Correct. The Aero-Buran test article that was used for this was fitted with four jet engines for Enterprise/ALT-style tests. It was exhibited for some time in Sydney and is still there due to funding (for other exhibitions everywhere) falling through. It is stored in a lot somewhere within sight of the famous suspension bridge that spans the bay. By my request, an Australian friend of mine visited the exhibit in Sydney and photographed it extensively. The jet engines are unmistakable and allowed me to positively identify which of the test articles it was.
Nobody necessarily "talked". Buran was developed partly from publicly available information about the Shuttle. For example, the film Moonraker has very, very accurate Shuttles shown in it, including the launch sequence (from the blockhouse) which is very close to the actual procedures that were used in the real program. The film was released in 1979 or so, meaning it was worked on during the Approach and Landing Test program during which no actual missions were flown by space-qualified orbiters. Yet, it is very, very accurate (including the white External Tank, which was painted for STS-1 and STS-2 but not for subsequent missions). The US has never hidden information about its shuttle program. The Soviet philosophy, on the other hand, is "hide it unless and until it works".
You're just seeing, in this case, an example of those different philosophies. The F-15/MiG and Concorde/Tu-144 similarities, however, probably actually are indeed due to industrial espionage. The Soviets have a very long history when it comes to copying Western technology; they aren't good at coming up with things on their own but are very good at imitation and adaptation.
There is no need for the orbiter to be able to close its gear doors in flight because it performs a "dead stick" (unpowered) landing with no opportunity for a go-around. Thus, systems meant to close the doors would be unnecessary dead weight. Instead, systems were designed and fitted that are designed to ensure that the gear goes down, up to and including explosives that will force the gear into the down position. The bay doors and gear are mechanically linked, so that if the door is opened the gear is automatically pulled into position.
The gear is lowered near the end of the flight, just before touchdown, far later than is done on other aircraft. If you have ever flown on a commercial or private plane, you will know that the aircraft slows down and begins to noticeably rumble when the gear goes down, due to the large amount of drag it creates. Minimizing the amount of time the gear is down maximizes the chance that the pilots can correct for any final-approach anomalies.
A gear door opening early might be a problem but not unrecoverable unless it opened far too early during descent, and a gear door that opened too late could cause a partial or total belly landing which could possibly (not definitely; it would depend on the situation) cause the unrecoverable loss of the orbiter. But the crew would probably survive, especially since they train for such ditchings.
1. The work was based in part on non-classified US shuttle information that was publicly available.
2. The US design was already tried, tested, and known to work. Why do something new when you can duplicate? The Soviets were very good at this; e.g. quickly copying the jet engines they were given during the 1950s, even going so far as to secretly collect metal shavings dropped on the floor by machining tools at the engine factory in England to find out what thte turbine blades were made from.
3. Convergence. This is an evolutionary principle which states that often, recurring similar solutions will arise spontaneously when two different organisms evolve to fill the same niche or accomplish the same goals, even if they evolved in separate parts of the world with no genetic exchange taking place. In other words, what engineers find works for a given goal in country/company A will also often come up as the best solution selected by engineers in country/company B. The principles of science and nature are absolutes the world over.
The US shuttle can virtually land itself by computer control, but final approach and landing are controlled by a human being, which was done in part because astronauts didn't feel comfortable with trusting their fate to automated systems. The shuttle was designed so that the landing gear can't be automatically activated in large part due to this philosophy. However, the change would be relatively simple to make.
The fact that Buran flew unmanned on its first flight is not that significant, however. It is normal for a new system to be flown unmanned at first in case something goes wrong. The fact that STS-1 actually had any crew at all was quite unusual, and due to the design choices mentioned above.
The Soviet system places the main engines on the Energia booster because the system is powerful enough to do this. That reduces some complexity in the orbiter due to it not having to carry the main propulsion system and it also increases the maximum payload capacity. The Buran orbiter only carries the engines required for achieving the final orbit, on-orbit maneuvering, and retrofire (for the US system, these are the OMS and RCS engines -- two OMS engines and 44 RCS jets.)
Um, Doom 3 on my new 19" LCD blows away my old 17" CRT monitor, and that monitor was a pretty good monitor. The black restore function is also tons better. The monitor is also a hell of a lot crisper, and the viewing angle's pretty decent. You must be looking at crappy monitors.
It probably comes with bundled software that has a system tray icon that you right-click, or adds menu items to the desktop context menu, or both. My Envision EN9250 did this and it works fine. No mercury switch to break and I don't expect to use the rotation much.
I also have a GeForce FX5500 and the NVidia reference drivers. Do those have rotation built in as well? If so, I haven't found it yet. If anyone knows that they do, let me know and after I verify that it has it on my install, I'll remove the bundleware.
