Why would they need to be especially good at either?
That's not the problem. The problem is that any design we can actually build are REALLY BAD at both. To get the thing aloft you have to strip out vast amounts of weight and even then we can only just barely get them airborne with limited cargo capacity. They are so light and fragile you can't really drive them on the road safely. Even a minor fender bender renders them no longer airworthy. When they are on the ground you have to lug around heavy impractical wings and in the air you have to lug around heavy impractical drivetrains. They're bad on fuel economy, fragile, expensive, can barely carry any cargo, can't land or take off anywhere useful, slow, loud, uncomfortable, etc.
The ONLY way a flying car could be practical is if we had a breakthrough power supply. Think Tony Stark's arc reactor made real. No internal combustion engine, no EV tech, no fuel cell tech, nor any other power source we have or are in any danger of making can generate enough power while being light enough to make flying cars a practical reality either technically or economically.
A flying car is certainly for a completely different context than most planes and as a car it would would only need to offer an adequate experience as any trips of significant length
Not when it's cheaper to buy both a plane and a car than a combination vehicle that does both activities worse for more money. Even if we ignore all the technical problems with flying cars (which are legion) the economics of them immediately make them non-viable.
(like the commute from the burbs to major urban areas for work) would likely be done in the air.
Umm, where do you think you are going to land this thing? It isn't going to be landing on 5th avenue on NYC. You have to land at an airport and drive from there. And if you are going to do that then you might as well just fly a real plane and own/rent a real car. You're not really thinking the problem through. Even if we somehow managed to figure out the technical and economic problems with flying cars (which we won't) we would have to make VAST changes to our infrastructure to be able to use them anywhere except flying to/from airports. You're not going to land a flying car in the parking lot of your local mega-mart and you sure as hell aren't flying one into a dense urban area.
They've had operational flying cars since before I was born.
Let's be accurate. We've had a few thoroughly impractical prototype vehicles that have no real utility as either a car or an aircraft. They barely qualify as cars, perform badly as aircraft, and even a minor fender bender would render one no longer airworthy. They have very limited cargo capacity, are slow, and are hugely expensive. Not to mention you REALLY don't want to be in one in a real accident on the ground. They are basically proof of concept demonstrators that served to prove that the concept won't work in the real world.
Making it operate is not the problem with the Jetsons fantasy.
This is true even if we ignore the above. We don't have the infrastructure for flying cars, we don't have the navigation systems, we don't have the autonomous flight controls, we don't have power supplies with sufficient power density, etc. And even if we somehow ignore all that the economics of it make it a non-starter.
What part of "self-flying" did you not understand?
Doesn't matter. You're worrying about the wrong thing. Vehicles that don't need humans to operate them safely are arguably a good idea. Frankly piloting vehicles (cars, planes, boats, etc) is a waste of human time and ability for the most part. If we can develop computers that can do the job better then that's great.
What gets lost in these discussions is the fact that even if we develop planes that can fly themselves it isn't going to change the economics of operating an aircraf of any description dramatically. Replacing a human pilot with a computer doesn't suddenly make planes affordable to the common man. The cost of the pilot is almost a rounding error in the cost of owning and operating any flying vehicle. You have the purchase cost, maintenance, storage, inspections, insurance, fuel, financing, and more which together VASTLY outstrip the cost of the pilot. Replacing a human pilot with a computer doesn't change most of those costs much if at all.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the company is making rapid progress on the first operational self-driving airborne vehicles and that we could see them take to the skies in under five years.
Note the use of the word "vehicles" not the word "cars". We already have operational self-driving airborne vehicles. They're called drones and we've been doing them for quite a while now. Not a single one of them resembles what we call cars nor are they useful for that purpose. We also have transportation vehicles for people to fly in but they are called airplanes and helicopters and they aren't going to drive on our roads. If it doesn't drive on a road by definition it is not a car. If they want to developed a vehicle that doesn't require a human pilot yet is safe to fly people around that's great but then just say that. They aren't working on flying cars because flying cars are impossible with any technology we currently or are likely to possess any time soon. And even if the technology was worked out the economics of it make it an absurd proposition. Operating any vehicle that flies is going to be VASTLY more expensive than almost any vehicle that doesn't for all but a handful of corner cases.
"Imagine a future city that has three-dimensional highways, with flying taxis, flying cars," Muilenburg said. "That future is not that far away. In fact we are building the prototype vehicles today. We are also investing in the ecosystem that will allow that to operate safely and reliably as it must."
Has there been some magical breakthrough in power density that I'm not aware of? Because unless we have invented the equivalent of Tony Stark's arc reactor we aren't going to have flying cars. Muilenburg's statement is the sort of marketing BS you would expect from a company that makes aircraft. Saying they are "building the protoype vehicles today" is a content free statement. Ford built a nuclear powered prototype car back in the 1950s and yet I don't see them at dealerships curiously.
Also the word taxi has NOTHING to do with any specific type of vehicle. Any type of vehicle can be a taxi because taxi is by definition a vehicle hired for transport. A 747 can be a taxi. So can a boat, a helicopter, a bicycle, and yes a car. Taxi is a service not a specific type of vehicle. Airplanes and helicopters are used as taxis today. Whether or not they are piloted by a human or a computer is irrelevant.
Musk is all about Mars. EV is for Mars. Boring is for Mars. SpaceX is for Mars.
Maybe so but that matters little in the here and now and none of what he is doing actually requires going to Mars. What Musk's companies are doing has immense value even if we never send so much as another probe to Mars. Electric vehicles area good idea even if we never go to space again. SpaceX lowering cost to orbit has huge value far beyond anything relating to Mars. Better and more efficient tunnel making can make our current 2D infrastructure 3D which we desperately need in many densely populated places. Solar power development and battery tech don't need to leave earth to justify being a good idea. We need clean power and we need it as soon as we can get it.
