I'm going to dive into this one as well, since you both seem bent over by your particular favorites.
> I bought a flat panel imac at home. It has worked flawlessly since the first day I turned it on. The screen is great, much nicer than typical cheap PC screen.
The flat panel on the iMac I use is roughly identical to the flat panel monitor on the Linux (Intel) machine next to it. If you'll pardon the pun you should compare apples to, well, Apples.
> The system is faster than the PC is replaces (an "old" 2 year old PII-800 with a geForce 2 GTS card and u2w2 scsi disks).
Again, unfair comparison. Will a two year old iMac outrun your two year old PC? Will a current PC keep up with your new iMac? The answers, by my experience, are no and yes, respectively.
> It cost a lot less than a PC with a similar
configuration (you got the math wrong, sorry)
You must have gotten your iMac off the back of a truck, then. For price I've always found PCs to be cheaper. Quality is a different issue, but the sticker war is no contest.
> I saves a lot of money on aspirin now that I do not have to listen to the PC power supply and cooling fans.
I'm right with you on this. The Intel PC is a noisy beast compared to the iMac.
> To get a good PC, i.e something that is not a piece of shaking noisy junk, you need to spend a descent amount of $$$.
True, but the same is true of Macintosh. You just can't choose to build a bare-bones, bottom of the line Mac. Quality is good, but sometimes price trumps it. At least with an Intel box you can go rock bottom if it's necessary.
They don't. They completely revamped the student center on College Avenue (put in some kind of cafe' on the basement floor) and reduced the size and variety of the arcade. The Livingston arcade doesn't even exist any more (I think I spent more money on Gauntlet there than for tuition), and the Douglass one always sucked. The only one left is in the Busch studcutter and it's mostly the new stuff, although the old boys are still around (two of them got "borrowed" and are in the engineering building now).
Um, these statistics don't back up what you're saying. They give percentages of gamers by age, but everyone in the set is a gamer. His statement was that less than 50% of 30+-year-olds play games. Your statistics say nothing about that.
Virg
Re:Notwithstanding the Sarcasm
on
Cyber-Attacks?
·
· Score: 2
> Yep. Easy to miss sarcasm in the written word when you can't hear inflection. But I still refuse to use emoticons.
Agreed. 8) (sorry, that was far too easy to let it go...)
> You misunderstand my use of the term cost.
Actually, I got that you were discussing success as measured by the perpetrators, and you're right that my analysis was more general. I think the real answer falls somewhere between your answer and mine, but I'll concede that it's probably closer to yours.
It doesn't take an Economics degree or a large brain to figure this out. What it takes is listening to your constituency bitch loudly when you try to raise taxes to pay for these people. If you can figure out a way to make the average person consider that paying for a warm, non-corrupt, well skilled body to sit at each of these installations is worth the money, then bully on you, but nobody has managed to do that yet.
Oh, that's right, you're complaining about capitalism, so cost shouldn't be an issue. Then we'll just use volunteers. I volunteer you. Don't want to go? Too bad, you don't get to choose.
Virg
Notwithstanding the Sarcasm
on
Cyber-Attacks?
·
· Score: 2
I'm guessing you missed the/SARCASM tag in the original post, but I gotta bite on your statement anyway. Minimal cost? They lost the good graces of the only two nations that would support them, they got their organization (and their friends the Taliban) beat all to Hell, they pissed off the entire world (heck, even Arafat and Castro said "bad doggies!" to them, even if it's only lip service) and I haven't noticed any changes to our foreign policy that would benefit them at all. I'd say they came up on the down side of that exchange.
First, they aren't worried about Afghanistan mounting cyberattacks, they're worried about Al-Qaeda doing it. Those two entities are not the same, and never were.
Second, attacks would likely be mounted from outside Afghanistan, since Al-Qaeda doesn't have much power base left there, and from there they're surrounded by hostiles. Other likely places from which an attack could come are likely to be easier to use.
Third, if someone wanted to initiate an attack from inside Afghanistan, they could use a satellite link to get to the outside 'Net (and probably would, since any Afghani ISP is likely to be watched like a hawk).
