I find it ironic that it was a Democrat that really kicked off America's space program (Kennedy), a Republican to hobble it (Nixon) and finally a Democrat (Obama) to stomp on whats left....
Oh you may laugh, but they've been developed and tested! Explosive bolts sever the rotor blades before seat ejection on the Russian designed units, while I believe the American units were downward ejecting.
A 12lb chunk of wood and metal flying at 100mph with a 14" blade spinning at 12,000rpm on the front isn't a toy. These things are model aircraft - calling them 'toys' completely trivializes the damage they can do when they hit things or, FSM forbid, people.
Don't take building and operating one of these models lightly. People have been seriously injured or even killed by them. The regulations that govern building and flying them are there for everyone's safety, and you can learn more about the U.S. regulations by going here: http://www.modelaircraft.org/
There are two distinct types of cosmic rays - low energy ones that are sourced from the sun, and the high energy ones that are sourced from the big guys on the universal block. So yes, there are different sources for both high and low energy cosmic rays. However, for the sake of this conversation all cosmic rays are considered high energy when compared to the measly energies our colliders can produce:)
The matter goes nowhere. It is completely and utterly annihilated. Some radiation escapes from the event horizon of a black hole due to Hawking radiation, but it contains none of the information encoded in the original consumed matter or energy.
Heh - when you're talking about a black hole at or smaller than the size of an atomic nucleus it doesn't matter whether it's at the top of the atmosphere or at the center of the Earth. Matter at that scale is described as tenuous at best. You'd have to get somewhere like the center of the sun or denser before a collision would be anywhere near likely.
The Sun in conjunction with the Earth's atmosphere has been colliding particles with WAY higher energies that the LHC could ever manage for billions of years now. As far as I know we've not been consumed by a mini black hole yet.
The best thing about the Beeb was the amazing number of expansion ports on it. The number of electronic circuits I built and hooked up to the User port... Now THAT'S entertainment!
Yes, I was that sad kid.
Cue *Kids nowadays don't know...* and *Get of my lawn* comments in 3.... 2.... 1....
Oh, I agree with you entirely. There are three methods currently in use for slowing spaceships down, but unfortunately they all have their own quite serious down-sides.
The most common is atmospheric breaking, but as mentioned before that has issues with how thing Mars' atmosphere is, how heavy the entry vehicle has to be due to the stresses involved and the added weight of the chutes and heat shield, and how difficult it is considering the extreme speeds involved in a Mars insertion.
You can use orbital dynamics to slow yourself down. This is typically done on missions to the outer planets, but unfortunately takes much longer than a direct insert due to the additional orbits and manouvers needed to complete deceleration. This is a big problem for any manned mission.
Finally you can just flip your ship 180 degrees and fire the main engines in a deceleration burn. This is effective, but means that you have to take twice as much fuel with you as you'd otherwise need. This is a BIG issue for any future Mars missions, as we don't yet know how we're going to drag the bare minimum of what we need over that distance and time period.
It's a very interesting set of engineering problems that we still need to solve for Mars missions. I hope that we keep working at them until we find solutions.
"once out of the earth's gravity well, it is the same diff to get to one place or another"
A journey of a few days vs. a journey of a few weeks (insanely optimistic) to eighteen months (far more realistic.) If one of your success criteria is having live astronauts at the end of the trip then I'm putting my money on the latter being the one that's orders of magnitude harder.
"to land on mars, we can use the atmosphere to slow down the craft"
(a) Mars' atmosphere is very thin, (b) its gravity is far higher than the moon, (c) the crew capsule/landing module for any Mars mission will be far larger than that required for a Moon mission (it's got to contend with the fact that there IS an atmosphere for a start), and (d) entry speed for a Mars mission is massively higher than a Moon landing due to the fact that you have to be going so much faster just to get to Mars in any 'reasonable' time frame.
Handling a Mars orbital insertion and landing is hugely more technically challenging than a Moon landing for all of those reasons, and more. The science and engineering behind designing parachutes that could slow a capsule down to landing speeds alone is daunting. Don't forget that due to (a) they have to be enormous compared to parachutes used on the Earth, and they have to open in such a way that the mechanical stresses don't tear them or turn the capsule occupants into paté.
The Moon is easy in comparison. There's no atmosphere to worry about so the lander was delicate and above all light, and the Moon's gravity is low enough that you can gently touch down using just a single moderately powered descent engine.
