...and it can be scaled up to far larger sizes, it could revolutionize hybrid drivetrain designs for automobiles.
Imagine a hybrid drivetrain that needs a battery a small fraction of the size of what is needed now on the Honda Civic Hybrid or the Toyota Prius. This will make is possible to put a lightweight hybrid drivetrain in a Toyota Echo and get fuel efficiency approaching 80 miles per US gallon with no loss of power! =)
I think the reason why people might be annoyed by the sounds of a maglev passing by is the fact that at the type of speeds maglevs operate (350 km/h to 500 km/h), the noise is NOT caused by physical contact with the overhead wiring and the steel wheel/steel rail contact but the aerodynamic noise caused by the shape of the maglev train itself. This means they'll need to computational fluid dynamics research into reducing the noise footprint of a maglev train.
Indeed, this was a major issue with the upcoming Airbus A380 super-jumbo airliner; they had to go to single-piece moving surfaces on the wings instead of louver-type moving surfaces found on the Boeing 747 because the louver-type moving surfaces generated quite a lot of aerodynamic noise above 320 km/h flight speeds.
In theory it sounds like a good idea but you have to note that the BayGen radio isn't a small unit--it's actually quite large because you needed a fairly large clockspring mechanism to generate the power necessary.
However, if you can build a clockspring generator mechanism that is an external power source as you suggested, then it makes more sense. Mind you, I do worry it could end up being fairly large and awkward to carry around if you need it to charge a laptop battery.
I think the big reason why the Soviets maintained a large number of launch pads for the R-7 rocket at their main launch sites was specifically for the the purpose of launching weapons into space. I believe that the Soviets seriously looked at kinetic-energy weapons to disable our recon satellites since the late 1960's.
While Japan has done a lot of work on maglev trains, the issues that dog the Japanese system are: 1) it requires superconducting magnets to work, and that means you need very expensive cryogenic cooling systems for the trainset and 2) the distances between major population centers in Japan isn't really that great.
For example, from Tokyo to Nagoya on the limited-stop Hikari Shinkansen back in the 1980's only requires just under two hours transit time, even with the trainset limited to 200 km/h (124 mph) tops! The distance from Tokyo to Osaka on Shinkansen is nowadays is under three hours, thanks to faster trainsets now on the Tokyo to Fukuoka route.
Maglevs come into their own on runs over 300 miles, which can be common here in the USA. That's why I cited the Chicago to Minneapolis-Saint Paul example.
I think for high speed trains to work in the USA, you want trains that have to be really fast.
The thing about the USA is that because of the sheer physical size of the country, steel-wheel trains are not going to be practical for travel beyond 275-300 miles between your origin and destination points. At speeds over 186 mph (300 km/h), the physical contact of steel wheels with steel rails and the overhead wiring will cause considerable wear on the trainset on large-scale revenue service. I don't expect steel-wheel trains to be travelling much faster than 330 km/h in the long run.
For the type of distances involved in the USA, it's time to finally do a major development program to make maglev trains economically practical. Since maglevs could travel as fast as 310 mph (500 km/h) relatively easily without attendant wear on tracks and/or the trainset (since there is no physical contact), this makes it possible for journeys between even relatively widely-spaced apart cities in well under two hours; imagine going from Chicago to Minneapolis-Saint Paul in just over a hour!:-)
Maglevs may not be necessary in Europe and Japan given the relatively short distances between major population centers, but here in the USA, the extra speed to shorten travel times is a very good idea.
There will be not much significance if we prove that life once existed on Mars or is existing there now.
Most serious scientist have predicted such a discovery and leaders of the major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and a few others) will probably say that this is proof of a great design by a higher Supreme Being. It's some of the small xenophobic religious sects that I DO worry about, though.
I think if you've read Carl Sagan's novel Contact you can get some idea of what the ramifications of such a discovery does to the human race.
....will be where ATSC 720p/1080i 16:9 HDTV broadcasts finally take hold.
And the key to this are low-profile rear-projection TV's that use Liquid Crystal On Semiconductor (LCOS) technology to get very sharp high resolution at reasonable cost. Thanks to the work of Intel, the price of LCOS could drop extremely fast, and that could pave the way to under US$1,300 rear-projection TV sets (including ATSC digital signal tuner) that doesn't have the limitations of CRT rear-projection TV's or plasma flat panel TV's.