Actually, there are two flaws in your reasoning. Firstly, you're not legally a copyright holder until you actually hold a copyright; that is, you have to have applied for the copyright to enforce it. Second, being a copyright holder does not give you carte blanche to start DoSing systems at random and at will. You are only allowed to avoid legal ramifications on DoSing systems that host your copyrighted work. In your example, although there are legal arguments to support your right to your letter to mom (meaning you would not have had to have applied for a copyright on it specifically), you could only legally attack machines that are hosting that letter. You can't enforce someone else's copyright unless they specifically authorize you to do it.
Well, the easy answer is that you can always buy rechargeable AAA batteries if you want to go that route. This give you the best of both worlds (if you need long lasting batteries you can get alkalines, if you can recharge regularly you can save some money) and getting NiMH (as opposed to NiCd) means your batteries don't develop a memory if you recharge them from half-dead all the time. Get two sets, carry your charger in your luggage if you travel, or just buy regular batteries for the duration of any trip that takes you away from a power outlet.
> but as he said, you need an insanely high powered "torch", which would destroy what you were measuring (well change it anyway)...
You're right, of course, but in the breaking of it you can figure out what state it was in to begin with. When you use enough power to blow off the electron cloud, you can measure what got blown off and bust out a computer to figure out the most likely state of affairs before you turned on the "lights". The same goes for demolishing subatomic particles. There's no way to "see" them without breaking them, but you can get a fairly accurate guess by watching how the pieces fly apart.
The point is to do something like this to demonstrate that it can be done, because it'll find a use eventually. For example, wouldn't it be really handy to take this toy to a conference, and after giving a presentation, host the support files on it for the day or two? That's just one use I came up with in ten seconds. The reason for doing this may seem silly now, but then the reasons for networking PCs together back in 1980 were fairly dumb, too. Sure, an iPaq won't handle much, but maybe the iPaq2 (or 3 or 4) will have the bandwidth necessary to make this happen. Who knows? But saying it's dumb because you can't conceive a practical purpose for it right now is short sighted and arrogant.
There's a small misunderstanding here. You don't need the Swiss bank account, Fim88 does. Your deposits go to Switzerland, which is not on the State Department's list.
> I suspect there are technical issues they can work out with more manned missions to the Moon, however, there are a number of others they can only really scratch the surface of. How do you answer issues like bone density being lost, or muscle mass being lost?
The same way they've been addressing them for going on three decades now. Your comment about the first man on Mars not being able to walk is so inaccurate it's silly. Firstly, bone density loss and muscle atrophy are real problems in spacefaring, but they're long term problems, and a trip to Mars doesn't qualify as long term (although living on the Moon may present some of these problems, and living in an orbital station certainly can). More importantly, Simple physics and ship designs have made this whole problem moot. Design a ship with a rotating part (see "2001: a Space Odyssey" or "Mission to Mars" for good visual examples) and the people involved won't have to deal with low-grav-induced health problems, since the human body reacts the same way to inertia as it does to gravity.
Also, if you really, really, really want to pick nits, your legs wouldn't need to be as strong on Mars to support you as they would on Earth, so even with some loss of bone mass you'd be doing fine. 8)
Maybe I missed an announcement, but if I didn't, RealMYST isn't available for the Mac, which seems weird, since the original game started there, but the RealMYST 3D engine was developed for Windows and although they promise to port it to Mac I don't think they've done it yet.
Still, I'm with you. I played the original (on Windows) and it was a great experience, but there were a number of concessions made to port it from the Mac (including shortened music tracks and other sound effects and reengineered graphics) that I didn't know I was missing until I played RealMYST and got to see and hear it the way the Millers intended. It made a HUGE difference, especially in the places where one ended up standing still to think or absorb. When I first linked to Channelwood, and I stood in Achenar's temple trying to figure out what to make of it, the music was so good at establishing the atmosphere that I just stayed until it started repeating. When I went back there in RealMYST, just the changes in the soundtrack made a big difference in the feel, even considering that I knew the backstory. It gave me the creeps in a very visceral way.
