The long and short of it is that the Java Desktop System is a GNOME desktop that has been modified to function much like a Windows Desktop, but with Sun's own "flavor" of styling. (I hope you like purple.)
Up until recently, JDS has been a commercial product intended to provide a common desktop across all of Sun's OS products. This ranges from Solaris Sparc, Solaris x86, to their own brand of Linux codenamed "Mad Hatter". Now that the OpenSolaris project is in full swing, Sun is releasing the JDS source code to allow their desktop to be portable across their OpenSolaris line as well. These steps to complete openness are probably what interest Indonesia the most, as they can have all the support of a big company like Sun, but none of the concerns about the product line being dropped tomorrow.
(P.S. TMM, you need to do better than a quick link to something everyone already knows. Otherwise you're just karma whoring. You can do better than that!:-))
Why any rationally thinking country would want to be at the mercy of a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me.
They're not. Sun has apparently released the changes to the GNOME source code used by the JDS desktop to support the OpenSolaris project. What that means is Indonesia will get 100% open source software, but have the commercial backing of a large, international computer company. Should Sun ever go "bye bye" (not as likely as Slashdotters would like to think), Indonesia can dust off the source and continue to maintain the software with help from the OSS community.
Sadly, after talking with some engineers I have doubts that the Liberty Ship could ever exist. Apparently the nuclear lightbulb concept has never been tested. It sounds great in theory, but the engineering problems it entails may be insurmountable with current tech. As a result, we'll just have to settle for an engine like the TRITON for now. Same Mars performance, but a bit tricker for the liftoff.
Actually, it's just the opposite. According to this page, NASA is restructuring the Prometheus program to be more comprehensive. The exact goals are as of yet unclear, but the program will continue. The full article you were looking at can be read here. Interestingly, the article suggests that the entire program is being shut down, whereas the only quote from NASA states that they're cutting back. I'm thinking that someone jumped the gun here.
Each main engine weighs about 3.2 metric tons, and there's three, so there's half your advantage over Saturn V gone right there. Throw in the engine frame and the payload compartment, and you're looking at a pretty small lifting advantage over the Saturn V.
A small advantage is still pretty impressive if you're not throwing away your engines. If you ARE throwing away all but one engine (precisely what the Saturn V did) then I'd expect you'd find the difference to be quite a bit more substantial. Granted, the SSME's are about three times heavier than the J-2's, but they are twice as powerful.:-)
A slide rule is the very definition of an analog computer. Though we don't differentiate between electrical and non-electrical computers today, the difference used to be important. A variety of "computers" were developed in WWII for computing artillery fire, bombing runs, and even plane landings. They were all very similar to the slide rule.
A sextant is merely a measuring device who's results may be used in computations. It can be likened more to a sensor than a computer.:-)
How about lowering the costs of land/air/sea transport?
Good idea. Convince people to accept nuclear powered merchant ships for sea, ethanol for cars, and bio-diesel for trains.
Do you really think corporations would sell moon ore cheaper, especially since their costs are *inherently* higher (moving it *anywhere* on earth is easier than moving metric tons from lunar orbit)?
Inherently? Odd. I figure that a mass driver could launch ore into orbit at fairly low costs. The metals could even be refined in orbit prior to being dropped into the ocean for pickup by ship. All in all, it could be quite competitive with earth mining. Besides, it's much more useful to mine asteroids which are far richer in ores. The energy costs in moving ore from those puppies are almost insignificant thanks to the Interplanetary Highway.
Why can't we build solar panels on earth
Because:
a) We can't deploy super-thin and inexpensive mirrors that focus on a single multi-gigawatt heat engine?
b) We don't have the space to set aside for 300 sqaure miles of solar panels per power plant?
c) 50-90% of the Sun's power is lost through the atmosphere?
d) We can place our generators in a lower solar orbit so that they can obtain more power per square meter?
e) Corrosion of panels/mirrors is not as much of a problem in space?
Shall I go on?
don't you think the money could be better spent on researching fusion down here (not this tabletop stuff, but ITER for example)?
Fusion power is only 20 years away. Just like in the 1950's.
Sorry, power positive fusion is still a pipe dream. Space-based Solar power is a technology we have today. Besides, the Sun is a FAR bigger fusion reactor than we could possibly build here on Earth!
How about talking about a future where dangerous and toxic industries are obseleted?
You need steel? Superalloys? Plastics? Graphites? Kevlar? Sorry, but materials manufacturing will always be dangerous and environmentally unfriendly.
