So, as someone who hasn't studied optics in at least 6 years, and doesn't plan on picking up a book regarding the matter anytime soon, I have a very naive, and possibly silly question.
Could a similar technique to this be used in reverse to make more powerful telescopes?
Yup, I am sure paid researchers who have studied various biology, medical, and psychology works, sources, and classes for the majority of their lives have come to the conclusion that it is healthy to poison yourself with your own urine and they are now suggesting it as the one true path towards happiness and success...
... ... ...
Hear that? That's the sound of Captain Picard's face hitting his palm at warp 6.
Or it could be because females know full well they won't have a problem finding other strong, attractive partners. Men, on the other hand, have to work their asses off to attract a woman that is worth paying attention to.
No, we must always be looking for strange new shit that violates the laws of physics as we know them. New particles, new types of matter, dark energy, broken symmetry, anything unusual.
Isn't that kind of, you know, what drives science forward? Questioning the accepted laws as they are and seeking ways to expand upon them, generalize them, or all around uproot them to explain some currently inexplicable observation we've made?
My Grandma got married a few months back (yes, you read that right). I was talking to one of the ministers at the service, and he was commenting on how he does fewer weddings these days than he used to. I asked him if he thought it might be because people are having more odd-ball weddings, rather than typical church related services. He said he had worried about that at first, but after doing some digging, it just seemed like fewer people were actually interested in marriage. This trend seemed particularly true in younger adults like myself.
That kind of discussion, plus this kind of news, plus my own personal experiences talking to folks makes me wonder if the institution is simply being questioned on a more fundamental level. It always seemed a bit odd to me (though not completely unreasonable) to commit oneself to the company of another single person for the entirety of one's remaining life. I think a lot of younger folks are starting to question that paradigm as well. As such, I think this particular 'study' might just be revealing a symptom of a deeper topic. I think the traditional institution of marriage is on the verge of slipping from being the formal definition. I don't think as many people in the free (kinda) world today are as interested or intrigued by the idea of spending the rest of their lives with one person. One of the great things the internet has done is that it has opened many people to new perspectives and new ideas. There is a lot to learn out there, and there are millions of beautiful people to meet and get to know on whatever level one may desire. I think, in light of these revelations, folks are starting to see that binding oneself to a single mate for the rest of their lives seems a bit, well, boring. If you marry someone when you are, say 22, and after ten years or so, you two have had a good run, and some good times, but things have stagnated, why not let good memories remain good memories, quit while you're ahead, and go meet someone new (if that's what you both want)?
Of course, these are just the musings of my own mind, but it's something to think about. I'd wager that over the next few decades, we are going to see the traditional institution of marriage start to fall from its place as the accepted standard.
You don't use an untested, unvetted technology as your primary and only means of propulsion for a mission whose sole purpose is to study a previously unstudied planet in detail. That would be like betting your life savings on a horse that has never run a horse race before.
Now, that said, if the spacecraft had enough spare capacity (power and mass wise) to pack on a small solar sail for a proof-of-concept demonstration, then, yes, it could have been a great opportunity. But if the technology was not ready, if the risk was too high (controlling a long, deployable, non-rigid moment arm is no trivial task) , or if the budgets for the spacecraft were too tight, then the design team would have vetoed any additional secondary mission (like a tech. demo).
It depends a bit on what kind of fuels they are using in their vehicles. I haven't done enough research on suborbital craft to know what types of rocket engines they duct taped to the back of their planes, but there is a large trend towards liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen rockets in the industry right now because they burn clean and basically produce steam as a waste product. Of course, there are also rocket designs that burn everything from Kerosene to tire rubber, some of which can produce some pretty noxious crap.
One of the important things to remember about the current space industry, however, is that launches very rarely occur more than once or twice a month, so the actual volume of exhaust produced is relatively low. However, if any of these companies do start scaling up to daily launches, then such effects will need to be studied. Believe it or not, those of us working in this industry are pretty intelligent individuals who do think ahead about consequences (it comes as a prerequisite for this line of work). So we will be paying attention to concerns such as yours, amongst others.
Well it's back to the chicken and egg problem. In order to take off, commercial spaceflights need paying customers. But many would-be paying customers don't want to invest so much money in hardware that hasn't actually flown yet. So we kind of get stuck in this position where some organizations with a bit of extra cash have to take a risk with their money, and some spaceflight organizations with good sales skills have to sell their flights without overselling them (in terms of advertising too much capability).