Of course, there's also the age of Rime. Even though it's just for exploring (there's no "plot" to Rime, it's just exploring and puzzling) it was worth what I paid for the CD.
I loved the whole Myst/Riven/Exile series, and I think you're wrong that they weren't immersive, but damn, this is the funniest troll I've read in a long, long time.
> Is it just me or do these two statements contradict each other?
Not really, by virtue of the fact that nothing actually did pop its head out. I understand how he felt completely; I had the same feeling. I referred to it as the "haunted house" syndrome. I felt like I was completely alone, but there was an undercurrent of presence caused by the story that I was trying to suss out. The puzzles were an interesting distraction, but the real "Myst"ery was trying to figure out what happened and who (and what) to trust for information. Just as he thought, having other people involved would have taken away the isolation feel of it; the whole "there's no time pressure, but you're on your own and you're not going anywhere until you figure out X" made the game for me.
Actually, they were leaking information about ongoing investigations to affect stock prices. The way they'd do this is to borrow stocks in companies whose principal(s) were under investigation, sell the stock, leak the data, wait for the stock price to fall, buy back the shares, return them to the original owners, and pocket the rest. So, in answer to your question, the "who"s that wouldn't want this:
1.) The individuals under investigation. Remember, they are innocent until proven guilty, and more than half of people investigated by the FBI are exonerated, so the reputation damage done by the leak may not be deserved.
2.) The stockholders, both the ones from whom the stocks were borrowed and other stockholders whose investments are getting trounced by these leaks. Remember, more than half of these investigations do not result in charges.
3.) Others who are also being investigated by the FBI. What assurance do they have that they won't be the next targets of this?
4.) The stock market in general, which takes a very dim view of insider trading of any kind, since it undermines faith in the system, which is key to its survival.
That ought to be enough to start with. The thing to remember in this is that they were not just leaking data about past offenses, they were leaking the fact that they're under investigation currently.
In this case, the FBI had a legitimate reason for having the data. The abused persons were under active FBI investigations at the time. As stated above, the agents would borrow shares of a small company when they knew that one of the principals of the company was under investigation. They'd sell the shares, leak the bad secrets, wait for the share price to fall, buy them back, return them to the original owners, and pocket the difference. It's certainly abuse, but in this particular case the FBI as a whole had good reason to have the data.
> It does not require a human to put something on the moon.
It requires a human to put something on the Moon accurately. Remote landings are only accurate on the scale of miles (that is, landing something by remote, you can only be sure it's within a mile or two of where you want it to come down). Since the device is only a few feet across, and discussions elsewhere in this thread prove that you can't see an object of this size from the Earth (or even Earth orbit), how did the people who use it know where to find it with the outgoing laser beam? Without absolutely precise coordinates, you're vanishingly unlikely to be able to find it once it comes down. Having placed it by hand, the astronauts were able to do exacting measurments to geographical features and so it's easy enough to locate.
What I've discovered is that most of the theories that purport that we did not put men on the Moon revolve around gross misunderstandings of how science works. I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, but it does annoy me. This stuff (barring the getting into space part) isn't rocket science. Do your homework, and your arguments will stand up to debunking a whole lot better.
> Firstly I wasn't implying that you would land the space shuttle on the moon. I was implying that it is the workhorse for lifting just about everything into space. Including materials to build a habitable space station.
I interpreted this correctly, and didn't assume that you thought the Shuttle would make the trip. However, my original comment still stands. It's far cheaper to lift something into space using a disposable rocket booster than the shuttle, for two reasons. First, you don't need to launch slowly, since a rocket can get off the ground a lot faster if you don't have a payload of squishable humans, and second, it's much, much more efficient in terms of power-to-weight ratios. Even a lift into orbit is cheaper with a regular rocket booster.
> What they are talking about is establishing a moon base. Something that has never before been attempted by ANYONE let along a communist country who's space program, technology, and resources (monetarily and intellectually), pales in comparison to ours. Given our space budget has been rather anemic lately but China's budget would have to be colossal to tackle such a project alone.
