Does it need to be? True sitting there and running a torch/burner or having a campfire specifically for this device would be idiotic. But fire in one form or another is pretty normal in a camping setting. Simply setting this device next to an already active heat source isn't going to effect what it is already doing, and your going to get a little extra use out of that heatsource at the same time. Seems to be a win/win to me. Though I do think it needs a bit of a redesign, having an open water source next to electronics is a bad idea. Enclosing it somehow (similar to a cloths iron?) and maybe getting the USB connector a little further from the heat source would seem prudent.
Microturbines have been researched for years, I don't think there has been one (known, quite a bit of the research has been military) design that wasn't horribly inefficient, maintenance intensive, and prone to failures. If they can ever do it I'm sure they will replace many applications, but despite many claims to have achieved it there have never been any production runs that I am aware of.
I think you've got your history a bit mixed up. The civil war did increase the powers of the federal government but not by much. Up until the 1910s we still had a quite limited federal government, the national guard was only formed in 1903, the federal reserve system in 1913, the income tax in 1913, our standing army was tiny, most affairs were handled by the states. During/after the Great Depression & WWII though things kicked into high gear, creation of the TVA, FBI, ATF, etc. Our standing army increased from tens of thousands to millions, the federal government became increasingly involved in prosecuting citizens, taxing citizens & influencing state/local governments/citizens through grants, regulations, special taxes, etc. I'm not saying that we don't need a federal government, that is foolish. But our constitution was created with very specific language written into it to prevent exactly what we have today, a massive bloated federal government rife with waste, bureaucracy, special interests & fraud. Limited government isn't only to prevent the rise of totalitarianism, but to prevent a sea of red tape and legalized theft by those with influence which left unchecked will surely sink any nation.
I don't know how long NASA will want to keep ISS in space (hopefully longer than the stated end of mission parameters though) but the Russians have already stated their desire that if NASA does decide they want to shutdown/deorbit ISS they are going to try to detach their modules and start a "new" Russian space complex, OPSEK (Orbital Piloted Assembly and Experiment Complex). Personally I'm a bit confused, even the oldest parts on ISS are only 15 years old. Does equipment really degrade that fast in orbit? I would think electronics would be the first to go, but they should be fairly modular making most of them easy to replace. Even if an entire module became structurally/electrically unsound, in many cases detaching it from the station and deorbiting it while keeping the rest of the complex active would seem quite easy. The only exceptions to this may be a few of the core modules or nodes, even those would not be out of the question, it would just be a question of sending up a new node or core module and moving unaffected modules to the new core/node.
Re:Why not use it as a site to build the next one?
on
How Long Can the ISS Last?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Sadly no, they are not going to be attaching a BA-330 to the station they'll be attaching a BEAM module. Basically a closet for storage & testing built on Bigelows inflatable designs. I initially held out the same hopes when it first hit the news that a Bigelow module was going to be attached to ISS, but in hind site it was obviously never going to happen. First off if Bigelow was able to nearly double the volume (Ok 40% increase, still a lot) of ISS with a single launch and a few hundred million dollars NASA would have to answer a whole lot of unpleasant questions regarding the costs for ISS's construction. I imagine that even if Bigelow offered them a BA-330 free of charge (which isn't as crazy as it sounds, think of the PR) I doubt they would have accepted it. Second of all NASA is crazy careful, they won't allow a bag of potato chips without 3 months of testing and redesign. So I highly doubt they would allow a technology that has never had on orbit testing to be attached to ISS, their flagship manned space mission.
I could understand it if it was a temporary hold while FEMAs contractor did their mapping and maybe some altitude restrictions. But a ban with threats of arrest? It makes absolutely no sense, more data is generally a good thing. Sadly this looks like another bureaucratic snafu, they don't like the fact that someone is doing it faster and cheaper than they are (I should note though that I doubt their claims of higher accuracy are correct) so they're making up excuses to keep it out.
Because investment is historically such a great thing in our boom & bust cycle economy. Investing may make you money in the short term (if you happen to do so during a boom cycle) but those "busts" (1953, 1957, 1970, 1975, 1980, 1982, 1991, 2008) will probably wipe out most of your gains and in some cases a good chunk of the money you invested as well. All the forms of investment that insulate you (mostly) from losses don't even keep up with today's inflation.
