I'll say this: in much of Asia handwriting skills are still important.
This is especially true in China and Japan, where both languages uses thousands of unique characters for the written language. Because of this situation, these two languages are not easily adopted for computer use, though the Japanese have tried with special keyboards and the JIS, Shift-JIS and EUC character sets. Is it small wonder why low-coast fax machines first took off in popularity in Asia, because it was in many ways faster to write up a handwritten note in Japanese and fax it to another location than to use a Japanese language keyboard to create the characters and then send the message electronically?
Besides, writing Chinese and Japanese characters is still considered a revered art form in Asia. That's why a lot of art exhibitions in China and Japan show the masterful art of calligraphy, especially writing characters with brushes.
Anyone who's been listening to Coast to Coast AM (first hosted by Art Bell, now hosted by George Noory) may have heard of Richard C. Hoagland, a fairly frequent guest of that show.
Hoagland thinks many of the Mars missions--including the failed European/Russian Mars 96 mission--were deliberately sabotaged by various space agency officials that want to prevent people from finding out that Mars used to not only have life, but intelligent life on that planet. You should read Hoagland's book The Monument of Mars--it's a conspiracy theorist's wet dream come true, to say the least (rolling eyes skyward--pun really intended).
Actually, Oracle's hostile bid for PeopleSoft reminds me a lot of heyday of dot com companies, when fights between friendly and hostile takeovers were quite common.
...I'd seriously consider negotiating for the rights to Farmer Giles of Ham and/or Smith of Wootton Major, plus lesser-known (still very good) stories like Roverandum and Mr. Bliss, to be done as animated features. =)
Given the way these stories are written, they almost BEG to be done as animated features. Farmer Giles of Ham done under the right producing/directing team at Disney could be one very fun movie to watch (they can borrow the drawing style of Pauline Baynes, the original illustrator of the book) and Mr. Bliss is almost perfect as a Pixar feature. How about it, folks?:-)
(P.S. I know Tolkien back in the 1950's had qualms about Disney animation, but Disney has shown since 1995 they can go with very different drawing styles successfully, styles that he probably would have approved.)
...Like getting the record companies to stop releasing album-length Compact Discs with just a few good songs and everything else on the album being horrible.
Does anyone remember back in the early 1980's? Back then, many albums were full of great songs; a great example of this is Michael Jackson's Thriller, which had most of its songs hit the Top Ten on the Billboard Singles chart.
With the ability the iTunes Music Store to pick and choose the songs you want, you get the best songs and skip out on the crappy stuff. This might even encourage musicians to write good songs for a change on a consistent basis. =)
...You're forgetting that the External Tank is filled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, both of which are liquiefy at temperatures WAY below that of the temperature that liquid water turns into ice. That's why just before launch you can see the ice buildup on the foam surface of the External Tank; there's a well-known picture of the Atlas rocket carrying the Friendship 7 Mercury spacecraft just when it was starting to leave the launch pad, and you can see the massive amounts of ice chunks falling off the surface of the Atlas rocket because one of the fuels loaded was liquid oxygen.
I remember that the day STS-107 was launched it was a pretty cool day, so ice buildup on the External Tank may have been a bit above normal. That means during the first few seconds after launch there would be less ice chunks falling off the tank, and that meant the ice would take longer to fall off, causing a serious foreign object damage (FOD) hazard to the shuttle tiles.
In my opinion, the best way to solve the problem is to use a new and more durable material for the shuttle tiles, something that NASA seriously studied during the late 1980's. This would allow for better heat protection and also is less susceptible to FOD damage from External Tank foam insulation material encased in ice.
I think when people talk about the foam insulation hitting the leading edge of the left wing of Columbia during the launch phase, they have to consider the following:
1) When the insulation piece fell off it was essentially encased in solid ice, which is a pretty hard material to start with.
2) At the time the insulation fell off, the space shuttle was travelling a couple thousand miles per hour already. That could (in theory) add to the impact force on the wing.
NASA should have tested the insulation foam encased in ice fired at physical simulation of the shuttle leading edge, in my opinion.
I think the Adobe.PDF format is probably the best way to go for eBooks.
I mean think about it: even the relatively low-powered CPU's used on PDA's have enough computing oomph to process and display.PDF files. And we're talking reading.PDF files, not creating one, which takes a lot more CPU processing power.