You're right, but the estimated costs are not so far out of hand that it's impossible for any large economy to support it. I agree that the costs will be (pardon the pun) astronomical, but whether it's to be done remains in the hands of those who control the money. The ISS is being cost-shared only because no country (the U.S. included) wants to shoulder the entire cost. Several of the countries involved could do so if it was considered necessary.
Well, orientalism aside, he's right. Heck, the U.S. also could muster a million people willing to die for a chance at the Moon. It's just looking like the PRC is going to be more likely to give their million people a chance to try.
The space-based Hubble doesn't have the resolution to see such things, and even if it did, the very properties of light are such that you can't see something that small from that far out (the wavelength of the light itself limits resolution). However, there's a reflector on the Moon designed to bounce a laser back, which was put there by Apollo astronauts (I don't remember which mission) to measure distances to the Moon. It has since been used many times, and every time someone shoots a laser at the right coordinates, they get the beam back, which is impossible to do with regular Moon surface. It's odd that the conspiracy theorists are so quiet about this device.
Well, we were also in our "infancy" when we got to the Moon (recall, Sputnik went up in 1957, and we were standing on the Moon only twelve years later). They have the benefit of our (and the Russians') experience, and they've got 30 years of extra technology to work with when they do try. Also, the Shuttle wouldn't be much help at all for a Moon shot (it's an orbital vehicle). Disposable rocket boosters a'la the Saturn 5 work better for that sort of thing, in terms of energy (and money) cost to get stuff there.
The technology for living on the Moon has been around for decades. If the Chinses are willing and able to sink the necessary money into making it happen, they have a very real chance of making it happen. This has been what's been angering the Moon colony people in the U.S. It's never been about possibility (well, not since 1978). It's always been about getting the money.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm going to dive into this one as well, since you both seem bent over by your particular favorites.
> I bought a flat panel imac at home. It has worked flawlessly since the first day I turned it on. The screen is great, much nicer than typical cheap PC screen.
The flat panel on the iMac I use is roughly identical to the flat panel monitor on the Linux (Intel) machine next to it. If you'll pardon the pun you should compare apples to, well, Apples.
> The system is faster than the PC is replaces (an "old" 2 year old PII-800 with a geForce 2 GTS card and u2w2 scsi disks).
Again, unfair comparison. Will a two year old iMac outrun your two year old PC? Will a current PC keep up with your new iMac? The answers, by my experience, are no and yes, respectively.
> It cost a lot less than a PC with a similar configuration (you got the math wrong, sorry)
You must have gotten your iMac off the back of a truck, then. For price I've always found PCs to be cheaper. Quality is a different issue, but the sticker war is no contest.
> I saves a lot of money on aspirin now that I do not have to listen to the PC power supply and cooling fans.
I'm right with you on this. The Intel PC is a noisy beast compared to the iMac.
> To get a good PC, i.e something that is not a piece of shaking noisy junk, you need to spend a descent amount of $$$.
True, but the same is true of Macintosh. You just can't choose to build a bare-bones, bottom of the line Mac. Quality is good, but sometimes price trumps it. At least with an Intel box you can go rock bottom if it's necessary.
Virg
They don't. They completely revamped the student center on College Avenue (put in some kind of cafe' on the basement floor) and reduced the size and variety of the arcade. The Livingston arcade doesn't even exist any more (I think I spent more money on Gauntlet there than for tuition), and the Douglass one always sucked. The only one left is in the Busch studcutter and it's mostly the new stuff, although the old boys are still around (two of them got "borrowed" and are in the engineering building now).
Virg
Um, these statistics don't back up what you're saying. They give percentages of gamers by age, but everyone in the set is a gamer. His statement was that less than 50% of 30+-year-olds play games. Your statistics say nothing about that.
Virg
> Yep. Easy to miss sarcasm in the written word when you can't hear inflection. But I still refuse to use emoticons.
Agreed. 8) (sorry, that was far too easy to let it go...)