The reason why the NTSC color system is in many ways inferior to PAL and SECAM is the fact NTSC color signals had to be viewable on black and white TV sets. This meant compromises had to be made in terms of picture quality.
PAL and SECAM never suffered from that problem because they were never designed to be truly viewable with black and white TV sets. For example, in the UK they used the 405-line black and white standard for many, many years until it was phased out in favor of 625-line PAL color broadcasting.
ATSC digital broadcasts--because of the fact they don't need black and white compatibility--was designed for not only far superior resolution (1080i/720p using the 16:9 aspect ratio) but also far better color clarity, too.
Here's where the extra speed of the CPU becomes useful: editing multimedia files.
With the proliferation of digital still cameras storing large-sized picture files and MiniDV/MicroDV digital camcorders where you can copy the video recording in digital form to the computer for editing, there is now a serious need for faster and faster CPU's to edit and process these multimedia files at a reasonable speed. Even today's so-called mid-range AMD Athlon XP 2400+ CPU is getting somewhat hard-pressed to do such work even if you have an ATA-100 interface 7200 RPM hard drive and 1 GB of system RAM installed.
All we're going to see is that Windows XP Service Pack 2--due this summer--will not have Windows Media Player 9.x versions installed on the default install. Of course, that could be fixed by putting the installation CD-ROM disc in and typing in a few commands.:-)
Mind you, for streaming audio/video I like Windows Media Player better than RealOne or the upcoming RealPlayer 10, mostly because it streams more smoothly that Real's products on dial-up connections.
Partnering with cable companies.
on
TiVo Will Die
·
· Score: 1
This probably the way that TiVo will survive in the future.
What TiVo aggressively needs to do is partner themselves with perhaps the largest cable provider in the USA, Comcast. If they can get TiVo technology into future Comcast digital cable set top boxes this will assure a future for the company for a long time to come.
I can just see African-Americans crying racism for Dish Network no longer carrying BET.:-/
But seriously, I don't know of many people that watch MTV or VH1 on a regular basis. They're more likely to watch Nickelodeon or Comedy Central, and that's where its absence on Dish Network will REALLY be felt. Indeed, Nickelodeon is probably one of the most popular channels on cable TV, period.
Anyway, it's another black eye (pun definitely intended) against Viacom, a company who's bad PR of the last year or so is threatening to make Michael Eisner of Disney look like a saint in comparison.
I don't know what's going on, but Viacom seems to be suffering one PR fiasco after another in the last year or so.
Between the furor over The Reagans miniseries on CBS (which ended up on Showtime anyway), the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake debacle at the Super Bowl, and increasing criticism of Howard Stern's radio show, you'd think Viacom would do something to stop giving themselves a PR black eye (pun intended) on a regular basis! The decision by Viacom to withhold their channels to Dish Network is going make people wonder if Summer Redstone and Mel Karnizan (sp?) at Viacom are doing a decent job leading the company.
However, even with the current pricing of DirecTV's Total Choice and Total Choice Plus packages (US$39.95 per month for the former, US$42.99 per month for the latter, and this includes all your local channels if it's available in your area), it's still a VASTLY better deal than what you get with cable TV (which is now US$46 per month for half the amount of channels available on DirecTV's non-premium packages in my area).
I don't think Peter Jackson will be crazy enough to do a new edition of all three movies for a three-movie box set that will be longer than the current Extended Edition movies (3h 30m for Fellowship of the Ring, 3h 45m for The Two Towers, and 4h 15m for The Return of the King).
What we'll probably see are additional documentaries on the production of the movie beyond the six Appendices discs from the three movies.
I think at least for now the way to go is with hybrid drivetrains.
You have these advantage with hybrid drivetrains:
1. You don't have to worry about limited range and long waits for charging the battery.
2. You don't need a new refuelling infrastructure (charging stations on a large scale for electric cars, hydrogen fuelling stations for hydrogen-powered/fuel cell cars).
3. Emissions are very low to start with, and new advances the gasoline engine technology (direct injection, improved cylinder shutdown systems) will reduce it to very close to zero anyway.
4. You don't need a massive bank of batteries hogging the interior space of a car. This will be even more true as we develop something equivalent to a lithium-ion battery but with ability to withstand millions of recharging cycles.