The flamethrower was probably because he needed to clear weeds from his lawn or something. But the rest is Mars.
The flamethrower (which genuinely isn't a flamethrower - it's a roofing torch in fancy packaging) was genius marketing and fundraising inspired literally by the movie Spaceballs.
Wow...what do you have against people that do well...or like a particular sport?
I have nothing against people who do well - I've been pretty lucky myself compared to some and I'm enthusiastically pro-doing-well. I have a problem with people who behave like they are better than others when they do well. I like all kinds of sports and I don't care what anyone plays - doesn't matter if it's my chosen sport or not. Get out there and be active and have fun. I'm not thrilled about sports that are too expensive for lots of people to play but I can live with it to a point. However I have a BIG problem when people use those sports to exclude others particularly minorities and women and golf is legendary for excluding disadvantaged groups. How could it be that you aren't aware of these problems?
I suppose you think everyone that has more money than you, and plays golf is an asshole or otherwise horrible person?
Not at all. I honestly could not care less how much money someone has and I wish you and everyone else well. I play golf myself from time to time and most people who enjoy it are perfectly decent folks. But if you aren't aware that there are some serious racism, sexism, and elitism problems within the sport of golf and with the country clubs that host the sport then you have been living under a rock.
In the US, Amazon has almost 50% of ALL online sales. And abut 5% of all retail.
Neither of those numbers are anywhere close to monopoly status. They are the 800lb gorilla of online sales no doubt but a monopoly they are not. And that second number is an important one. 5% on retail is a lot of retail but it's a looooooonnnnggg way from monopoly status. And even if they are a monopoly that doesn't make it illegal to sell their own branded good. Literally every other major retailer does exactly the same thing so it's hard to argue that Amazon should be subjected to special treatment for selling private label goods.
The golf industry got turned upside when golfers realizaed that the Costco golf balls were better than the more expensive premium golf balls.
So an industry based on an elitist rich man's game that charges outrageous markups on their equipment is pissed when someone undercuts them on price? Cry me a river.
They have knowledge of what sells from other parties, what's popular. They then manufacture those products and directly compete on their sales platform, with full knowledge of sales and pricing of their competitors.
So do grocery stores, retail stores, etc and they all sell private label goods too. I don't really see this as a problem. Kroger sells Kroger branded milk right next the other dairy brands and usually for less money. Walmart sells all sorts of private label goods at discounted prices. Amazon is doing nothing different here at all.
What's that smell? Federal intervention.
Not unless you can prove that Amazon is a monopoly first and then that they are abusing that monopoly. Good luck with that. The branded product makers are welcome to drop their prices to compete if they like. If they aren't providing enough value to justify their brand then why should I as a customer care?
Android is better, for many reasons. Obviously, 80%+ of the smartphone users in the world prefer it.
That is overwhelmingly because of price and nothing else in most cases. Few prefer it for any technical reason. Apple doesn't sell to the low end of the market so that has been filled in mostly with Android devices in large unit volumes. Apple has close to 50% market share in premium smartphones with Samsung accounting for the lions share of the rest of the segment.
Personally, I like the Android Linux kernel, it's just way better than Apple's Mach kernel.
Unless you are a developer you have approximately zero direct interaction with the kernel so this is just fanboyism. Nobody actually buying smartphones or tablets is comparing iOS to Android is comparing kernel architectures or making vague "efficiency" comparisons. Not even the hardest core geeks. The only reason to make your argument is ideology.
If you like Android better that's fine. There are some excellent Android devices out there and they work great. If you want to argue it is superior to Apple's offering for a given purpose that's fine too but please make better arguments. There are a lot of good ones to chose from. No need to be a blind fanboy.
OK, you pay Apple to put spy chips in your computer. Not me.
Evidently you pay some other manufacturer to put the spy chips in instead. Not really clear what you think you are gaining.
Did you know, many Apple products are assembled in China, using chips made in China?
So does literally every other manufacturer of electronics in the world worthy of the moniker. Apple is nothing unique in this regard so I'm not really sure what your point is. I seriously doubt you can find a non-trivial electronics device without at least some Chinese made chips and other content in it.
Is there any less economical way to get people into space than SLS?
Yes. I refer you to the Space Shuttle, the Apollo program, and pretty much any other heavy launch vehicle NASA has developed. The cost per Apollo launch was (inflation adjusted) about $1.2 billion per launch. The SLS is projected to cost considerably less than that though like most programs still in development the real numbers are still a bit fuzzy. It's also unlikely that the SLS would cost more than the Space Shuttle launches since it uses a lot of the same tech but is a notably less complex design. (presuming of course a similar number of launches to amortize the development costs over)
It's not clear to me that we need the SLS program in light of the apparent success of Falcon Heavy and some of the upcoming heavy launch systems but let's not pretend it is worse than other NASA launch programs. I think the justification for it is really as something of a fall back option in case SpaceX and the rest go tits up unexpectedly. That seems increasingly unlikely to happen but until the private sector options number more than SpaceX and ULA it's probably a good idea to have a back up plan just in case so we don't have to keep bumming rides off the Russians.
It is because I think the is a scam artist who takes public money to enrich himself which convincing all of his followers he is out to save the planet and take them to Mars.
This argument is just ridiculous and stupid. First off Tesla isn't taking any public money. The got a loan a while back (far less than GM incidentally) which they repaid quickly. The tax incentives for purchasing their vehicles don't bring a dime directly to Tesla and frankly probably don't have more than a marginal effect on sales. People who buy $100,000 cars aren't doing it for the tax writeoff and in any case Tesla has burned through the tax rebates available to their customers and yet people are still lining up to buy them. As for SpaceX, yes he launches government satellites and works closely with NASA. So what? So does every other launch company because governments are who launch such devices and NASA is in charge of that sort of business. Furthermore SpaceX has SAVED public money on such launches by lowering cost to orbit. Would you prefer the tax payers pay ULA's jacked up rates instead? Or maybe you would prefer we pay the Russians instead of a US company? SpaceX also has a large launch manifest of non-government clients too which you conveniently ignore. Furthermore please find me a large company that doesn't take full advantage of tax laws and government contracts whenever feasible for them to do so. I think you are being rather selective in your focus on thinking Musk run companies are somehow unusual in that regard.