> You misunderstand my use of the term cost.
Actually, I got that you were discussing success as measured by the perpetrators, and you're right that my analysis was more general. I think the real answer falls somewhere between your answer and mine, but I'll concede that it's probably closer to yours.
Virg
It doesn't take an Economics degree or a large brain to figure this out. What it takes is listening to your constituency bitch loudly when you try to raise taxes to pay for these people. If you can figure out a way to make the average person consider that paying for a warm, non-corrupt, well skilled body to sit at each of these installations is worth the money, then bully on you, but nobody has managed to do that yet.
Oh, that's right, you're complaining about capitalism, so cost shouldn't be an issue. Then we'll just use volunteers. I volunteer you. Don't want to go? Too bad, you don't get to choose.
Virg
I'm guessing you missed the /SARCASM tag in the original post, but I gotta bite on your statement anyway. Minimal cost? They lost the good graces of the only two nations that would support them, they got their organization (and their friends the Taliban) beat all to Hell, they pissed off the entire world (heck, even Arafat and Castro said "bad doggies!" to them, even if it's only lip service) and I haven't noticed any changes to our foreign policy that would benefit them at all. I'd say they came up on the down side of that exchange.
Virg
Several points:
First, they aren't worried about Afghanistan mounting cyberattacks, they're worried about Al-Qaeda doing it. Those two entities are not the same, and never were.
Second, attacks would likely be mounted from outside Afghanistan, since Al-Qaeda doesn't have much power base left there, and from there they're surrounded by hostiles. Other likely places from which an attack could come are likely to be easier to use.
Third, if someone wanted to initiate an attack from inside Afghanistan, they could use a satellite link to get to the outside 'Net (and probably would, since any Afghani ISP is likely to be watched like a hawk).
Virg
Actually, there are two flaws in your reasoning. Firstly, you're not legally a copyright holder until you actually hold a copyright; that is, you have to have applied for the copyright to enforce it. Second, being a copyright holder does not give you carte blanche to start DoSing systems at random and at will. You are only allowed to avoid legal ramifications on DoSing systems that host your copyrighted work. In your example, although there are legal arguments to support your right to your letter to mom (meaning you would not have had to have applied for a copyright on it specifically), you could only legally attack machines that are hosting that letter. You can't enforce someone else's copyright unless they specifically authorize you to do it.
Virg
Well, the easy answer is that you can always buy rechargeable AAA batteries if you want to go that route. This give you the best of both worlds (if you need long lasting batteries you can get alkalines, if you can recharge regularly you can save some money) and getting NiMH (as opposed to NiCd) means your batteries don't develop a memory if you recharge them from half-dead all the time. Get two sets, carry your charger in your luggage if you travel, or just buy regular batteries for the duration of any trip that takes you away from a power outlet.
Virg
> Doesnt that annoy heisenberg?
I'm not certain. 8)
Actually, it doesn't, since most of the math is probability. Again, remember that it's guesswork, but at least it's educated guesswork.
Virg
> but as he said, you need an insanely high powered "torch", which would destroy what you were measuring (well change it anyway)...
You're right, of course, but in the breaking of it you can figure out what state it was in to begin with. When you use enough power to blow off the electron cloud, you can measure what got blown off and bust out a computer to figure out the most likely state of affairs before you turned on the "lights". The same goes for demolishing subatomic particles. There's no way to "see" them without breaking them, but you can get a fairly accurate guess by watching how the pieces fly apart.
Virg
The point is to do something like this to demonstrate that it can be done, because it'll find a use eventually. For example, wouldn't it be really handy to take this toy to a conference, and after giving a presentation, host the support files on it for the day or two? That's just one use I came up with in ten seconds. The reason for doing this may seem silly now, but then the reasons for networking PCs together back in 1980 were fairly dumb, too. Sure, an iPaq won't handle much, but maybe the iPaq2 (or 3 or 4) will have the bandwidth necessary to make this happen. Who knows? But saying it's dumb because you can't conceive a practical purpose for it right now is short sighted and arrogant.