I mean right now, Toyota has demonstrated that you can build profitably an automobile that has extremely low emissions and be able to go nearly 600 miles on a single tank of fuel with the Toyota Prius, and that's without applying the very latest in emissions control technology on the gasoline engine!
Imagine what Toyota could achieve with the Prius once low-sulfur gasoline becomes widely available in the USA, which makes it possible to adopt the use of direct-injection fuel delivery (e.g., fuel is directly inject into the combustion chamber instead of being mixed with air before entering the combustion chamber). We maybe talking 70+ mpg fairly easily while still meeting Partial-Zero Emissions Vehicle (PZEV) emissions standards.
Given the fact that Toyota and Honda are investing serious amounts of money into hybrid vehicle research, I wouldn't be surprised that by 2010 both Toyota and Honda make over one million hybrid vehicles per year. In retrospect, the original Toyota Prius will go down as one of the true landmarks in automotive history, a car that demonstrates very low emissions and very high fuel efficiency without sacrificing performance is possible.
If we are talking about a trip to Mars like Zubrin's Mars Direct concept, there are still considerable engineering challenges to make it work.
We have to consider the following:
1. How do we launch such a spacecraft into Earth orbit in the first place? Should it mostly assembled on the ground (e.g., using technology derived from the Space Shuttle) or be assembled in space?
2. What kind of propulsion system do we use? Chemical rockets mean we'll need a pretty big spacecraft (and the flight time will be six to nine months), and nuclear rockets (which could reduce the time to six weeks) are still not completely proven technology.
3. How do we accommodate 5-7 astronauts on the spacecraft? That means we'll need a fairly good amount of space inside the spacecraft for food and potable water if the trip is going to take six to nine months or proper shielding against radiation on a nuclear-powered spacecraft. We also have to consider how space will be needed for a full-scale science lab and stowage space for manned rover vehicles.
4. Can we get full assurances we can extract water from the Martian soil, which would drastically simply living on Mars and provide a source of fuel for the return trip?
Samples of moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions show large amounts of aluminum, titanium, and several other metallic elements that could be used to build spaceship components easily.
Besides, by having a Moon base, we could set up laboratories and living facilities there to support missions to Mars, including safe testing of soil and rock samples returned from Mars.
I have to disagree. The advantages of modern engine control are huge. Computer control has given us tons in terms of increased efficiency and horsepower, decreased emissions, and increased integration between components; IE when you stomp on the gas, the computer turns off the A/C for a few seconds to divert power to the drivetrain.
I agree with your assessments 100%.
I mean, take a look at how far Honda has come with their four-cylinder engine technology. Take for example the Honda Accord. The 2.2-liter engine in the early Accords were carbureted engines that barely could crank out 90 bhp (SAE); the 2.4-liter in the current Accord is a fuel-injected engine that cranks out 160 bhp (SAE), meets even the tough Super Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle (SULEV) exhaust emissions standards, and probably gets better fuel efficiency than the early Accord engines. It's only with computerized controls and computer-aided design of the engine that made this possible.
Besides, it's only the advent of modern engine controls that made hybrid drivetrains possible in the first place.
I think we'll find out a lot more about the soil composition when Mars Science Laboratory--a rover that is about the size of an automobile--lands on Mars in 2009.
Given the size of MSL, they can put in drilling equipment that could drill about 1 meter into the ground and look at what the soil is like at that depth. Maybe we'll find water in a near-liquid state and possibly fossilized remains of simple life forms? Also, it will determine if there is enough water beneath the surface to practically extract out, enough to make liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen and hydrazine rocket fuels for a return journey to Earth.
When discussing conventional warfare with conventional military formations, the best "tank buster" is the WCMD CBU -105( wind corrected munitions container ) ( Think of a CBU canister with a GPS/INS kit to guide it in ANY weather.) The Inside of it are SFW's ( Sensor Fused Weapons or "Skeets" that once deployed seek out a vehicle in it's field of view and kill it.) In OIF 2 of these were dropped from several miles away at 40,000ft from a B-52, in support of a small USMC force that was coming under threat from an Iraqi Armored Brigade. Right after impact about 1/3 of the brigade ( almost 2 dozen tanks ) blew up. Gone. Finished. Seeing their buddies die and not knowing how it happened. the other 2/3s of the Brigade got out of their tanks and surrendered to the USMC.The response to the B-52 from the "G-FAC" ( Ground Forward Air Controller with the Marines) upon seeing the weapons hit was "holy s***". Thats the kind of customer support airpower can provide to a guy on the ground.