I also hate cults.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I think he is a disgusting human being.
Maybe he is and maybe he isn't but you seem a little fixated. Did Musk pee in your breakfast cereal or something? Let it go dude. Nobody cares if you like him or don't but at least he's doing something creating value in the world. What have you don't that makes you such a moral paragon that we should give a shit about your opinion of Musk?
Yeah, so cut the crap about Musk trying to save the world. He is just another guy grabbing money.
Making money and "saving the world" are not mutually exclusive. And frankly to do much that really matters you need money to do it. There are legitimate criticisms you can make about Musk but I don't think this one is among them. If all Elon cared about was money he sure as hell wouldn't have started SpaceX or Tesla. The guy has taken HUGE risks which he didn't have to with those companies. He could have just checked out after the PayPal buyout if money was all that mattered to him.
I've never seen so many people taken in by such a cult leader.
As opposed to you who is too cool for school and just sits around trolling nonsense?
"Rei" is a Slashdot account run by a bunch of paid Musk shills
I'm always amused when people make the idiotic argument that Slashdot matters enough to draw "paid shills". It certainly has enough crazies saying stupid things (exhibit A above) but it's pretty safe to say neither Elon Musk nor anyone he employs have time or money to give a shit about what some random idiot message board bloggers say on slashdot. Slashdot hasn't been relevant for YEARS and even at it's peak it didn't matter much. It's mostly a bunch of folks like me who hang around and argue for old times sake to amuse themselves. Honestly I'm not entirely sure why I continue to bother when I see stupidity like what I'm replying to here.
I have a good friend who works range optics at Vandenberg and knows a lot of people from the various launch teams. He says the ULA people hate SpaceX.
Sure, they had a comfy cozy little business and suddenly they've been exposed for the incompetent leaches they really are. I bet they don't like SpaceX but that's just sour grapes and I really don't give a shit. They had decades to do better and they sat on their asses. Now SpaceX is handing them that fat complacent ass and they don't like it? Cry me a river.
SpaceX has never been about being a rich mans game. He is using sort of the same model he did with Tesla where you build the expensive one and use the money generated from the sales for that to fund the next round, and repeat, getting cheaper and scaling each time.
Yep. Literally every business Elon has done since PayPal has been basically about bringing economies of scale to a business or business segment that did not have them before and driving costs down. It's not easy to do but when it succeeds the rewards are immense. He's moved several industries more in the last 10 years than they have moved in the last 50. It's why I wish the guy well... not because I care about Elon but because if he forced GM to make a better EV or ULA to make a cheaper launch vehicle or gets solar panels on every roof then that benefits us all. We need people who are change agents like that driving inefficiency out of industries that have gotten complacent.
You think the SLS is using solid fuel because it's the best option?
I think the SLS is using solid fuel boosters because they've already done a lot of the work courtesy of the Space Shuttle program and it's easier to adapt existing tech than to develop brand new tech. Plus the infrastructure to build and service the things is already in place with existing suppliers. It's why the Soyuz system is still in place after all these decades even though it's possible to develop something that outperforms it. Sure it also functions as pork to keep politicians happy but that is an argument against the program not against the technology itself. There is no single right answer to the technical question of what is the "best" option. There are pros and cons to every possible choice. It may very well be that the SRBs were the best option given the constraints NASA had to work with for the program goals. Change the goals and then maybe the choices need to change too. Let's say NASA goes with a blank canvas liquid fuel design instead. Now they have a MUCH bigger and likely more expensive engineering task to develop and prove a new system which they have to do under the exact same budget. It's not like Congress is anxious to increase their budget either so what choice would you make?
Engineering and program management aren't always about finding the ideal technical solution. Economics and sometimes politics play a role too. Sometimes you are better off dusting off a proven technology because it costs less or because it's less risky or because it's less costly. It's about making sure perfect isn't the enemy of good. There are more factors to consider than merely what is the current state of the art technology and using only that.
NASA Brings billions of federal dollars in. if we privatize space travel that all goes away.
Your argument is that federal pork on an interstellar bus service is somehow a good thing? What do you think NASA actually does? They aren't an interstellar bus service and they should not be. Their work with stuff like the Apollo program and Space Shuttle and ISS are high profile but it's only a fraction of what they do. Most of what NASA does is research and engineering. Contracting private companies to handle the actual transit duties actually frees NASA to do their primary mission since a lot of that are already solved problems. NASA is good at figuring out tough problems at the boundaries of human knowledge. They aren't good at making those solutions economical - that's what private industry does well. NASA figured out how to get rocket into orbit (reasonably) safely and now they transfer that to private companies to figure out how to do it less expensively and at scale.
Stuff like NASA is the closest thing to socialism we can get in the US.
NASA is a research agency. If you think they are some sort of quasi-socialist entity in the US government you don't really understand what socialism actually is.
I don't like the idea of space travel becoming a rich man's club.
How exactly do you think capitalism works? NASA isn't ever going to be an organization that can make space travel affordable. They literally cannot do that job well and they've already tried (see the Space Shuttle fiasco) and failed. NASA's mission is to push the boundaries of human knowledge as it relates to aviation and space exploration. Their job is decidedly NOT to be an interstellar bus service. Yes some people are going to make money launching rockets and this isn't a bad thing. The ONLY way cost to orbit is going to drop is for private enterprise to get involved. If some money is made along the way by people who are solving real problems then so much the better.
But then again I also want public transit for my streets (that doesn't run one bus every 90 minutes) and I can't get that either.
How is it easier or make more sense to have astronauts die on the Moon, rather than Mars?