But these kinds of risks are the same type of thing that any new and groundbreaking industry has to face as it tries to gain a foothold in modern society. The only difference is, this industry is actually attempting to blow its customers up, just in a very controlled manner along a very precise 'upward' trajectory.
Well... except for the fact that we don't HAVE the heavy lift tech anymore.
Yep, the Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V 541 vehicles don't really exist. They haven't launched any payloads ever. Neither of them has ever flown out of Vandenberg or the Cape....*facepalm*
P.S. to be fair, the 541 really hasn't launched yet, but it is scheduled to this Summer.
Hehe, that's why I set up my XP computer at work to have a desktop environment that almost perfectly mimics my Gnome environment at home. I hate Nautilus, but I find the rest of Gnome to be delightful.
You act like you're entitled by some "right" to store your wealth in foldable form... You don't.
Actually, I do. And that seems to be the thing that folks like you forget these days. The Bill of Rights was not drafted as a piece of legal paperwork to delineate what rights we Americans have. It was drafted to delineate what rights the Federal government has the power to regulate. Anything not given to the Federal government is left to the States and citizens by default.
That means that I do have the right to carry some foldable form of wealth in my pocket unless it is written somewhere that I do not have that right. That means that I have that right and all other rights, left naturally to me by being a human being, unless they are restricted via a legal document somewhere else (like the right to operate a motor vehicle or practice medicine). So unless there is a law that says, "This and this authority are hereby granted the power to limit the types of wealth that can be carried by an individual, as well as which transactions can be carried out with that wealth..." I have they right to do exactly that which you claim I don't. That's why they are called natural human rights. They exist by default, and we contract with the government to limit them as is necessary to keep society functioning properly. That is all the power the government has.
Rights are naturally endowed at the creation of a human being. Oh, and one more thing:
You act like you're entitled by some "right"....
To quote a fellow 'dotter: Rights are not entitlements.
Paste the text of whatever law passed by Congress or whatever Constitutional amendment exists that states explicitly that the government has the power to use my financial transactions to track my behavior. Go ahead and take your time. I will wait.
...you're committing an offense against all of us.
Until you show me the text of the law I am breaching by keeping my transactions private I will consider that little more than a wish on your part.
Hell, if you're so convinced of your argument, how's about you post your own financial history (complete financial history, including all relevant numbers and data which can and should be used to track your transactions) right up here for all of us to see. In fact, why don't you put it in a torrent file and host it up on rapidshare so we can all go through it in finicky detail.
What's that? You don't want the public knowing your complete financial history? But that history was conducted with our scrip! Paid for using our tax dollars! It's our right to know! If you want to participate in our society, you have to reveal all of your transactions. You don't have anything to hide right?
Or am I wrong? Are you willing to put your entire financial history online? I'm calling your bluff. Put up the text of the law I am violating by keeping my transactions private and/or anonymous. Put up your entire financial history (or whatever portion of it involved public scrip) on the internet for all the public to see. Or sit down and shut up. I won't take seriously anyone who won't apply their own ludicrous standards to themselves.
You're using the government's own printed scrip, backed by the government's health and stability, all of which is costly to all of us.
Exactly, it's costly to us. It's not the government's scrip. It's our scrip. We pay for it. And we simply trust the government to print it in a responsible manner. That means, logically, that we should be able to, as citizens, do whatever the hell we want with our scrip without oversight from our government overlords. We, the citizenry, are supposed to be tracking and monitoring our government, and all of their powers, to keep them in check. Our government is not supposed to be tracking and monitoring we citizens to keep us in check. The government is little more than a necessary evil to help manage and contend with the more unpredictable, shitty portions of being a human being living on this planet (like dealing with sociopathic criminals and such). The government is not supposed to be, and should never be, an overbearing social entity that regulates all citizens' lives to protect them from themselves.