I think what has happened in the last 35 years is the development of much more advanced smart weapons that can destroy many targets with great accuracy, which has rendered the need to fly close to the target to guarantee a hit pretty much obselete. The destruction of the railroad bridges north of Hanoi with the Paveway laser-guided bombs in 1972 showed what a few well-placed bombs could do to disrupt the enemy's infrastructure; since then, and especially since the early 1990's, the application of GPS guidance has allowed a frightening increase in the accuracy of air strike attacks, especially with JDAM bombs hitting targets with a circular error of probability (CEP) of under 10 meters and GPS-guided JSOW systems that proved to be devastating against any formation of military vehicles.
It's too bad that the A-12 Avenger II project never became reality, because the highly-stealthy A-12 carrying JDAM or JSOW bombs could have been an extremely lethal air strike system. As such, we may see by 2010 stealthy fast-flying UAV's drop JDAM and JSOW bombs operationally from over 30,000 feet.
I think the primary reason why they ended the Comanche program was the very fact the helicopter pretty much duplicated what the AH-64D Apache Longbow could do now, only with a more stealthy airframe.
Don't be surprised that a lot of the technology pioneered by the Comanche ends up on a future version of the AH-64, primarily with quieter main rotor, the shrouded tail rotor, and the highly advanced electronics suite.
People do not need 64-bit computing for standard desktop computing applications - of course not.
That may be true if you're talking running mostly business applications and surfing the Internet. However, with the increasing use of home computers to edit digital still photos and digital movies downloaded from MiniDV/MicroDV digital camcorders, the demands on sheer computing power has climbed dramatically. Take for example editing digital still photos; with today's digital cameras capable to taking pictures with resolutions at four megapixels and larger, the result is picture files that runs into several megabytes in size, and editing them to change brightness/contrast, correct color problems, and so on takes a LOT of sheer computing power in both CPU speed and system RAM size.
The new 64-bit CPU's not only can do this type of heavy-duty processing in many cases better than 32-bit CPU's, but the ability of 64-bit CPU's to access very large amounts of system RAM means we can work with larger and larger multimedia files.
Slashdot Mirror
...and it can be scaled up to far larger sizes, it could revolutionize hybrid drivetrain designs for automobiles.
Imagine a hybrid drivetrain that needs a battery a small fraction of the size of what is needed now on the Honda Civic Hybrid or the Toyota Prius. This will make is possible to put a lightweight hybrid drivetrain in a Toyota Echo and get fuel efficiency approaching 80 miles per US gallon with no loss of power! =)
I think the reason why people might be annoyed by the sounds of a maglev passing by is the fact that at the type of speeds maglevs operate (350 km/h to 500 km/h), the noise is NOT caused by physical contact with the overhead wiring and the steel wheel/steel rail contact but the aerodynamic noise caused by the shape of the maglev train itself. This means they'll need to computational fluid dynamics research into reducing the noise footprint of a maglev train.
Indeed, this was a major issue with the upcoming Airbus A380 super-jumbo airliner; they had to go to single-piece moving surfaces on the wings instead of louver-type moving surfaces found on the Boeing 747 because the louver-type moving surfaces generated quite a lot of aerodynamic noise above 320 km/h flight speeds.
In theory it sounds like a good idea but you have to note that the BayGen radio isn't a small unit--it's actually quite large because you needed a fairly large clockspring mechanism to generate the power necessary.
However, if you can build a clockspring generator mechanism that is an external power source as you suggested, then it makes more sense. Mind you, I do worry it could end up being fairly large and awkward to carry around if you need it to charge a laptop battery.
I think the big reason why the Soviets maintained a large number of launch pads for the R-7 rocket at their main launch sites was specifically for the the purpose of launching weapons into space. I believe that the Soviets seriously looked at kinetic-energy weapons to disable our recon satellites since the late 1960's.
While Japan has done a lot of work on maglev trains, the issues that dog the Japanese system are: 1) it requires superconducting magnets to work, and that means you need very expensive cryogenic cooling systems for the trainset and 2) the distances between major population centers in Japan isn't really that great.
For example, from Tokyo to Nagoya on the limited-stop Hikari Shinkansen back in the 1980's only requires just under two hours transit time, even with the trainset limited to 200 km/h (124 mph) tops! The distance from Tokyo to Osaka on Shinkansen is nowadays is under three hours, thanks to faster trainsets now on the Tokyo to Fukuoka route.