Virg
There's a small misunderstanding here. You don't need the Swiss bank account, Fim88 does. Your deposits go to Switzerland, which is not on the State Department's list.
Virg
> I suspect there are technical issues they can work out with more manned missions to the Moon, however, there are a number of others they can only really scratch the surface of. How do you answer issues like bone density being lost, or muscle mass being lost?
The same way they've been addressing them for going on three decades now. Your comment about the first man on Mars not being able to walk is so inaccurate it's silly. Firstly, bone density loss and muscle atrophy are real problems in spacefaring, but they're long term problems, and a trip to Mars doesn't qualify as long term (although living on the Moon may present some of these problems, and living in an orbital station certainly can). More importantly, Simple physics and ship designs have made this whole problem moot. Design a ship with a rotating part (see "2001: a Space Odyssey" or "Mission to Mars" for good visual examples) and the people involved won't have to deal with low-grav-induced health problems, since the human body reacts the same way to inertia as it does to gravity.
Also, if you really, really, really want to pick nits, your legs wouldn't need to be as strong on Mars to support you as they would on Earth, so even with some loss of bone mass you'd be doing fine. 8)
Virg
Maybe I missed an announcement, but if I didn't, RealMYST isn't available for the Mac, which seems weird, since the original game started there, but the RealMYST 3D engine was developed for Windows and although they promise to port it to Mac I don't think they've done it yet.
Still, I'm with you. I played the original (on Windows) and it was a great experience, but there were a number of concessions made to port it from the Mac (including shortened music tracks and other sound effects and reengineered graphics) that I didn't know I was missing until I played RealMYST and got to see and hear it the way the Millers intended. It made a HUGE difference, especially in the places where one ended up standing still to think or absorb. When I first linked to Channelwood, and I stood in Achenar's temple trying to figure out what to make of it, the music was so good at establishing the atmosphere that I just stayed until it started repeating. When I went back there in RealMYST, just the changes in the soundtrack made a big difference in the feel, even considering that I knew the backstory. It gave me the creeps in a very visceral way.
Of course, there's also the age of Rime. Even though it's just for exploring (there's no "plot" to Rime, it's just exploring and puzzling) it was worth what I paid for the CD.
Virg
I loved the whole Myst/Riven/Exile series, and I think you're wrong that they weren't immersive, but damn, this is the funniest troll I've read in a long, long time.
Virg
> Is it just me or do these two statements contradict each other?
Not really, by virtue of the fact that nothing actually did pop its head out. I understand how he felt completely; I had the same feeling. I referred to it as the "haunted house" syndrome. I felt like I was completely alone, but there was an undercurrent of presence caused by the story that I was trying to suss out. The puzzles were an interesting distraction, but the real "Myst"ery was trying to figure out what happened and who (and what) to trust for information. Just as he thought, having other people involved would have taken away the isolation feel of it; the whole "there's no time pressure, but you're on your own and you're not going anywhere until you figure out X" made the game for me.
Virg
Actually, they were leaking information about ongoing investigations to affect stock prices. The way they'd do this is to borrow stocks in companies whose principal(s) were under investigation, sell the stock, leak the data, wait for the stock price to fall, buy back the shares, return them to the original owners, and pocket the rest. So, in answer to your question, the "who"s that wouldn't want this:
1.) The individuals under investigation. Remember, they are innocent until proven guilty, and more than half of people investigated by the FBI are exonerated, so the reputation damage done by the leak may not be deserved.
2.) The stockholders, both the ones from whom the stocks were borrowed and other stockholders whose investments are getting trounced by these leaks. Remember, more than half of these investigations do not result in charges.
3.) Others who are also being investigated by the FBI. What assurance do they have that they won't be the next targets of this?
4.) The stock market in general, which takes a very dim view of insider trading of any kind, since it undermines faith in the system, which is key to its survival.
That ought to be enough to start with. The thing to remember in this is that they were not just leaking data about past offenses, they were leaking the fact that they're under investigation currently.