I really have to ask: how accurate was the AK-47, AKM and AK-74 in terms of longer range firing? The Kalashnikov design was a stroke of genius with its very reliable firing chamber that could withstand the effects of water, snow and mud, but I've never heard anything mentioned about its accuracy at longer ranges.
I believe the Druganov SVD sniper rifle was designed around the AK-47 firing chamber but it was only semi-automatic operation with a very long barrel.
I do worry that these new computer-enabled combat suits would fail in a spectacular fashion if methods of generating a strong electromagnetic pulse is factored into the equation.
For example, a bomb with a big capacitor inside surrounded by a jacket of carbon filaments could send a shockwave of EMP that will disable any electronics within a couple of hundred meters of the explosion point. And of course we know what happens when you detonate a nuclear warhead at high altitude; I believe that one Soviet tactic during the initial phases of a nuclear war was to use obselete but still large SS-9 rockets that would detonate their 25 megaton warheads about 200 to 400 kilometers off the ground over enemy territory, which would create such a strong EMP shock it would wipe out everything electrical underneath the explosion point.
I think this sounds more and more like ESA is definitely interested in its own manned launcher systems.
The loss of Columbia and the problems with the newest Soyuz spacecraft concerns ESA, especially since they are a major contributor to the International Space Station. I think we may see the French dust off plans for the Hermes spaceplane and get it into production as soon as possible, since that's the fastest way to get manned space launches. If I remember correctly, Hermes had actually reached the point of a mockup being built when the project was shelved; this means not much more engineering will be necessary to start producing the real thing.
Actually, Beowulf clusters of 800-1,000 machines running Linux can be competitive with supercomputers.
I remember reading in Wired magazine a few years ago about a biotech company here in the San Francisco Bay Area that clustered several hundred machines running Pentium III 600 MHz CPU's to do DNA mapping and analysis--and the results were just as fast as most supercomputers costing several times what that cluster cost.
Imagine what a cluster of 700 to 1,000 blade servers running the latest Intel Xeon CPU's can do now! =)
Actually, the reason why Mars Express is being launched was the fact the highly ambitious Mars 96 probe (which carried many of the same experiments that Mars Express carries) failed due to a rocket booster upper stage failure.
This is why Mars Express is a much smaller spacecraft, small enough to rely on the well-proven launch rocket that carries the Soyuz spacecraft to orbit.
I think while Microsoft will no longer upgrade the core code of Internet Explorer in the standalone version for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, they will continue to offer Service Packs that will very likely extend the functionality of IE.
Do not be surprised that we will see by June 2004 new SP's for IE 6.0x that will add a Sidebar function and tabbed browsing on the main window, plus possibly add full.PNG graphics support and support for CSS stylesheet formats.
From reading Mark Wade's Astronautix.com web site, the Chinese plan a much larger booster called the CZ-5 series that in uprated versions can carry up to 100,000 lb. into LEO.
However, I'm still skeptical the Chinese could launch a moon mission based on the orbital assembly method before the assembled spacecraft leaves Earth orbit. Assembling such a spacecraft is a quite complicated process and both the Americans and Russians rejected the idea back in the early 1960's when they developed their Moon mission plans.
It'll be just easier for the Chinese to buy the plans from the original Russian space program and use modern technology to update the booster rocket and lunar lander instead.
Having ICBM's is one thing, but building a rocket big enough for a mission to the Moon is quite something else.
The ONLY way the Chinese can short cut technologically to get to the Moon is to use someone else's rocket design, modernize the design, and build it for such a mission. Given the fact the Chinese have been warming to better relations with the Russian Federation lately, I wouldn't be surprised that China has bought the plans for the old Soviet N-1 rocket and using plentiful Chinese expertise modernize the design for vastly improved reliability, plus design a modernized version of the Russian lunar lander. The Russians were on the right track for a lunar mission but the lack of funds doomed their lunar mission projects.
The Chinese have only demonstrated they can put a man in orbit using what amounts to an updated Long March booster rocket and essentially a modernized version of the Soyuz spacecraft that was originally designed in the early 1960's! It's a major leap up to get to the Moon, that's to be sure.