Maglevs come into their own on runs over 300 miles, which can be common here in the USA. That's why I cited the Chicago to Minneapolis-Saint Paul example.
I think for high speed trains to work in the USA, you want trains that have to be really fast.
:-)
The thing about the USA is that because of the sheer physical size of the country, steel-wheel trains are not going to be practical for travel beyond 275-300 miles between your origin and destination points. At speeds over 186 mph (300 km/h), the physical contact of steel wheels with steel rails and the overhead wiring will cause considerable wear on the trainset on large-scale revenue service. I don't expect steel-wheel trains to be travelling much faster than 330 km/h in the long run.
For the type of distances involved in the USA, it's time to finally do a major development program to make maglev trains economically practical. Since maglevs could travel as fast as 310 mph (500 km/h) relatively easily without attendant wear on tracks and/or the trainset (since there is no physical contact), this makes it possible for journeys between even relatively widely-spaced apart cities in well under two hours; imagine going from Chicago to Minneapolis-Saint Paul in just over a hour!
Maglevs may not be necessary in Europe and Japan given the relatively short distances between major population centers, but here in the USA, the extra speed to shorten travel times is a very good idea.
There will be not much significance if we prove that life once existed on Mars or is existing there now.
Most serious scientist have predicted such a discovery and leaders of the major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and a few others) will probably say that this is proof of a great design by a higher Supreme Being. It's some of the small xenophobic religious sects that I DO worry about, though.
I think if you've read Carl Sagan's novel Contact you can get some idea of what the ramifications of such a discovery does to the human race.
....will be where ATSC 720p/1080i 16:9 HDTV broadcasts finally take hold.
And the key to this are low-profile rear-projection TV's that use Liquid Crystal On Semiconductor (LCOS) technology to get very sharp high resolution at reasonable cost. Thanks to the work of Intel, the price of LCOS could drop extremely fast, and that could pave the way to under US$1,300 rear-projection TV sets (including ATSC digital signal tuner) that doesn't have the limitations of CRT rear-projection TV's or plasma flat panel TV's.
The reason why the NTSC color system is in many ways inferior to PAL and SECAM is the fact NTSC color signals had to be viewable on black and white TV sets. This meant compromises had to be made in terms of picture quality.
PAL and SECAM never suffered from that problem because they were never designed to be truly viewable with black and white TV sets. For example, in the UK they used the 405-line black and white standard for many, many years until it was phased out in favor of 625-line PAL color broadcasting.
ATSC digital broadcasts--because of the fact they don't need black and white compatibility--was designed for not only far superior resolution (1080i/720p using the 16:9 aspect ratio) but also far better color clarity, too.
Here's where the extra speed of the CPU becomes useful: editing multimedia files.
With the proliferation of digital still cameras storing large-sized picture files and MiniDV/MicroDV digital camcorders where you can copy the video recording in digital form to the computer for editing, there is now a serious need for faster and faster CPU's to edit and process these multimedia files at a reasonable speed. Even today's so-called mid-range AMD Athlon XP 2400+ CPU is getting somewhat hard-pressed to do such work even if you have an ATA-100 interface 7200 RPM hard drive and 1 GB of system RAM installed.
All we're going to see is that Windows XP Service Pack 2--due this summer--will not have Windows Media Player 9.x versions installed on the default install. Of course, that could be fixed by putting the installation CD-ROM disc in and typing in a few commands. :-)
Mind you, for streaming audio/video I like Windows Media Player better than RealOne or the upcoming RealPlayer 10, mostly because it streams more smoothly that Real's products on dial-up connections.
This probably the way that TiVo will survive in the future.
What TiVo aggressively needs to do is partner themselves with perhaps the largest cable provider in the USA, Comcast. If they can get TiVo technology into future Comcast digital cable set top boxes this will assure a future for the company for a long time to come.
I can just see African-Americans crying racism for Dish Network no longer carrying BET. :-/
But seriously, I don't know of many people that watch MTV or VH1 on a regular basis. They're more likely to watch Nickelodeon or Comedy Central, and that's where its absence on Dish Network will REALLY be felt. Indeed, Nickelodeon is probably one of the most popular channels on cable TV, period.
