Since clause 2 allows me to convert the whole thing to the GPL, this winds up with a license that's the same as the GPL. (Assuming I take that option... and I really don't see any reason not to.) And if I can convert it to the GPL, then why didn't the company just release it under the GPL to begin with.
I'm thinking that the whole idea of companies trying to release code that they wrote to take advantage of a bazzar while still trying to create a proprietary product is a bad idea. I personally think that one of the most important principles of the bazzar idea is that no one person or company has any special rights vs the others involved. Otherwise, the development will be done by those who have the most to gain, while others will tend to stand aside and let them do it.
Just a reminder to everyone here. Hotels created using shuttle external tanks are never going to be created. The wet-tank concept has many flaws, ranging from a lack of shielding to a debris cloud created by tank insulation to the ~1000 lbs payload penalty to the difficulty of major construction projects in space.
A better idea is something based on the transhab, an inflatable large structure that can be customized beforehand. (By inflatable, think of inflating a baloon with 1ft thick kevlar walls.)
Of course, while NASA might be convinced to launch this thing with the shuttle, it probably won't want to supply/ferry passengers to this station. So, the earliest pre-dependcy will be private commercial passenger launch capability to a reasonably high orbit. Right now, we don't have that capability. Now, eventually we will get passenger launch, but I would't start seriously considering creating a hotel until that is proven.
Radiation isn't that big a deal when one's under the protection of the Van Allen Belts. It's only in orbits above them that the flashes really start to show up. (ie, during Apollo and High Altitude Gemini.)
Interesting fact: Gemini was originally designed to be able to be sent around the moon. The capability was never used because it may have sapped funding from Apollo.
Micrometeorites are a danger, but shielding can be expected to protect against them. A transhabish design, the most likely one for the future, contains layers of kevlar for just this purpose.
What a decadent waste. The energy used to carry out recreational space travel and 'space hotels' would be better left for future generations to heat their homes and cook their food. If/when man comes up with renewable sources of energy, then maybe we should look into things like this. This really isn't all that big a deal. The world is in no danger of running out of energy... at most, we will eventually in the somewhat far future have to switch from oil to other sources of energy. The reason why we haven't don this yet is that there really hasn't been a good enough reason to justify the economic costs.
It might be somewhat decadent... but not unusually so. And I don't see this as being any more wasteful then, say, a concorde flight that has to fight drag all day.
ASR seems like it has a good chance of accomplishing what it set out to do... although I think they're going to probably wind up using an alternate (and more expensive) booster, making the whole thing cost more. Still, I think it has a good chance of working out.
I'm really wondering what the point of TransOrbital is. Isn't there enough photography of the moon for current purposes?
I haven't heard of LunaCorp before... who are they trying to target WRT paying customers? Scientists or tourists?
The Artemis Project has been around 5 years. In that time, they've sold several prints of paintings, and self-published a collection of science fiction.
And not gotten one step closer to the lunar surface.
Eventually we'll go back to the moon. But it won't be until access to space significantly cheapens and technology significantly improves.
Humankind doesn't advance without this kind of pie-in-the-sky fantasizing by a bunch of dreamers. It's easy to sit back and shoot down the this group's plans, but how does that help?
It's not the pie in the sky dreamers who advance humanity... it's the type of dreamer who can come up with an idea, build it, and make it work, that really matter. And that's the biggest thing... it's real easy to give impractical plans on how to go to the moon (We'll shoot us out of a cannon! We'll mount a NASCAR on a SRB and use the sponsors to pay for it!), but it's a hard problem to make the dream a reality in a way that makes sense.
If someone can do that, they will have my utmost respect and admiration. But ASI is rather far from that point, despite the pretty pictures and lots of text on their site.
I don't know if that's good or bad. Are aircraft standards good enough for spacecraft? A spacecraft can't just land somewhere if something goes wrong. OTOH, most all airplane flights have no problems (except maybe delays at airports).
This is an interesting question... I think that this points out the biggest thing about space travel... weight. (Actually mass.)
Building to aircraft standards is all well and good, but it means that one can easily sacrifice weight to maintain safety margins. In space travel, every pound of weight carried must be supported by several pounds of fuel... this means there is a pressure to save weight.
If one has to save weight while maintaining safety margins, the problem becomes harder, and the cost to solve it becomes more expensive.
The biggest problem I had with the book was the way Bean quickly figures out many of the things that Ender takes a long time to realize. I think that the reason he did this was to move the plot along... understandable, but it does make Bean seem rather omniscient.