Before we start thriving across the solar system, why don't we crank up the standard of living down here a few notches first?
We already did. Now lets crank it up even more by making use of resources that don't pollute our biosphere, shall we?
"Remaining secrets of the universe," my foot; we can't understand the data we've got already!
And we can't test our hypothesises about that data because it's too expensive to send new probes.
Unimaginable technology is a given - we still can't imagine how the Egyptians built the pyramids, for crying out loud!
Those of us with a little imagination can. Humans are amazingly ingenuitive when they want to be.
Who cares about other star systems
Who cares about your anonymous opinion?
How about we do something in the present instead of singing the praises of some imaginary future?
Okay. In the present, we are staring down the technological barrel of free energy and massive raw resources. All we need is inexpensive space access to get them. How about it?
the sensors were analogue, the computation and guidance control was all digital.
That's not what the link states: Major Components: digital computer and data adapter; analog flight control computer; inertial guidance platform; emergency detection system control rate gyros and control accelerometers.
The analog and digital computer worked together. The digital computer did the computations for flight corrections. Then the analog computer implemented the corrections.
From the link:
The inertial guidance platform sensed the vehicle's acceleration and flight attitude. It sent measurements to the digital computer through the data adapter. The digital computer used the measurements to determine the vehicle's position and velocity. Any corrections required to keep the vehicle on course were calculated by the digital computer.
Correction signals, with outputs from control rate gyros and control accelerometers, went to a switch selector. The switch selector - one in the instrument unit and one in each propulsion stage - decoded the correction signals and passed them to the flight control computer. The [analog] flight control computer issued commands to steer the vehicle by gimbaling the engines.
As I said, the Saturn V's electronics were not comparible to today's digital components.
i guess you could call your desktop PC a mix of analogue and digital computers if you consider your mouse part of your CPU.
Only if you think a mouse ball qualifies as an analog computer.
FYI, mice are completely digital. They use an optical sensor that flips on and off to record each Mickey. The horizontal and vertical Mickeys are sent to the host computer for processing. A more accurate comparison would be pre-digital joysticks which used a potentiometer to read the position of the joystick. The host computer would have to figure out the lowest and highest extents of the potentiometer's voltage, then calibrate the joystick according to those voltages.
Of course, the potentiometer's readings would occasionally change, so the joysticks needed to be regularly recalibrated.
The Space Shuttle lifts 28.8 metric tons of cargo into orbit. However, it also lifts itself. If you go back to Wikipedia, you'll find that the Space Shuttle weighs in at 109 metric tons. Which means that the total Shuttle payload to orbit is 137.8 metric tons, or just shy of 20 metric tons more than the Saturn V could lift! Eliminate the Orbiter from the equation, and you have one uber-powerful set of boosters.
(Don't feel too bad. I was laying in wait for the first poor sap to try to argue that point. Tag you're it.;-))
Oh, and here's the complete Saturn Instrumentation and Computing Unit. Note the use of both an early digital and analog computers in tandem, the 21.7 feet that signals had to cross, and the 4,400 lbs (500 lbs just for the components) of weight!
Also note the interlink of the computers, sensors, and controls:
Correction signals, with outputs from control rate gyros and control accelerometers, went to a switch selector. The switch selector - one in the instrument unit and one in each propulsion stage - decoded the correction signals and passed them to the flight control computer. The flight control computer issued commands to steer the vehicle by gimbaling the engines.
Such instrumentation today would be all digital, thus reducing the delays imposed in switching the data and sending commands.
The Saturn V computer was developed years before the Apollo computer. They were like night and day compared to each other. The Apollo computers were Integrated Circuits (as you said), was developed by MIT, and weighed a "mere" 30 kg. It even had early real-time multitasking capabilities. (Which were put to the test when the radar was accidently left on during descent resulting in a 30% loss of computational power.) It was easily one of the most advanced computers of its time. Read more here.
This is quite different from the computers used in the Saturn series of rockets, which the IBM link suggests go back to the earliest Saturn work. (Which would have been 1960-1963.)
We still have the tech. It's come and gone as many different engines, including DUMBO, Timberwind, the Space Shuttle upper stage engines, and (most recently) TRITON.
The F-1's and the SSME's don't compare. The proper comparison is:
SRB: 3,300,000 lbf F-1: 1,500,000 lbf
SSME: 400,000 lbf J-2: 200,000 lbf
All combined, the Space Shuttle is a more powerful vehicle. It produces more thrust, higher efficiencies, and can lift significantly more weight to orbit.
