogs are so low overhead -- to be made public.The blogger doesn't need to reveal it, the info just needs to be available so other bloggers can find.
If you'd read the article, you'd know that Vonage's 911 system does not provide the address of the phone used to make the call. Instead, it tells 911 that the emergency is in a Vonage server room, where the packets are converted to analog and dumped into the local 911 system.
If the state requires all phones to provide access to 911, then Vonage's disclaimers do not absolve them of potential liability.
I keep an old $10 "gets its power from the telephone line" phone plugged into an outlet, just in case. I've used it several times to call the local power company to report an outage following severe storms. None of my other phones would work because they're dependent on that AC and the local cellphone nets had gone over capacity and bellyup.
1. It isn't a "basic word game". It is a direct copy of Scrabble that leverages awareness and the popularity of Scrabble to attract business. In simple terms, they're playing on the Scrabble name without Scrabble's permission. That's a classic setup for drawing a lawsuit. Suppose you started a website called e-Yahoo or e-Slashdot that did the same thing as Yahoo and Slashdot. Do you really think you wouldn't be sued?
2. It isn't important if ancient Greeks played a game that involved putting little letter squares together to make words. Or, if they didn't. What counts is that Hasbro owns a specfic game called Scrabble that e-Scrabble copied.
3. The Times doesn't own crossword puzzles. They own the puzzles that appear in the Times. If you start a site called e-crosswords, they won't care. If you start a site called e-NYT-Crosswords, they'll send lawyers.
Your opinion of the quality of Hasbro CD's is irrelevant and doesn't have a thing to do with their right to sue.
Your silly notion that people ripping off Hasbro are doing it for love is also irrelevant. What they do counts, not why they do it.
Ditto your notion that seeking profit = greed.
Anyone who copies a product like Scrabble but expects not to be sued is naive beyond imagination. Get a clue. Copying someone else's business is just about the best way to be sued.
Sorry if you don't like all this, but most people who make your arguments just want free stuff. The others actually, and incorrectly, believe people operate out of love and altruism.
The comment reflects the stereotyping of all government employees in a southern state as broom pushers. That's bigotry.
I simply disbelieve that it is possible to be productive 100% of the day for 100% of all working days...
Yes, that's why it is so important that management makes clear its expectations of each employee. If an employee can spend an hour a day goofing off and still meet expectations, then management has no grounds for penalizing the employee for lack of performance. They may decide that he is influencing less capable workers who spend even more time goofing off, or that he needs to be assigned to a job that can actually challenge his abilities, or that they'll begin a award/bonus program to encourage employees to exceed expectations.
Leaving aside the snobbery and bigotry of that "leaning on brooms" comment, this proposal is seeing some discussion here in North Carolina. Most that I've heard and read correctly points to this as a management issue, not something that merits legislation.
:-)
That is, if an employee is not meeting expectations because he is spending too much time trolling the net, that's his fault, not the Internet's. The same problem would exist if he spent too much time doing crossword puzzles are talking to his girlfriend on the phone. The core problem is the employee not meeting expectations, not what he's doing to divert his attention.
As for Solitaire, don't install it, OK? And if a manager thinks someone is spending too much time playing online games or whatever, ask the IT guys to verify it and then do a bit of "counseling".
Now, if this guy really wanted to enhance productivity, he'd propose outlawing watching NCAA basketball playoffs at work. Heh.
Fair use does not encompass reproduction and distribution of the entirety of a work.
If Google News is indexing and presenting content on publicly accessible web sites, I don't think they've got much to worry about. If they are indexing content on sites that aren't publicly accessible -- intended for access by paying customers only -- and have not entered into an agreement with that source to access and index the content, that's another story, as well as an issue for that site's security guy.
AFP is not a web site. AFP was/is a wire service, just like AP, Reuters, etc. It really isn't in the retail news sales business. In effect, it wholesales its products to retail news outlets like newspapers, radio/TV stations, etc. Those purchasers are well aware of AFP's existence and don't need Google to remind them. So far as I know, AFP's products aren't priced for individual use, and it doesn't host any subscription-based intended for individual consumers.
In other words, there aren't any AFP sites for Google to drive customers to.
If Google is indexing AFP content on sites that pay for it, then perhaps AFP has a problem with those sites, not Google.
I've stated two facts that you have not refuted:
1) NASA has not declared the Shuttle operational.
2) The X-15 program was not intended to lead to a follow-on vehicle capable of manned spaceflight.
Your wordsmithing about what is or is not "operational" or whether coasting to 100k for a few seconds represents space travel mean nothing.
You can consider the Shuttle operational, but that doe not alter Fact One. You can consider that the X-15 was a manned space vehicle, but that does not alter Fact Two.
If you can refute those facts, go ahead. I have no need to troll the web looking for specious and unreliable citations like you have from wikis.