This book also seems to set up a sequel, in classic Card fashion... can't really blame it for that, however..
BTW, Card has the first few pages of his Ender's Game linked to from his web site.
Eliminate the use of directory overrides (via.htaccess) wherever possible. They're usually not worth it.
Not only that, turn them off. (AllowOverrides None, IIRC) If you simply don't use them but have them enabled anyway, you pay the price WRT all the stat(2) calls the server does looking for them.
This is all IIRC, but I usually have a good memory. Then again, I did just wake up.
MIR and the ISS are in two completly different orbits. Complete with different inclinations (due to lanuch sites) and assorted other orbital elements.
Actually, the're in similar orbits. Both are at 51.6 degrees inclination, for example, and most other differences are minor ones due to drag.
However, the two stations are almost on other sides of the world... I see them right now as being about 140 degrees apart. This was intentional, so the two would never have to compete for limited Russian tracking resources. However, what this means is that it would take far to much fuel to line the two up. (It takes money to launch fuel, and a lack of money is what's causing Mir to be abandoned.)
I think the real problem is a man-in-the-middle style attack, in which someone could insert a bogus Java applet into what looks like a hushmail web page. Type your passphrase and BLAM!, instant security breach.
IMO, it's better than SSL secure webmail, but worse than PGP.
I trust PGP for all of my encryption needs. I also trust ssh and hushmail.com.
While I trust PGP and SSH, at least for versions in which I can get my hands on the source, I'm interested in knowing why you trust hushmail. It just seems to me that directing mail through a central server is a good way to blow security. Even if hushmail is secure and honest (and I have no reason at this time to doubt either), it just seems to me that this is adding a weak link to the chain that really doesn't need to be there.
Actually, this would be much less possible than you seem to think. The shuttle's heat shield wouldn't be able to stand the lunar reentry, and there's still no need to lug along things like wings which don't help, but merely add to the weight which needs to be brought to and from the moon.
Actually, the burial's free, it's just the funeral procession that cost a bit.
Seriously, though, this is quite fitting, and I have no problems at all with NASA doing something like this to honor a man who said that his greatest disappointment in life was "not going to the moon and banging on it with my own hammer."
The shuttle can't make it to the moon. (Not enough fuel.) Even if it could, you really wouldn't want to use it to get there. The shuttle's wings (for example) are utterly useless in an airless environment, and are just one more thing that'll need to be accelerated into a lunar transfer orbit.
The right way of doing it is to use the shuttle to launch a crew module, and use a shuttle-C or an EELV or some other large cargo ship to launch the fuel.
(Of course,.we can all hang out and wait for the day that nanotech makes it possible for us to extrude a Saturn V right in our backyard. (But what would the negihbors say?))
It is likely that the hatch bolts blew from the impact of landing.
Actually, I think the current thinking is that static electricity from the helecopter overhead was what set the charges off. (The other one I heard was that the "pull to blow hatch" line was caught on something, and accidentally pulled.)
LB7 was in the water for quite a bit before the hatch blew, so it wasn't from the direct impact.
Well, Nasa still wanted him around, even after the LB7 sinking. In fact, he was known as a test pilot among test pilots, and was given command of the first manned Gemini.
This one, he named the "Molly Brown".
After that, NASA didn't let them name ships until Apollo.
Can anyone provide more details on the purpose of the explosive device they through overboard after the recovery was? I find it difficult to believe they wanted to use this to locate the capsule. That would seem like it would put the astronaut's life in considerable jeopardy? Why not use some kind of flare?
It's called a Sofar bomb. The purpose was to deploy when the chutes did, and to detonate when it reached a certain depth. This would be easily visible (audible?) on sonar, and allow for the position of a lost capsule to be computed. It's not really all that dangerous vs all the other things that could go boom on a Mercury capsule. (Ranging from manuvering fuel to retrofire rockets to an explosive hatch that could trigger itself.) IIRC, the sofar bomb was armed and triggered by passing a certain depth.
Not really. It's been more than 30 years since Liberty Bell 7 went up (and then down), and the first expedition was sent out a few months ago. The first expedition would have recovered it, but the ROV they were using died, forcing a delay as they had to get a new one.
It's almost silly to consider the possibility of having competing ISPs accessing the cable lines directly. An IP address is and IP address, and one can be used to access any other host on the internet. This is why it doesn't really matter if someone is directly connected to the physical cable or not.