Anyway, it's another black eye (pun definitely intended) against Viacom, a company who's bad PR of the last year or so is threatening to make Michael Eisner of Disney look like a saint in comparison.
I don't know what's going on, but Viacom seems to be suffering one PR fiasco after another in the last year or so.
Between the furor over The Reagans miniseries on CBS (which ended up on Showtime anyway), the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake debacle at the Super Bowl, and increasing criticism of Howard Stern's radio show, you'd think Viacom would do something to stop giving themselves a PR black eye (pun intended) on a regular basis! The decision by Viacom to withhold their channels to Dish Network is going make people wonder if Summer Redstone and Mel Karnizan (sp?) at Viacom are doing a decent job leading the company.
However, even with the current pricing of DirecTV's Total Choice and Total Choice Plus packages (US$39.95 per month for the former, US$42.99 per month for the latter, and this includes all your local channels if it's available in your area), it's still a VASTLY better deal than what you get with cable TV (which is now US$46 per month for half the amount of channels available on DirecTV's non-premium packages in my area).
I don't think Peter Jackson will be crazy enough to do a new edition of all three movies for a three-movie box set that will be longer than the current Extended Edition movies (3h 30m for Fellowship of the Ring, 3h 45m for The Two Towers, and 4h 15m for The Return of the King).
What we'll probably see are additional documentaries on the production of the movie beyond the six Appendices discs from the three movies.
I think at least for now the way to go is with hybrid drivetrains.
You have these advantage with hybrid drivetrains:
1. You don't have to worry about limited range and long waits for charging the battery.
2. You don't need a new refuelling infrastructure (charging stations on a large scale for electric cars, hydrogen fuelling stations for hydrogen-powered/fuel cell cars).
3. Emissions are very low to start with, and new advances the gasoline engine technology (direct injection, improved cylinder shutdown systems) will reduce it to very close to zero anyway.
4. You don't need a massive bank of batteries hogging the interior space of a car. This will be even more true as we develop something equivalent to a lithium-ion battery but with ability to withstand millions of recharging cycles.
You are absolutely correct.
I mean right now, Toyota has demonstrated that you can build profitably an automobile that has extremely low emissions and be able to go nearly 600 miles on a single tank of fuel with the Toyota Prius, and that's without applying the very latest in emissions control technology on the gasoline engine!
Imagine what Toyota could achieve with the Prius once low-sulfur gasoline becomes widely available in the USA, which makes it possible to adopt the use of direct-injection fuel delivery (e.g., fuel is directly inject into the combustion chamber instead of being mixed with air before entering the combustion chamber). We maybe talking 70+ mpg fairly easily while still meeting Partial-Zero Emissions Vehicle (PZEV) emissions standards.
Given the fact that Toyota and Honda are investing serious amounts of money into hybrid vehicle research, I wouldn't be surprised that by 2010 both Toyota and Honda make over one million hybrid vehicles per year. In retrospect, the original Toyota Prius will go down as one of the true landmarks in automotive history, a car that demonstrates very low emissions and very high fuel efficiency without sacrificing performance is possible.
If we are talking about a trip to Mars like Zubrin's Mars Direct concept, there are still considerable engineering challenges to make it work.
We have to consider the following:
1. How do we launch such a spacecraft into Earth orbit in the first place? Should it mostly assembled on the ground (e.g., using technology derived from the Space Shuttle) or be assembled in space?
2. What kind of propulsion system do we use? Chemical rockets mean we'll need a pretty big spacecraft (and the flight time will be six to nine months), and nuclear rockets (which could reduce the time to six weeks) are still not completely proven technology.
3. How do we accommodate 5-7 astronauts on the spacecraft? That means we'll need a fairly good amount of space inside the spacecraft for food and potable water if the trip is going to take six to nine months or proper shielding against radiation on a nuclear-powered spacecraft. We also have to consider how space will be needed for a full-scale science lab and stowage space for manned rover vehicles.
4. Can we get full assurances we can extract water from the Martian soil, which would drastically simply living on Mars and provide a source of fuel for the return trip?
You've got to be kidding.
Samples of moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions show large amounts of aluminum, titanium, and several other metallic elements that could be used to build spaceship components easily.
Besides, by having a Moon base, we could set up laboratories and living facilities there to support missions to Mars, including safe testing of soil and rock samples returned from Mars.