Think about it: have the Chinese demonstrated the ability to build a MUCH larger rocket that will be needed for flights to the Moon and back? Have they demonstrated the ability to build a manned Moon lander? The Russians came close with their N-1 rocket and their lunar lander, but the lack of funds doomed that project. Maybe the Russians decided to sell their moon rocket plans to the Chinese and hope the Chinese will have better luck with the N-1 design using more modern rocket technology?
2. It will add a Sidebar function (which was in the early betas of IE 6.0 but was dropped in later builds and the final version). The Sidebar can be customized to accept data from various web sites.
Anyway, I think Microsoft was smart not to add tabbed browsing and Sidebar functions in IE 6.0x since they are features that just end up confusing less-experienced users.
I remember reading about certain undersea floors that have massive fields of "methane ice" that scientists don't know the economic use for them. Maybe we can mine that "methane ice," turn it into methane gas, and react it with steam to create hydrogen for fuel cells? Sounds like a plan. =)
There are two ways to get rid of radioactive waste from nuclear powerplants.
One is to reprocess the waste back into nuclear fuel and/or turn them into pellets for RTG electric generators.
For getting rid of the waste that can't be reprocessed, the first thing you do is to fuse the waste with glass (which reduces its radioactivity dramatically), then permanently store it in an environment that will absorb the radiation. I remember some liberal wags saying "Send the radioactive waste to Texas" until scientists realized that storing glass-fused radioactive waste in salt domes over disused oil fields is actually a great idea, since salt is a great absorber of radiation.
I think people are still scarred by the Chernobyl experience.
Mind you, Chernobyl was a perfect example of what NOT to do in terms of nuclear reactor design--a reactor that potentially could easily run away and NO containment structure! Small wonder why when it exploded in 1986 it spewed radioactive materials all over the place.
Compare that against what happened at Three Mile Island 1989; while the reactor core had a partial meltdown the strong containment structure meant only a tiny amount of radioactive material leaked out, the equivalent of a standard chest X-ray on a per person basis!
A new type of nuclear reactor called the pebble-bed reactor is designed to be extremely safe--even if the coolant is cut off the fissile material can still cool by convective heat once the reaction stops. Indeed, that's why one of the first applications of pebble-bed reactors is space operations for nuclear rockets and nuclear powerplants to power spacecraft.
A big advantage of applying the latest in nuclear reactor design is that unlike even burning natural gas, there is no exhaust emissions into the air, which means cleaner air for everyone involved.
In the end, I think the ultimate goal is to develop a workable nuclear fusion reactor to generate electricity; given that you can easily extract heavy water from plentiful seawater, once we reach the point of a practical fusion reactor we're talking a fuel source that has reserves of one billion years at current worldwide power consumption levels.
1. The main unit will be somewhat bigger than today's PlayStaton 2. It will use the successor to the Emotion Engine chips found on the PS2 and will have up to 512 MB of internal RAM, with 128 MB dedicated to video memory.
2. In the main unit, there will be for base units with a 120 GB hard drive, with options for up to 320 GB hard drive. They will connect to the mainboard using Serial ATA connections.
3. Also in the main unit, there will be a standard DVD recorder drive that supports the Sony/Philips DVD-RW standard, plus eventual upgrades to blue-laser optical recorder drives that can record up to 50 GB of data on a single disc.
4. The main unit will have Sony MemoryStick support for up to 2 GB MemoryStick units.
5. Finally, the main unit will sport I/O connectors for game controllers and keyboards using USB 2.0 connections, an 100-BaseT RJ-45 Ethernet connector, and IEEE-1394b connectors support connect speed twice that of today's IEEE-1394 connections. Video outputs include 480i composite video (RCA connector), S-video (S-video connector) and component video (three RCA connectors); the component video connections can be set for 480p, 720p, and 1080i output to both 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratio high-end CRT's and projection TV's. It may even sport a DVI digital connector and IEEE-1394b output selection for connections to future TV's that use digital video inputs for video.
6. Through a short IEEE-1394b connection, you can buy a TV tuner unit that support current NTSC analog and ATSC digital broadcasts through over-air, cable TV and direct-broadcast satellite connections. Imagine something like DirecTiVo, but with the ability to record two programs simultaneously; Sony will use its DirecTV and TiVo licenses for such a box.