Not really sure what you find confusing. It's a LOT easier to get astronauts to and from the moon alive. We already have life support systems that can deal with moon mission duration but not so much for Mars. Communications to the moon are a few seconds round trip. Mars communication averages around 27 minutes round trip. Regular resupply to the moon is feasible. Not so much to Mars. Rescue missions to the moon are feasible even if difficult. Far less so to Mars. We have no practical design for shielding against radiation on the trip to/from Mars or while there but that's not nearly as big an issue to/from/on the Moon. Landing on the moon is MUCH easier than on Mars because the martian atmosphere turns out to be a real pain - thick enough to be a hazard but too thin to be useful.
Neither place is a friendly warm place to visit but it's pretty obvious that the Moon is the easier trip of the two by a pretty wide margin if you care at all about bringing the astronauts back alive. I'd like to see us visit both but Mars is definitely the harder target of the two.
The only difference between having a human land on the Moon rather than Mars is that Mars has a slightly stronger gravity well, a sparse atmosphere, and it will take more time to send a manned craft to Mars rather than the Moon.
That is not even close to the only difference. That thin martian atmosphere is actually a huge problem for landing there. It's easier to land on Earth than on Mars because the atmosphere on Mars is thick enough to cause entry heating problems but too thin to provide much useful braking. And that time to get there is mostly time in deep space where radiation becomes a big problem for living beings if they aren't shielded and we currently have no practical shielding. That problem along with the substantial sum of money it would take to finance such a mission are the biggest hurdles to getting to Mars.
But humans have already landed on the Moon. There is nothing new to be learned engineering-wise by having a landing craft land on the Moon first.
Yes we've landed on the moon but claims that there is no more we can learn by going again are manifestly absurd. There is a ton of engineering and science we could learn by going again.
I have yet to read anyone who can explain how it will be safer or more rewarding to send humans back to the Moon.
The ways in which going to the Moon is safer are legion. Most of them have to do with the proximity to Earth and the advantages that affords. Frankly if we cannot handle a manned mission to the Moon, it's not at all clear how we would handle the more costly and challenging mission to Mars. That's not to say we shouldn't go to Mars but I think that particular journey is going to take a LOT longer to become a reality - predominately because of the life support systems we still have yet to develop.
The regulations are mostly for safety, such as proving that the device cannot deliver an electric shock from the mains supply, while wires are attached to your body.
Of course the regulations are for safety but there is a lot more to it than that. My company makes wiring harnesses for heart and lung machines so I'm more familiar than I really care to be with what is required. There are a lot of requirements regarding how they are made, the quality systems, traceability of materials and processes, calibration of equipment, and more. Product design is of course a piece of the puzzle too but it's not the only piece by a long shot. I've seen the FDA crawl up the ass of one of our customers who weren't meeting requirements the way they should have been and it's not just physical device safety I can assure you.
And there are a multitude of folks who would want to adopt those "unwanted children". So abortion also affects a people.
Several problems with that argument. 1) The people who allegedly might adopt those children don't have to endure the pregnancy and risks that come with it 2) Very few people who are supposedly against abortion are actually willing to adopt a child to save it from an abortion 3) There are already no lack of children in need of adoption so it's hard to argue we should be making more children 4) A woman should have the right to control her reproductive systems just like any other part of her body at all times. Another person's desire to raise a child should not change that fact.
You just proved my point: those who want child support use the exact same arguments and reasoning as those who want to force women to carry parental responsibilities they didn't want for 9 months. In this case, the "keep your legs crossed" if you don't want the consequences canard, which applies to women as well as men.
It isn't 9 months of responsibility. It's 18 YEARS of responsibility and mothers and fathers should share that equally since they were both required in the process. If the woman has to raise and deal with the kid (wanted or not) then so should the father in some capacity. If you don't think the father should have to support the child until it is grown then you are de-facto making an argument that women should be allow to abort the fetus to get away from the responsibility too.
If the child is the result of rape by a man then the father should be required to financially support the child but have no visitation rights without the consent of the mother.
You've got to be one stone cold prick to think that cancer is an appropriate punishment for having pre-marital sex.
Does this really surprise you? If you believe in the teachings of christianity you pretty much have to believe in the concepts of sins and punishments that result from it. They enthusiastically tell people that they are condemned in the afterlife if they don't tow the line on the (rather ill defined) biblical "teachings" during their life. What is really the difference between thinking someone is going to hell for their behavior versus thinking they deserve cancer for the same behavior? I don't see any difference at all. Either way they are wishing something bad to happen to you.
As an evangelical God worshipper, I fully support the HPV vaccine (and my children have been vaccinated for HPV and all other diseases as per the recommended schedule) and I don't support a lot of what Trump has done, nor did I vote for him.
As an atheist it's nice to see a religious person being rational about science.
I know, sample size of one and all, but we're not all anti-science.
We know that. It frustrates and confuses me why folks like yourself aren't as a group shouting down the crazy ones among you because I know you aren't alone. I genuinely don't care if an adult wants to worship privately and I'm fine with people having views that differ from my own. But when they start pretending that their fictional holy book should supersede empirical evidence or that their mythology has a place in the science classroom or in public health policy then we have a fight. I don't care what the bible says - it's not a basis for any rational discussion much less public policy about science.
You are also welcome on my lawn. Sorry some of my fellow Christians have behaved so poorly.
Likewise. What I'm puzzled by is how many self proclaimed "values voters" among the religious right shamelessly dumped any pretense at morality by voting for Trump. Trump is a guy who is a near embodiment of many of the sorts of values they claim to hate (lying, philandering, etc) and yet a shocking number of them are among his most enthusiastic supporters. I get that they didn't like Clinton but how Trump ever won the republican party nomination with the support of so many of these hypocrites will probably forever elude me.
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Why would they need to be especially good at either?