I have to disagree. The advantages of modern engine control are huge. Computer control has given us tons in terms of increased efficiency and horsepower, decreased emissions, and increased integration between components; IE when you stomp on the gas, the computer turns off the A/C for a few seconds to divert power to the drivetrain.
I agree with your assessments 100%.
I mean, take a look at how far Honda has come with their four-cylinder engine technology. Take for example the Honda Accord. The 2.2-liter engine in the early Accords were carbureted engines that barely could crank out 90 bhp (SAE); the 2.4-liter in the current Accord is a fuel-injected engine that cranks out 160 bhp (SAE), meets even the tough Super Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle (SULEV) exhaust emissions standards, and probably gets better fuel efficiency than the early Accord engines. It's only with computerized controls and computer-aided design of the engine that made this possible.
Besides, it's only the advent of modern engine controls that made hybrid drivetrains possible in the first place.
I think we'll find out a lot more about the soil composition when Mars Science Laboratory--a rover that is about the size of an automobile--lands on Mars in 2009.
Given the size of MSL, they can put in drilling equipment that could drill about 1 meter into the ground and look at what the soil is like at that depth. Maybe we'll find water in a near-liquid state and possibly fossilized remains of simple life forms? Also, it will determine if there is enough water beneath the surface to practically extract out, enough to make liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen and hydrazine rocket fuels for a return journey to Earth.
When discussing conventional warfare with conventional military formations, the best "tank buster" is the WCMD CBU -105( wind corrected munitions container ) ( Think of a CBU canister with a GPS/INS kit to guide it in ANY weather.) The Inside of it are SFW's ( Sensor Fused Weapons or "Skeets" that once deployed seek out a vehicle in it's field of view and kill it.) In OIF 2 of these were dropped from several miles away at 40,000ft from a B-52, in support of a small USMC force that was coming under threat from an Iraqi Armored Brigade. Right after impact about 1/3 of the brigade ( almost 2 dozen tanks ) blew up. Gone. Finished. Seeing their buddies die and not knowing how it happened. the other 2/3s of the Brigade got out of their tanks and surrendered to the USMC.The response to the B-52 from the "G-FAC" ( Ground Forward Air Controller with the Marines) upon seeing the weapons hit was "holy s***". Thats the kind of customer support airpower can provide to a guy on the ground.
I think what has happened in the last 35 years is the development of much more advanced smart weapons that can destroy many targets with great accuracy, which has rendered the need to fly close to the target to guarantee a hit pretty much obselete. The destruction of the railroad bridges north of Hanoi with the Paveway laser-guided bombs in 1972 showed what a few well-placed bombs could do to disrupt the enemy's infrastructure; since then, and especially since the early 1990's, the application of GPS guidance has allowed a frightening increase in the accuracy of air strike attacks, especially with JDAM bombs hitting targets with a circular error of probability (CEP) of under 10 meters and GPS-guided JSOW systems that proved to be devastating against any formation of military vehicles.
It's too bad that the A-12 Avenger II project never became reality, because the highly-stealthy A-12 carrying JDAM or JSOW bombs could have been an extremely lethal air strike system. As such, we may see by 2010 stealthy fast-flying UAV's drop JDAM and JSOW bombs operationally from over 30,000 feet.
I think the primary reason why they ended the Comanche program was the very fact the helicopter pretty much duplicated what the AH-64D Apache Longbow could do now, only with a more stealthy airframe.
Don't be surprised that a lot of the technology pioneered by the Comanche ends up on a future version of the AH-64, primarily with quieter main rotor, the shrouded tail rotor, and the highly advanced electronics suite.
People do not need 64-bit computing for standard desktop computing applications - of course not.
That may be true if you're talking running mostly business applications and surfing the Internet. However, with the increasing use of home computers to edit digital still photos and digital movies downloaded from MiniDV/MicroDV digital camcorders, the demands on sheer computing power has climbed dramatically. Take for example editing digital still photos; with today's digital cameras capable to taking pictures with resolutions at four megapixels and larger, the result is picture files that runs into several megabytes in size, and editing them to change brightness/contrast, correct color problems, and so on takes a LOT of sheer computing power in both CPU speed and system RAM size.
The new 64-bit CPU's not only can do this type of heavy-duty processing in many cases better than 32-bit CPU's, but the ability of 64-bit CPU's to access very large amounts of system RAM means we can work with larger and larger multimedia files.