It's not complex and difficult to control. It's insanely difficult to stop the vehicle from melting once you get past mach 6 or so. There have been projects to do this before; with the exception of spaceflight that operates outside the atmosphere, they all failed.
My theory is that NASA went down hill when Werner Von Braun retired. It isn't that he designed everything, but he was wise and very well respected, and so was able to keep the organisation on track. The Shuttle, which is the first vehicle he didn't have much influence over was really never a good idea. It technically works well, notwithstanding the accidents, but economically it is a poor excuse for a vehicle.
Actually, the FAA approval is reasonably difficult for rocket launches. Basically, they start off by assuming that the probability of failure for your rocket is 1.0, and then they expect you to prove that there's a less than 10 in a million expected casualties from the 'inevitable' accident. Oh yeah, and they have a computer model for launches that apparently 'proves' that a hundred people should have died from Columbia; which doesn't make it any easier.
Oh yeah, and America/FAA takes responsibility for American citizens launching from anywhere in the world, and you have to jump through exactly the same hoops no matter what. (Some of the paperwork is easier to satisfy depending on where you are launching from though.)
Let's put it this way- XCOR have hired someone for the sole purpose of dealing with the FAA and other regulatory authorities.
I'd prefer to see Gates in space than a bunch of 20-20 vision commitee-chosen governmental yes-men with 'the right attitude'. I mean, realistically how many of us are likely to be chosen by one of these groups deciding who is 'good enough' for the priviledge of going into space.
"Isn't going into space if you have enough money" atleast a great leveller- if you want to go, and you have the dosh, you launch.
And there's also the point that all new technologies start out expensive and get cheaper over time- cars started that way; airflight started that way, computers started that way, cell phones started that way. This means that it is likely that if right now only the very rich can afford it; in future most or all of us will.
So, me too, I want Gates to go, and come back; if he goes every multi-millionaire will suddenly want to go- that will create a market, and the price can only come down.
That's a bit counterproductive - if the only people who're going to be travelling into space are wealthy millionaires, we'd be much slower in space-travel development than we are at current. Not that it's all that important, but.
Probably, but it's not either-or.
The problem with NASA (with all government space in all countries really) is that it's budget can't grow much. It can't grow because it is a government operation, and hence essentially can't make a profit, and therefore only grows as fast as government grows.
Which is a big problem, because one of the reasons that space is really expensive is because hardly anyone goes there per year- the economies of scale are really bad when you only go a few times a year. But commercial companies, under the right conditions, grow exponentially, far faster than governments can. Look at Cisco, a lot of their growth isn't directly related to Moore's law.
And that's where we are right now- it actually costs about $6000/kg to put something in orbit (the Shuttle is up at more like ~$13000/kg)- a man weighs maybe 80kg- so ~$500,000 is a reasonable price to aim for. (There's also some evidence that the price of commercial launch has dropped by about 50% in the last 5 years or so.)
If there was a market for tourism; then the launch rate would go up- it's a rule of thumb that the price drops by 15% for every 10x more you do something. So if there was a launch market of 1000 tourists per year, then the price could be as low as $300,000 from economies of scale alone. And that's before you get into fully reusable vehicles and other 'high technology' which can cut the costs even more.
But I don't really think that governments are in the business to do that kind of thing; they're interested in defense, spy sats, navigation sats, antisat tech, ICBMs etc. not a bunch of tourists- so it seems that the wing of the government called NASA is the wrong organisation to put even averagely wealthy people into space.
Yes. If a better algorithm is used then the code will be usually better. But the algorithms aren't usually patented (or haven't been up to this point), so open source and closed source software tends to use similar algorithms.
In my experience there's more or less two classes of bugs; those problems that were more or less inevitable to happen given the original specification (given that people's intelligence doesn't vary that much, and in some ways people are pretty similar, unless they are experienced in that area), and those problems that you cause yourself during design and coding.
Those problems that are difficult to spot in the original specification- these often turn into bugs; and both open source and closed source developments will tend to fall down the same holes. These problems then get uncovered by using the program, and then fixed by a designer going in and solving it.
I think that what they are saying is that open source seems to be better for this uncovering and fixing, rather than a priori better at chosing the right algorithms or by being inherently better coders/software designers.
It's probably just that they don't show up well, the X rays seem to penetrate the skin maybe an inch or so and it even looks like you can see her brain, and nasal cavities slightly. Also, I doubt the melanin in the nipples reflects X-rays to a significant degree.