In short, Sony will have what amounts to a true home entertainment center box in at most a stackable two-box unit, one that can be your DirecTV tuner, record DirecTV broadcasts, create your own DVD discs (and eventually home-made blue-laser optical discs), play PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and "PlayStation 3" games, and surf the Internet at broadband speeds. Sounds like a great idea, if only to reduce the amount of clutter for your home entertainment center.
It's always possible to have a mission-failure point in a design. Good engineers identify those points, and design redundancies and fail-safes. That's why we pay engineers lots of money.
In that case thank God Burt Rutan's company is building the White Knight/SpaceShipOne combination. =)
I believe right now Scaled Composites has the best chance to win the X-Prize because Rutan has applied his innovative use of strong, non-metallic aerospace materials to win the prize. Also, Rutan has given lots of thought about safely re-entering the atmosphere, something that kind of concerns me regarding the other X-Prize competitors. Given Rutan's proven track record of building a line of innovative airplanes, I'll put my money on Rutan getting there first.
The very fact that both the DoD and NASA has entrusted experimental designs to Scaled Composites proves that Rutan is on the right track. Indeed, the spinoff from Scaled Composites' entry may include a orbiting spaceplane launched from the top of a modified 747 that could carry 7-8 crew or several thousand pounds of cargo into low Earth orbit (LEO).
The reason is simple: Rutan has a demonstrated track record of safe, yet technologically-innovative flying machines.
SpaceShip One is designed for an aerodynamically benign flight profile, and Rutan has designed SS1 so there is lots of safety margins during the re-entry phase.
After reading on Armadillo's plane for trying to win the X-Prize, I think I'll pass on this idea, too.
What happens if ALL the parachutes fail, something that is not impossible? The resulting landing would kill the pilot and two passengers almost instantly from the impact forces.
At least with Rutan's White Knight/SpaceShip One combination, SpaceShip One will fly a fairly benign flight regime, and the vehicle will glide to a safe horizontal landing between Mojave Aiport and those big dry lake beds at Edwards AFB. And Rutan has carefully studied how the X-15 did its re-entry after its high-altitude flights and designed SpaceShip One to handle safely in the re-entry phase.
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I'll say this: in much of Asia handwriting skills are still important.
This is especially true in China and Japan, where both languages uses thousands of unique characters for the written language. Because of this situation, these two languages are not easily adopted for computer use, though the Japanese have tried with special keyboards and the JIS, Shift-JIS and EUC character sets. Is it small wonder why low-coast fax machines first took off in popularity in Asia, because it was in many ways faster to write up a handwritten note in Japanese and fax it to another location than to use a Japanese language keyboard to create the characters and then send the message electronically?
Besides, writing Chinese and Japanese characters is still considered a revered art form in Asia. That's why a lot of art exhibitions in China and Japan show the masterful art of calligraphy, especially writing characters with brushes.
Anyone who's been listening to Coast to Coast AM (first hosted by Art Bell, now hosted by George Noory) may have heard of Richard C. Hoagland, a fairly frequent guest of that show.
Hoagland thinks many of the Mars missions--including the failed European/Russian Mars 96 mission--were deliberately sabotaged by various space agency officials that want to prevent people from finding out that Mars used to not only have life, but intelligent life on that planet. You should read Hoagland's book The Monument of Mars--it's a conspiracy theorist's wet dream come true, to say the least (rolling eyes skyward--pun really intended).
Actually, Oracle's hostile bid for PeopleSoft reminds me a lot of heyday of dot com companies, when fights between friendly and hostile takeovers were quite common.
...I'd seriously consider negotiating for the rights to Farmer Giles of Ham and/or Smith of Wootton Major, plus lesser-known (still very good) stories like Roverandum and Mr. Bliss, to be done as animated features. =)
:-)
Given the way these stories are written, they almost BEG to be done as animated features. Farmer Giles of Ham done under the right producing/directing team at Disney could be one very fun movie to watch (they can borrow the drawing style of Pauline Baynes, the original illustrator of the book) and Mr. Bliss is almost perfect as a Pixar feature. How about it, folks?
(P.S. I know Tolkien back in the 1950's had qualms about Disney animation, but Disney has shown since 1995 they can go with very different drawing styles successfully, styles that he probably would have approved.)
...Like getting the record companies to stop releasing album-length Compact Discs with just a few good songs and everything else on the album being horrible.