My government should answer to me. I fund it. I contribute to it. I take time out of my busy damn life to help it function (jury duty, voting, registering my vehicle with DMV, smog checks, etc. etc. etc.). That means that the government is mine (more appropriately ours) to oversee and monitor. Not the other way around. The fact that I purchase legal tender from the government via my taxes and contributions to society does not mean that I am purchasing government oversight of my life. It means that I am entering into a social contract with the government that says, "I'll give you a portion of my earnings to help support the society that helps support me. In return, I expect access to the legal tender we (the citizenry) grant you (the government) the power to print that I may partake in whatever social transactions I see fit." What is not included in that contract, and what should never be included in that contract, is a clause that says, "I expect access to the legal tender only for goods and services that the government approves of." Money is not under the control of the Executive branch, it is under control of the Legislative branch. Money is not intended to be used as crime prevention tool. It is intended to be used as a social contract between two individuals partaking in a private transaction in a common society. To conflate those two roles is a violation of the principle of the Separation of Powers and is downright fucking stupid.
The government is not explicitly granted the power to track my private financial transactions in the Constitution of the United States of America. And, until we citizens get together and vote to amend that document and, thus, yield that power to the government that we hold a social contract with, it never has the right, responsibility, or duty to do so. Just because you wish the government has that power, does not give the government that power. Learning and understanding that principle could actually help you grow into the informed citizen that you are supposed to be in this society. Good day sir.
Obviously this is just part of the government conspiracy to out wikileaks supporters^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H terrorists! At the behest of the U.S. government, Paypal allowed the account to be opened, only to seize the funds shortly thereafter. This caused all of the terrorists to come out in support of Manning and wikileaks temporarily so all of their IP addresses could be gathered. Now that the NSA has handed over the relevant data to high lord of the internet police Joe Biden, PayPal can release the account once again, to lure in more unsuspecting terrorist supporters!
If you're smart like me, you'll only post in support of wikileaks anonymously on niche sites that nobody visits like slashdot!
Your ignorance on the importance of anonymity astounds me. Try living next to some nosey, judgmental, zealous neighbors sometime and tell me how much you like the idea of all of your actions, transactions, and movements tracked.
Slashdot Mirror
...so network operators should look to those users for insight in designing their future networks..
Network operators developing future netowrks? HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa.
... Good luck with that.
Oh, wait, you were serious? Wow
So, as someone who hasn't studied optics in at least 6 years, and doesn't plan on picking up a book regarding the matter anytime soon, I have a very naive, and possibly silly question.
Could a similar technique to this be used in reverse to make more powerful telescopes?
Shoulda gone with SETI instead! :P
We'll have an executive order giving the government the authority to wiretap your brain and read your thoughts at any time. Without needing a warrant.
Yup, I am sure paid researchers who have studied various biology, medical, and psychology works, sources, and classes for the majority of their lives have come to the conclusion that it is healthy to poison yourself with your own urine and they are now suggesting it as the one true path towards happiness and success...
...
...
...
Hear that? That's the sound of Captain Picard's face hitting his palm at warp 6.
Or it could be because females know full well they won't have a problem finding other strong, attractive partners. Men, on the other hand, have to work their asses off to attract a woman that is worth paying attention to.
I know quite a few couples that have been married for more than ten years that don't have children.
The good news is, now you're free to meet someone better. ;)
Who ever said the decline of the marriage tradition was a bad thing?
...they do have a very strong attachment to some principles. and that's something to be respected...
One should always be wary of principled men.
No, we must always be looking for strange new shit that violates the laws of physics as we know them. New particles, new types of matter, dark energy, broken symmetry, anything unusual.
Isn't that kind of, you know, what drives science forward? Questioning the accepted laws as they are and seeking ways to expand upon them, generalize them, or all around uproot them to explain some currently inexplicable observation we've made?
My Grandma got married a few months back (yes, you read that right). I was talking to one of the ministers at the service, and he was commenting on how he does fewer weddings these days than he used to. I asked him if he thought it might be because people are having more odd-ball weddings, rather than typical church related services. He said he had worried about that at first, but after doing some digging, it just seemed like fewer people were actually interested in marriage. This trend seemed particularly true in younger adults like myself.
