The reason is economic. The space launch costs from the Russian block are tiny. Provided they don't go bankrupt they can kick off a decent tourism program. That will raise demand and in the long run cut costs.
Space isn't much more expensive than air travel in fact- it just looks it right now because we don't go there much- everything has to be hand made and most programs are run by governments; who aren't noted for their efficiency.
Raise the launch rate (and its growing 15% a year, year on year and has done for a decade or so) and the costs come down very nicely. The minimum costs are probably fuel. But we are currently nowhere near fuel costs dominating. If they did then a trip to space would only cost a few thousand per person...
The next people to go to the moon in any number will be tourism related I think. As an example of something cool to do there; imagine human powered flight (Gossamer Albatross can fly under 1g at atmospheric pressure, imagine 1/6g at atmospheric pressure -in a dome...)
The basic technique once you've dried it off is to remove the cladding on one side and then bend the fiber slightly and place a detector on the outside.
The bend lets a tiny bit of light out, enough to detect, but not enough (hopefully) to tip off the telecoms engineers.
However doing this does produce a tiny echo on the fiber and it is theoretically possible for the cable operator to find the tap using timed reflectrometry equipment.
launching the space shuttle 1 time extra per year:
$100M
launching soyuz:
$4M
(soyuz isn't particularly comparable with Shuttle, but still, launching a Proton V, which is broadly comparable as far as payload goes with the Shuttle costs about $5M).
Actually both numbers are a little arguable. Its possible to argue that the space shuttle costs upto $1.5 billion per launch if you include a reasonable fraction of the development costs... and NASA actually usually allows more like $300M per launch because they fold some of the pad and other overheads for the year.
Still, the Ruskies can get to space for an order of magnitude lower than NASA can. That's part of the discomfit around the Dennis Tito- that's an unsaid part of the politics; they simply can't do things that the Russians can.
I don't have information about whether the $4M include launch pad costs or not. Still, its hard to see how it could come anywhere near the NASA figures- I mean the entire Russian space program comes to only $120M or so...
Basically, modern day NASA is what you get when you get an extreme combination of pork-barrel, governmental specifications, defense and politcal white elephants.
Russia on the other hand, has little pork-barrel; and soviet governmental work is much more efficient (probably less efficient than capitalism though; but market forces and capitalism has nothing to do with space in the good ole' US of A).
>The other thing is that this elevator cannot be a direct lift into orbit.
Um. I don't know what leads you to say this but it IS in fact a direct lift into geosynchronous orbit. That's the whole point. And you can even get to lower energy orbits by jumping off the elevator below geosynchoronous (not too low otherwise you will reenter...).
It has been studied EXTENSIVELY. The basic concept works fine.
Its a bit like tuning a radio except you are adjusting the phase not the frequency.
Typically, you have the receiver have an oscillator that is running just a bit slower or faster (just a bit).
That will mean that the phase of the receiver will gradually slide relative to the transmitter. When they finally line up, the filter will light up, then you can adjust the oscillator to match the transmitter speed.
The community (FSF in particular) has always wanted a chance to sue an infringement of the GPL! Getting a judge to rule that the licence is valid and not easily circumvented would be a very good thing indeed...
Unfortunately, the licence appears to be so ironclad that nobody has been reckless enough to test it yet. Let's hope Sony are pig-headed enough to try! But let's also hope (and it seems reasonable) that they will lose!
The cost of the ISS: $4billion
on
Tito In Space
·
· Score: 5
Tito's trip: $20 million
The rocket: $5 million
The look on Dan Goldin's face: priceless!
>Imagine the fun when a curious six-year-old takes Daddy's screwdriver and tries to see how the
>basement fission plant works.
Troll.
As opposed to the fun when the 6 year old tries to take the microwave, the gas boiler and the television apart? 120 volts and/or gas is not going to teach more than a final lesson. The modern world is not noted for the child-benign nature when you take it apart.
>Black doesn't just absorb heat better - it also emits it better.
True, but don't forget that the night is cooler. The longer you can keep your building at night time temperatures the better. And by adjusting the temperature threshold of the paint it may be possible to ensure that ONLY the side that is in direct sunlight is white.