Apart from not agreeing with you that metering is essential, it's trivial to meter WiFi anyway- you just meter it by connection time rather than per byte.
The customers probably don't want metered anyway- they're generally more comfortable with flat pricing where they know what they are paying for- if the provider wants to traffic shape them if they start getting greedy- that's usually fine too.
I think the point is that if there is number portability then you wouldn't need to carve up the numbers between the providers at all- the nth person requesting a number just gets assigned the first free number.
True, but the point is not to be anal about the rules, but reduce polution. If you have an underused resource like the HOV lane, then allowing a limited number of single passenger vehicles into the lane will both reduce pollution (less cars standing around at idle) as well as generating some more revenue as well allowing some drivers to get there more quickly, and even allowing the ones not using the HOV lane to get there slightly quicker. Everybody wins basically. Quite a clever idea.
Well, you can make the freedom to do drugs argument, but history is not kind on you if you do that. Historically, about 10% of the population of Britain were addicted to heroin; before this substance was outlawed. That's a lot of smack heads. I don't really think we want that many in any country.
If it turns out that electromagnetic stimulation causes similar social problems, then it too will be banned I suspect.
How many people who have an opinion, on average, have a clue what's going on?
Few.
I mean, so what if they don't want something? if the government feels it is in the best interests of the people, and it is reasonable, I say go for it. I carry 2 pieces of government issued ID in my wallet. (Drivers Lic and Concealed Handgun permit.) I would love to make that just one.
Oh well, that's a good reason to spend 1-2 billion GBP then. Clueless with a gun? Oh goood.;-)
There was a discussion program on TV about it a few months back, if this program is representative of what I've seen, 2 out of 3 people supported it; until they find out what it involves and how much it costs, and what advantages it gives (or not): then 5 out of 7 people don't want it.
ABS helps if you're braking in a straight line, but no form of gas/brake traction-control system helps when your tires lose traction sideways.
I don't really agree, although you have a partial point. If you are cornering and the braking system induces a skid, then reducing the braking force is extremely likely to recover the skid.
Once the wheels start to slip to the side they're gone and only counter-steering can help.
Most racing cars are unstable- they tend to have a rearward mass balance and this means that if they start to spin- well they reach the point of no return pretty quickly. Road cars tend to have more weight towards the front, and more particularly, have a front suspension set up to understeer. This tends to mean that the front tires will skid before the rear- meaning there is far less chance of a spin anyway.
The tightest corners can be made when you're not braking or accelerating.
Yes, in any car this would be so; it's the circle of friction deal going on here. However chances are extremely high that you won't be making a maximum g turn when the emergency occurs.
You want the car to be completely balanced so that the load is balanced equally between the front and rear tires. Too little downforce on the front and you understeer. Too little downforce on the rear and you oversteer and potentially skid out.
Yes, well, that's racing. The cars are not the same- most road cars have essentially no downforce at all.
While it's true that you can "corner faster" in degrees per second when you're going slower, it's much more difficult to corner well under heavy braking than it is to corner when you're neither braking nor accelerating.
True, however ABS makes this a lot easier.
The biggest problem is that braking tends to make cars understeer. This means that more steering lock is needed to go around any corner that you may be in; and the driver must react appropriately. However, some ABS systems can probably compensate for that too- different amounts of braking on different wheels can in theory dial that effect away anyway.
Railguns can't reach orbital velocity (about 4.5km/s is the best that has been achieved) and have enormous problems with atmospheric drag of the projectile. Additionally railguns suffer from rail erosion with each launch.
Further, guns of all kinds can't directly go into stable orbit around the earth- orbits necessarily go through the last point where a force was applied to the vehicle. This means that the vehicle intersects the ground unless a circularisation rocket engine or similar is employed.
They have to use some way to increase the momentum. For example, some fuel can be transferred to the tether to raise its orbit (perigee) between catches.
This could be done with an ion drive (which needs hardly any fuel) or conventional rocketry.
However, ion drives have very low thrust and hence can take many weeks to recover the altitude.
Alternatively, with conventional rocketry not having to launch the tethers rocket engine with each launch is a win- and the rocket engine on the tether can be much smaller anyway, since it doesn't have to directly fight gravity to reach orbit (it already is in orbit); and can thrust for much longer, with lower thrust. However rocket engines don't weigh very much (they often have thrust to weight ratios of ~100:1), so the win is not as large as you might hope.
Getting fuel or mass from the moon helps- dropping rocks from the moon to the earth actually gains energy- all the rocks on the moon are in a high potential energy state, and this can be used to gain altitude.