Sadly, yes, there's a "charge it" mentality in a lot of the US, but I feel glad I'm not one of those people.
I have a 20" JVC flat tube (not LCD) TV that does just what I need, a Tivo, a $90 DVD player, a homebuilt Athlon XP 2200+ computer, a $500 19" LCD monitor (patience pays off when you watch for good deals), a 4.5-year-old (and paid off, and lightly modded, thanks to local VW club) 2000 VW Golf that I love to death and that looks like it's just-off-the-lot new, a G4 Powerbook obtained through work, a small house in a great neighborhood inherited from Grandma (who couldn't live alone anymore, and is in assisted living/nursing-home now), and only about $1k of debt, partly due to just having gone on vacation and payments are going out to attack that as soon as my next paycheck hits. I also have a healthy pair of savings accounts for personal use and emergencies.
Debt? Who needs that? Geek girls can be happy with not too much junk!
Of course, I'm 29 and (amicably) divorced and largely miserable, but that's another matter... the guy I really want is taken. Being married can be expensive at times, but sometimes I'd trade that for being happy again.
That one looks a lot like the Envision 19" I got at CompUSA for $500 + tax (came out to $530) the other week. I got the last one in all of St. Louis. It is now no longer listed on the CompUSA site and Google's cached copy of the page lists it as costing $670. I wonder what happened...
It looks quite nice without the goofy-looking pencil holders, which fortunately are removable and in fact don't come preinstalled. I left them in the box when I stored the box in the closet.
I did want a 1600x1200 monitor, but the price was way out of whack with the prices of smaller LCDs. I agree with other posters who are frustrated that you cannot get a 1600x1200 17" or larger LCD if Dell's been able to cram such a thing (even smaller!) into their Inspiron laptops. I wasn't willing to overpay, so when I saw the $500 deal I jumped on it.
The picture quality is very good, too, in standard 2D use and in 3D (Doom 3, which I am running at low res, so it's not at the monitor's native res) use. It does do portrait-mode rotation, though there's no automatic sensor, but I expect to do that relatively rarely so the short amount of time it takes to activate the bundled software that rotates the display for you is really no big deal.
I'd like to know too. MSNBC's site doesn't want to work for me. Or maybe someone can get the direct URL for the file so I can sic wget on it? As long as OS X has a player for whatever format it's in, great.
I also have to wonder about the pyro heaters for the chutes. If you've seen Apollo 13, you know there was worry that the heaters, which had been turned off to save power, might not have been able to heat the chutes enough before re-entry to keep them functional.
That mission defied the odds, the chutes deployed (all of them!) and it landed. Looks like fate may have finally caught up.
It's still a good idea for you to ask the library if they mind if you sit outside as long as you follow their rules... but it's NOT OK for a policeman to harass with no probable cause. That's the real problem here.
I don't think this is really whining. The policeman twice bothered this individual without any foreknowledge of what he was doing, and even when told his complaint was no longer valid, continued to harass someone who was causing no trouble, just sitting outside on a peaceful day. What probable cause did the officer have to do this? I can't see any.
Sadly, sometimes police officers just like flaunting their authority a little, and while this is one of the more harmless cases, what about the times photographers have been harassed for taking photographs on public property, of public buildings (or even private ones, but in public places, where there is no expectation of privacy or secrecy) and not violating anyone's personal privacy doing it?
Thank you! What, however, is the difference between the two 2.4.0 builds you're offering? I've downloaded them both for storage purposes. Is one of them from the "official" site before the "author" infringed the code copyright/license, and one you built yourself, for instance?
I think it has a VESA mount on the back which you can use to add your own swivel arm. I miss the swivel arm of the iMac G4, too, but I'm sure that someone sells, or will sell shortly, a VESA mount that will allow tilt and swivel just like the old system. It is nice to be able to push the screen with a fingertip to turn it to show someone something, or adjust it to a nice viewing angle easily, then walk away and have the next person to use the machine move it to wherever they want it. Sometimes, when I'm working on something on one for a while, I move the screen around a bit to vary how I look at it to avoid fatigue.
iterm does a much better job at ANSI than the built-in terminal does, but you should also install a good vt100 termcap to ensure the color will work right. There's instructions somewhere out there -- I'd look if I weren't so tir...*splat*... *zzz*
Slashdot Mirror
Correct. The Aero-Buran test article that was used for this was fitted with four jet engines for Enterprise/ALT-style tests. It was exhibited for some time in Sydney and is still there due to funding (for other exhibitions everywhere) falling through. It is stored in a lot somewhere within sight of the famous suspension bridge that spans the bay. By my request, an Australian friend of mine visited the exhibit in Sydney and photographed it extensively. The jet engines are unmistakable and allowed me to positively identify which of the test articles it was.