That kind of discussion, plus this kind of news, plus my own personal experiences talking to folks makes me wonder if the institution is simply being questioned on a more fundamental level. It always seemed a bit odd to me (though not completely unreasonable) to commit oneself to the company of another single person for the entirety of one's remaining life. I think a lot of younger folks are starting to question that paradigm as well. As such, I think this particular 'study' might just be revealing a symptom of a deeper topic. I think the traditional institution of marriage is on the verge of slipping from being the formal definition. I don't think as many people in the free (kinda) world today are as interested or intrigued by the idea of spending the rest of their lives with one person. One of the great things the internet has done is that it has opened many people to new perspectives and new ideas. There is a lot to learn out there, and there are millions of beautiful people to meet and get to know on whatever level one may desire. I think, in light of these revelations, folks are starting to see that binding oneself to a single mate for the rest of their lives seems a bit, well, boring. If you marry someone when you are, say 22, and after ten years or so, you two have had a good run, and some good times, but things have stagnated, why not let good memories remain good memories, quit while you're ahead, and go meet someone new (if that's what you both want)?
Of course, these are just the musings of my own mind, but it's something to think about. I'd wager that over the next few decades, we are going to see the traditional institution of marriage start to fall from its place as the accepted standard.
And a believable scary "monster!"
You mean the seemingly psychic space zombie? Sorry, how was that believable again? Or, for that matter, even necessary to the plot?
You don't use an untested, unvetted technology as your primary and only means of propulsion for a mission whose sole purpose is to study a previously unstudied planet in detail. That would be like betting your life savings on a horse that has never run a horse race before.
Now, that said, if the spacecraft had enough spare capacity (power and mass wise) to pack on a small solar sail for a proof-of-concept demonstration, then, yes, it could have been a great opportunity. But if the technology was not ready, if the risk was too high (controlling a long, deployable, non-rigid moment arm is no trivial task) , or if the budgets for the spacecraft were too tight, then the design team would have vetoed any additional secondary mission (like a tech. demo).
It depends a bit on what kind of fuels they are using in their vehicles. I haven't done enough research on suborbital craft to know what types of rocket engines they duct taped to the back of their planes, but there is a large trend towards liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen rockets in the industry right now because they burn clean and basically produce steam as a waste product. Of course, there are also rocket designs that burn everything from Kerosene to tire rubber, some of which can produce some pretty noxious crap.
One of the important things to remember about the current space industry, however, is that launches very rarely occur more than once or twice a month, so the actual volume of exhaust produced is relatively low. However, if any of these companies do start scaling up to daily launches, then such effects will need to be studied. Believe it or not, those of us working in this industry are pretty intelligent individuals who do think ahead about consequences (it comes as a prerequisite for this line of work). So we will be paying attention to concerns such as yours, amongst others.
Well it's back to the chicken and egg problem. In order to take off, commercial spaceflights need paying customers. But many would-be paying customers don't want to invest so much money in hardware that hasn't actually flown yet. So we kind of get stuck in this position where some organizations with a bit of extra cash have to take a risk with their money, and some spaceflight organizations with good sales skills have to sell their flights without overselling them (in terms of advertising too much capability).
But these kinds of risks are the same type of thing that any new and groundbreaking industry has to face as it tries to gain a foothold in modern society. The only difference is, this industry is actually attempting to blow its customers up, just in a very controlled manner along a very precise 'upward' trajectory.
Well... except for the fact that we don't HAVE the heavy lift tech anymore.
Yep, the Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V 541 vehicles don't really exist. They haven't launched any payloads ever. Neither of them has ever flown out of Vandenberg or the Cape....*facepalm*
P.S. to be fair, the 541 really hasn't launched yet, but it is scheduled to this Summer.
Hehe, that's why I set up my XP computer at work to have a desktop environment that almost perfectly mimics my Gnome environment at home. I hate Nautilus, but I find the rest of Gnome to be delightful.
Well played, Sir.
You act like you're entitled by some "right" to store your wealth in foldable form ... You don't.
Actually, I do. And that seems to be the thing that folks like you forget these days. The Bill of Rights was not drafted as a piece of legal paperwork to delineate what rights we Americans have. It was drafted to delineate what rights the Federal government has the power to regulate. Anything not given to the Federal government is left to the States and citizens by default.
That means that I do have the right to carry some foldable form of wealth in my pocket unless it is written somewhere that I do not have that right. That means that I have that right and all other rights, left naturally to me by being a human being, unless they are restricted via a legal document somewhere else (like the right to operate a motor vehicle or practice medicine). So unless there is a law that says, "This and this authority are hereby granted the power to limit the types of wealth that can be carried by an individual, as well as which transactions can be carried out with that wealth..." I have they right to do exactly that which you claim I don't. That's why they are called natural human rights. They exist by default, and we contract with the government to limit them as is necessary to keep society functioning properly. That is all the power the government has.