Does anyone remember back in the early 1980's? Back then, many albums were full of great songs; a great example of this is Michael Jackson's Thriller, which had most of its songs hit the Top Ten on the Billboard Singles chart.
With the ability the iTunes Music Store to pick and choose the songs you want, you get the best songs and skip out on the crappy stuff. This might even encourage musicians to write good songs for a change on a consistent basis. =)
...You're forgetting that the External Tank is filled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, both of which are liquiefy at temperatures WAY below that of the temperature that liquid water turns into ice. That's why just before launch you can see the ice buildup on the foam surface of the External Tank; there's a well-known picture of the Atlas rocket carrying the Friendship 7 Mercury spacecraft just when it was starting to leave the launch pad, and you can see the massive amounts of ice chunks falling off the surface of the Atlas rocket because one of the fuels loaded was liquid oxygen.
I remember that the day STS-107 was launched it was a pretty cool day, so ice buildup on the External Tank may have been a bit above normal. That means during the first few seconds after launch there would be less ice chunks falling off the tank, and that meant the ice would take longer to fall off, causing a serious foreign object damage (FOD) hazard to the shuttle tiles.
In my opinion, the best way to solve the problem is to use a new and more durable material for the shuttle tiles, something that NASA seriously studied during the late 1980's. This would allow for better heat protection and also is less susceptible to FOD damage from External Tank foam insulation material encased in ice.
I think when people talk about the foam insulation hitting the leading edge of the left wing of Columbia during the launch phase, they have to consider the following:
1) When the insulation piece fell off it was essentially encased in solid ice, which is a pretty hard material to start with.
2) At the time the insulation fell off, the space shuttle was travelling a couple thousand miles per hour already. That could (in theory) add to the impact force on the wing.
NASA should have tested the insulation foam encased in ice fired at physical simulation of the shuttle leading edge, in my opinion.
I think the Adobe .PDF format is probably the best way to go for eBooks.
.PDF files. And we're talking reading .PDF files, not creating one, which takes a lot more CPU processing power.
I mean think about it: even the relatively low-powered CPU's used on PDA's have enough computing oomph to process and display
I really have to ask: how accurate was the AK-47, AKM and AK-74 in terms of longer range firing? The Kalashnikov design was a stroke of genius with its very reliable firing chamber that could withstand the effects of water, snow and mud, but I've never heard anything mentioned about its accuracy at longer ranges.
I believe the Druganov SVD sniper rifle was designed around the AK-47 firing chamber but it was only semi-automatic operation with a very long barrel.
I do worry that these new computer-enabled combat suits would fail in a spectacular fashion if methods of generating a strong electromagnetic pulse is factored into the equation.
For example, a bomb with a big capacitor inside surrounded by a jacket of carbon filaments could send a shockwave of EMP that will disable any electronics within a couple of hundred meters of the explosion point. And of course we know what happens when you detonate a nuclear warhead at high altitude; I believe that one Soviet tactic during the initial phases of a nuclear war was to use obselete but still large SS-9 rockets that would detonate their 25 megaton warheads about 200 to 400 kilometers off the ground over enemy territory, which would create such a strong EMP shock it would wipe out everything electrical underneath the explosion point.
I think this sounds more and more like ESA is definitely interested in its own manned launcher systems.
The loss of Columbia and the problems with the newest Soyuz spacecraft concerns ESA, especially since they are a major contributor to the International Space Station. I think we may see the French dust off plans for the Hermes spaceplane and get it into production as soon as possible, since that's the fastest way to get manned space launches. If I remember correctly, Hermes had actually reached the point of a mockup being built when the project was shelved; this means not much more engineering will be necessary to start producing the real thing.
Actually, Beowulf clusters of 800-1,000 machines running Linux can be competitive with supercomputers.
I remember reading in Wired magazine a few years ago about a biotech company here in the San Francisco Bay Area that clustered several hundred machines running Pentium III 600 MHz CPU's to do DNA mapping and analysis--and the results were just as fast as most supercomputers costing several times what that cluster cost.
Imagine what a cluster of 700 to 1,000 blade servers running the latest Intel Xeon CPU's can do now! =)
Actually, the reason why Mars Express is being launched was the fact the highly ambitious Mars 96 probe (which carried many of the same experiments that Mars Express carries) failed due to a rocket booster upper stage failure.