More semantic games...
...you have chosen not to cite any instances...
You're the one playing semantic games, resorting to pointing to the dictionary for irrelevant definitions. I've said that NASA has never declared the Shuttle operational, which is a fact. If you think NASA needs a new dictionary, take it up with them.
Shall I go back and cite all the statements you have not responded to? If you get off on keeping score, that's your problem.
-- I said the X-15 was not designed to lead to spaceflight because it did not lead to any follow-up program to dly a true space vehicle. I never said the X-15 was intended to fly above the arbitrary 100k barrier. My point -- whch you either can't fathom or choose to ignore -- is that the capability to reach 100k is not equivalent to leading to spaceflight. Likewise, for Rutan's craft. It also coasted to 100k. But, unless there is a follow-on vehicle that is actually capable of spaceflight (and I don't count coasting to 100k as spacefight) it will also lead nowhere.
I used the word "community" only in response to your post...
NASA and Defense consist of actual people in real buildings with shared interests interacting with each other. Slashdot is merely on online bulletin board, not a community.
The shuttle vehicles have been operational 112 times.
So what? NASA has never declared it operational. You're anal attention to dictionaries does not alter that fact. When you grow up you'll see that the real world is nothing like Slashdot; people don't bow down and roll over everytime someone says "You're a liar because my dictionary says you are."
if you have even one shred of evidence to prove your assertion that manned, winged spaceflight was not a purpose of the X-15...
Another scarecrow argument. Typical Slashdot trick: respnding to statements that were never made. Again, and again, I did not say that. I said the X-15 was not intended to lead to manned spaceflight. Evidence: It did not. Was it intended to conduct research into manned spaceflight? Certainly.
"The X-15 program was not intended to lead to manned spaceflight."
...you are expecting the overwhelming majority of english-speaking people to confirm to a little-known definition used by specific (and very small) subcommunities...
So you *are* saying it acheived spaceflight accidentally.
No, I'm not. As I've already pointed out, I said "lead to manned spaceflight". You said "acheived spaceflight". Not the same thing. The X-15 program was not designed to lead to anything. If it had been intended to lead to manned spaceflight, there would have be at least a proposal for a follow-on vehicle that did precisely that. The fact that, on a few occasions, it coasted about 100k is not evidence that the program was intended to lead to spaceflight. Any vehicle that can exceed 2000 mph can very likely coast to 100k, but that doesn't mean they're leading to spaceflight.
What do so-called communities have to do this? NASA is the only organization that can declare the Shuttle operational. It hasn't. If you want to consider that bureaucratic (presumably you intend it as a perjorative) fine. I don't care. What you think or anyone else in this imaginary community thinks "operational" means doesn't change the reality that the Shuttle isn't operational. If you don't understand the terms experimental, developmental and operational as they are applied in the aerospace industry, go learn. Your protestations that the Shuttle "OPERATES" are otherwise clueless.
-- Your comments about using winged space vehicels implied that gaining altitude was the only requirement for achieving orbit.
--I'm agnostic about how we reach LEO. I'd opt for the cheapest, most reliable, and most capable system, whether it had wings or not, whether it was reusable or not. I'm convinced that wings add extra cost, weight and complexity, and I'm not convinced they deliver commensurate advantages. I also believe we need to be able to put at least 100 tons in LEO at one go, and I'm not sure a vehicle launched from an aircraft can achieve that. But, if someone proves me wrong, that's OK.
-- The X-15 program was not intended to lead to manned spaceflight. Yes, it did, on a few occassions, coast above the arbitrary altitude taken as the beginning of space. However, the goal of the program was not the further development of a winged space vehicle. That's what the qualifying phrase "lead to" means.
-- I repeat, I did not say launching from a dead start from Earth's surface is a prerequisite to reaching orbit (speaking of reading thoroughly). I said the only means we have of doing that -- reaching orbit from a dead start on Earth's surface -- is a rocket. If you strap a rocket underneath an aircraft and launch it at 50,000 feet, that, obviously, is not a dead start nor is it from Earth's surface.
-- It's a common and childish Slashdot tactic to point people to dictionary definitions. The terms experimental, developmental and operational have specific meanings within NASA and the defense community. A vehicle is not operational unless it has been designated as operational, regardless of what some dictionary might say. Some dictionary definition does not establish NASA's criteria. The Shuttle has operated 112 times, but it has not been declared operational because it has failed to meet the criteria NASA established for it to become operational, as NASA defines operational. How you or I or any dictionary define operational is besides the point.
-- I'd be very happy if Rutan or some other private investor gets a crewed vehicle into orbit and back again. I really don't care how he does it. (I do know how I might try it, if I had the moeny.) But, since Rutan is only emulating what the X-15 did 40 years ago, he has a long way to go. More power to him, but getting a one-seater to coast to 100k at 2000 mph ain't no big trick. Frankly, my only interest in LEO is as a staging point for actual space travel. If private organizations can play a role in that, that's OK with me. But, as I said earlier, I want to see LEO payloads of at least 100 tons. Rutan, et al, are a very long way from doing that.