Virg
In this case, the FBI had a legitimate reason for having the data. The abused persons were under active FBI investigations at the time. As stated above, the agents would borrow shares of a small company when they knew that one of the principals of the company was under investigation. They'd sell the shares, leak the bad secrets, wait for the share price to fall, buy them back, return them to the original owners, and pocket the difference. It's certainly abuse, but in this particular case the FBI as a whole had good reason to have the data.
Virg
Okay, fine, I'll feed the troll.
> It does not require a human to put something on the moon.
It requires a human to put something on the Moon accurately. Remote landings are only accurate on the scale of miles (that is, landing something by remote, you can only be sure it's within a mile or two of where you want it to come down). Since the device is only a few feet across, and discussions elsewhere in this thread prove that you can't see an object of this size from the Earth (or even Earth orbit), how did the people who use it know where to find it with the outgoing laser beam? Without absolutely precise coordinates, you're vanishingly unlikely to be able to find it once it comes down. Having placed it by hand, the astronauts were able to do exacting measurments to geographical features and so it's easy enough to locate.
What I've discovered is that most of the theories that purport that we did not put men on the Moon revolve around gross misunderstandings of how science works. I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, but it does annoy me. This stuff (barring the getting into space part) isn't rocket science. Do your homework, and your arguments will stand up to debunking a whole lot better.
Virg
> Firstly I wasn't implying that you would land the space shuttle on the moon. I was implying that it is the workhorse for lifting just about everything into space. Including materials to build a habitable space station.
I interpreted this correctly, and didn't assume that you thought the Shuttle would make the trip. However, my original comment still stands. It's far cheaper to lift something into space using a disposable rocket booster than the shuttle, for two reasons. First, you don't need to launch slowly, since a rocket can get off the ground a lot faster if you don't have a payload of squishable humans, and second, it's much, much more efficient in terms of power-to-weight ratios. Even a lift into orbit is cheaper with a regular rocket booster.
> What they are talking about is establishing a moon base. Something that has never before been attempted by ANYONE let along a communist country who's space program, technology, and resources (monetarily and intellectually), pales in comparison to ours. Given our space budget has been rather anemic lately but China's budget would have to be colossal to tackle such a project alone.
You're right, but the estimated costs are not so far out of hand that it's impossible for any large economy to support it. I agree that the costs will be (pardon the pun) astronomical, but whether it's to be done remains in the hands of those who control the money. The ISS is being cost-shared only because no country (the U.S. included) wants to shoulder the entire cost. Several of the countries involved could do so if it was considered necessary.
Virg
Well, orientalism aside, he's right. Heck, the U.S. also could muster a million people willing to die for a chance at the Moon. It's just looking like the PRC is going to be more likely to give their million people a chance to try.
Virg
The space-based Hubble doesn't have the resolution to see such things, and even if it did, the very properties of light are such that you can't see something that small from that far out (the wavelength of the light itself limits resolution). However, there's a reflector on the Moon designed to bounce a laser back, which was put there by Apollo astronauts (I don't remember which mission) to measure distances to the Moon. It has since been used many times, and every time someone shoots a laser at the right coordinates, they get the beam back, which is impossible to do with regular Moon surface. It's odd that the conspiracy theorists are so quiet about this device.
Virg
No, no. The Vikings went to Mars.
Sheesh. 8)
Virg
Well, we were also in our "infancy" when we got to the Moon (recall, Sputnik went up in 1957, and we were standing on the Moon only twelve years later). They have the benefit of our (and the Russians') experience, and they've got 30 years of extra technology to work with when they do try. Also, the Shuttle wouldn't be much help at all for a Moon shot (it's an orbital vehicle). Disposable rocket boosters a'la the Saturn 5 work better for that sort of thing, in terms of energy (and money) cost to get stuff there.
The technology for living on the Moon has been around for decades. If the Chinses are willing and able to sink the necessary money into making it happen, they have a very real chance of making it happen. This has been what's been angering the Moon colony people in the U.S. It's never been about possibility (well, not since 1978). It's always been about getting the money.
Virg