That's not the problem. The problem is that any design we can actually build are REALLY BAD at both. To get the thing aloft you have to strip out vast amounts of weight and even then we can only just barely get them airborne with limited cargo capacity. They are so light and fragile you can't really drive them on the road safely. Even a minor fender bender renders them no longer airworthy. When they are on the ground you have to lug around heavy impractical wings and in the air you have to lug around heavy impractical drivetrains. They're bad on fuel economy, fragile, expensive, can barely carry any cargo, can't land or take off anywhere useful, slow, loud, uncomfortable, etc.
The ONLY way a flying car could be practical is if we had a breakthrough power supply. Think Tony Stark's arc reactor made real. No internal combustion engine, no EV tech, no fuel cell tech, nor any other power source we have or are in any danger of making can generate enough power while being light enough to make flying cars a practical reality either technically or economically.
A flying car is certainly for a completely different context than most planes and as a car it would would only need to offer an adequate experience as any trips of significant length
Not when it's cheaper to buy both a plane and a car than a combination vehicle that does both activities worse for more money. Even if we ignore all the technical problems with flying cars (which are legion) the economics of them immediately make them non-viable.
(like the commute from the burbs to major urban areas for work) would likely be done in the air.
Umm, where do you think you are going to land this thing? It isn't going to be landing on 5th avenue on NYC. You have to land at an airport and drive from there. And if you are going to do that then you might as well just fly a real plane and own/rent a real car. You're not really thinking the problem through. Even if we somehow managed to figure out the technical and economic problems with flying cars (which we won't) we would have to make VAST changes to our infrastructure to be able to use them anywhere except flying to/from airports. You're not going to land a flying car in the parking lot of your local mega-mart and you sure as hell aren't flying one into a dense urban area.
They've had operational flying cars since before I was born.
Let's be accurate. We've had a few thoroughly impractical prototype vehicles that have no real utility as either a car or an aircraft. They barely qualify as cars, perform badly as aircraft, and even a minor fender bender would render one no longer airworthy. They have very limited cargo capacity, are slow, and are hugely expensive. Not to mention you REALLY don't want to be in one in a real accident on the ground. They are basically proof of concept demonstrators that served to prove that the concept won't work in the real world.
Making it operate is not the problem with the Jetsons fantasy.
This is true even if we ignore the above. We don't have the infrastructure for flying cars, we don't have the navigation systems, we don't have the autonomous flight controls, we don't have power supplies with sufficient power density, etc. And even if we somehow ignore all that the economics of it make it a non-starter.
What part of "self-flying" did you not understand?
Doesn't matter. You're worrying about the wrong thing. Vehicles that don't need humans to operate them safely are arguably a good idea. Frankly piloting vehicles (cars, planes, boats, etc) is a waste of human time and ability for the most part. If we can develop computers that can do the job better then that's great.
What gets lost in these discussions is the fact that even if we develop planes that can fly themselves it isn't going to change the economics of operating an aircraf of any description dramatically. Replacing a human pilot with a computer doesn't suddenly make planes affordable to the common man. The cost of the pilot is almost a rounding error in the cost of owning and operating any flying vehicle. You have the purchase cost, maintenance, storage, inspections, insurance, fuel, financing, and more which together VASTLY outstrip the cost of the pilot. Replacing a human pilot with a computer doesn't change most of those costs much if at all.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the company is making rapid progress on the first operational self-driving airborne vehicles and that we could see them take to the skies in under five years.
Note the use of the word "vehicles" not the word "cars". We already have operational self-driving airborne vehicles. They're called drones and we've been doing them for quite a while now. Not a single one of them resembles what we call cars nor are they useful for that purpose. We also have transportation vehicles for people to fly in but they are called airplanes and helicopters and they aren't going to drive on our roads. If it doesn't drive on a road by definition it is not a car. If they want to developed a vehicle that doesn't require a human pilot yet is safe to fly people around that's great but then just say that. They aren't working on flying cars because flying cars are impossible with any technology we currently or are likely to possess any time soon. And even if the technology was worked out the economics of it make it an absurd proposition. Operating any vehicle that flies is going to be VASTLY more expensive than almost any vehicle that doesn't for all but a handful of corner cases.
"Imagine a future city that has three-dimensional highways, with flying taxis, flying cars," Muilenburg said. "That future is not that far away. In fact we are building the prototype vehicles today. We are also investing in the ecosystem that will allow that to operate safely and reliably as it must."
Has there been some magical breakthrough in power density that I'm not aware of? Because unless we have invented the equivalent of Tony Stark's arc reactor we aren't going to have flying cars. Muilenburg's statement is the sort of marketing BS you would expect from a company that makes aircraft. Saying they are "building the protoype vehicles today" is a content free statement. Ford built a nuclear powered prototype car back in the 1950s and yet I don't see them at dealerships curiously.
Also the word taxi has NOTHING to do with any specific type of vehicle. Any type of vehicle can be a taxi because taxi is by definition a vehicle hired for transport. A 747 can be a taxi. So can a boat, a helicopter, a bicycle, and yes a car. Taxi is a service not a specific type of vehicle. Airplanes and helicopters are used as taxis today. Whether or not they are piloted by a human or a computer is irrelevant.
Musk is all about Mars. EV is for Mars. Boring is for Mars. SpaceX is for Mars.
Maybe so but that matters little in the here and now and none of what he is doing actually requires going to Mars. What Musk's companies are doing has immense value even if we never send so much as another probe to Mars. Electric vehicles area good idea even if we never go to space again. SpaceX lowering cost to orbit has huge value far beyond anything relating to Mars. Better and more efficient tunnel making can make our current 2D infrastructure 3D which we desperately need in many densely populated places. Solar power development and battery tech don't need to leave earth to justify being a good idea. We need clean power and we need it as soon as we can get it.
The flamethrower was probably because he needed to clear weeds from his lawn or something. But the rest is Mars.
