I would have though that with military tech. being, what, 5 years or more in advance of what we civilians get they would be using multiple signal, spread spectrum, 2GB encryption keys and a slew of other technologies that make it at least infeasable to try and crack.
Alas, this isn't really the case anymore. Most military areospace computer technology is quite primitive by civilian standards. The problem is mainly radiation hardened electronic components. The highest end RAD-hardened CPU at the moment is a 486-ish device. Work to get a hardened pentium in production has faltered recently. Basically it just doesn't make any financial sense for any IC manufacturers to go through the trouble of developing these devices when they have such a limited market.
If you wrote a chemistry book which explained what nitrates are and someone went and used that knowledge to build an ammonium nitrate bomb and blew up a grade school, would you feel responsible?
I won't even go into the bit about Hussein and the chances of him (or anyone like him) following the GPL.......
B. one could give false image info for targets beyond local range (e.g. fake data from an AWACS).
This ability can be extremely useful to a country undergoing bombardment.
One of the main reasons the V-1 and V-2's of WW2 did so little real damage is that the British controlled the german spies in England. They would report slightly altered impact coordinates back to the German launch teams. The end result was that, as the incorrect reports were worked into the targeting, the missile aim points would slowly move away from the city itself and into the surrounding farmland. The British could even tell when the launch crews moved to new sites, as the impact points would snap back to the center of London...
Iridium satellites have three large, flat, reflective antennas arrainged at an angle to the main spacecraft. These antennas, when at the right angle, can produce a very bright glint of reflected runlight. If you know where to look, the flares can be seen in broad daylight.
It's not a lot in Government areospace terms. It's a hell of a lot of money to throw away in private aerospace terms. Think of what Kristler, Beal, or Rotary Rocket could do with an extra $750,000?
These were high pressure oxygen and nitrogen tanks. Granted not rocket science in and of themselves, but not a "gas tank" either.
As to liquid oxygen storage: have you ever tried to store LOX? It is a seriously difficult substance to deal with, particularly in microgravity and for long durations. In particular, it's fond of a) freezing things, b) oxidizing the tank wall, and c) vaporizing and causing an over-pressurization of your tank. Over-pressurized tanks generally explode.
On the other hand, there's some really inappropriate stuff being moved into kernel space. khttpd comes to mind. Application-level protocols simply do *NOT* belong in there. I don't even like having a kernel-space nfsd, but that's the way most Unices do it, and the userspace nfsd seems to have fallen into utter disrepair.
Remember that these are all modules, though. So, even if you use a precompiled kernel you don't have to put up with them.
For many people Linux development is a hobby. Khttpd exists because it's interesting to see how fast a kernel space http server can be, nothing more.
It needs to start researching and doing civil engineering in space -- making new land and cities in space.
It's not for lack of interest. Congress hasn't allowed NASA to think that big for over 30 years. Every time a NASA center comes up with a project that could lead the way to opening up space to large scale anything it very quickly finds it's funding slacking off...
Look at what happened just recently to TransHab. Finally a chance to prove that inflatable space structures can really work. They've been theorized and studied since the 50s. But once again a few congressmen inserted language in last years NASA budget to deny all funding for the project.
Our congress simply doesn't want to open up space. They fear it will just suck up their budget (which they would much rather spend on their personal constituencies)...
First thought: This is really nifty. Think scope here. If these things are so cheap, what's to prevent us from stringing them around the moon or Mars? A handful of these could in time be just as powerful as a large-scale satellite.
They'll always have a few limitations, though: small power generation capabilites (nuclear might help, though), and small antennas (so limiting them to really high frequencies)... There is also the serious problem of cooling, getting rid of excess heat is very difficult in space.
Second thought: What's to prevent the random linking and de-linking of these things as needed? Electromagnets, perhaps, powered by solar cells, could provide enough impetus to move by, say, "swimming" through ferromagnetic debris that's already clouding the Earth's upper upper atmosphere.
Magnetic fields are already used for orientation purposes. It's called magtorquing or something like that. The generated magnetic field acts against the earths own magnetic field. You can't really move around using such a system, though. Some of the nano/micro thruster work might do the job, though. These are thrusters built using IC technology...extremely small.
Third thought: The more of these we send up, the more shooting stars we'll see when they re-enter and burn. Sounds cool to me.