--Using aircraft as launch platforms can make sense, but altitude doesn't gain you orbit. Speed, and speed alone, does. If you built a tower 200 miles high and pushed something off the top, it would simply fall back to Earth. Likewise, the purpose of the Saturn's first stage, as for any rocket booster, was to provide acceleration.
-- The U.S. did not have a pre-Sputnik program to put people in orbit using winged spacecraft.
--Burt Rutan is a long way from reaching orbit. He sent a small craft (that is incapable of functioning in orbit or safely returning, even if it was accelerated to orbital velocity) to just over 60 miles altitude by reaching a speed of about 3600 mph and coasting. That puts him about 14000 miles per hour short of orbit, at any altitude. It's a worthy accompishment, but one that was first achieved 4 decades ago.
-- The O-rings (Challenger)and the graphite leading wing edges (Columbia) are specific to the Shuttle design. Neither are present in traditional liquid fuel boosters.
-- Name an X-series program that was designed to intentionally lead to winged manned space flight. You can't because up to and incuding the X-15, none existed. The research was applicable, but no program was ever created with that objective.
-- I've not assumed that launching from a dead start on Earth's surface is a prerequisite. You, however, seem to assume that simply gaining altitude is sufficient for achieving orbit, when it clearly is not.
-- The Shuttle has flown 112 times, but it has never been declared operational by NASA. The Shuttle was intended to be an operational spacecraft, flying approximately 30 missions a year with turn around times of less than two weeks. It has failed to come anywhere near those objectives. End of that discussion.
-- I did not say the Shuttle's were not "safe enough". I did not say we spend too much time making them safe. I said I expected another Shuttle crash and that I anticipate that would kill the program.
-- The Saturn V, as are all expendable boosters, was not recovered. The Shuttle, as I've said, was expected to deliver operational access to LEO with flight turnarounds of about 14 days. It's never come close. (It costs approx. $500-600 million to launch a Shuttle, not including amortization costs, far more than the expected cost. If the Shuttle was actually flying 30 missions a year, those costs alone would consume NASA's budget.)
-- A discussion of Shuttle engineering absent political realities is pointless.
>>...we need to build, if not more shuttles, more advanced craft capable of entering into low Earth orbit like an airplane, instead of like a rocket...
First, the only way to achive orbit is to accelerate to orbital velocity. The only propulsion system available today, and for the forseeable future, that can reach orbital velocity from a dead start on Earth's surface is a rocket engine. So, even if you put wings on the thing, it is still a rocket.
Second, if the objective is safe, routine and inexpensive access to LEO, then winged spacecraft need to demonstrate an advantage over other types of spacecraft. Typically, that advantage is touted as reuse. But, reusability does not come automatically with a winged design, while it is quite possible to design unwinged spacecraft that are full reusable. Putting wings on a spacecraft adds extra layers of cost, complexity, and risk (e.g., the leading edges of the wings must be protected from destruction during reentry). And, of course, wings are of use only in the last few minutes of flight. They are functionless deadweight during the rest of the mission.
Winged spacecraft and undeniably glamorous. At first glance, the notion of a vehicle that takes off from a runway, achieves orbit, and returns to a runway seems inherently safer and more routine than launching unwinged spacecraft from vertical boosters. But, in fact, the wings are useless in space, and the alleged safety benefits have not been demonstrated.
(Consider that the losses of both Challenger and Columbia are directly attributable to the design of a vehicle to support a reusable winged spacecraft, i.e, the Orbiter. The causes of both losses were specific to the Shuttle's design and would not have been possible in an expendable liquid fueled unwinged vehicle.)
The purpose of the X-planes was not to move gradually to spaceflight. It was, and is, in large measure to test new technology for military and civil aviation. In the early 1960's, the USAF had a nascent program called DynaSoar. This was a one-seater winged spacecraft that would have been launched by a modified Titan ICBM (much as in the Gemini flights). DynaSoar never flew and, to the best of my knowledge, no vehicles were ever built. (Again the fundamental issue with reusable winged access to LEO is that you need a rocket, and all that necessary fuel, to get it there. So, wings or not, if you want to put, say, 20,000 pounds in LEO, you need to produce the thrust that can do that. The engine that can do that will be just a large whether it is part of an expendable booster or part of a reusable booster. Except, of course, that wings add extra weight that requires even more thrust.)
So, winged or not, reusable or not, the only way to get to LEO is sitting "on top of thousands of tons of liquid and solid explosive..."