The flamethrower (which genuinely isn't a flamethrower - it's a roofing torch in fancy packaging) was genius marketing and fundraising inspired literally by the movie Spaceballs.
Wow...what do you have against people that do well...or like a particular sport?
I have nothing against people who do well - I've been pretty lucky myself compared to some and I'm enthusiastically pro-doing-well. I have a problem with people who behave like they are better than others when they do well. I like all kinds of sports and I don't care what anyone plays - doesn't matter if it's my chosen sport or not. Get out there and be active and have fun. I'm not thrilled about sports that are too expensive for lots of people to play but I can live with it to a point. However I have a BIG problem when people use those sports to exclude others particularly minorities and women and golf is legendary for excluding disadvantaged groups. How could it be that you aren't aware of these problems?
I suppose you think everyone that has more money than you, and plays golf is an asshole or otherwise horrible person?
Not at all. I honestly could not care less how much money someone has and I wish you and everyone else well. I play golf myself from time to time and most people who enjoy it are perfectly decent folks. But if you aren't aware that there are some serious racism, sexism, and elitism problems within the sport of golf and with the country clubs that host the sport then you have been living under a rock.
In the US, Amazon has almost 50% of ALL online sales. And abut 5% of all retail.
Neither of those numbers are anywhere close to monopoly status. They are the 800lb gorilla of online sales no doubt but a monopoly they are not. And that second number is an important one. 5% on retail is a lot of retail but it's a looooooonnnnggg way from monopoly status. And even if they are a monopoly that doesn't make it illegal to sell their own branded good. Literally every other major retailer does exactly the same thing so it's hard to argue that Amazon should be subjected to special treatment for selling private label goods.
The golf industry got turned upside when golfers realizaed that the Costco golf balls were better than the more expensive premium golf balls.
So an industry based on an elitist rich man's game that charges outrageous markups on their equipment is pissed when someone undercuts them on price? Cry me a river.
They have knowledge of what sells from other parties, what's popular. They then manufacture those products and directly compete on their sales platform, with full knowledge of sales and pricing of their competitors.
So do grocery stores, retail stores, etc and they all sell private label goods too. I don't really see this as a problem. Kroger sells Kroger branded milk right next the other dairy brands and usually for less money. Walmart sells all sorts of private label goods at discounted prices. Amazon is doing nothing different here at all.
What's that smell? Federal intervention.
Not unless you can prove that Amazon is a monopoly first and then that they are abusing that monopoly. Good luck with that. The branded product makers are welcome to drop their prices to compete if they like. If they aren't providing enough value to justify their brand then why should I as a customer care?
Android is better, for many reasons. Obviously, 80%+ of the smartphone users in the world prefer it.
That is overwhelmingly because of price and nothing else in most cases. Few prefer it for any technical reason. Apple doesn't sell to the low end of the market so that has been filled in mostly with Android devices in large unit volumes. Apple has close to 50% market share in premium smartphones with Samsung accounting for the lions share of the rest of the segment.
Personally, I like the Android Linux kernel, it's just way better than Apple's Mach kernel.
Unless you are a developer you have approximately zero direct interaction with the kernel so this is just fanboyism. Nobody actually buying smartphones or tablets is comparing iOS to Android is comparing kernel architectures or making vague "efficiency" comparisons. Not even the hardest core geeks. The only reason to make your argument is ideology.
If you like Android better that's fine. There are some excellent Android devices out there and they work great. If you want to argue it is superior to Apple's offering for a given purpose that's fine too but please make better arguments. There are a lot of good ones to chose from. No need to be a blind fanboy.
OK, you pay Apple to put spy chips in your computer. Not me.
Evidently you pay some other manufacturer to put the spy chips in instead. Not really clear what you think you are gaining.
Did you know, many Apple products are assembled in China, using chips made in China?
So does literally every other manufacturer of electronics in the world worthy of the moniker. Apple is nothing unique in this regard so I'm not really sure what your point is. I seriously doubt you can find a non-trivial electronics device without at least some Chinese made chips and other content in it.
Is there any less economical way to get people into space than SLS?
Yes. I refer you to the Space Shuttle, the Apollo program, and pretty much any other heavy launch vehicle NASA has developed. The cost per Apollo launch was (inflation adjusted) about $1.2 billion per launch. The SLS is projected to cost considerably less than that though like most programs still in development the real numbers are still a bit fuzzy. It's also unlikely that the SLS would cost more than the Space Shuttle launches since it uses a lot of the same tech but is a notably less complex design. (presuming of course a similar number of launches to amortize the development costs over)
It's not clear to me that we need the SLS program in light of the apparent success of Falcon Heavy and some of the upcoming heavy launch systems but let's not pretend it is worse than other NASA launch programs. I think the justification for it is really as something of a fall back option in case SpaceX and the rest go tits up unexpectedly. That seems increasingly unlikely to happen but until the private sector options number more than SpaceX and ULA it's probably a good idea to have a back up plan just in case so we don't have to keep bumming rides off the Russians.
It is because I think the is a scam artist who takes public money to enrich himself which convincing all of his followers he is out to save the planet and take them to Mars.
This argument is just ridiculous and stupid. First off Tesla isn't taking any public money. The got a loan a while back (far less than GM incidentally) which they repaid quickly. The tax incentives for purchasing their vehicles don't bring a dime directly to Tesla and frankly probably don't have more than a marginal effect on sales. People who buy $100,000 cars aren't doing it for the tax writeoff and in any case Tesla has burned through the tax rebates available to their customers and yet people are still lining up to buy them. As for SpaceX, yes he launches government satellites and works closely with NASA. So what? So does every other launch company because governments are who launch such devices and NASA is in charge of that sort of business. Furthermore SpaceX has SAVED public money on such launches by lowering cost to orbit. Would you prefer the tax payers pay ULA's jacked up rates instead? Or maybe you would prefer we pay the Russians instead of a US company? SpaceX also has a large launch manifest of non-government clients too which you conveniently ignore. Furthermore please find me a large company that doesn't take full advantage of tax laws and government contracts whenever feasible for them to do so. I think you are being rather selective in your focus on thinking Musk run companies are somehow unusual in that regard.