This is why Mars Express is a much smaller spacecraft, small enough to rely on the well-proven launch rocket that carries the Soyuz spacecraft to orbit.
I think while Microsoft will no longer upgrade the core code of Internet Explorer in the standalone version for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, they will continue to offer Service Packs that will very likely extend the functionality of IE.
.PNG graphics support and support for CSS stylesheet formats.
Do not be surprised that we will see by June 2004 new SP's for IE 6.0x that will add a Sidebar function and tabbed browsing on the main window, plus possibly add full
From reading Mark Wade's Astronautix.com web site, the Chinese plan a much larger booster called the CZ-5 series that in uprated versions can carry up to 100,000 lb. into LEO.
However, I'm still skeptical the Chinese could launch a moon mission based on the orbital assembly method before the assembled spacecraft leaves Earth orbit. Assembling such a spacecraft is a quite complicated process and both the Americans and Russians rejected the idea back in the early 1960's when they developed their Moon mission plans.
It'll be just easier for the Chinese to buy the plans from the original Russian space program and use modern technology to update the booster rocket and lunar lander instead.
Having ICBM's is one thing, but building a rocket big enough for a mission to the Moon is quite something else.
The ONLY way the Chinese can short cut technologically to get to the Moon is to use someone else's rocket design, modernize the design, and build it for such a mission. Given the fact the Chinese have been warming to better relations with the Russian Federation lately, I wouldn't be surprised that China has bought the plans for the old Soviet N-1 rocket and using plentiful Chinese expertise modernize the design for vastly improved reliability, plus design a modernized version of the Russian lunar lander. The Russians were on the right track for a lunar mission but the lack of funds doomed their lunar mission projects.
I agree with your assessments.
The Chinese have only demonstrated they can put a man in orbit using what amounts to an updated Long March booster rocket and essentially a modernized version of the Soyuz spacecraft that was originally designed in the early 1960's! It's a major leap up to get to the Moon, that's to be sure.
Think about it: have the Chinese demonstrated the ability to build a MUCH larger rocket that will be needed for flights to the Moon and back? Have they demonstrated the ability to build a manned Moon lander? The Russians came close with their N-1 rocket and their lunar lander, but the lack of funds doomed that project. Maybe the Russians decided to sell their moon rocket plans to the Chinese and hope the Chinese will have better luck with the N-1 design using more modern rocket technology?
1. It will add tabbed browsing.
2. It will add a Sidebar function (which was in the early betas of IE 6.0 but was dropped in later builds and the final version). The Sidebar can be customized to accept data from various web sites.
Anyway, I think Microsoft was smart not to add tabbed browsing and Sidebar functions in IE 6.0x since they are features that just end up confusing less-experienced users.
Hmmm.
I remember reading about certain undersea floors that have massive fields of "methane ice" that scientists don't know the economic use for them. Maybe we can mine that "methane ice," turn it into methane gas, and react it with steam to create hydrogen for fuel cells? Sounds like a plan. =)
There are two ways to get rid of radioactive waste from nuclear powerplants.
One is to reprocess the waste back into nuclear fuel and/or turn them into pellets for RTG electric generators.
For getting rid of the waste that can't be reprocessed, the first thing you do is to fuse the waste with glass (which reduces its radioactivity dramatically), then permanently store it in an environment that will absorb the radiation. I remember some liberal wags saying "Send the radioactive waste to Texas" until scientists realized that storing glass-fused radioactive waste in salt domes over disused oil fields is actually a great idea, since salt is a great absorber of radiation.
I think people are still scarred by the Chernobyl experience.
Mind you, Chernobyl was a perfect example of what NOT to do in terms of nuclear reactor design--a reactor that potentially could easily run away and NO containment structure! Small wonder why when it exploded in 1986 it spewed radioactive materials all over the place.
Compare that against what happened at Three Mile Island 1989; while the reactor core had a partial meltdown the strong containment structure meant only a tiny amount of radioactive material leaked out, the equivalent of a standard chest X-ray on a per person basis!
A new type of nuclear reactor called the pebble-bed reactor is designed to be extremely safe--even if the coolant is cut off the fissile material can still cool by convective heat once the reaction stops. Indeed, that's why one of the first applications of pebble-bed reactors is space operations for nuclear rockets and nuclear powerplants to power spacecraft.
