This is certainly true in the judicial and executive branches - the supreme court (which is growing in power and scope - an undemocratic trend that should alarm you) is entirely appointed.
The candidates for president are largely appointed - the primary system is largely a show at this point.
While the legislative branch is still somewhat democratic, the two-party system is becoming so homogenous that users are essentially robbed of real choice - those selecting the candidates for the house and senate have largely usurped the democratic process.
There have been many proposals to use the external tanks in orbital structures, including a space hotel.
Of course using the external tank would be a cost-effective way to reuse something you have already built - hence it would never fly with NASA and America's trough-feeding aerospace industry.
ISS is a purely political project. Most space experts concede that the initial scientific motivations for building ISS have largely vanished - it really isn't going to serve much of a useful purpose at all in a scientific sense.
The purpose it is serving is to prop up the military-industrial complexes in the US and Russia.
OK, pop quiz:
1. How long did it take to get from Europe to North America?
2.How long will it take to get to Mars from Earth, using CURRENT rocket technology?
Ok, pop quiz:
How much did it cost to get from Europe to America?
How much would it cost to get from Earth to Mars using current technology?
Hint: there haven't been any realistic estimates below $100 billion, and some have been as high as $400 billion.
Comparing a trans-atlantic journey to a Martian journey is a stupid comparison, and it would behoove thinking people to drop it asap.
I'm glad that the Spanish didn't take the same idea with the Americas. I mean it takes three months to get there and get back, there's nothing really useful there
at all except for gold and silver ore, and it costs a lot to send those gallons across the sea for all that time, they can be put to much better use fighting the English
or hauling spices from the Turkish coast. We should just avoid the New World at all costs. It's really just not worth the effort to go at all.
Do they not teach math at the University of Kansas? Try looking up the distance to Mars next time you toss around your useless anecdotes.
By the way, Columbus was not the first European to reach America (but I wouldn't expect you to know that either).
Prohibitive costs in research and development are not going to stop SSTO ships,
You're right, physics is.
Soyez is just
a orbital taxi, and the Protons, Arians, and Deltas of the world are too few to go around.
Thats garbage, you have no idea what you are talking about. From refurbished SS-18s, to Sea Launch, to Arianne, there are numerous ways to put your satellite in orbit, and they're getting cheaper all the time. The X-33 was never intended to be used as a satellite ferry anyway - NASA knows it will never be the cheapest satellite delivery service, and they aren't even in that business anymore.
How do you think those magical propulsion techniques will be invented?
There's no indication that anything are doing right now will have any impact on useful propulsion systems research. That's the whole point of this entire topic - that the X-33 has not contributed to useful practical spaceflight, and is a huge waste of cash.
`Cheap' is not what I would call several-thousand-dollars a pound.
Yes, but the development costs are sunk. Lowering the cost per pound must consider the cost of development. So far it is cheaper to simply continue with what we have - multistage rocketry.
Incidentally, having water ice is very important for space exploration, because it removes the need for about half of your consumables. (Water can be drunk
and used for hydroponics; cracked water can be used for fuel and to breathe; raw ice, if there's enough of it, makes a good dust shield, etc.)
I understand water can keep you alive on Mars - but why would you want to be there in the first place? I haven't heard one useful reason to go to Mars. The cost of extracting ore from the crust is prohibitive. There are no useful materials to extract beyond ore. Even if you just wanted to go so you said it could be done, the cost is so high that making more than one trip isn't realistic.
The X-33 was pure gravy, just like the ISS. Now we're going to have to pay through the nose for the next fiteen years so a succesive groups of Russian astronauts can learn how to take a crap in a weightless environment while doing nothing useful at all.
Is it the speed, and consequently, the forces on the vehicle, involved in the spaceflight?
747s never have to attain escape velocity - they need only to become airborne. They can also make use of lift - which is mostly meaningless with regards to current and proposed orbital designs.