Yes, in the grand scheme of military/intelligence spending its a drop in the bucket. Problem is we have millions of them, and they're adding up fast. That command facility that was built in Afghanistan and never used/wanted, $34 Million. GAO audits have classified nearly half of purchases on government charge cards as improper. The SEC spent nearly $3.9 million rearranging desks at its DC HQ. Congress members have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money on cars, popcorn machines, cameras, TV's and other amenities. And the list goes on, and on, and on. I'm all for going after the big ticket waste as well, but you can die from a thousand small cuts just as easily as you can die from a meat cleaver to the head.
Are you seeing the same photos I am? Stainless steal covering pretty much every surface, custom designed desks, doors and ceiling fixtures? Its not gold plated but it still likely cost a LOT more than standard operations setup.
My suggestion would be some form of multi-fuel gasification system. Its highly efficient and produces very low emissions. The problem would be simplifying its operation, making it smaller & engineering it so that it didn't require electricity (for the blower).
And how much taxpayer money was burnt on this nutjobs sci-fi wet dream? Its like watching any one of those films depicting a dystopian future, those in power playing out their fantasies while those who actually fund their antics (either through taxes or illicit corporate profits) live in squalor. I suppose the latter part has yet to completely come to pass but at the rate things are going ($17 trillion in debt & federal spending increasing at $200 a second)its not going to take long.
Depends on the fuel being used, the shuttles SRBs were just lumps of ammonium perchlorate, Aluminum & iron oxide. In this case the ammonium perchlorate, a white powder, was the oxidizer.
I applaud them on bringing down the launch crew requirements. Space travel is never going to open up for the masses if you need thousands of personnel to launch 7 individuals every few months. But while this rocket is bringing down the requirements on one front its severely limiting the spacecraft capabilities on another. At least according to the info I can pull up the Epsilon rocket uses solid rocket fuel for pretty much every stage (except maybe the fourth optional stage). While I am sure that massively simplifies ground crew work it also limits payload size and orbital insertion options. Switching to/utilizing liquid fuel may be a bit more complicated, but it would significantly increase capabilities. The DC-X is a pretty good example, it was liquid hydrogen/oxygen fueled (one of the more difficult fuels to work with) but it only required a crew of 14. Going full LOX/LH2 wouldn't be necessary either, Methane or kerosene would provide much of the advantages and few of the difficulties of LH2.
"Magically, no one else has produced similar results in an actual controlled study."
I don't know about you but I can't seem to find ANY studies besides the one done by the 9th graders on the effects of wifi on low order plants. There are a few on higher order plants (trees (maybe), corn, etc) with contradictory results, but nothing on more sensitive plant species (lichens, herb plants, etc). I might get a couple Chia Pets and try this out myself some time. The hard part as you suggest would be exactly replicating the conditions for both plants (sun, water, humidity). Just because something is done by 9th graders doesn't necessarily mean its flawed, and just because a study is done by "experts" doesn't mean its accurate. How many studies done by PHD's have been debunked less than 3 years later? I've lost count.
Its an interesting craft, and I hope it succeeds, but its going to all fall to how the demonstrator performs. They're making some lofty statements, two man crew, 66 tons, minimal ground crew, 120 knots, minimal fuel consumption, 3,000 mile range, etc. If they can hold to it and keep construction/operation costs down it'll be a great craft, but they're obliviously trying to wave around the military applications of the craft so I'd watch out for massive cost overruns, ever decreasing capabilities & constantly extended time tables. Hangering these craft is also going to be an issue, the company seems to be open about the fact that these craft will not be able to handle bad weather, but their "they'll just fly around bad weather" explanation seems questionable even if their speed capabilities are not exaggerated. These things will require massive hangers as I highly doubt just tethering them to the ground would be sufficient protection from even a Midwestern thunderstorm let alone hurricanes or monsoons.
Of course there is going to be some discrimination/racism in these kinds of apps/datasets. But they can also be useful for helping keeping the "unsavvy" from wandering into the wrong neighborhood. Some relatives of mine went to Detroit to a baseball game, they got a bit turned around and stopped at a gas station to try to ask for directions. An officer noticing that they could get into a world of hurt asked if they needed help, after hearing their story he noted that the average attendant in this neighborhood didn't like "their kind" and would probably send them to an even worse neighborhood in the hopes that they would be carjacked, threatened or robbed. The officer escorted them to one of the stadiums parking garages telling them "keep up with me, don't stop, don't slow down, even if you have to go through red lights & stop signs. I'm all for trying to prevent outright discrimination in these kinds of apps/datasets. But I personally don't call it discrimination when those in a particular neighborhood, no matter particular skin color/religion/etc, DO desire to do you harm.