I also hate cults.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I think he is a disgusting human being.
Maybe he is and maybe he isn't but you seem a little fixated. Did Musk pee in your breakfast cereal or something? Let it go dude. Nobody cares if you like him or don't but at least he's doing something creating value in the world. What have you don't that makes you such a moral paragon that we should give a shit about your opinion of Musk?
Yeah, so cut the crap about Musk trying to save the world. He is just another guy grabbing money.
Making money and "saving the world" are not mutually exclusive. And frankly to do much that really matters you need money to do it. There are legitimate criticisms you can make about Musk but I don't think this one is among them. If all Elon cared about was money he sure as hell wouldn't have started SpaceX or Tesla. The guy has taken HUGE risks which he didn't have to with those companies. He could have just checked out after the PayPal buyout if money was all that mattered to him.
I've never seen so many people taken in by such a cult leader.
As opposed to you who is too cool for school and just sits around trolling nonsense?
"Rei" is a Slashdot account run by a bunch of paid Musk shills
I'm always amused when people make the idiotic argument that Slashdot matters enough to draw "paid shills". It certainly has enough crazies saying stupid things (exhibit A above) but it's pretty safe to say neither Elon Musk nor anyone he employs have time or money to give a shit about what some random idiot message board bloggers say on slashdot. Slashdot hasn't been relevant for YEARS and even at it's peak it didn't matter much. It's mostly a bunch of folks like me who hang around and argue for old times sake to amuse themselves. Honestly I'm not entirely sure why I continue to bother when I see stupidity like what I'm replying to here.
I have a good friend who works range optics at Vandenberg and knows a lot of people from the various launch teams. He says the ULA people hate SpaceX.
Sure, they had a comfy cozy little business and suddenly they've been exposed for the incompetent leaches they really are. I bet they don't like SpaceX but that's just sour grapes and I really don't give a shit. They had decades to do better and they sat on their asses. Now SpaceX is handing them that fat complacent ass and they don't like it? Cry me a river.
SpaceX has never been about being a rich mans game. He is using sort of the same model he did with Tesla where you build the expensive one and use the money generated from the sales for that to fund the next round, and repeat, getting cheaper and scaling each time.
Yep. Literally every business Elon has done since PayPal has been basically about bringing economies of scale to a business or business segment that did not have them before and driving costs down. It's not easy to do but when it succeeds the rewards are immense. He's moved several industries more in the last 10 years than they have moved in the last 50. It's why I wish the guy well... not because I care about Elon but because if he forced GM to make a better EV or ULA to make a cheaper launch vehicle or gets solar panels on every roof then that benefits us all. We need people who are change agents like that driving inefficiency out of industries that have gotten complacent.
You think the SLS is using solid fuel because it's the best option?
I think the SLS is using solid fuel boosters because they've already done a lot of the work courtesy of the Space Shuttle program and it's easier to adapt existing tech than to develop brand new tech. Plus the infrastructure to build and service the things is already in place with existing suppliers. It's why the Soyuz system is still in place after all these decades even though it's possible to develop something that outperforms it. Sure it also functions as pork to keep politicians happy but that is an argument against the program not against the technology itself. There is no single right answer to the technical question of what is the "best" option. There are pros and cons to every possible choice. It may very well be that the SRBs were the best option given the constraints NASA had to work with for the program goals. Change the goals and then maybe the choices need to change too. Let's say NASA goes with a blank canvas liquid fuel design instead. Now they have a MUCH bigger and likely more expensive engineering task to develop and prove a new system which they have to do under the exact same budget. It's not like Congress is anxious to increase their budget either so what choice would you make?
Engineering and program management aren't always about finding the ideal technical solution. Economics and sometimes politics play a role too. Sometimes you are better off dusting off a proven technology because it costs less or because it's less risky or because it's less costly. It's about making sure perfect isn't the enemy of good. There are more factors to consider than merely what is the current state of the art technology and using only that.
NASA Brings billions of federal dollars in. if we privatize space travel that all goes away.
Your argument is that federal pork on an interstellar bus service is somehow a good thing? What do you think NASA actually does? They aren't an interstellar bus service and they should not be. Their work with stuff like the Apollo program and Space Shuttle and ISS are high profile but it's only a fraction of what they do. Most of what NASA does is research and engineering. Contracting private companies to handle the actual transit duties actually frees NASA to do their primary mission since a lot of that are already solved problems. NASA is good at figuring out tough problems at the boundaries of human knowledge. They aren't good at making those solutions economical - that's what private industry does well. NASA figured out how to get rocket into orbit (reasonably) safely and now they transfer that to private companies to figure out how to do it less expensively and at scale.
Stuff like NASA is the closest thing to socialism we can get in the US.
NASA is a research agency. If you think they are some sort of quasi-socialist entity in the US government you don't really understand what socialism actually is.
I don't like the idea of space travel becoming a rich man's club.
How exactly do you think capitalism works? NASA isn't ever going to be an organization that can make space travel affordable. They literally cannot do that job well and they've already tried (see the Space Shuttle fiasco) and failed. NASA's mission is to push the boundaries of human knowledge as it relates to aviation and space exploration. Their job is decidedly NOT to be an interstellar bus service. Yes some people are going to make money launching rockets and this isn't a bad thing. The ONLY way cost to orbit is going to drop is for private enterprise to get involved. If some money is made along the way by people who are solving real problems then so much the better.
But then again I also want public transit for my streets (that doesn't run one bus every 90 minutes) and I can't get that either.
WTF does that have to do with NASA?
How is it easier or make more sense to have astronauts die on the Moon, rather than Mars?