No, I'm referring to electronics. As in computers and circuits that operated in the 10's of Hertz range. As in electromechanical components that took time to change state. As in massive wiring harnesses and switches that made a massive (and HOT!) electronic brain. As in memory that was made of iron and weighed several pounds per kilobyte.
The microprocessor wasn't invented until 1971, four years after the first Saturn V flight. And then it was merely a way to shrink a calculator. (Though microprocessor technology did procede at an astounding rate.)
A little digging produces this. The guidance computer for the Saturn V was that 25 hertz monstrosity you see in the picture. These were not advanced machines, but they did work.
are part of the story which led to the cancellation of JIMO, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter
JIMO != Prometheus. JIMO is the name of the mission, Prometheus is the project to produce the technology that would have been used by JIMO.
This is NOT news. The JIMO mission was always considered risky and overly ambitious. Everyone loved the technology, but questioned the merits of sending it out so early. There were so much talk about scaling back the Prometheus project, that it came as no surprise when JIMO was finally cancelled in May. (As you can see from the second link I posted.)
There has been nothing "quiet" about the whole affair. It's been broadcast from the highest mountains, because many people feel that Prometheus is critical to a future in Nuclear Space Technology. As to the MTO, it can get in line. The next Mars rover went through a massive redesign as well, after the existing rovers proved to be so successful. The new rover was supposed to have unlimited range thanks to RTG power, but now it's looking like it will again have Solar Panels to contend with.
1. The Hubble issue was never about science. It was about O'Keefe caving to the idea that "the Shuttle is a death trap." O'Keefe was outright told by Congress to get the damn thing fixed or else.
2. Your own link points out at the bottom that Griffin is pushing to overturn the Hubble decision.
So to answer your question:
So there will still be money to fund truely useful projects like repairing the Hubble telescope? Really?
Let's see... $16.196 * 12 = $194.352 billion dollars over 12 years. $194 - $100 = $94 billion dollars remaining. I wonder where the rest of the money goes?
If you read the budget report, you'll find that NASA is still going to spend money on "science". The CEV budget primarly replaces the Space Shuttle budget.
What you may be thinking about is that the JIMO mission was cut in favor of testing the Prometheus technologies prior to assigning the device to an expensive scientific mission.
But don't let me get in the way of a perfectly offensive rant.
The computer on the rocket. It was all very primitive electronics, and there were highly measurable delays as signals traveled the length of the rocket, and electronic components changed state. With our high speed microprocessors today, we don't worry about such delays. Then again, none of our components are electromechanical, nor do our computers contain the mother of all wiring harnesses. (Remember, the microprocessor wasn't invented until the 70's. High density, fast response memory came later as a result of microprocessor technology. Which resulted in other solid-state components such as flash memory. So on and so forth.)
Okay. How about I preach about lowering the costs of space transport? How about I preach about the billions of tons of cheap ore that could result? How about I preach about the free energy obtained from solar mirrors focused on space engines? How about I preach about a future where dangerous and toxic industries can be moved off the Earth? How about I preach about a future where man can thrive across the solar system, guaranteeing safety from little things like asteriods? How about I preach about a future where the power of the Sun is harnessed to power trips to other star systems? How about I preach about a future where truely inexpensive science probes can be launched to finally reveal the remaining secrets of the universe? How about I preach of a future with unimaginably technology that results from the science done?
How about we get off this rock and finally do something other than IM each other about Britney Spears or Paris Hilton? How about it?
The Saturn V plans are not lost, but the rocket effectively is. The Saturn V was built with heavy industry, electronics, and computer technology that simply doesn't exist anymore. To update the existing rocket would make less sense than simply building a new one.
(Side Note: Someone once mentioned that the Saturn V's electronics were designed to cope with the electronic lag in transmissions by sending commands early. If the same design were followed in an update, the rocket would destroy itself because those early commands would be transmitted instantanously. Who knows how many more of these gotchas are in the design?)
NASA has the right plan here. The Space Shuttle engines are more powerful than the Saturn V ever was. By reusing the technology, NASA can build something better than the Saturn V in a relatively short amount of time.
Slashdot Mirror
I love it when the mods have a sense of humor. :-)
redundant Pronunciation (r-dndnt)
adj.
1. See: redundant
P.P.S. Here's the source code for JDS. I knew it was around here somewhere. :-)
The long and short of it is that the Java Desktop System is a GNOME desktop that has been modified to function much like a Windows Desktop, but with Sun's own "flavor" of styling. (I hope you like purple.)