What I'd expect (or perhaps what I'd like) to happen is in the future, is a regulated service in which all a being gets is access and a routable IP address, and the creation of a market for value-added services, like web hosting, email, usenet, and AOL.
The SR-71 was a spy plane, and couldn't go anywhere near space. The X-15 was a rocket plane, and could go mach 6.7, which, while not orbital speed, isn't too shabby. It made some suborbital runs in which the pilots were awarded astronaut wings for reaching the (IIRC, 50 mile high) edge of space.
You may be confusing the X-15 with the X-1, which was the first plane to break the sound barrier. Both were dropped from a converted bomber, probably because the rockets would be none to efficient on takeoff.
Re:The path to commercial space travel
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NASA's X-37
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I still want to know why we don't boost up the main tanks from each shuttle mission, and put them in a parking orbit.
The biggest reason is because there's no real need to do so. NASA doesn't want to spend the time needed to strip the insulation off the tank safely, and if noone else does it, it will flake off, providing a massive debris hazard.
the Shuttle is cool and all, but its not designed NEARLY as well as it should have been imho. Too expensive for what it does!
The shuttle design process was full of tradeoffs... the decision to go with solid boosters a prime one. Still, it represents the triumph of 1970s technology.
As for publicity... there's a reason why they bumped up the next mission so it launches on the 20th. (Most shuttle missions launch on Thursday, BTW... so they can do a 3 day countdown w/o overtime. This one's going up on a Tuesday, and the 30th anniversary of something important...)
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I'm thinking that the whole idea of companies trying to release code that they wrote to take advantage of a bazzar while still trying to create a proprietary product is a bad idea. I personally think that one of the most important principles of the bazzar idea is that no one person or company has any special rights vs the others involved. Otherwise, the development will be done by those who have the most to gain, while others will tend to stand aside and let them do it.
A better idea is something based on the transhab, an inflatable large structure that can be customized beforehand. (By inflatable, think of inflating a baloon with 1ft thick kevlar walls.)
Of course, while NASA might be convinced to launch this thing with the shuttle, it probably won't want to supply/ferry passengers to this station. So, the earliest pre-dependcy will be private commercial passenger launch capability to a reasonably high orbit. Right now, we don't have that capability. Now, eventually we will get passenger launch, but I would't start seriously considering creating a hotel until that is proven.
Interesting fact: Gemini was originally designed to be able to be sent around the moon. The capability was never used because it may have sapped funding from Apollo.
Micrometeorites are a danger, but shielding can be expected to protect against them. A transhabish design, the most likely one for the future, contains layers of kevlar for just this purpose.
What a decadent waste. The energy used to carry out recreational space travel and 'space hotels' would be better left for future generations to heat their homes and cook their food. If/when man comes up with renewable sources of energy, then maybe we should look into things like this. This really isn't all that big a deal. The world is in no danger of running out of energy... at most, we will eventually in the somewhat far future have to switch from oil to other sources of energy. The reason why we haven't don this yet is that there really hasn't been a good enough reason to justify the economic costs.
It might be somewhat decadent... but not unusually so. And I don't see this as being any more wasteful then, say, a concorde flight that has to fight drag all day.
I'm really wondering what the point of TransOrbital is. Isn't there enough photography of the moon for current purposes?
I haven't heard of LunaCorp before... who are they trying to target WRT paying customers? Scientists or tourists?
And not gotten one step closer to the lunar surface.
Eventually we'll go back to the moon. But it won't be until access to space significantly cheapens and technology significantly improves.
It's not the pie in the sky dreamers who advance humanity... it's the type of dreamer who can come up with an idea, build it, and make it work, that really matter. And that's the biggest thing... it's real easy to give impractical plans on how to go to the moon (We'll shoot us out of a cannon! We'll mount a NASCAR on a SRB and use the sponsors to pay for it!), but it's a hard problem to make the dream a reality in a way that makes sense.
If someone can do that, they will have my utmost respect and admiration. But ASI is rather far from that point, despite the pretty pictures and lots of text on their site.
This is an interesting question... I think that this points out the biggest thing about space travel... weight. (Actually mass.)
Building to aircraft standards is all well and good, but it means that one can easily sacrifice weight to maintain safety margins. In space travel, every pound of weight carried must be supported by several pounds of fuel... this means there is a pressure to save weight.