Rights are naturally endowed at the creation of a human being. Oh, and one more thing:
You act like you're entitled by some "right"....
To quote a fellow 'dotter: Rights are not entitlements.
...you're committing an offense against all of us.
Until you show me the text of the law I am breaching by keeping my transactions private I will consider that little more than a wish on your part.
Hell, if you're so convinced of your argument, how's about you post your own financial history (complete financial history, including all relevant numbers and data which can and should be used to track your transactions) right up here for all of us to see. In fact, why don't you put it in a torrent file and host it up on rapidshare so we can all go through it in finicky detail.
What's that? You don't want the public knowing your complete financial history? But that history was conducted with our scrip! Paid for using our tax dollars! It's our right to know! If you want to participate in our society, you have to reveal all of your transactions. You don't have anything to hide right?
Or am I wrong? Are you willing to put your entire financial history online? I'm calling your bluff. Put up the text of the law I am violating by keeping my transactions private and/or anonymous. Put up your entire financial history (or whatever portion of it involved public scrip) on the internet for all the public to see. Or sit down and shut up. I won't take seriously anyone who won't apply their own ludicrous standards to themselves.
You're using the government's own printed scrip, backed by the government's health and stability, all of which is costly to all of us.
Exactly, it's costly to us. It's not the government's scrip. It's our scrip. We pay for it. And we simply trust the government to print it in a responsible manner. That means, logically, that we should be able to, as citizens, do whatever the hell we want with our scrip without oversight from our government overlords. We, the citizenry, are supposed to be tracking and monitoring our government, and all of their powers, to keep them in check. Our government is not supposed to be tracking and monitoring we citizens to keep us in check. The government is little more than a necessary evil to help manage and contend with the more unpredictable, shitty portions of being a human being living on this planet (like dealing with sociopathic criminals and such). The government is not supposed to be, and should never be, an overbearing social entity that regulates all citizens' lives to protect them from themselves.
My government should answer to me. I fund it. I contribute to it. I take time out of my busy damn life to help it function (jury duty, voting, registering my vehicle with DMV, smog checks, etc. etc. etc.). That means that the government is mine (more appropriately ours) to oversee and monitor. Not the other way around. The fact that I purchase legal tender from the government via my taxes and contributions to society does not mean that I am purchasing government oversight of my life. It means that I am entering into a social contract with the government that says, "I'll give you a portion of my earnings to help support the society that helps support me. In return, I expect access to the legal tender we (the citizenry) grant you (the government) the power to print that I may partake in whatever social transactions I see fit." What is not included in that contract, and what should never be included in that contract, is a clause that says, "I expect access to the legal tender only for goods and services that the government approves of." Money is not under the control of the Executive branch, it is under control of the Legislative branch. Money is not intended to be used as crime prevention tool. It is intended to be used as a social contract between two individuals partaking in a private transaction in a common society. To conflate those two roles is a violation of the principle of the Separation of Powers and is downright fucking stupid.
The government is not explicitly granted the power to track my private financial transactions in the Constitution of the United States of America. And, until we citizens get together and vote to amend that document and, thus, yield that power to the government that we hold a social contract with, it never has the right, responsibility, or duty to do so. Just because you wish the government has that power, does not give the government that power. Learning and understanding that principle could actually help you grow into the informed citizen that you are supposed to be in this society. Good day sir.
Obviously this is just part of the government conspiracy to out wikileaks supporters^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H terrorists! At the behest of the U.S. government, Paypal allowed the account to be opened, only to seize the funds shortly thereafter. This caused all of the terrorists to come out in support of Manning and wikileaks temporarily so all of their IP addresses could be gathered. Now that the NSA has handed over the relevant data to high lord of the internet police Joe Biden, PayPal can release the account once again, to lure in more unsuspecting terrorist supporters!
If you're smart like me, you'll only post in support of wikileaks anonymously on niche sites that nobody visits like slashdot!
*dons tinfoil hat*
I highly doubt political contributions and campaign financing are enacted via cash very often.
Your ignorance on the importance of anonymity astounds me. Try living next to some nosey, judgmental, zealous neighbors sometime and tell me how much you like the idea of all of your actions, transactions, and movements tracked.