:-))
Up until recently, JDS has been a commercial product intended to provide a common desktop across all of Sun's OS products. This ranges from Solaris Sparc, Solaris x86, to their own brand of Linux codenamed "Mad Hatter". Now that the OpenSolaris project is in full swing, Sun is releasing the JDS source code to allow their desktop to be portable across their OpenSolaris line as well. These steps to complete openness are probably what interest Indonesia the most, as they can have all the support of a big company like Sun, but none of the concerns about the product line being dropped tomorrow.
(P.S. TMM, you need to do better than a quick link to something everyone already knows. Otherwise you're just karma whoring. You can do better than that!
Why any rationally thinking country would want to be at the mercy of a foreign owned commercial entity is beyond me.
They're not. Sun has apparently released the changes to the GNOME source code used by the JDS desktop to support the OpenSolaris project. What that means is Indonesia will get 100% open source software, but have the commercial backing of a large, international computer company. Should Sun ever go "bye bye" (not as likely as Slashdotters would like to think), Indonesia can dust off the source and continue to maintain the software with help from the OSS community.
Preach to the choir much? ;-)
Sadly, after talking with some engineers I have doubts that the Liberty Ship could ever exist. Apparently the nuclear lightbulb concept has never been tested. It sounds great in theory, but the engineering problems it entails may be insurmountable with current tech. As a result, we'll just have to settle for an engine like the TRITON for now. Same Mars performance, but a bit tricker for the liftoff.
Actually, it's just the opposite. According to this page, NASA is restructuring the Prometheus program to be more comprehensive. The exact goals are as of yet unclear, but the program will continue. The full article you were looking at can be read here. Interestingly, the article suggests that the entire program is being shut down, whereas the only quote from NASA states that they're cutting back. I'm thinking that someone jumped the gun here.
Each main engine weighs about 3.2 metric tons, and there's three, so there's half your advantage over Saturn V gone right there. Throw in the engine frame and the payload compartment, and you're looking at a pretty small lifting advantage over the Saturn V.
:-)
A small advantage is still pretty impressive if you're not throwing away your engines. If you ARE throwing away all but one engine (precisely what the Saturn V did) then I'd expect you'd find the difference to be quite a bit more substantial. Granted, the SSME's are about three times heavier than the J-2's, but they are twice as powerful.
A slide rule is the very definition of an analog computer. Though we don't differentiate between electrical and non-electrical computers today, the difference used to be important. A variety of "computers" were developed in WWII for computing artillery fire, bombing runs, and even plane landings. They were all very similar to the slide rule.
:-)
A sextant is merely a measuring device who's results may be used in computations. It can be likened more to a sensor than a computer.
How about lowering the costs of land/air/sea transport?
Good idea. Convince people to accept nuclear powered merchant ships for sea, ethanol for cars, and bio-diesel for trains.
Do you really think corporations would sell moon ore cheaper, especially since their costs are *inherently* higher (moving it *anywhere* on earth is easier than moving metric tons from lunar orbit)?
Inherently? Odd. I figure that a mass driver could launch ore into orbit at fairly low costs. The metals could even be refined in orbit prior to being dropped into the ocean for pickup by ship. All in all, it could be quite competitive with earth mining. Besides, it's much more useful to mine asteroids which are far richer in ores. The energy costs in moving ore from those puppies are almost insignificant thanks to the Interplanetary Highway.
Why can't we build solar panels on earth
Because:
a) We can't deploy super-thin and inexpensive mirrors that focus on a single multi-gigawatt heat engine?
b) We don't have the space to set aside for 300 sqaure miles of solar panels per power plant?
c) 50-90% of the Sun's power is lost through the atmosphere?
d) We can place our generators in a lower solar orbit so that they can obtain more power per square meter?
e) Corrosion of panels/mirrors is not as much of a problem in space?
Shall I go on?
don't you think the money could be better spent on researching fusion down here (not this tabletop stuff, but ITER for example)?
Fusion power is only 20 years away. Just like in the 1950's.
Sorry, power positive fusion is still a pipe dream. Space-based Solar power is a technology we have today. Besides, the Sun is a FAR bigger fusion reactor than we could possibly build here on Earth!
How about talking about a future where dangerous and toxic industries are obseleted?
You need steel? Superalloys? Plastics? Graphites? Kevlar? Sorry, but materials manufacturing will always be dangerous and environmentally unfriendly.