Reentering is bad. It just means we've wasted a valuable in-orbit resource. Given our ridiculously high launch costs, any mass in orbit is worth more than it's weight in gold.
Apparently, the government now has the ability to track a cell-phone type signal from a hundred or so miles away, with enough accuracy to communicate / monitor the device. This makes me slightly unhappy.
Given the huge size of some of the antennas used on signals intelligence satellites, I wouldn't doubt for a minute that a cellphone could be a feasible target. (The question, of course, is if the antennas are big enough to focus on just one cell region...) Some of these sats have antennas over 100 meters in diameter...
But my point is that is a moderator has to stare at a post that has 1000 spam messages...he or she is going to skip it and not moderate anything at all. Then, no moderation gets done and all we can see is trolls.
I've been reading slashdot for maybe a year and a half now (my num is 17000something...but I read for many months before creating an account)... Ever since the original moderation system (with the static moderators) I've always browsed at -1. Even now, I'm still at -1. But I fear I am now going to be forced to bump that up to 1...over the last three weeks or so there have invariably been three or four pages of crap at the top of each discussion...it's ridiculous.
I still feed that the ultimate solution would just be to disallow anonymous posting. Make people log in. If they want to post anonymously, thats fine, but make them log in first. But, since Rob doesn't like that idea.....sooo...
How about a percentage setting for viewing -1 posts? With this a moderator could configure things so that they would only see 10 or 20% (or anything else) of all -1 posts. The posts would be displayed randomly, so each moderator would (hopefully) see a different group of likely-crap messages. This would allow a moderator to actually work through a decent number of -1 posts. This would make it much easier to be both a good moderator (ie: promoting) and not be drowned under all the crap.
Sure, the germans used magnetic recorders (wire, in this case) to disguise hitler's whereabouts during WW2... It was another of those technologies which the germans worked on in the late 20s and early 30s while everyone else ignored them.
Hmm, I used to do this a few years ago when I ran 95... I had a 12" monitor running at 1024x786...
Unfortunately, several windows programs will notice the custom font setting and refuse to run (with a kind little dialog box which says, basically: "Hey weirdo, fix your font setting, you're being different, stop it.")...
So windows can handle some of this, in theory, but it's basically useless in real life. (gee, sounds like windows in general...)
Re:...and if problems are related...
on
NASA Gets Smart
·
· Score: 3
Uh, this NASA module, the ICM, is not a total replacement for the Service Module. It only provides propulsion. The service module also provides living space and life support. If the service module is never launched the ISS will only be able to support 3 crew members, not the 7 originally planned.
Incedently, the ICM is not an original piece of hardware. It is based on a US military satellite despensing upper stage. The ICM modifications have been under development the at least a year now.
An on Proton's weight lifting ability: My source says a modern proton can throw 22,000 kg. to a 185 km orbit, whereas a shuttle can throw 24,400 kg. to a 204 km orbit... So weight isn't really a problem. As always with the shuttle, volume is the real limiter.
This is probably the worst rocket accident of all time.
From Korolev by James Harford:
An eyewitness, S. Averkov, described the scene of horror thirty years later:
"... a flash of fire erupted from the second stage engine nozzle. The powerful jet immediately ruptured the oxidizer tank. Nitric acid gushed out onto the concrete. Both the rocket and the launch structures were engulfed in a firestorm. At that moment, the motion picture camera that was to photograph the launch was activated. The dispassionate film conveyed to us a frightful picture -- people still alive becoming torches....The rocket broke in half and fell on the launch pad, crushing those who were still alive....Some people were devoured by fire; others, still running, were overcome by poison gases..."
As of 1990 the number of deaths was put at 165.
Khrushchev assigned Leonid Brezhnev himself to conduct the investigation... The original fault was caused by misconnected cables. The resulting disaster was caused by multiple tests being performed on the missile at the same time while it was still fueled.
I understand as well that one of the survivors survived because he was smoking a cigarette at time time; an operation which one was required to do in a flame-proof room on the launch support structure...
Huh? The Soyuz is not in the same league with the Shuttle.
You misunderstand. I'm saying that the two craft were developed using similar technology. mid-70s technology. This technological level lets you do one of two things: build an advanced expendable spacecraft or build a crappy "reusable" one.
There are few fundimental differences between the two. Look past the wings and look at whats really in the thing. The shuttle system does recover it's three main engines and the SRB cases, but big deal, if it made any monetary sense the Soyuz boosters could be recovered as well. It also appears as if it would actually be cheaper just to throw the SRB cases away. It's more expensive to refill them then originally planned.