Wrong. This is a huge deal if you happen to have seen the problem 125m ahead and are taking evasive action other than braking, for example changing lanes or even swerving. The slightest braking during a sharp direction change can throw your car into a skid.
Ok. Good points. But I have a few observations:
a) if the vehicle has ABS (I assume it has), then a skid is unlikely
b) The system should be able to detect the cornering and adapt to it anyway to a large degree
c) in most cases a modest reduction in speed will greatly improve cornering anyway- maximum cornering goes as the square root of your speed- a reduction of 10% gives ~5% tighter cornering whilst reducing the energy of the car by ~20%.
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It's not complex and difficult to control. It's insanely difficult to stop the vehicle from melting once you get past mach 6 or so. There have been projects to do this before; with the exception of spaceflight that operates outside the atmosphere, they all failed.
But when they receive the encrypted signal they can decrypt it and check whether it was the disarm code.
My theory is that NASA went down hill when Werner Von Braun retired. It isn't that he designed everything, but he was wise and very well respected, and so was able to keep the organisation on track. The Shuttle, which is the first vehicle he didn't have much influence over was really never a good idea. It technically works well, notwithstanding the accidents, but economically it is a poor excuse for a vehicle.
Oh yeah, and America/FAA takes responsibility for American citizens launching from anywhere in the world, and you have to jump through exactly the same hoops no matter what. (Some of the paperwork is easier to satisfy depending on where you are launching from though.)
Let's put it this way- XCOR have hired someone for the sole purpose of dealing with the FAA and other regulatory authorities.
"Isn't going into space if you have enough money" atleast a great leveller- if you want to go, and you have the dosh, you launch.
And there's also the point that all new technologies start out expensive and get cheaper over time- cars started that way; airflight started that way, computers started that way, cell phones started that way. This means that it is likely that if right now only the very rich can afford it; in future most or all of us will.
So, me too, I want Gates to go, and come back; if he goes every multi-millionaire will suddenly want to go- that will create a market, and the price can only come down.
Probably, but it's not either-or.
The problem with NASA (with all government space in all countries really) is that it's budget can't grow much. It can't grow because it is a government operation, and hence essentially can't make a profit, and therefore only grows as fast as government grows.
Which is a big problem, because one of the reasons that space is really expensive is because hardly anyone goes there per year- the economies of scale are really bad when you only go a few times a year. But commercial companies, under the right conditions, grow exponentially, far faster than governments can. Look at Cisco, a lot of their growth isn't directly related to Moore's law.
And that's where we are right now- it actually costs about $6000/kg to put something in orbit (the Shuttle is up at more like ~$13000/kg)- a man weighs maybe 80kg- so ~$500,000 is a reasonable price to aim for. (There's also some evidence that the price of commercial launch has dropped by about 50% in the last 5 years or so.)
If there was a market for tourism; then the launch rate would go up- it's a rule of thumb that the price drops by 15% for every 10x more you do something. So if there was a launch market of 1000 tourists per year, then the price could be as low as $300,000 from economies of scale alone. And that's before you get into fully reusable vehicles and other 'high technology' which can cut the costs even more.
But I don't really think that governments are in the business to do that kind of thing; they're interested in defense, spy sats, navigation sats, antisat tech, ICBMs etc. not a bunch of tourists- so it seems that the wing of the government called NASA is the wrong organisation to put even averagely wealthy people into space.
In my experience there's more or less two classes of bugs; those problems that were more or less inevitable to happen given the original specification (given that people's intelligence doesn't vary that much, and in some ways people are pretty similar, unless they are experienced in that area), and those problems that you cause yourself during design and coding.
Those problems that are difficult to spot in the original specification- these often turn into bugs; and both open source and closed source developments will tend to fall down the same holes. These problems then get uncovered by using the program, and then fixed by a designer going in and solving it.
I think that what they are saying is that open source seems to be better for this uncovering and fixing, rather than a priori better at chosing the right algorithms or by being inherently better coders/software designers.
It's probably just that they don't show up well, the X rays seem to penetrate the skin maybe an inch or so and it even looks like you can see her brain, and nasal cavities slightly. Also, I doubt the melanin in the nipples reflects X-rays to a significant degree.
Maybe they were using a "center of the earth" coordinate system ;-)
Nah, it was never a good idea to leave the big wet thing.