I like where this guy's going, less focus on big n' bad new launch systems and more focus on our current ones. I think more than a few studies have suggested that his concept of a "Cape Canaveral in the sky" fuel & spacecraft depot in orbit has merit. That said our current choices on LV's need some work. None of them are even partially reusable and a few of them I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to use for human spaceflight. I watched the footage from the recent Delta IV launch, I know its got a good launch record (only one failure out of 24 launches) but the thing spends half of its accent with its engine covers on fire after cooking its its lower bits on the launchpad.
Its a better use than $34 Million for a never used building in Afghanistan, over $1 billion on a DOD/VA health database that has been effectively scrapped, $66 billion on 187 fighter aircraft not likely to ever find a role in todays military.... I could go on but you get the idea.
If I recall correctly there are some military bases in the western United States that have had ARMED robot sentries for the better part of a decade. I suppose these are not exactly the smartest robots ever, little more than unmanned ATVs with sensor packages driving preprogrammed routes looking for movement/heat sources. If they find one they target their gun and wait for orders from a manned security post. While I don't have a real problem with security drones arming them with anything (lethal or non) is a bad idea, many authority figures already have god complex, I can only imagine it getting worse if they have the power of life, death & excruciating pain at the behest of their keyboard.
I wonder if this nut was with that group/movement a few years back that was trying to get some resolution passed (in the UN maybe?) designating the moon (and eventually all celestial bodies) as some kind of nature preserve to prevent any kind of utilization/exploration. I agree completely that we need to be conscientious of our actions as we spread into the solar system and perhaps one day the galaxy, but we should expand the reaches of our understanding, exploration and habitation. Large swaths of the moon should be left alone for future generations and we should go out of our way to prevent any significant alterations of a celestial body without careful consideration. That said the universe is not some static art-piece that should/could be preserved in a single state. 600 million years of our own planets many massive changes should have been more than enough evidence for this idiot.
In that neighborhood, I imagine that is only a suggested safety limit for a standard suit though as a couple astronauts took a 8 hour 56 minute spacewalk (Helms & Voss back in 2001). The next gen space suit (which would likely be used on possible Mars missions) though is supposed to have a life support duration of 150 hours
You''re being WAY to generous, the US military spending for 2012, ignoring all of side costs (possibly as high as $500 Billion) is roughly $900 Billion dollars. Broken down to a "By Day" cost it is $2.46 Billion per day, with that kind of money you could probably finish development and put a significant amount of this concepts hardware into orbit. If any taxpayer money was used on this study it would probably be measured in seconds of military spending (~$28,500 per second) at most.
I rather doubt that the NSA is the cause for the loss in throughput but if it were I can only see on reason why. While many others have pointed out that replication of your data for "intelligence" purposes would be unlikely to cause a lower throughput because replication in and of itself would be pretty much instantaneous. They are likely to have that kind of equipment and storage at a limited number of locations (thankfully, for now at least). Your traffic (along with many others) could be getting artificially routed to one of these locations for replication. This being government work they probably spent hundreds of millions on the facility, but were cheap with the fiber going to it, creating a bottleneck.
AutoCAD has been going downhill for years, we used to use it pretty heavily. But they have been actually degrading the product with each release. We've been sticking to AutoCAD Map3D 2006 as much as possible because it has more capabilities than any of the subsequent versions that we've come across.
I would agree that these massive court payouts need to be curtailed, but there is a reason people rely on them. There is practically little/no criminal accountability for certain professions even when fault is proven beyond all doubt. Police officers can literally shoot a restrained, non-combative teen in front of a dozen witnesses and chances are they'll get away with it. Even when the act is caught on multiple cameras from many angles they will often get less time behind bars than most people will get for simple shoplifting. Doctors can sew foot long surgical instruments in patients because they were in a hurry to get to their golf outing and no charges are lain and chances are they won't even come close to losing their license. Any type of tort reform needs to be accompanied changes to level the playing field when criminal charges would be warranted if it were any other person. Killing a young woman with a car because you were racing to the airport is no different than young woman rushing through a surgery because you wanted to get to your dinner reservation. Beating the life out of a homeless man because you had a rough day and he was bugging you for change is no different than beating a homeless man to death because you have a tough job and he wasn't following your orders. Too often our "justice" system will show disturbing levels of leeway to one group while throwing the book at another even when the results of their actions and causes of the tragedy are identical.