The shuttle can return a decent amount of mass to the ground - again, big deal, that capability has only been used twice. Is that ability really worth paying $400 million a flight?
I think Shenzhou essentially is a Soyuz.
Well, the decent module is pretty close. But the orbital module is obviously completely different. As is the service module. I suspect its quite a but more different than it looks, if for no other reason then all the Chinese-built components are going to differ from their Soviet/Russian counterparts. One country just cannot build an exact replica of another countries spacecraft.
Um, all your examples involve graphics. Proper OS design places the graphics system in userspace. What advantage does that leave for the OO operating system?
Writing an object oriented OS is a stupid idea. An operating system should be small. It should be simple. You don't need OO in an OS. You don't want it there either.
I remember reading last year that 3 out of 9 launch attempts on their large launch vehicle, the one they use for large sattelites, which this would probably fit, failed.
You might check your numbers again. In 1999 china launched four Long Marchs, all of which were successful.
Booster safety is also less of an issue with a proper spacecraft design. Ie: one with an escape system. An exploding Long March is entirely survivable. As we all know, an exploding shuttle stack is not.
We spend millions and millions of dollars on the space shuttle
The annual shuttle budget is around $4 billion. It's roughly $400 million a flight (in a 7 flight year).
When people, in the US as well as China, are starving, can't get medical treatment, etc., aren't there better uses for our money than putting anthills and aging Senators into space?
No. The only way to help these people is to continue to advance our society. Turning away from the future and giving handouts will only perpetuate the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
I would have though that with military tech. being, what, 5 years or more in advance of what we civilians get they would be using multiple signal, spread spectrum, 2GB encryption keys and a slew of other technologies that make it at least infeasable to try and crack.
Alas, this isn't really the case anymore. Most military areospace computer technology is quite primitive by civilian standards. The problem is mainly radiation hardened electronic components. The highest end RAD-hardened CPU at the moment is a 486-ish device. Work to get a hardened pentium in production has faltered recently. Basically it just doesn't make any financial sense for any IC manufacturers to go through the trouble of developing these devices when they have such a limited market.
You are responsible for what your code does.
I am?
If you wrote a chemistry book which explained what nitrates are and someone went and used that knowledge to build an ammonium nitrate bomb and blew up a grade school, would you feel responsible?
I won't even go into the bit about Hussein and the chances of him (or anyone like him) following the GPL.......
B. one could give false image info for targets beyond local range (e.g. fake data from an AWACS).
This ability can be extremely useful to a country undergoing bombardment.
One of the main reasons the V-1 and V-2's of WW2 did so little real damage is that the British controlled the german spies in England. They would report slightly altered impact coordinates back to the German launch teams. The end result was that, as the incorrect reports were worked into the targeting, the missile aim points would slowly move away from the city itself and into the surrounding farmland. The British could even tell when the launch crews moved to new sites, as the impact points would snap back to the center of London...
Iridium satellites have three large, flat, reflective antennas arrainged at an angle to the main spacecraft. These antennas, when at the right angle, can produce a very bright glint of reflected runlight. If you know where to look, the flares can be seen in broad daylight.
Look here: http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sa t/vsohp/iridium.html
They explain the effect, and even link to flare prediction software.
Not NASA, Boeing. NASA certainly has it's problems, but this isn't one of them.
Now, if they go ahead and pay Boeing to replace the tanks, then it will become NASA's problem.
It's not a lot in Government areospace terms. It's a hell of a lot of money to throw away in private aerospace terms. Think of what Kristler, Beal, or Rotary Rocket could do with an extra $750,000?
These were high pressure oxygen and nitrogen tanks. Granted not rocket science in and of themselves, but not a "gas tank" either.
As to liquid oxygen storage: have you ever tried to store LOX? It is a seriously difficult substance to deal with, particularly in microgravity and for long durations. In particular, it's fond of a) freezing things, b) oxidizing the tank wall, and c) vaporizing and causing an over-pressurization of your tank. Over-pressurized tanks generally explode.
Sure, but "PC Card" is a stupid name.
On the other hand, there's some really inappropriate stuff being moved into kernel space. khttpd comes to mind. Application-level protocols simply do *NOT* belong in there. I don't even like having a kernel-space nfsd, but that's the way most Unices do it, and the userspace nfsd seems to have fallen into utter disrepair.