Operational is, indeed, an offical category, but there is nothing bureaucratic about it. The Shuttles are not operational vehicles because the malfunction or crash to often. If they were military aircraft, they would not have been accepted into the inventory. If they had been, they would have been grounded. (Look at the prep time and cost of getting a Shuttle launch done. That's not operational; the craft is essentially rebuilt after each flight.)
Of course, more frequent Shuttle flights would produce more information, leading to increased safety. But, that's and engineering paradigm. The fact is that one of the remaining Shuttles would almost certainly crash during that ramped up flight schedule, and the program would be killed. Let me make that clear: There will be another Shuttle crash and it will mark the end of the Shuttle program. That's a political paradigm, and it trumps the engineering paradigm.
There aren't enough Shuttles left to test, in practice, your notion that each disaster will result in less risk. My point has been simple: If we lose another shuttle, no shuttle will ever fly again. That's my take on political reality. You're argument could be completely accurate but it would make no difference.
The Shuttle has never been classified as operational because it has never been able to fly with the frequency or the brief turn-around time that was intended. NASA considers it to be experimental in the same sense as all the X-series aircraft have been experimental.
As for the 110 safe flights out of 112, do the math. That extrapolates into 20 total losses of crew and shuttle in every 1120 flights, etc. If commercial aircraft were operational in that sense, they'd be falling out of the sky dozens of times every day. No military aircraft would be accepted as operational with that kind of record.
I have no issues with American tech and engineering skills, but those do not determine what missions we undertake in space. That's the realm of politics. I'm sure we could build bigger and more sophisticated space stations. But, right now, I don't know what they'd be good for. Now, since I believe the purpose of space travel is to actually go someplace -- to travel in space -- a space station that functions as a construction and fuel facility for missions beyond LEO would be a different matter. In fact, I think the only reason to launch people from Earth should be to get them to that kind of station. No missions outside LEO should start from Earth; they should all start and end in LEO, at that station.
...If we flew as many shuttle space flights as military airplane flights, I'm sure the safety record would reflect our greater practice and experience...
The two Shuttle losses were caused by bad design, bad engineering, and bad construction. No amount of "practice" by astronauts or ground crews would have prevented those acidents. There is no reason to believe that it can prevent similar accidents, from the same causes, in the future.
The space shuttle has been operational 112 times...
The Shuttle has flown 112 times, but it hasnever been declared an operational system. It has always been an eperimental/developmental vehicle, a vehicle that has met few, if any, of its original objectives (e.g., way over budget, far fewer flights than intended.)
Since the moon landing, scientfic research has been the SOLE purpose of American space flight...
Unfortunate, to the extent it is true. People will do science in space, but that, of course, assumes that people are actually in space. Otherwise, it makes no more sense than it would have to explore North America with 16th Century robots. (GTW, the ISS is a bigger boondoggle than the Shuttle. Little science of any value is going on there.)
...how would losing a shuttle during any other kind of mission not have political repercussions?
...if the purpose of space travel is to put people there then what the fuck has NASA done lately?
Of course, it would. That's the point: Hubble missions are the riskiest missions and the missions least likely to be rescued. It's a judgement call, and my judgement is that it is not worth risking the entire human space program to attempt repairs on an aging satellite as it nears obsolescence.
The Shuttle is only capable of LEO missions (including to Hubble, which is also in LEO). For more than 3 decades, NASA has had no means of sending people beyond LEO. It lacks those means because no administration since the 1960's has been willing to give it that kind of mission and to fund it appropriately.
Even if a second pad was available for HST launches, plus the needed ground crew, and you stood up and prepped a second Shuttle on that pad as a standby rescue mission, what happens when the first flight goes off without a hitch? All of a sudden, you've got a Shuttle on the pad with no mission.
/. runs one of these Hubble stories, the proper way to do space flight is to build reliable spacecraft, not vehicles that are so unreliable that you need to consider outlandish and foolish options like flying a second vehicle in case the first one goes belly up.
Discounting the testosterone-laden bravado that shows up everytime
Can you please explain to me why a Senator representing her constituants who, like most of us, want jobs, is a BAD thing?
...you'll have a hard time convincing me that the astronauts aren't willing to accept those risks.
I didn't say it was a bad thing. In fact, I didn't venture an opinion about her motives at all. If I was a Senator from Maryland, I would take the same position.
The issue is political in nature. What an astronaut is willing to do isn't relevant.
The safety record of shuttle flights is exemplary.
No, it isn't. The safety record of the Shuttle is far worse than what would be acceptable for any military aircraft. The Shuttle has never been reliable enough to become operational. It has always, and will always, be an experimental vehicle.
Scientific research is a very valid purpose for space flight.
Science is a reason, in the same sense that science was done in North America after the European migration. But the real motives for that migration had little, if anything, to do with science. Likewise, the reasons to put people in space, ultimately, have little to do with doing science. Science, wonderful science, will be done there, but it will be done by people.