Attaining escape velocity means going fast - very fast - the shuttle hits 17,000 mph in order to achieve orbit. This take fuel, and a lot of it, per pound of payload. But the tricky part is that your fuel becomes part of your payload - the more fuel you carry, the more you need to propel it. Staged designs have typically been a solution to this problem - each stage is only powerful enough to get the stages above it to a certain point in the atmosphere - when this point ius reached, the stage falls away (reducing the weight of the vehicle).
There's nothing stopping us from getting to orbit, or Mars for that matter, it's just the price that would be involved doing it safely enough to prevent disaster and
maintain NASA's reputation.
Not true. There are some serious opinions claiming that SSTO is simply not workable given the technologies we are developing - the physics simply cannot be overcome unless we develop dramatically lighter materials and more effective propulsion.
As for Mars, we do not have the technology available right now to get there. Zubrin and co. may have designs which seem workable, but they are only designs. No one knows if generating return fuel on the Martian surface will actually work.
Its time to stop throwing money at SSTO projects. The VentureStar program has been an amusing excursion into the new world of privately financed spaceflight technologies, but its a bust too.
The real question you have to ask is why bother at all. We can already put up satellites cheaply - there is no need to create new technology to meet this need. The shuttle or the Soyuz capsule can meet all the needs of manned orbital flight and the ISS (another boondoggle) for the forseeable future.
What else is there? Mars? Newsflash folks, its a rock floating in space with some ice on it. Waste of a trip. Until we develop drastically advanced propulsion technologies that in no way resemble anything we are even thinking of now, space is simple a gigantic lonely space that is off limits to us. Astronomy is a far more useful and realistic way to explore the heavens.
I doubt that was Bowie, it was probably just someone who has actual business experience, unlike 99% of slashdot.
anyone on AC automatically falls into this category too.
Re:VA competes with Cobalt? How so?
on
Sun Buys Cobalt
·
· Score: 2
Cobalt isn't in the same business. Cobalt makes preconfigured, browser-managed server appliances for vertical markets, with a focus on
easy deployment and easy, GUI-based management.
VA makes high-performance general-purpose servers with nothing but a raw OS installed on them.
Both companies are aggresively pursuing the rackspace market with 1U and 2U units that are fairly competitive in terms of features.
I htink most of your description for both companies is arbitrary - both build linux boxes that could be useful in a variety of applications. I don't think the veneer of management software cobalt supplies really isloates them that much from VA competition.
VA? VA isn't even remotely in the same league as Sun!
Thats right (and obvious) - crush your competitors while they are small. Why wait for the more expensive battles that invariably loom if linux (and VA) continues to grow?
Bruce seems to be so disillusioned in this book - it reminds me of the tones of Data Smog.
Yes, it is impossible to secure a system completely - every security system has a human element, and every human element has a head that can have a gun held against it.
Its sort of amusing that Bruce took this long to come to this realization.
Don't mind the doomsayers - if you follow sound security policies and practices, you will likely be okay. If not, well, that's why you buy insurance.
Sun obviously wants to nip VA in the bud by controlling the low end of linux rack boxes itself.
If they can compartmentalize VA and hold them to certain margins and markets, Sun can keep them out of the more lucrative higher-margin mid-range market.
The better Sun encircles VA, the better protected their midrange market is.
The GPL provides an increase in long term freedom, by sacrificing a little short term freedom
No, the GPL increases the amount of code that is freely available - this has nothing to do with the inherent value of freedom itself. Its nice that we can download GPL'd source code, but we're not entitled to it.
The BSD license provides an small increase in short term freedom by sacrificing long term freedom
If the GPL is so bad, and the BSD license is the best, then why had BSD forked so often while Linux hasn't?
Because it can! - freedom is good - this is why there is a BSD that is far more secure than any linux distro, and a BSD that is far better performing on x86 than any linux distro.
Do you think this might possibly be why Linux has
gotten so much press coverage compared to BSD?