Remember that these are all modules, though. So, even if you use a precompiled kernel you don't have to put up with them.
For many people Linux development is a hobby. Khttpd exists because it's interesting to see how fast a kernel space http server can be, nothing more.
USB really sucks
Thats pretty general there...which part of USB sucks?
And why would anyone buy a PnP modem in the first place? Jumpers have a place in the universe...
It needs to start researching and doing civil engineering in space -- making new land and cities in space.
It's not for lack of interest. Congress hasn't allowed NASA to think that big for over 30 years. Every time a NASA center comes up with a project that could lead the way to opening up space to large scale anything it very quickly finds it's funding slacking off...
Look at what happened just recently to TransHab. Finally a chance to prove that inflatable space structures can really work. They've been theorized and studied since the 50s. But once again a few congressmen inserted language in last years NASA budget to deny all funding for the project.
Our congress simply doesn't want to open up space. They fear it will just suck up their budget (which they would much rather spend on their personal constituencies)...
First thought: This is really nifty. Think scope here. If these things are so cheap, what's to prevent us from stringing them around the moon or Mars? A handful of these could in time be just as powerful as a large-scale satellite.
They'll always have a few limitations, though: small power generation capabilites (nuclear might help, though), and small antennas (so limiting them to really high frequencies)... There is also the serious problem of cooling, getting rid of excess heat is very difficult in space.
Second thought: What's to prevent the random linking and de-linking of these things as needed? Electromagnets, perhaps, powered by solar cells, could provide enough impetus to move by, say, "swimming" through ferromagnetic debris that's already clouding the Earth's upper upper atmosphere.
Magnetic fields are already used for orientation purposes. It's called magtorquing or something like that. The generated magnetic field acts against the earths own magnetic field. You can't really move around using such a system, though. Some of the nano/micro thruster work might do the job, though. These are thrusters built using IC technology...extremely small.
Third thought: The more of these we send up, the more shooting stars we'll see when they re-enter and burn. Sounds cool to me.
Reentering is bad. It just means we've wasted a valuable in-orbit resource. Given our ridiculously high launch costs, any mass in orbit is worth more than it's weight in gold.
Apparently, the government now has the ability to track a cell-phone type signal from a hundred or so miles away, with enough accuracy to communicate / monitor the device. This makes me slightly unhappy.
Given the huge size of some of the antennas used on signals intelligence satellites, I wouldn't doubt for a minute that a cellphone could be a feasible target. (The question, of course, is if the antennas are big enough to focus on just one cell region...) Some of these sats have antennas over 100 meters in diameter...
But my point is that is a moderator has to stare at a post that has 1000 spam messages...he or she is going to skip it and not moderate anything at all. Then, no moderation gets done and all we can see is trolls.
I've been reading slashdot for maybe a year and a half now (my num is 17000something...but I read for many months before creating an account)... Ever since the original moderation system (with the static moderators) I've always browsed at -1. Even now, I'm still at -1. But I fear I am now going to be forced to bump that up to 1...over the last three weeks or so there have invariably been three or four pages of crap at the top of each discussion...it's ridiculous.
I still feed that the ultimate solution would just be to disallow anonymous posting. Make people log in. If they want to post anonymously, thats fine, but make them log in first. But, since Rob doesn't like that idea.....sooo...
How about a percentage setting for viewing -1 posts? With this a moderator could configure things so that they would only see 10 or 20% (or anything else) of all -1 posts. The posts would be displayed randomly, so each moderator would (hopefully) see a different group of likely-crap messages. This would allow a moderator to actually work through a decent number of -1 posts. This would make it much easier to be both a good moderator (ie: promoting) and not be drowned under all the crap.
Sure, the germans used magnetic recorders (wire, in this case) to disguise hitler's whereabouts during WW2... It was another of those technologies which the germans worked on in the late 20s and early 30s while everyone else ignored them.
Hmm, I used to do this a few years ago when I ran 95... I had a 12" monitor running at 1024x786...
Unfortunately, several windows programs will notice the custom font setting and refuse to run (with a kind little dialog box which says, basically: "Hey weirdo, fix your font setting, you're being different, stop it.")...
So windows can handle some of this, in theory, but it's basically useless in real life. (gee, sounds like windows in general...)