Erratum: The SRBs are processed in Utah.
Only once, in 1988, with no crew on board. Program dismantled shortly thereafter due to lack of funding.
Nobody necessarily "talked". Buran was developed partly from publicly available information about the Shuttle. For example, the film Moonraker has very, very accurate Shuttles shown in it, including the launch sequence (from the blockhouse) which is very close to the actual procedures that were used in the real program. The film was released in 1979 or so, meaning it was worked on during the Approach and Landing Test program during which no actual missions were flown by space-qualified orbiters. Yet, it is very, very accurate (including the white External Tank, which was painted for STS-1 and STS-2 but not for subsequent missions). The US has never hidden information about its shuttle program. The Soviet philosophy, on the other hand, is "hide it unless and until it works".
You're just seeing, in this case, an example of those different philosophies. The F-15/MiG and Concorde/Tu-144 similarities, however, probably actually are indeed due to industrial espionage. The Soviets have a very long history when it comes to copying Western technology; they aren't good at coming up with things on their own but are very good at imitation and adaptation.
More on how all this happened:
Buran - In Depth History
There is no need for the orbiter to be able to close its gear doors in flight because it performs a "dead stick" (unpowered) landing with no opportunity for a go-around. Thus, systems meant to close the doors would be unnecessary dead weight. Instead, systems were designed and fitted that are designed to ensure that the gear goes down, up to and including explosives that will force the gear into the down position. The bay doors and gear are mechanically linked, so that if the door is opened the gear is automatically pulled into position.
The gear is lowered near the end of the flight, just before touchdown, far later than is done on other aircraft. If you have ever flown on a commercial or private plane, you will know that the aircraft slows down and begins to noticeably rumble when the gear goes down, due to the large amount of drag it creates. Minimizing the amount of time the gear is down maximizes the chance that the pilots can correct for any final-approach anomalies.
A gear door opening early might be a problem but not unrecoverable unless it opened far too early during descent, and a gear door that opened too late could cause a partial or total belly landing which could possibly (not definitely; it would depend on the situation) cause the unrecoverable loss of the orbiter. But the crew would probably survive, especially since they train for such ditchings.
It looks similar for several reasons:
1. The work was based in part on non-classified US shuttle information that was publicly available.
2. The US design was already tried, tested, and known to work. Why do something new when you can duplicate? The Soviets were very good at this; e.g. quickly copying the jet engines they were given during the 1950s, even going so far as to secretly collect metal shavings dropped on the floor by machining tools at the engine factory in England to find out what thte turbine blades were made from.
3. Convergence. This is an evolutionary principle which states that often, recurring similar solutions will arise spontaneously when two different organisms evolve to fill the same niche or accomplish the same goals, even if they evolved in separate parts of the world with no genetic exchange taking place. In other words, what engineers find works for a given goal in country/company A will also often come up as the best solution selected by engineers in country/company B. The principles of science and nature are absolutes the world over.
More on the history of Buran:
Buran - In Depth History
The US shuttle can virtually land itself by computer control, but final approach and landing are controlled by a human being, which was done in part because astronauts didn't feel comfortable with trusting their fate to automated systems. The shuttle was designed so that the landing gear can't be automatically activated in large part due to this philosophy. However, the change would be relatively simple to make.
The fact that Buran flew unmanned on its first flight is not that significant, however. It is normal for a new system to be flown unmanned at first in case something goes wrong. The fact that STS-1 actually had any crew at all was quite unusual, and due to the design choices mentioned above.
The Soviet system places the main engines on the Energia booster because the system is powerful enough to do this. That reduces some complexity in the orbiter due to it not having to carry the main propulsion system and it also increases the maximum payload capacity. The Buran orbiter only carries the engines required for achieving the final orbit, on-orbit maneuvering, and retrofire (for the US system, these are the OMS and RCS engines -- two OMS engines and 44 RCS jets.)
See Buran - In Depth History for more info.
And yes, this name was indeed selected because of the Soviet shuttle. Whenever I am asked about it, I point people here:
Buran
Shuttle Buran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Blogsafe version (get yer blogsafe NYT links at http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink -- why Slashdot doesn't know about this yet I don't know)
Um, Doom 3 on my new 19" LCD blows away my old 17" CRT monitor, and that monitor was a pretty good monitor. The black restore function is also tons better. The monitor is also a hell of a lot crisper, and the viewing angle's pretty decent. You must be looking at crappy monitors.
It probably comes with bundled software that has a system tray icon that you right-click, or adds menu items to the desktop context menu, or both. My Envision EN9250 did this and it works fine. No mercury switch to break and I don't expect to use the rotation much.