Not really sure what you find confusing. It's a LOT easier to get astronauts to and from the moon alive. We already have life support systems that can deal with moon mission duration but not so much for Mars. Communications to the moon are a few seconds round trip. Mars communication averages around 27 minutes round trip. Regular resupply to the moon is feasible. Not so much to Mars. Rescue missions to the moon are feasible even if difficult. Far less so to Mars. We have no practical design for shielding against radiation on the trip to/from Mars or while there but that's not nearly as big an issue to/from/on the Moon. Landing on the moon is MUCH easier than on Mars because the martian atmosphere turns out to be a real pain - thick enough to be a hazard but too thin to be useful.
Neither place is a friendly warm place to visit but it's pretty obvious that the Moon is the easier trip of the two by a pretty wide margin if you care at all about bringing the astronauts back alive. I'd like to see us visit both but Mars is definitely the harder target of the two.
The only difference between having a human land on the Moon rather than Mars is that Mars has a slightly stronger gravity well, a sparse atmosphere, and it will take more time to send a manned craft to Mars rather than the Moon.
That is not even close to the only difference. That thin martian atmosphere is actually a huge problem for landing there. It's easier to land on Earth than on Mars because the atmosphere on Mars is thick enough to cause entry heating problems but too thin to provide much useful braking. And that time to get there is mostly time in deep space where radiation becomes a big problem for living beings if they aren't shielded and we currently have no practical shielding. That problem along with the substantial sum of money it would take to finance such a mission are the biggest hurdles to getting to Mars.
But humans have already landed on the Moon. There is nothing new to be learned engineering-wise by having a landing craft land on the Moon first.
Yes we've landed on the moon but claims that there is no more we can learn by going again are manifestly absurd. There is a ton of engineering and science we could learn by going again.
I have yet to read anyone who can explain how it will be safer or more rewarding to send humans back to the Moon.
The ways in which going to the Moon is safer are legion. Most of them have to do with the proximity to Earth and the advantages that affords. Frankly if we cannot handle a manned mission to the Moon, it's not at all clear how we would handle the more costly and challenging mission to Mars. That's not to say we shouldn't go to Mars but I think that particular journey is going to take a LOT longer to become a reality - predominately because of the life support systems we still have yet to develop.
The regulations are mostly for safety, such as proving that the device cannot deliver an electric shock from the mains supply, while wires are attached to your body.
Of course the regulations are for safety but there is a lot more to it than that. My company makes wiring harnesses for heart and lung machines so I'm more familiar than I really care to be with what is required. There are a lot of requirements regarding how they are made, the quality systems, traceability of materials and processes, calibration of equipment, and more. Product design is of course a piece of the puzzle too but it's not the only piece by a long shot. I've seen the FDA crawl up the ass of one of our customers who weren't meeting requirements the way they should have been and it's not just physical device safety I can assure you.
And there are a multitude of folks who would want to adopt those "unwanted children". So abortion also affects a people.
Several problems with that argument.
1) The people who allegedly might adopt those children don't have to endure the pregnancy and risks that come with it
2) Very few people who are supposedly against abortion are actually willing to adopt a child to save it from an abortion
3) There are already no lack of children in need of adoption so it's hard to argue we should be making more children
4) A woman should have the right to control her reproductive systems just like any other part of her body at all times. Another person's desire to raise a child should not change that fact.
You just proved my point: those who want child support use the exact same arguments and reasoning as those who want to force women to carry parental responsibilities they didn't want for 9 months. In this case, the "keep your legs crossed" if you don't want the consequences canard, which applies to women as well as men.
It isn't 9 months of responsibility. It's 18 YEARS of responsibility and mothers and fathers should share that equally since they were both required in the process. If the woman has to raise and deal with the kid (wanted or not) then so should the father in some capacity. If you don't think the father should have to support the child until it is grown then you are de-facto making an argument that women should be allow to abort the fetus to get away from the responsibility too.
If the child is the result of rape by a man then the father should be required to financially support the child but have no visitation rights without the consent of the mother.
You've got to be one stone cold prick to think that cancer is an appropriate punishment for having pre-marital sex.
Does this really surprise you? If you believe in the teachings of christianity you pretty much have to believe in the concepts of sins and punishments that result from it. They enthusiastically tell people that they are condemned in the afterlife if they don't tow the line on the (rather ill defined) biblical "teachings" during their life. What is really the difference between thinking someone is going to hell for their behavior versus thinking they deserve cancer for the same behavior? I don't see any difference at all. Either way they are wishing something bad to happen to you.
As an evangelical God worshipper, I fully support the HPV vaccine (and my children have been vaccinated for HPV and all other diseases as per the recommended schedule) and I don't support a lot of what Trump has done, nor did I vote for him.
As an atheist it's nice to see a religious person being rational about science.
I know, sample size of one and all, but we're not all anti-science.
We know that. It frustrates and confuses me why folks like yourself aren't as a group shouting down the crazy ones among you because I know you aren't alone. I genuinely don't care if an adult wants to worship privately and I'm fine with people having views that differ from my own. But when they start pretending that their fictional holy book should supersede empirical evidence or that their mythology has a place in the science classroom or in public health policy then we have a fight. I don't care what the bible says - it's not a basis for any rational discussion much less public policy about science.
You are also welcome on my lawn. Sorry some of my fellow Christians have behaved so poorly.
Likewise. What I'm puzzled by is how many self proclaimed "values voters" among the religious right shamelessly dumped any pretense at morality by voting for Trump. Trump is a guy who is a near embodiment of many of the sorts of values they claim to hate (lying, philandering, etc) and yet a shocking number of them are among his most enthusiastic supporters. I get that they didn't like Clinton but how Trump ever won the republican party nomination with the support of so many of these hypocrites will probably forever elude me.
but there are a ton of folks who can't afford the vaccine.
They don't need to be able to afford it. There are programs set up for exactly this issue. Cost is not an obstacle.