Uh, this NASA module, the ICM, is not a total replacement for the Service Module. It only provides propulsion. The service module also provides living space and life support. If the service module is never launched the ISS will only be able to support 3 crew members, not the 7 originally planned.
Incedently, the ICM is not an original piece of hardware. It is based on a US military satellite despensing upper stage. The ICM modifications have been under development the at least a year now.
An on Proton's weight lifting ability: My source says a modern proton can throw 22,000 kg. to a 185 km orbit, whereas a shuttle can throw 24,400 kg. to a 204 km orbit... So weight isn't really a problem. As always with the shuttle, volume is the real limiter.
According to this ion engines have been operating in vacuum chambers since 1959 or so.
Ion propulsion is simply another early concept that was developed to a decent level of usefulness in the 60s but then dropped for the next 30 years.
This is probably the worst rocket accident of all time.
...The rocket broke in half and fell on the launch pad, crushing those who were still alive....Some people were devoured by fire; others, still running, were overcome by poison gases..."
From Korolev by James Harford:
An eyewitness, S. Averkov, described the scene of horror thirty years later:
"... a flash of fire erupted from the second stage engine nozzle. The powerful jet immediately ruptured the oxidizer tank. Nitric acid gushed out onto the concrete. Both the rocket and the launch structures were engulfed in a firestorm. At that moment, the motion picture camera that was to photograph the launch was activated. The dispassionate film conveyed to us a frightful picture -- people still alive becoming torches.
As of 1990 the number of deaths was put at 165.
Khrushchev assigned Leonid Brezhnev himself to conduct the investigation... The original fault was caused by misconnected cables. The resulting disaster was caused by multiple tests being performed on the missile at the same time while it was still fueled.
I understand as well that one of the survivors survived because he was smoking a cigarette at time time; an operation which one was required to do in a flame-proof room on the launch support structure...
Huh? The Soyuz is not in the same league with the Shuttle.
You misunderstand. I'm saying that the two craft were developed using similar technology. mid-70s technology. This technological level lets you do one of two things: build an advanced expendable spacecraft or build a crappy "reusable" one.
There are few fundimental differences between the two. Look past the wings and look at whats really in the thing. The shuttle system does recover it's three main engines and the SRB cases, but big deal, if it made any monetary sense the Soyuz boosters could be recovered as well. It also appears as if it would actually be cheaper just to throw the SRB cases away. It's more expensive to refill them then originally planned.
The shuttle can return a decent amount of mass to the ground - again, big deal, that capability has only been used twice. Is that ability really worth paying $400 million a flight?
I think Shenzhou essentially is a Soyuz.
Well, the decent module is pretty close. But the orbital module is obviously completely different. As is the service module. I suspect its quite a but more different than it looks, if for no other reason then all the Chinese-built components are going to differ from their Soviet/Russian counterparts. One country just cannot build an exact replica of another countries spacecraft.
besides recently we just lauched a ion propulsion probe, last time I checked this wasn't a 70's tech. development.
You're right...Ion engins are a 60s era development.
And, if you should ever find yourself without healthcare or food, let's see if you still agree that these 'handouts' are evil.
I didn't say handouts were evil. I said they tend to perpetuate the problem, rather than fix it.
Compared to US social program and defense spending, space spending is and always has been extremely small. We can easily do both.
The worst thing we could do, though, is to concentrate on handouts to the expense of real development.
Um, all your examples involve graphics. Proper OS design places the graphics system in userspace. What advantage does that leave for the OO operating system?
Nooooooo!
Writing an object oriented OS is a stupid idea. An operating system should be small. It should be simple. You don't need OO in an OS. You don't want it there either.
I remember reading last year that 3 out of 9 launch attempts on their large launch vehicle, the one they use for large sattelites, which this would probably fit, failed.
You might check your numbers again. In 1999 china launched four Long Marchs, all of which were successful.
Booster safety is also less of an issue with a proper spacecraft design. Ie: one with an escape system. An exploding Long March is entirely survivable. As we all know, an exploding shuttle stack is not.
We spend millions and millions of dollars on the space shuttle
The annual shuttle budget is around $4 billion. It's roughly $400 million a flight (in a 7 flight year).
When people, in the US as well as China, are starving, can't get medical treatment, etc., aren't there better uses for our money than putting anthills and aging Senators into space?
No. The only way to help these people is to continue to advance our society. Turning away from the future and giving handouts will only perpetuate the problem.