The customers probably don't want metered anyway- they're generally more comfortable with flat pricing where they know what they are paying for- if the provider wants to traffic shape them if they start getting greedy- that's usually fine too.
I think the point is that if there is number portability then you wouldn't need to carve up the numbers between the providers at all- the nth person requesting a number just gets assigned the first free number.
True, but the point is not to be anal about the rules, but reduce polution. If you have an underused resource like the HOV lane, then allowing a limited number of single passenger vehicles into the lane will both reduce pollution (less cars standing around at idle) as well as generating some more revenue as well allowing some drivers to get there more quickly, and even allowing the ones not using the HOV lane to get there slightly quicker. Everybody wins basically. Quite a clever idea.
Not so much noticed by women, more tripped over or stood upon in John Postels case alas (he died 5 years ago).
That's nothing, I heat my olympic swimming pool with my PC! ;-)
Still having problems with dirt clogging the lines though.
I've had no problems. You need to use a closed cooling loop through the PC and dump a small heat exchanger in the pool.
If it turns out that electromagnetic stimulation causes similar social problems, then it too will be banned I suspect.
Leaks are actually very rare.
Few.
I mean, so what if they don't want something? if the government feels it is in the best interests of the people, and it is reasonable, I say go for it. I carry 2 pieces of government issued ID in my wallet. (Drivers Lic and Concealed Handgun permit.) I would love to make that just one.
Oh well, that's a good reason to spend 1-2 billion GBP then. Clueless with a gun? Oh goood. ;-)
There was a discussion program on TV about it a few months back, if this program is representative of what I've seen, 2 out of 3 people supported it; until they find out what it involves and how much it costs, and what advantages it gives (or not): then 5 out of 7 people don't want it.
I don't really agree, although you have a partial point. If you are cornering and the braking system induces a skid, then reducing the braking force is extremely likely to recover the skid.
Once the wheels start to slip to the side they're gone and only counter-steering can help.
Most racing cars are unstable- they tend to have a rearward mass balance and this means that if they start to spin- well they reach the point of no return pretty quickly. Road cars tend to have more weight towards the front, and more particularly, have a front suspension set up to understeer. This tends to mean that the front tires will skid before the rear- meaning there is far less chance of a spin anyway.
The tightest corners can be made when you're not braking or accelerating.
Yes, in any car this would be so; it's the circle of friction deal going on here. However chances are extremely high that you won't be making a maximum g turn when the emergency occurs.
You want the car to be completely balanced so that the load is balanced equally between the front and rear tires. Too little downforce on the front and you understeer. Too little downforce on the rear and you oversteer and potentially skid out. Yes, well, that's racing. The cars are not the same- most road cars have essentially no downforce at all.
While it's true that you can "corner faster" in degrees per second when you're going slower, it's much more difficult to corner well under heavy braking than it is to corner when you're neither braking nor accelerating.
True, however ABS makes this a lot easier.
The biggest problem is that braking tends to make cars understeer. This means that more steering lock is needed to go around any corner that you may be in; and the driver must react appropriately. However, some ABS systems can probably compensate for that too- different amounts of braking on different wheels can in theory dial that effect away anyway.
Further, guns of all kinds can't directly go into stable orbit around the earth- orbits necessarily go through the last point where a force was applied to the vehicle. This means that the vehicle intersects the ground unless a circularisation rocket engine or similar is employed.
This could be done with an ion drive (which needs hardly any fuel) or conventional rocketry.
However, ion drives have very low thrust and hence can take many weeks to recover the altitude.
Alternatively, with conventional rocketry not having to launch the tethers rocket engine with each launch is a win- and the rocket engine on the tether can be much smaller anyway, since it doesn't have to directly fight gravity to reach orbit (it already is in orbit); and can thrust for much longer, with lower thrust. However rocket engines don't weigh very much (they often have thrust to weight ratios of ~100:1), so the win is not as large as you might hope.
Getting fuel or mass from the moon helps- dropping rocks from the moon to the earth actually gains energy- all the rocks on the moon are in a high potential energy state, and this can be used to gain altitude.
No. Here is a hint. When her legs keep going up when you're with her- she's still got them on.
Ok. Good points. But I have a few observations:
a) if the vehicle has ABS (I assume it has), then a skid is unlikely
b) The system should be able to detect the cornering and adapt to it anyway to a large degree
c) in most cases a modest reduction in speed will greatly improve cornering anyway- maximum cornering goes as the square root of your speed- a reduction of 10% gives ~5% tighter cornering whilst reducing the energy of the car by ~20%.