What the hell does that have to with anything? Stick with the issue - the GPL decreases freedom. If the government is looking at open source licenses and measuring the value of freedom implied by each license, there is no comparison - the BSD license is simply more free.
I feel particularly strong about this with regards to government - the United States was built on the premise that people are free to choose - be it faith, affiliation, and political beliefs, even if those choices piss you off. You see, in this country you are allowed to be self-interested - although there are many countries that apply the RMS ideals to every day living. I think North Korea is still accepting visa applications, although you had better hurry, they are fading fast.
Slashdot Mirror
This has got to be the absolute worst idea I have heard today.
Maybe if we didn't make it nearly impossible for private companies to compete with NASA, this wouldn't be a problem.
Seriously folks, anyone who even remotely cares about the size of government should be very troubled by this absurd proposal.
i've been using computers too long.
This is certainly true in the judicial and executive branches - the supreme court (which is growing in power and scope - an undemocratic trend that should alarm you) is entirely appointed.
The candidates for president are largely appointed - the primary system is largely a show at this point.
While the legislative branch is still somewhat democratic, the two-party system is becoming so homogenous that users are essentially robbed of real choice - those selecting the candidates for the house and senate have largely usurped the democratic process.
Of course using the external tank would be a cost-effective way to reuse something you have already built - hence it would never fly with NASA and America's trough-feeding aerospace industry.
The purpose it is serving is to prop up the military-industrial complexes in the US and Russia.
Uh huh, and ISS was only supposed to cost $5 billion. Zubrin is a scientist, not an accountant.
Going to Mars is going to cost $100 billion, minimum.
Ok, pop quiz:
How much did it cost to get from Europe to America?
How much would it cost to get from Earth to Mars using current technology?
Hint: there haven't been any realistic estimates below $100 billion, and some have been as high as $400 billion.
Comparing a trans-atlantic journey to a Martian journey is a stupid comparison, and it would behoove thinking people to drop it asap.
Do they not teach math at the University of Kansas? Try looking up the distance to Mars next time you toss around your useless anecdotes.
By the way, Columbus was not the first European to reach America (but I wouldn't expect you to know that either).
Prohibitive costs in research and development are not going to stop SSTO ships,
You're right, physics is.
Soyez is just a orbital taxi, and the Protons, Arians, and Deltas of the world are too few to go around.
Thats garbage, you have no idea what you are talking about. From refurbished SS-18s, to Sea Launch, to Arianne, there are numerous ways to put your satellite in orbit, and they're getting cheaper all the time. The X-33 was never intended to be used as a satellite ferry anyway - NASA knows it will never be the cheapest satellite delivery service, and they aren't even in that business anymore.
There's no indication that anything are doing right now will have any impact on useful propulsion systems research. That's the whole point of this entire topic - that the X-33 has not contributed to useful practical spaceflight, and is a huge waste of cash.
The moonshot was just an expensive way to thumb our noses at the Soviets.
If going to the moon had any intrinsic value, why haven't we been back since the early seventies?
Yes, but the development costs are sunk. Lowering the cost per pound must consider the cost of development. So far it is cheaper to simply continue with what we have - multistage rocketry.
Incidentally, having water ice is very important for space exploration, because it removes the need for about half of your consumables. (Water can be drunk and used for hydroponics; cracked water can be used for fuel and to breathe; raw ice, if there's enough of it, makes a good dust shield, etc.)
I understand water can keep you alive on Mars - but why would you want to be there in the first place? I haven't heard one useful reason to go to Mars. The cost of extracting ore from the crust is prohibitive. There are no useful materials to extract beyond ore. Even if you just wanted to go so you said it could be done, the cost is so high that making more than one trip isn't realistic.
The X-33 was pure gravy, just like the ISS. Now we're going to have to pay through the nose for the next fiteen years so a succesive groups of Russian astronauts can learn how to take a crap in a weightless environment while doing nothing useful at all.