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Does it need to be? True sitting there and running a torch/burner or having a campfire specifically for this device would be idiotic. But fire in one form or another is pretty normal in a camping setting. Simply setting this device next to an already active heat source isn't going to effect what it is already doing, and your going to get a little extra use out of that heatsource at the same time. Seems to be a win/win to me. Though I do think it needs a bit of a redesign, having an open water source next to electronics is a bad idea. Enclosing it somehow (similar to a cloths iron?) and maybe getting the USB connector a little further from the heat source would seem prudent.
Microturbines have been researched for years, I don't think there has been one (known, quite a bit of the research has been military) design that wasn't horribly inefficient, maintenance intensive, and prone to failures. If they can ever do it I'm sure they will replace many applications, but despite many claims to have achieved it there have never been any production runs that I am aware of.
I think you've got your history a bit mixed up. The civil war did increase the powers of the federal government but not by much. Up until the 1910s we still had a quite limited federal government, the national guard was only formed in 1903, the federal reserve system in 1913, the income tax in 1913, our standing army was tiny, most affairs were handled by the states. During/after the Great Depression & WWII though things kicked into high gear, creation of the TVA, FBI, ATF, etc. Our standing army increased from tens of thousands to millions, the federal government became increasingly involved in prosecuting citizens, taxing citizens & influencing state/local governments/citizens through grants, regulations, special taxes, etc. I'm not saying that we don't need a federal government, that is foolish. But our constitution was created with very specific language written into it to prevent exactly what we have today, a massive bloated federal government rife with waste, bureaucracy, special interests & fraud. Limited government isn't only to prevent the rise of totalitarianism, but to prevent a sea of red tape and legalized theft by those with influence which left unchecked will surely sink any nation.
I don't know how long NASA will want to keep ISS in space (hopefully longer than the stated end of mission parameters though) but the Russians have already stated their desire that if NASA does decide they want to shutdown/deorbit ISS they are going to try to detach their modules and start a "new" Russian space complex, OPSEK (Orbital Piloted Assembly and Experiment Complex). Personally I'm a bit confused, even the oldest parts on ISS are only 15 years old. Does equipment really degrade that fast in orbit? I would think electronics would be the first to go, but they should be fairly modular making most of them easy to replace. Even if an entire module became structurally/electrically unsound, in many cases detaching it from the station and deorbiting it while keeping the rest of the complex active would seem quite easy. The only exceptions to this may be a few of the core modules or nodes, even those would not be out of the question, it would just be a question of sending up a new node or core module and moving unaffected modules to the new core/node.
Sadly no, they are not going to be attaching a BA-330 to the station they'll be attaching a BEAM module. Basically a closet for storage & testing built on Bigelows inflatable designs. I initially held out the same hopes when it first hit the news that a Bigelow module was going to be attached to ISS, but in hind site it was obviously never going to happen. First off if Bigelow was able to nearly double the volume (Ok 40% increase, still a lot) of ISS with a single launch and a few hundred million dollars NASA would have to answer a whole lot of unpleasant questions regarding the costs for ISS's construction. I imagine that even if Bigelow offered them a BA-330 free of charge (which isn't as crazy as it sounds, think of the PR) I doubt they would have accepted it. Second of all NASA is crazy careful, they won't allow a bag of potato chips without 3 months of testing and redesign. So I highly doubt they would allow a technology that has never had on orbit testing to be attached to ISS, their flagship manned space mission.
I could understand it if it was a temporary hold while FEMAs contractor did their mapping and maybe some altitude restrictions. But a ban with threats of arrest? It makes absolutely no sense, more data is generally a good thing. Sadly this looks like another bureaucratic snafu, they don't like the fact that someone is doing it faster and cheaper than they are (I should note though that I doubt their claims of higher accuracy are correct) so they're making up excuses to keep it out.
Because investment is historically such a great thing in our boom & bust cycle economy. Investing may make you money in the short term (if you happen to do so during a boom cycle) but those "busts" (1953, 1957, 1970, 1975, 1980, 1982, 1991, 2008) will probably wipe out most of your gains and in some cases a good chunk of the money you invested as well. All the forms of investment that insulate you (mostly) from losses don't even keep up with today's inflation.