That would mean: a) your house is losing temperature more quickly and b) your house is gaining temperature more slowly.
You've missed the point completely. Whose life was really in danger in this and nearly every case of bullying?
Hint: it isn't the people doing the bullying.
Hint2: how many people were killed in Columbine/similar incidents and how many people kill themselves/get killed due to bullying? (The latter proportion is hugely more).
Hint3: Columbine was national news but suicide only makes local... at best. Its effect has thus been magnified beyond its true importance.
6) "just catch messageNotUnderstood"... If it's that easy why isn't it built into the language? (Of course it isn't, quite that easy.) But we're talking about mistakes in the language, not hacks to get around the mistakes in the language...
Oh yeah, real valuable. Paraphrase: Did you really KNOW that you could get sent spam by us (even though you did know that and explicitly declined?) Well, it's not too late!
I've used Smalltalk as well. I've found it had other flaws:
1) performance is usually a lot less than C (and subject to garbage collection slowdowns; although modern GCs are better); [however Self showed that slowdowns of only 50% over optimised C are possible.]
2) one image fits all (and the image tends to be big, that's one thing that Java has cleaned up some; although Java admittedly has done some other things less well)
3) 4 metalevels? What were the designers smoking? Self had this right. Smalltalk should have had 1 or 2 at the most.
4) proprietary... (has been and remains to some extent)
5) typing IS useful sometimes (although its not as necessary as you'd expect from using C)
6) multiple inheritance is useful sometimes and most Smalltalk... doesn't (actually MI is not as necessary in run time typed languages but it's still handy sometimes)
By the time you see the asteroid it's certainly gonna be a sight to see- a sight that will amaze you for the rest of your life!
Besides, chances are you won't have the spectroscope AND the satellite cell phone on you at the time; I always find I leave atleast one of them at home at times like that; and you'll be busy a second or two later. You'll certainly be needing speed dial;-)
>I'd suggest the Europeans revolt, but they're a disarmed sheeple, and the
>massacre would be horrible.
Don't need a gun to hurt people. Rioters are quite ingenious at making ad hoc weapons, knives, Molotov cocktails? Rocks? Glass bottles?
The UK has had riots in the past. It tends to topple governments or atleast reflect very badly on them. Political fallout is bad enough if you are a politician. Guns are only necessary with really BAD government. Mostly Europe doesn't have government that bad.
And governments find it politically very difficult to use guns when the population don't have them. Look what happened when China killed a few students.
"My only statement to that would be that from the beginning of time, the creation (in the case the "thinking chip") has never been been able to take over the creator (in this case, man)."
What, never?
Cars have never gone faster than a human? Aeroplanes don't fly better than a human? Chess computers don't beat the person that programmed them (hint: most of the time chess computers DO beat the person, if the program they write is any good at all)?
For that matter do students ever exceed the capabilities of their teacher? Of course.
The old maxim, "a stream can never go above its source" is WRONG. You CAN make water go higher than its source (check out water hammers).
So cinema is getting more computer like? (Refresh rate on monitors is typically 70hz or more, obviously.)
I also read some discussion about the moving shutters used for filming movies. Apparently you can see the shutter sometimes- it's going to have an effect on the blurring- different effects depending on which direction the object is moving in. There's even been some discussion about emulating this for computer graphics use (probably mainly for film use).
Come to think of it, that's why they used 1/500 sec, so that it makes it easier to image process it after filming. It's not a trendy thing per se, it just reflects the tech they used.
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The reason is economic. The space launch costs from the Russian block are tiny. Provided they don't go bankrupt they can kick off a decent tourism program. That will raise demand and in the long run cut costs.
Space isn't much more expensive than air travel in fact- it just looks it right now because we don't go there much- everything has to be hand made and most programs are run by governments; who aren't noted for their efficiency.
Raise the launch rate (and its growing 15% a year, year on year and has done for a decade or so) and the costs come down very nicely. The minimum costs are probably fuel. But we are currently nowhere near fuel costs dominating. If they did then a trip to space would only cost a few thousand per person...