To be honest you're probably not going to find a cure for Pancreatic cancer any time soon, even with a trillion dollars thrown at it. The problems with this form of cancer are:
1) It's in the endocrine system, meaning it has easy access to a lot of other vital organs that the cancer can spread to, 2) The pancreas is vital to survival (it produces insulin, as well as a host of pancreatic enzymes that the body needs to be able to process food and regulate metabolism) so you can't just chop the whole thing out if it becomes cancerous 3) It's nestled in the middle of a complex set of nerves, arteries and veins meaning that it's extremely difficult, and often impossible, to perform surgical or radiation treatments, 4) Screening programs often don't work, as the cancer is completely capable of developing without showing up in any blood tests, 5) This is the real kicker - the early symptoms of PC are identical to a host of other minor illnesses such as gallstones, back ache, indigestion or acid reflux. By the time the symptoms have become serious enough for the patient to go to the doctor with them, and by the time the doctor has ruled out all the simpler ailments the symptoms point to, it's almost always too late. That's why this disease has a 5 year mortality rate of 98% and a 1 year mortality rate of over 75%, along with being the U.S.'s most fatal cancer.
Even if we could implement an accurate and early-detection screening programme, the cancer is so aggressive that we really need a paradigm shift away from current radiation and chemotherapy treatments. It's not so much that we're lacking money in researching into new forms of treatment as it is we're lacking the knowledge necessary to advance in these areas right now. There are plenty of well funded people working to solve the problems of cancer - right now we're waiting for one of them to have the 'eureka!' moment.
He's not caving to the demands of others, he's complying with the requirements of others. He's the one who wants to purchase a service from them. If he doesn't like their requirements then he's perfectly capable of going and arranging housing for himself individually. I'm sure there are plenty of landlords out there that would be happy to take his cash.
The maturity aspect comes in realizing that you can't expect the entire world to change to fit you just because you're a whiny bitch.
Slashdot Mirror
If only there were some way to stop children from being able to view porn on the internet. You know, apart from parenting and web-filters obviously.
Just out of interest, what tax rates are you paying right now, and what would be the expected tax rates if this legislation were to pass?
The other Kings said I were stupid to build a castle across the Knik Arm, but I did it anyway!
I find it ironic that it was a Democrat that really kicked off America's space program (Kennedy), a Republican to hobble it (Nixon) and finally a Democrat (Obama) to stomp on whats left....
And they say that bipartizanship is dead.
Oh you may laugh, but they've been developed and tested! Explosive bolts sever the rotor blades before seat ejection on the Russian designed units, while I believe the American units were downward ejecting.
Landing a UAV is easy. It's landing it in one piece that gets tricky!
A 12lb chunk of wood and metal flying at 100mph with a 14" blade spinning at 12,000rpm on the front isn't a toy. These things are model aircraft - calling them 'toys' completely trivializes the damage they can do when they hit things or, FSM forbid, people.
Don't take building and operating one of these models lightly. People have been seriously injured or even killed by them. The regulations that govern building and flying them are there for everyone's safety, and you can learn more about the U.S. regulations by going here: http://www.modelaircraft.org/
I was just imagining the 'clown car' version of the Soyuz.
18 crew members? What, are they having some kind of party up there? Did somebody drop in unannounced?
Hey - you're not meant to complain about Slashdot Pole options!
There are two distinct types of cosmic rays - low energy ones that are sourced from the sun, and the high energy ones that are sourced from the big guys on the universal block. So yes, there are different sources for both high and low energy cosmic rays. However, for the sake of this conversation all cosmic rays are considered high energy when compared to the measly energies our colliders can produce :)
The matter goes nowhere. It is completely and utterly annihilated. Some radiation escapes from the event horizon of a black hole due to Hawking radiation, but it contains none of the information encoded in the original consumed matter or energy.
Heh - when you're talking about a black hole at or smaller than the size of an atomic nucleus it doesn't matter whether it's at the top of the atmosphere or at the center of the Earth. Matter at that scale is described as tenuous at best. You'd have to get somewhere like the center of the sun or denser before a collision would be anywhere near likely.
The Sun in conjunction with the Earth's atmosphere has been colliding particles with WAY higher energies that the LHC could ever manage for billions of years now. As far as I know we've not been consumed by a mini black hole yet.
Pah.
The best thing about the Beeb was the amazing number of expansion ports on it. The number of electronic circuits I built and hooked up to the User port... Now THAT'S entertainment!
Yes, I was that sad kid.
Cue *Kids nowadays don't know...* and *Get of my lawn* comments in 3.... 2.... 1....
Exactly! I'm in the situation where I either have Comcast, AT&T DSL at 17,500 line feet from the DSLAM, or nothing.
Until there's decent deregulation of the local cable industries then companies like Comcast will do whatever they feel like with impunity.