Yes, in the grand scheme of military/intelligence spending its a drop in the bucket. Problem is we have millions of them, and they're adding up fast. That command facility that was built in Afghanistan and never used/wanted, $34 Million. GAO audits have classified nearly half of purchases on government charge cards as improper. The SEC spent nearly $3.9 million rearranging desks at its DC HQ. Congress members have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money on cars, popcorn machines, cameras, TV's and other amenities. And the list goes on, and on, and on. I'm all for going after the big ticket waste as well, but you can die from a thousand small cuts just as easily as you can die from a meat cleaver to the head.
Are you seeing the same photos I am? Stainless steal covering pretty much every surface, custom designed desks, doors and ceiling fixtures? Its not gold plated but it still likely cost a LOT more than standard operations setup.
My suggestion would be some form of multi-fuel gasification system. Its highly efficient and produces very low emissions. The problem would be simplifying its operation, making it smaller & engineering it so that it didn't require electricity (for the blower).
And how much taxpayer money was burnt on this nutjobs sci-fi wet dream? Its like watching any one of those films depicting a dystopian future, those in power playing out their fantasies while those who actually fund their antics (either through taxes or illicit corporate profits) live in squalor. I suppose the latter part has yet to completely come to pass but at the rate things are going ($17 trillion in debt & federal spending increasing at $200 a second)its not going to take long.
Depends on the fuel being used, the shuttles SRBs were just lumps of ammonium perchlorate, Aluminum & iron oxide. In this case the ammonium perchlorate, a white powder, was the oxidizer.
I applaud them on bringing down the launch crew requirements. Space travel is never going to open up for the masses if you need thousands of personnel to launch 7 individuals every few months. But while this rocket is bringing down the requirements on one front its severely limiting the spacecraft capabilities on another. At least according to the info I can pull up the Epsilon rocket uses solid rocket fuel for pretty much every stage (except maybe the fourth optional stage). While I am sure that massively simplifies ground crew work it also limits payload size and orbital insertion options. Switching to/utilizing liquid fuel may be a bit more complicated, but it would significantly increase capabilities. The DC-X is a pretty good example, it was liquid hydrogen/oxygen fueled (one of the more difficult fuels to work with) but it only required a crew of 14. Going full LOX/LH2 wouldn't be necessary either, Methane or kerosene would provide much of the advantages and few of the difficulties of LH2.
"Magically, no one else has produced similar results in an actual controlled study."
I don't know about you but I can't seem to find ANY studies besides the one done by the 9th graders on the effects of wifi on low order plants. There are a few on higher order plants (trees (maybe), corn, etc) with contradictory results, but nothing on more sensitive plant species (lichens, herb plants, etc). I might get a couple Chia Pets and try this out myself some time. The hard part as you suggest would be exactly replicating the conditions for both plants (sun, water, humidity). Just because something is done by 9th graders doesn't necessarily mean its flawed, and just because a study is done by "experts" doesn't mean its accurate. How many studies done by PHD's have been debunked less than 3 years later? I've lost count.
Its an interesting craft, and I hope it succeeds, but its going to all fall to how the demonstrator performs. They're making some lofty statements, two man crew, 66 tons, minimal ground crew, 120 knots, minimal fuel consumption, 3,000 mile range, etc. If they can hold to it and keep construction/operation costs down it'll be a great craft, but they're obliviously trying to wave around the military applications of the craft so I'd watch out for massive cost overruns, ever decreasing capabilities & constantly extended time tables. Hangering these craft is also going to be an issue, the company seems to be open about the fact that these craft will not be able to handle bad weather, but their "they'll just fly around bad weather" explanation seems questionable even if their speed capabilities are not exaggerated. These things will require massive hangers as I highly doubt just tethering them to the ground would be sufficient protection from even a Midwestern thunderstorm let alone hurricanes or monsoons.
Of course there is going to be some discrimination/racism in these kinds of apps/datasets. But they can also be useful for helping keeping the "unsavvy" from wandering into the wrong neighborhood. Some relatives of mine went to Detroit to a baseball game, they got a bit turned around and stopped at a gas station to try to ask for directions. An officer noticing that they could get into a world of hurt asked if they needed help, after hearing their story he noted that the average attendant in this neighborhood didn't like "their kind" and would probably send them to an even worse neighborhood in the hopes that they would be carjacked, threatened or robbed. The officer escorted them to one of the stadiums parking garages telling them "keep up with me, don't stop, don't slow down, even if you have to go through red lights & stop signs. I'm all for trying to prevent outright discrimination in these kinds of apps/datasets. But I personally don't call it discrimination when those in a particular neighborhood, no matter particular skin color/religion/etc, DO desire to do you harm.