747s never have to attain escape velocity - they need only to become airborne. They can also make use of lift - which is mostly meaningless with regards to current and proposed orbital designs.
Attaining escape velocity means going fast - very fast - the shuttle hits 17,000 mph in order to achieve orbit. This take fuel, and a lot of it, per pound of payload. But the tricky part is that your fuel becomes part of your payload - the more fuel you carry, the more you need to propel it. Staged designs have typically been a solution to this problem - each stage is only powerful enough to get the stages above it to a certain point in the atmosphere - when this point ius reached, the stage falls away (reducing the weight of the vehicle).
There's nothing stopping us from getting to orbit, or Mars for that matter, it's just the price that would be involved doing it safely enough to prevent disaster and maintain NASA's reputation.
Not true. There are some serious opinions claiming that SSTO is simply not workable given the technologies we are developing - the physics simply cannot be overcome unless we develop dramatically lighter materials and more effective propulsion.
As for Mars, we do not have the technology available right now to get there. Zubrin and co. may have designs which seem workable, but they are only designs. No one knows if generating return fuel on the Martian surface will actually work.
The real question you have to ask is why bother at all. We can already put up satellites cheaply - there is no need to create new technology to meet this need. The shuttle or the Soyuz capsule can meet all the needs of manned orbital flight and the ISS (another boondoggle) for the forseeable future.
What else is there? Mars? Newsflash folks, its a rock floating in space with some ice on it. Waste of a trip. Until we develop drastically advanced propulsion technologies that in no way resemble anything we are even thinking of now, space is simple a gigantic lonely space that is off limits to us. Astronomy is a far more useful and realistic way to explore the heavens.
anyone on AC automatically falls into this category too.
Both companies are aggresively pursuing the rackspace market with 1U and 2U units that are fairly competitive in terms of features.
I htink most of your description for both companies is arbitrary - both build linux boxes that could be useful in a variety of applications. I don't think the veneer of management software cobalt supplies really isloates them that much from VA competition.
Thats right (and obvious) - crush your competitors while they are small. Why wait for the more expensive battles that invariably loom if linux (and VA) continues to grow?
Yes, it is impossible to secure a system completely - every security system has a human element, and every human element has a head that can have a gun held against it.
Its sort of amusing that Bruce took this long to come to this realization.
Don't mind the doomsayers - if you follow sound security policies and practices, you will likely be okay. If not, well, that's why you buy insurance.
If they can compartmentalize VA and hold them to certain margins and markets, Sun can keep them out of the more lucrative higher-margin mid-range market.
The better Sun encircles VA, the better protected their midrange market is.
No, the GPL increases the amount of code that is freely available - this has nothing to do with the inherent value of freedom itself. Its nice that we can download GPL'd source code, but we're not entitled to it.
The BSD license provides an small increase in short term freedom by sacrificing long term freedom
What long term freedom is being sacrificed?
Geez, this is straight out of the People's Third Communist.
Freedom means I don't have to explain to you why it is I chose to keep somethings private, and others public.
Because it can! - freedom is good - this is why there is a BSD that is far more secure than any linux distro, and a BSD that is far better performing on x86 than any linux distro.
Do you think this might possibly be why Linux has gotten so much press coverage compared to BSD?
What the hell does that have to with anything? Stick with the issue - the GPL decreases freedom. If the government is looking at open source licenses and measuring the value of freedom implied by each license, there is no comparison - the BSD license is simply more free.
I feel particularly strong about this with regards to government - the United States was built on the premise that people are free to choose - be it faith, affiliation, and political beliefs, even if those choices piss you off. You see, in this country you are allowed to be self-interested - although there are many countries that apply the RMS ideals to every day living. I think North Korea is still accepting visa applications, although you had better hurry, they are fading fast.
Yes, this particular freedom was once known as "privacy".
Orwell would have loved the GPL - you increase freedom by decreasing freedom. Its lovely doublespeak.
Try this link for auto-generated post-modern mumbo-jumbo.