Oh, I agree with you entirely. There are three methods currently in use for slowing spaceships down, but unfortunately they all have their own quite serious down-sides.
The most common is atmospheric breaking, but as mentioned before that has issues with how thing Mars' atmosphere is, how heavy the entry vehicle has to be due to the stresses involved and the added weight of the chutes and heat shield, and how difficult it is considering the extreme speeds involved in a Mars insertion.
You can use orbital dynamics to slow yourself down. This is typically done on missions to the outer planets, but unfortunately takes much longer than a direct insert due to the additional orbits and manouvers needed to complete deceleration. This is a big problem for any manned mission.
Finally you can just flip your ship 180 degrees and fire the main engines in a deceleration burn. This is effective, but means that you have to take twice as much fuel with you as you'd otherwise need. This is a BIG issue for any future Mars missions, as we don't yet know how we're going to drag the bare minimum of what we need over that distance and time period.
It's a very interesting set of engineering problems that we still need to solve for Mars missions. I hope that we keep working at them until we find solutions.
"once out of the earth's gravity well, it is the same diff to get to one place or another"
/landing module for any Mars mission will be far larger than that required for a Moon mission (it's got to contend with the fact that there IS an atmosphere for a start), and (d) entry speed for a Mars mission is massively higher than a Moon landing due to the fact that you have to be going so much faster just to get to Mars in any 'reasonable' time frame.
A journey of a few days vs. a journey of a few weeks (insanely optimistic) to eighteen months (far more realistic.) If one of your success criteria is having live astronauts at the end of the trip then I'm putting my money on the latter being the one that's orders of magnitude harder.
"to land on mars, we can use the atmosphere to slow down the craft"
(a) Mars' atmosphere is very thin, (b) its gravity is far higher than the moon, (c) the crew capsule
Handling a Mars orbital insertion and landing is hugely more technically challenging than a Moon landing for all of those reasons, and more. The science and engineering behind designing parachutes that could slow a capsule down to landing speeds alone is daunting. Don't forget that due to (a) they have to be enormous compared to parachutes used on the Earth, and they have to open in such a way that the mechanical stresses don't tear them or turn the capsule occupants into paté.
The Moon is easy in comparison. There's no atmosphere to worry about so the lander was delicate and above all light, and the Moon's gravity is low enough that you can gently touch down using just a single moderately powered descent engine.
"10 years? Where has the time gone?"
I have no idea - I've been browsing SlashDot.
Pah! Whippersnappers!
To be honest you're probably not going to find a cure for Pancreatic cancer any time soon, even with a trillion dollars thrown at it. The problems with this form of cancer are:
1) It's in the endocrine system, meaning it has easy access to a lot of other vital organs that the cancer can spread to,
2) The pancreas is vital to survival (it produces insulin, as well as a host of pancreatic enzymes that the body needs to be able to process food and regulate metabolism) so you can't just chop the whole thing out if it becomes cancerous
3) It's nestled in the middle of a complex set of nerves, arteries and veins meaning that it's extremely difficult, and often impossible, to perform surgical or radiation treatments,
4) Screening programs often don't work, as the cancer is completely capable of developing without showing up in any blood tests,
5) This is the real kicker - the early symptoms of PC are identical to a host of other minor illnesses such as gallstones, back ache, indigestion or acid reflux. By the time the symptoms have become serious enough for the patient to go to the doctor with them, and by the time the doctor has ruled out all the simpler ailments the symptoms point to, it's almost always too late. That's why this disease has a 5 year mortality rate of 98% and a 1 year mortality rate of over 75%, along with being the U.S.'s most fatal cancer.
Even if we could implement an accurate and early-detection screening programme, the cancer is so aggressive that we really need a paradigm shift away from current radiation and chemotherapy treatments. It's not so much that we're lacking money in researching into new forms of treatment as it is we're lacking the knowledge necessary to advance in these areas right now. There are plenty of well funded people working to solve the problems of cancer - right now we're waiting for one of them to have the 'eureka!' moment.
"But meeting the person in real life can be a disaster." ...or it can work out. I met my wife online, eight years and three kids ago!
Just like any relationships in life, sometimes it's a disaster and sometimes it's great.
He's not caving to the demands of others, he's complying with the requirements of others. He's the one who wants to purchase a service from them. If he doesn't like their requirements then he's perfectly capable of going and arranging housing for himself individually. I'm sure there are plenty of landlords out there that would be happy to take his cash.
The maturity aspect comes in realizing that you can't expect the entire world to change to fit you just because you're a whiny bitch.
"Couldn't they give them away in a jingle-writing contest?"
Sure they could, but the winner would have to pay for Postage and Packing.