I like where this guy's going, less focus on big n' bad new launch systems and more focus on our current ones. I think more than a few studies have suggested that his concept of a "Cape Canaveral in the sky" fuel & spacecraft depot in orbit has merit. That said our current choices on LV's need some work. None of them are even partially reusable and a few of them I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to use for human spaceflight. I watched the footage from the recent Delta IV launch, I know its got a good launch record (only one failure out of 24 launches) but the thing spends half of its accent with its engine covers on fire after cooking its its lower bits on the launchpad.
Its a better use than $34 Million for a never used building in Afghanistan, over $1 billion on a DOD/VA health database that has been effectively scrapped, $66 billion on 187 fighter aircraft not likely to ever find a role in todays military.... I could go on but you get the idea.
If I recall correctly there are some military bases in the western United States that have had ARMED robot sentries for the better part of a decade. I suppose these are not exactly the smartest robots ever, little more than unmanned ATVs with sensor packages driving preprogrammed routes looking for movement/heat sources. If they find one they target their gun and wait for orders from a manned security post. While I don't have a real problem with security drones arming them with anything (lethal or non) is a bad idea, many authority figures already have god complex, I can only imagine it getting worse if they have the power of life, death & excruciating pain at the behest of their keyboard.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/02/army-gets-more/
I wonder if this nut was with that group/movement a few years back that was trying to get some resolution passed (in the UN maybe?) designating the moon (and eventually all celestial bodies) as some kind of nature preserve to prevent any kind of utilization/exploration. I agree completely that we need to be conscientious of our actions as we spread into the solar system and perhaps one day the galaxy, but we should expand the reaches of our understanding, exploration and habitation. Large swaths of the moon should be left alone for future generations and we should go out of our way to prevent any significant alterations of a celestial body without careful consideration. That said the universe is not some static art-piece that should/could be preserved in a single state. 600 million years of our own planets many massive changes should have been more than enough evidence for this idiot.
"life support capacity of 8 hours"
In that neighborhood, I imagine that is only a suggested safety limit for a standard suit though as a couple astronauts took a 8 hour 56 minute spacewalk (Helms & Voss back in 2001). The next gen space suit (which would likely be used on possible Mars missions) though is supposed to have a life support duration of 150 hours
"Less than a day's worth"
You''re being WAY to generous, the US military spending for 2012, ignoring all of side costs (possibly as high as $500 Billion) is roughly $900 Billion dollars. Broken down to a "By Day" cost it is $2.46 Billion per day, with that kind of money you could probably finish development and put a significant amount of this concepts hardware into orbit. If any taxpayer money was used on this study it would probably be measured in seconds of military spending (~$28,500 per second) at most.
I rather doubt that the NSA is the cause for the loss in throughput but if it were I can only see on reason why. While many others have pointed out that replication of your data for "intelligence" purposes would be unlikely to cause a lower throughput because replication in and of itself would be pretty much instantaneous. They are likely to have that kind of equipment and storage at a limited number of locations (thankfully, for now at least). Your traffic (along with many others) could be getting artificially routed to one of these locations for replication. This being government work they probably spent hundreds of millions on the facility, but were cheap with the fiber going to it, creating a bottleneck.
AutoCAD has been going downhill for years, we used to use it pretty heavily. But they have been actually degrading the product with each release. We've been sticking to AutoCAD Map3D 2006 as much as possible because it has more capabilities than any of the subsequent versions that we've come across.
I would agree that these massive court payouts need to be curtailed, but there is a reason people rely on them. There is practically little/no criminal accountability for certain professions even when fault is proven beyond all doubt. Police officers can literally shoot a restrained, non-combative teen in front of a dozen witnesses and chances are they'll get away with it. Even when the act is caught on multiple cameras from many angles they will often get less time behind bars than most people will get for simple shoplifting. Doctors can sew foot long surgical instruments in patients because they were in a hurry to get to their golf outing and no charges are lain and chances are they won't even come close to losing their license. Any type of tort reform needs to be accompanied changes to level the playing field when criminal charges would be warranted if it were any other person. Killing a young woman with a car because you were racing to the airport is no different than young woman rushing through a surgery because you wanted to get to your dinner reservation. Beating the life out of a homeless man because you had a rough day and he was bugging you for change is no different than beating a homeless man to death because you have a tough job and he wasn't following your orders. Too often our "justice" system will show disturbing levels of leeway to one group while throwing the book at another even when the results of their actions and causes of the tragedy are identical.