The next people to go to the moon in any number will be tourism related I think. As an example of something cool to do there; imagine human powered flight (Gossamer Albatross can fly under 1g at atmospheric pressure, imagine 1/6g at atmospheric pressure -in a dome...)
Not. Actually its fairly trivial to tap a fiber.
The basic technique once you've dried it off is to remove the cladding on one side and then bend the fiber slightly and place a detector on the outside.
The bend lets a tiny bit of light out, enough to detect, but not enough (hopefully) to tip off the telecoms engineers.
However doing this does produce a tiny echo on the fiber and it is theoretically possible for the cable operator to find the tap using timed reflectrometry equipment.
Ok rough comparison:
launching the space shuttle 1 time extra per year:
$100M
launching soyuz:
$4M
(soyuz isn't particularly comparable with Shuttle, but still, launching a Proton V, which is broadly comparable as far as payload goes with the Shuttle costs about $5M).
Actually both numbers are a little arguable. Its possible to argue that the space shuttle costs upto $1.5 billion per launch if you include a reasonable fraction of the development costs... and NASA actually usually allows more like $300M per launch because they fold some of the pad and other overheads for the year.
Still, the Ruskies can get to space for an order of magnitude lower than NASA can. That's part of the discomfit around the Dennis Tito- that's an unsaid part of the politics; they simply can't do things that the Russians can.
I don't have information about whether the $4M include launch pad costs or not. Still, its hard to see how it could come anywhere near the NASA figures- I mean the entire Russian space program comes to only $120M or so...
Basically, modern day NASA is what you get when you get an extreme combination of pork-barrel, governmental specifications, defense and politcal white elephants.
Russia on the other hand, has little pork-barrel; and soviet governmental work is much more efficient (probably less efficient than capitalism though; but market forces and capitalism has nothing to do with space in the good ole' US of A).
>The other thing is that this elevator cannot be a direct lift into orbit.
Um. I don't know what leads you to say this but it IS in fact a direct lift into geosynchronous orbit. That's the whole point. And you can even get to lower energy orbits by jumping off the elevator below geosynchoronous (not too low otherwise you will reenter...).
It has been studied EXTENSIVELY. The basic concept works fine.
Basically you have to hunt around for it a bit.
Its a bit like tuning a radio except you are adjusting the phase not the frequency.
Typically, you have the receiver have an oscillator that is running just a bit slower or faster (just a bit).
That will mean that the phase of the receiver will gradually slide relative to the transmitter. When they finally line up, the filter will light up, then you can adjust the oscillator to match the transmitter speed.
The community (FSF in particular) has always wanted a chance to sue an infringement of the GPL! Getting a judge to rule that the licence is valid and not easily circumvented would be a very good thing indeed...
Unfortunately, the licence appears to be so ironclad that nobody has been reckless enough to test it yet. Let's hope Sony are pig-headed enough to try! But let's also hope (and it seems reasonable) that they will lose!
Tito's trip: $20 million
The rocket: $5 million
The look on Dan Goldin's face: priceless!
Well, ok, these haven't shipped, but it looks exactly like it!
;-)
Well, ok, not exactly; but it's close.
And access is MUCH easier...
Well, close, except when I can be bothered to put back the covers. Then it looks kinda boring. But the REST of the time...
That's not such a good idea:
"Hasta cutta the vista baby?"
For some bizarre reason, apparently science fiction isn't treated as prior art.
-Ian.
>Imagine the fun when a curious six-year-old takes Daddy's screwdriver and tries to see how the
>basement fission plant works.
Troll.
As opposed to the fun when the 6 year old tries to take the microwave, the gas boiler and the television apart? 120 volts and/or gas is not going to teach more than a final lesson. The modern world is not noted for the child-benign nature when you take it apart.
>Black doesn't just absorb heat better - it also emits it better.
True, but don't forget that the night is cooler. The longer you can keep your building at night time temperatures the better. And by adjusting the temperature threshold of the paint it may be possible to ensure that ONLY the side that is in direct sunlight is white.
That would mean: a) your house is losing temperature more quickly and b) your house is gaining temperature more slowly.