Before we start thriving across the solar system, why don't we crank up the standard of living down here a few notches first?
We already did. Now lets crank it up even more by making use of resources that don't pollute our biosphere, shall we?
"Remaining secrets of the universe," my foot; we can't understand the data we've got already!
And we can't test our hypothesises about that data because it's too expensive to send new probes.
Unimaginable technology is a given - we still can't imagine how the Egyptians built the pyramids, for crying out loud!
Those of us with a little imagination can. Humans are amazingly ingenuitive when they want to be.
Who cares about other star systems
Who cares about your anonymous opinion?
How about we do something in the present instead of singing the praises of some imaginary future?
Okay. In the present, we are staring down the technological barrel of free energy and massive raw resources. All we need is inexpensive space access to get them. How about it?
the sensors were analogue, the computation and guidance control was all digital.
That's not what the link states: Major Components: digital computer and data adapter; analog flight control computer; inertial guidance platform; emergency detection system control rate gyros and control accelerometers.
The analog and digital computer worked together. The digital computer did the computations for flight corrections. Then the analog computer implemented the corrections.
From the link:
The inertial guidance platform sensed the vehicle's acceleration and flight attitude. It sent measurements to the digital computer through the data adapter. The digital computer used the measurements to determine the vehicle's position and velocity. Any corrections required to keep the vehicle on course were calculated by the digital computer.
Correction signals, with outputs from control rate gyros and control accelerometers, went to a switch selector. The switch selector - one in the instrument unit and one in each propulsion stage - decoded the correction signals and passed them to the flight control computer. The [analog] flight control computer issued commands to steer the vehicle by gimbaling the engines.
As I said, the Saturn V's electronics were not comparible to today's digital components.
i guess you could call your desktop PC a mix of analogue and digital computers if you consider your mouse part of your CPU.
Only if you think a mouse ball qualifies as an analog computer.
FYI, mice are completely digital. They use an optical sensor that flips on and off to record each Mickey. The horizontal and vertical Mickeys are sent to the host computer for processing. A more accurate comparison would be pre-digital joysticks which used a potentiometer to read the position of the joystick. The host computer would have to figure out the lowest and highest extents of the potentiometer's voltage, then calibrate the joystick according to those voltages.
Of course, the potentiometer's readings would occasionally change, so the joysticks needed to be regularly recalibrated.
BZZT! Wrong.
;-))
The Space Shuttle lifts 28.8 metric tons of cargo into orbit. However, it also lifts itself. If you go back to Wikipedia, you'll find that the Space Shuttle weighs in at 109 metric tons. Which means that the total Shuttle payload to orbit is 137.8 metric tons, or just shy of 20 metric tons more than the Saturn V could lift! Eliminate the Orbiter from the equation, and you have one uber-powerful set of boosters.
(Don't feel too bad. I was laying in wait for the first poor sap to try to argue that point. Tag you're it.
Oh, and here's the complete Saturn Instrumentation and Computing Unit. Note the use of both an early digital and analog computers in tandem, the 21.7 feet that signals had to cross, and the 4,400 lbs (500 lbs just for the components) of weight!
Also note the interlink of the computers, sensors, and controls:
Correction signals, with outputs from control rate gyros and control accelerometers, went to a switch selector. The switch selector - one in the instrument unit and one in each propulsion stage - decoded the correction signals and passed them to the flight control computer. The flight control computer issued commands to steer the vehicle by gimbaling the engines.
Such instrumentation today would be all digital, thus reducing the delays imposed in switching the data and sending commands.
Ahem. Apollo computer != Saturn V computer.
The Saturn V computer was developed years before the Apollo computer. They were like night and day compared to each other. The Apollo computers were Integrated Circuits (as you said), was developed by MIT, and weighed a "mere" 30 kg. It even had early real-time multitasking capabilities. (Which were put to the test when the radar was accidently left on during descent resulting in a 30% loss of computational power.) It was easily one of the most advanced computers of its time. Read more here.
This is quite different from the computers used in the Saturn series of rockets, which the IBM link suggests go back to the earliest Saturn work. (Which would have been 1960-1963.)
You mean these?
We still have the tech. It's come and gone as many different engines, including DUMBO, Timberwind, the Space Shuttle upper stage engines, and (most recently) TRITON.