If one has to save weight while maintaining safety margins, the problem becomes harder, and the cost to solve it becomes more expensive.
The biggest problem I had with the book was the way Bean quickly figures out many of the things that Ender takes a long time to realize. I think that the reason he did this was to move the plot along... understandable, but it does make Bean seem rather omniscient.
This book also seems to set up a sequel, in classic Card fashion... can't really blame it for that, however..
BTW, Card has the first few pages of his Ender's Game linked to from his web site.
Not only that, turn them off. (AllowOverrides None, IIRC) If you simply don't use them but have them enabled anyway, you pay the price WRT all the stat(2) calls the server does looking for them.
This is all IIRC, but I usually have a good memory. Then again, I did just wake up.
However, the point is moot, unless someone can provide an economical solution by September 2000.
Actually, the're in similar orbits. Both are at 51.6 degrees inclination, for example, and most other differences are minor ones due to drag.
However, the two stations are almost on other sides of the world... I see them right now as being about 140 degrees apart. This was intentional, so the two would never have to compete for limited Russian tracking resources. However, what this means is that it would take far to much fuel to line the two up. (It takes money to launch fuel, and a lack of money is what's causing Mir to be abandoned.)
IMO, it's better than SSL secure webmail, but worse than PGP.
While I trust PGP and SSH, at least for versions in which I can get my hands on the source, I'm interested in knowing why you trust hushmail. It just seems to me that directing mail through a central server is a good way to blow security. Even if hushmail is secure and honest (and I have no reason at this time to doubt either), it just seems to me that this is adding a weak link to the chain that really doesn't need to be there.
Actually, this would be much less possible than you seem to think. The shuttle's heat shield wouldn't be able to stand the lunar reentry, and there's still no need to lug along things like wings which don't help, but merely add to the weight which needs to be brought to and from the moon.
Seriously, though, this is quite fitting, and I have no problems at all with NASA doing something like this to honor a man who said that his greatest disappointment in life was "not going to the moon and banging on it with my own hammer."
This seems to me to be the next best thing.
The right way of doing it is to use the shuttle to launch a crew module, and use a shuttle-C or an EELV or some other large cargo ship to launch the fuel.
(Of course,.we can all hang out and wait for the day that nanotech makes it possible for us to extrude a Saturn V right in our backyard. (But what would the negihbors say?))
Actually, I think the current thinking is that static electricity from the helecopter overhead was what set the charges off. (The other one I heard was that the "pull to blow hatch" line was caught on something, and accidentally pulled.)
LB7 was in the water for quite a bit before the hatch blew, so it wasn't from the direct impact.
This one, he named the "Molly Brown".
After that, NASA didn't let them name ships until Apollo.
It's worth watching for this one episode... and there are several more really good ones too.
It's called a Sofar bomb. The purpose was to deploy when the chutes did, and to detonate when it reached a certain depth. This would be easily visible (audible?) on sonar, and allow for the position of a lost capsule to be computed. It's not really all that dangerous vs all the other things that could go boom on a Mercury capsule. (Ranging from manuvering fuel to retrofire rockets to an explosive hatch that could trigger itself.) IIRC, the sofar bomb was armed and triggered by passing a certain depth.
Obviously, it didn't work.
Not really. It's been more than 30 years since Liberty Bell 7 went up (and then down), and the first expedition was sent out a few months ago. The first expedition would have recovered it, but the ROV they were using died, forcing a delay as they had to get a new one.
What I'd expect (or perhaps what I'd like) to happen is in the future, is a regulated service in which all a being gets is access and a routable IP address, and the creation of a market for value-added services, like web hosting, email, usenet, and AOL.
You may be confusing the X-15 with the X-1, which was the first plane to break the sound barrier. Both were dropped from a converted bomber, probably because the rockets would be none to efficient on takeoff.
The biggest reason is because there's no real need to do so. NASA doesn't want to spend the time needed to strip the insulation off the tank safely, and if noone else does it, it will flake off, providing a massive debris hazard.
the Shuttle is cool and all, but its not designed NEARLY as well as it should have been imho. Too expensive for what it does!
The shuttle design process was full of tradeoffs... the decision to go with solid boosters a prime one. Still, it represents the triumph of 1970s technology.
As for publicity... there's a reason why they bumped up the next mission so it launches on the 20th. (Most shuttle missions launch on Thursday, BTW... so they can do a 3 day countdown w/o overtime. This one's going up on a Tuesday, and the 30th anniversary of something important...)