I first read Flatland AFTER I read Planiverse, and I was quite disappointed. I think Planiverse is a better, and very much less dated book.
You've missed the point completely. Whose life was really in danger in this and nearly every case of bullying?
Hint: it isn't the people doing the bullying.
Hint2: how many people were killed in Columbine/similar incidents and how many people kill themselves/get killed due to bullying? (The latter proportion is hugely more).
Hint3: Columbine was national news but suicide only makes local... at best. Its effect has thus been magnified beyond its true importance.
6) "just catch messageNotUnderstood"... If it's that easy why isn't it built into the language? (Of course it isn't, quite that easy.) But we're talking about mistakes in the language, not hacks to get around the mistakes in the language...
No. C.
Java lacks:
- templates
- operator overloading
- multiple inheritance
- anal worrying about performance...
- performance (historically, although it's getting better)
;-)
Oh yeah, real valuable. Paraphrase: Did you really KNOW that you could get sent spam by us (even though you did know that and explicitly declined?) Well, it's not too late!
Get real.
I've used Smalltalk as well. I've found it had other flaws:
1) performance is usually a lot less than C (and subject to garbage collection slowdowns; although modern GCs are better); [however Self showed that slowdowns of only 50% over optimised C are possible.]
2) one image fits all (and the image tends to be big, that's one thing that Java has cleaned up some; although Java admittedly has done some other things less well)
3) 4 metalevels? What were the designers smoking? Self had this right. Smalltalk should have had 1 or 2 at the most.
4) proprietary... (has been and remains to some extent)
5) typing IS useful sometimes (although its not as necessary as you'd expect from using C)
6) multiple inheritance is useful sometimes and most Smalltalk... doesn't (actually MI is not as necessary in run time typed languages but it's still handy sometimes)
It doesn't matter whether it is right or wrong. They knowingly broke the law and admitted it in the email! Not real smart.
The law isn't about right or wrong, it's about the law.
Think about it.
-Ian.
Java is the direct decendent of (some would say bastard offspring ;-) of C and Smalltalk.
By the time you see the asteroid it's certainly gonna be a sight to see- a sight that will amaze you for the rest of your life!
;-)
Besides, chances are you won't have the spectroscope AND the satellite cell phone on you at the time; I always find I leave atleast one of them at home at times like that; and you'll be busy a second or two later. You'll certainly be needing speed dial
>I'd suggest the Europeans revolt, but they're a disarmed sheeple, and the
>massacre would be horrible.
Don't need a gun to hurt people. Rioters are quite ingenious at making ad hoc weapons, knives, Molotov cocktails? Rocks? Glass bottles?
The UK has had riots in the past. It tends to topple governments or atleast reflect very badly on them. Political fallout is bad enough if you are a politician. Guns are only necessary with really BAD government. Mostly Europe doesn't have government that bad.
And governments find it politically very difficult to use guns when the population don't have them. Look what happened when China killed a few students.
"My only statement to that would be that from the beginning of time, the creation (in the case the "thinking chip") has never been been able to take over the creator (in this case, man)."
What, never?
Cars have never gone faster than a human? Aeroplanes don't fly better than a human? Chess computers don't beat the person that programmed them (hint: most of the time chess computers DO beat the person, if the program they write is any good at all)?
For that matter do students ever exceed the capabilities of their teacher? Of course.
The old maxim, "a stream can never go above its source" is WRONG. You CAN make water go higher than its source (check out water hammers).
Link to New Scientist article
It talks about the unconnected cells and the way it was trained, and the fact that the circuits only worked at one temperature(!)
So cinema is getting more computer like? (Refresh rate on monitors is typically 70hz or more, obviously.)
I also read some discussion about the moving shutters used for filming movies. Apparently you can see the shutter sometimes- it's going to have an effect on the blurring- different effects depending on which direction the object is moving in. There's even been some discussion about emulating this for computer graphics use (probably mainly for film use).
Come to think of it, that's why they used 1/500 sec, so that it makes it easier to image process it after filming. It's not a trendy thing per se, it just reflects the tech they used.