The F-1's and the SSME's don't compare. The proper comparison is:
SRB: 3,300,000 lbf
F-1: 1,500,000 lbf
SSME: 400,000 lbf
J-2: 200,000 lbf
All combined, the Space Shuttle is a more powerful vehicle. It produces more thrust, higher efficiencies, and can lift significantly more weight to orbit.
No, I'm referring to electronics. As in computers and circuits that operated in the 10's of Hertz range. As in electromechanical components that took time to change state. As in massive wiring harnesses and switches that made a massive (and HOT!) electronic brain. As in memory that was made of iron and weighed several pounds per kilobyte.
The microprocessor wasn't invented until 1971, four years after the first Saturn V flight. And then it was merely a way to shrink a calculator. (Though microprocessor technology did procede at an astounding rate.)
A little digging produces this. The guidance computer for the Saturn V was that 25 hertz monstrosity you see in the picture. These were not advanced machines, but they did work.
Cripes. Read your own link!
are part of the story which led to the cancellation of JIMO, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter
JIMO != Prometheus. JIMO is the name of the mission, Prometheus is the project to produce the technology that would have been used by JIMO.
This is NOT news. The JIMO mission was always considered risky and overly ambitious. Everyone loved the technology, but questioned the merits of sending it out so early. There were so much talk about scaling back the Prometheus project, that it came as no surprise when JIMO was finally cancelled in May. (As you can see from the second link I posted.)
There has been nothing "quiet" about the whole affair. It's been broadcast from the highest mountains, because many people feel that Prometheus is critical to a future in Nuclear Space Technology. As to the MTO, it can get in line. The next Mars rover went through a massive redesign as well, after the existing rovers proved to be so successful. The new rover was supposed to have unlimited range thanks to RTG power, but now it's looking like it will again have Solar Panels to contend with.
1. The Hubble issue was never about science. It was about O'Keefe caving to the idea that "the Shuttle is a death trap." O'Keefe was outright told by Congress to get the damn thing fixed or else.
2. Your own link points out at the bottom that Griffin is pushing to overturn the Hubble decision.
So to answer your question:
So there will still be money to fund truely useful projects like repairing the Hubble telescope? Really?
Really.
Let's see... $16.196 * 12 = $194.352 billion dollars over 12 years. $194 - $100 = $94 billion dollars remaining. I wonder where the rest of the money goes?
If you read the budget report, you'll find that NASA is still going to spend money on "science". The CEV budget primarly replaces the Space Shuttle budget.
Got evidence? Because last I knew, the Prometheus was still chugging along.
What you may be thinking about is that the JIMO mission was cut in favor of testing the Prometheus technologies prior to assigning the device to an expensive scientific mission.
But don't let me get in the way of a perfectly offensive rant.
The computer on the rocket. It was all very primitive electronics, and there were highly measurable delays as signals traveled the length of the rocket, and electronic components changed state. With our high speed microprocessors today, we don't worry about such delays. Then again, none of our components are electromechanical, nor do our computers contain the mother of all wiring harnesses. (Remember, the microprocessor wasn't invented until the 70's. High density, fast response memory came later as a result of microprocessor technology. Which resulted in other solid-state components such as flash memory. So on and so forth.)
Don't preach to me about spin-offs.
Okay. How about I preach about lowering the costs of space transport? How about I preach about the billions of tons of cheap ore that could result? How about I preach about the free energy obtained from solar mirrors focused on space engines? How about I preach about a future where dangerous and toxic industries can be moved off the Earth? How about I preach about a future where man can thrive across the solar system, guaranteeing safety from little things like asteriods? How about I preach about a future where the power of the Sun is harnessed to power trips to other star systems? How about I preach about a future where truely inexpensive science probes can be launched to finally reveal the remaining secrets of the universe? How about I preach of a future with unimaginably technology that results from the science done?
How about we get off this rock and finally do something other than IM each other about Britney Spears or Paris Hilton? How about it?
On the next exciting episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation...
Down.
The Saturn V plans are not lost, but the rocket effectively is. The Saturn V was built with heavy industry, electronics, and computer technology that simply doesn't exist anymore. To update the existing rocket would make less sense than simply building a new one.
(Side Note: Someone once mentioned that the Saturn V's electronics were designed to cope with the electronic lag in transmissions by sending commands early. If the same design were followed in an update, the rocket would destroy itself because those early commands would be transmitted instantanously. Who knows how many more of these gotchas are in the design?)
NASA has the right plan here. The Space Shuttle engines are more powerful than the Saturn V ever was. By reusing the technology, NASA can build something better than the Saturn V in a relatively short amount of time.