A big advantage of applying the latest in nuclear reactor design is that unlike even burning natural gas, there is no exhaust emissions into the air, which means cleaner air for everyone involved.
In the end, I think the ultimate goal is to develop a workable nuclear fusion reactor to generate electricity; given that you can easily extract heavy water from plentiful seawater, once we reach the point of a practical fusion reactor we're talking a fuel source that has reserves of one billion years at current worldwide power consumption levels.
Here is what I think the US machine will be like:
1. The main unit will be somewhat bigger than today's PlayStaton 2. It will use the successor to the Emotion Engine chips found on the PS2 and will have up to 512 MB of internal RAM, with 128 MB dedicated to video memory.
2. In the main unit, there will be for base units with a 120 GB hard drive, with options for up to 320 GB hard drive. They will connect to the mainboard using Serial ATA connections.
3. Also in the main unit, there will be a standard DVD recorder drive that supports the Sony/Philips DVD-RW standard, plus eventual upgrades to blue-laser optical recorder drives that can record up to 50 GB of data on a single disc.
4. The main unit will have Sony MemoryStick support for up to 2 GB MemoryStick units.
5. Finally, the main unit will sport I/O connectors for game controllers and keyboards using USB 2.0 connections, an 100-BaseT RJ-45 Ethernet connector, and IEEE-1394b connectors support connect speed twice that of today's IEEE-1394 connections. Video outputs include 480i composite video (RCA connector), S-video (S-video connector) and component video (three RCA connectors); the component video connections can be set for 480p, 720p, and 1080i output to both 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratio high-end CRT's and projection TV's. It may even sport a DVI digital connector and IEEE-1394b output selection for connections to future TV's that use digital video inputs for video.
6. Through a short IEEE-1394b connection, you can buy a TV tuner unit that support current NTSC analog and ATSC digital broadcasts through over-air, cable TV and direct-broadcast satellite connections. Imagine something like DirecTiVo, but with the ability to record two programs simultaneously; Sony will use its DirecTV and TiVo licenses for such a box.
In short, Sony will have what amounts to a true home entertainment center box in at most a stackable two-box unit, one that can be your DirecTV tuner, record DirecTV broadcasts, create your own DVD discs (and eventually home-made blue-laser optical discs), play PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and "PlayStation 3" games, and surf the Internet at broadband speeds. Sounds like a great idea, if only to reduce the amount of clutter for your home entertainment center.
It's always possible to have a mission-failure point in a design. Good engineers identify those points, and design redundancies and fail-safes. That's why we pay engineers lots of money.
In that case thank God Burt Rutan's company is building the White Knight/SpaceShipOne combination. =)
I believe right now Scaled Composites has the best chance to win the X-Prize because Rutan has applied his innovative use of strong, non-metallic aerospace materials to win the prize. Also, Rutan has given lots of thought about safely re-entering the atmosphere, something that kind of concerns me regarding the other X-Prize competitors. Given Rutan's proven track record of building a line of innovative airplanes, I'll put my money on Rutan getting there first.
The very fact that both the DoD and NASA has entrusted experimental designs to Scaled Composites proves that Rutan is on the right track. Indeed, the spinoff from Scaled Composites' entry may include a orbiting spaceplane launched from the top of a modified 747 that could carry 7-8 crew or several thousand pounds of cargo into low Earth orbit (LEO).
The reason is simple: Rutan has a demonstrated track record of safe, yet technologically-innovative flying machines.
SpaceShip One is designed for an aerodynamically benign flight profile, and Rutan has designed SS1 so there is lots of safety margins during the re-entry phase.
After reading on Armadillo's plane for trying to win the X-Prize, I think I'll pass on this idea, too.
What happens if ALL the parachutes fail, something that is not impossible? The resulting landing would kill the pilot and two passengers almost instantly from the impact forces.
At least with Rutan's White Knight/SpaceShip One combination, SpaceShip One will fly a fairly benign flight regime, and the vehicle will glide to a safe horizontal landing between Mojave Aiport and those big dry lake beds at Edwards AFB. And Rutan has carefully studied how the X-15 did its re-entry after its high-altitude flights and designed SpaceShip One to handle safely in the re-entry phase.