I also have a GeForce FX5500 and the NVidia reference drivers. Do those have rotation built in as well? If so, I haven't found it yet. If anyone knows that they do, let me know and after I verify that it has it on my install, I'll remove the bundleware.
Sadly, yes, there's a "charge it" mentality in a lot of the US, but I feel glad I'm not one of those people.
... the guy I really want is taken. Being married can be expensive at times, but sometimes I'd trade that for being happy again.
I have a 20" JVC flat tube (not LCD) TV that does just what I need, a Tivo, a $90 DVD player, a homebuilt Athlon XP 2200+ computer, a $500 19" LCD monitor (patience pays off when you watch for good deals), a 4.5-year-old (and paid off, and lightly modded, thanks to local VW club) 2000 VW Golf that I love to death and that looks like it's just-off-the-lot new, a G4 Powerbook obtained through work, a small house in a great neighborhood inherited from Grandma (who couldn't live alone anymore, and is in assisted living/nursing-home now), and only about $1k of debt, partly due to just having gone on vacation and payments are going out to attack that as soon as my next paycheck hits. I also have a healthy pair of savings accounts for personal use and emergencies.
Debt? Who needs that? Geek girls can be happy with not too much junk!
Of course, I'm 29 and (amicably) divorced and largely miserable, but that's another matter
That one looks a lot like the Envision 19" I got at CompUSA for $500 + tax (came out to $530) the other week. I got the last one in all of St. Louis. It is now no longer listed on the CompUSA site and Google's cached copy of the page lists it as costing $670. I wonder what happened ...
Envision EN9250 Monitor : Hardware-Corner.net
It looks quite nice without the goofy-looking pencil holders, which fortunately are removable and in fact don't come preinstalled. I left them in the box when I stored the box in the closet.
I did want a 1600x1200 monitor, but the price was way out of whack with the prices of smaller LCDs. I agree with other posters who are frustrated that you cannot get a 1600x1200 17" or larger LCD if Dell's been able to cram such a thing (even smaller!) into their Inspiron laptops. I wasn't willing to overpay, so when I saw the $500 deal I jumped on it.
The picture quality is very good, too, in standard 2D use and in 3D (Doom 3, which I am running at low res, so it's not at the monitor's native res) use. It does do portrait-mode rotation, though there's no automatic sensor, but I expect to do that relatively rarely so the short amount of time it takes to activate the bundled software that rotates the display for you is really no big deal.
I'd like to know too. MSNBC's site doesn't want to work for me. Or maybe someone can get the direct URL for the file so I can sic wget on it? As long as OS X has a player for whatever format it's in, great.
I also have to wonder about the pyro heaters for the chutes. If you've seen Apollo 13, you know there was worry that the heaters, which had been turned off to save power, might not have been able to heat the chutes enough before re-entry to keep them functional.
That mission defied the odds, the chutes deployed (all of them!) and it landed. Looks like fate may have finally caught up.
It's still a good idea for you to ask the library if they mind if you sit outside as long as you follow their rules ... but it's NOT OK for a policeman to harass with no probable cause. That's the real problem here.
I don't think this is really whining. The policeman twice bothered this individual without any foreknowledge of what he was doing, and even when told his complaint was no longer valid, continued to harass someone who was causing no trouble, just sitting outside on a peaceful day. What probable cause did the officer have to do this? I can't see any.
Sadly, sometimes police officers just like flaunting their authority a little, and while this is one of the more harmless cases, what about the times photographers have been harassed for taking photographs on public property, of public buildings (or even private ones, but in public places, where there is no expectation of privacy or secrecy) and not violating anyone's personal privacy doing it?
Thank you! What, however, is the difference between the two 2.4.0 builds you're offering? I've downloaded them both for storage purposes. Is one of them from the "official" site before the "author" infringed the code copyright/license, and one you built yourself, for instance?
I think it has a VESA mount on the back which you can use to add your own swivel arm. I miss the swivel arm of the iMac G4, too, but I'm sure that someone sells, or will sell shortly, a VESA mount that will allow tilt and swivel just like the old system. It is nice to be able to push the screen with a fingertip to turn it to show someone something, or adjust it to a nice viewing angle easily, then walk away and have the next person to use the machine move it to wherever they want it. Sometimes, when I'm working on something on one for a while, I move the screen around a bit to vary how I look at it to avoid fatigue.
I got a good laugh out of this when I first saw it.
Apple Product Life Cycle
Er, no. :p
I've been wondering if it'll work with those new SD WiFi cards.
iterm does a much better job at ANSI than the built-in terminal does, but you should also install a good vt100 termcap to ensure the color will work right. There's instructions somewhere out there -- I'd look if I weren't so tir...*splat*... *zzz*
Do they have male strippers? :p (yep, I'm one of those rare female posters!)