Just what is a real cluster? I've looked through all "Beowulf" documentation I could find, and I still don't see the difference between what is described and what a well-administered UNIX computer lab on a private network should be, with PVM installed, consoles removed, and login authorized only on a single node.
most unresponsive, most annoying possible keyboard
I have used Thomson TO7's at school a long, long time ago. Keys were flat but did require a non-zero force, and in fact you had to push them madly to type a character...
OTOH, that zero-force keyboard could be a step in the direction of movement-activated controls in the HHGG, where you just wave at them to activate them, with all the annoying side-effects you can imagine.
...and about almost any other _decent_ mailers, is that you can not edit/read more than one message in the same time. Heck, if you want to edit one message and read another (to copy/paste text, for instance), you can't. You have to exit editing, read the other message, and come back.
Mutt supports reading a mailbox from multiple instances of itself. I guess that would do the job, just start another xterm or use screen.
The Messiah, by the way, is an incredibly cool design. Who would have thought you could combine the Space Shuttle, ISS modules, Energia/Shuttle booster rockets, spare external tanks, and a NERVA engine so exquisitely?
An Orion engine, if you please... Silently omitting that it would have been powered by atomic explosions so as not to upset the Greens.
OTOH, hitting an asteroid something NASA has to demonstrate they can do. They missed on their first attempt at an asteroid rendezvous and spent a year chasing Eros. Clearly, they need a bit of practice.
Now, wait, there has been quite a number of probes which missed their targets; can you name any, other than NEAR, which caught up with their target after doing so at the first encounter? Perhaps Japan's Planet-B in 2003, kind of... And which performed a soft landing on said target? None so far.
Ah, but if I'm not mistaken, NEAR was operated by JPL, not NASA; perhaps that's what you meant?
it's just a matter of time before NASA will have to deflect or destroy an incoming asteroid lest it destroy some part of us.
NASA no longer is adapted to crash-course missions; they'll ask for 10 years and/or a few trillion dollars. Better contract with private companies...
First of all, as far as we know, Titan probably doesn't have any liquid water; it's too cold out there.
I don't understand this conslustion that if a planet has water it will have life. I know all living things need water. But it doesn't mean it's going to have some type of primative lifeform.
Very true. But we're looking for life anywhere we think it's likely to appear, and optimists think that it will evolve anywhere with the right conditions.
Furthermore, I recall some crazy idea mentioned in Stephen Baxter's Titan, that life could exist there, based on nitrogen, ammonia and cyanide instead of oxygen, water and carbon dioxyde... Who knows? Not us, and that's why we're trying to get a look.
One would think that after all this time, that the system (weather) on Titan should be more or less at a steady state condition.
It could be snowing steadily? And there's still the change in sunlight every few weeks, as Titan revolves around Saturn...
It is too cold on Titan to allow for liquid water so the snow couldn't melt.
Wait, who said it would be water? It is supposed that various hydrocarbons `rain' or `snow' to the surface, definitely not water.
It can't evaporate either since, according to scientists in the article, the atmosphere is 10 times thicker than here on earth. Snow isn't going to vaporize at 10atm.
"Thicker" doesn't mean "higher pressure". IIRC the pressure on Titan would be around 1.5 atm; however, since it is much colder than on Earth and the atmosphere doesn't have the same composition, its density can very well be ten times as much as ours.
That is, if Cassini manages to listen to Huygens!
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Continents on Titan?
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Did you notice that each time it is announced that such-and-such asteroid has a one-in-so-many-hundreds of hitting the Earth, the advisory usually mentions that the probability is lower than being hit by another yet-undiscovered asteroid?
We are at the first step: we know of the possibility of being in the way of a celestial body big enough to cause enormous harm. But if we are to do something about it, we have to know where they all are; and that means all of them! All the most as it is critical that we know of any possible impact years or decades in advance.
Hence the importance of Spaceguard-like projects to perform systematic surveys of near-Earth objects. That's where the priority has to lie at the beginning (and the easiest thing to do). The steps after that being to study them at close quarters, and maybe an actual deflection test, which could even prove useful if we also are to extract construction materials from them for space installations...
Re:The article is misleading
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Tito In Space
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So the space station can't yet handle two docked spacecraft at once?
Yes. But three is more troublesome.
Let's see... If I'm not mistaken, there are at least two Soyuz/Progress docking ports: Zvezda's aft port, to which a Soyuz is currently attached, and Zarya's nadir port, at which the next Soyuz is to dock; other ports may be available (maybe on Zvezda) but apparently they are never used for docking (maybe thay are not equipped for automatic docking?)
Furthermore, there are two shuttle docking ports, one on Destiny, where Endeavour currently is, and another on Unity's side, but I don't think it's really usable.
So, in the current configuration (see NASA's diagram), if a Soyuz is to dock at Zarya's nadir port while a shuttle is there, it has to pass within a few meters of the shuttle's tail. Nobody really knows how this would affect the docking radars and so on.
Needless to say, the reckless Russians say it's not a problem, while paranoid NASA is scared to death of anybody even trying.
Re:Tourists in space- serious thoughts
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Tito In Space
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Your article is excellent, I fully agree with you (mod this up!)
There is just an ambiguity:
The Russians are giving up a substantial chance to do science and engineering research; the operation of the station isn't expected to be delayed despite being a crewman short, as it were, for months...
Musabayev, Baturin and Tito - hence a hypothetical other third crew member, had the latter not flown - are only staying a week or so. They are on a "taxi mission", to change the Soyuz lifeboat, which is only certified for six months in space. You can't lose much more than a few days' worth of research.
Re:Borders in the Stellar Theme Park??
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Tito In Space
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· Score: 5
This is not Disney Land he's going to, but a space station devoted to serious work. What benefit to mankind is he performing up there, checking to see if his CD player spins right in zero G?
He's rebuffing that NASA myth that normal people can't fly in space, despite MsMcAuliffe's tragic death. While other people, equally or even less qualified, have already flown, that's the picture the media are sending.
As for the ISS' "serious work", well, one could argue that the main job being done there is politics. That station hasn't been designed with science in mind, nor can it be considered a "stepping stone" for future missions. So...
I'm all for Space tourism, but this is not the place for him to be. If we are to get into the business of space tourism, then a platform for that purpose needs to be put up there.
I agree. However, you can't fund such a project unless you can be sure you will make a profit, that is, people will want to pay and go, but you can't see that before people do pay and go, etc. Bootstrapping the process fits perfectly into the governmental space agencies' missions, IMHO.
Re:It's not just memories he's buying
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Tito In Space
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The Italian guy has never been in space, and is only there to "over see" unloading of Italian Rafaello module. It seems the only difference between Umberto Guidoni and Titto is ideological, they have about equal training, with the excpetion of the training that NASA refused to Mr. Titto.
Calm down. Umberto Guidoni is an ESA astronaut, he trained hard for this mission, and if you look at his biography, you'll see that it's his second space flight. He's not the one to compare with.
That said, I fully agree that people much less qualified than Dennis Tito have been sent on shuttle missions for purely political reasons. I don't see any reason why he shouldn't have flown.
On the other hand, the Russians haven't been too nice either, presenting all their partners with a fait accompli, totally disregarding those of NASA arguments which were valid (Canadarm2 testing is not exactly the best time for a tourist visit), not to speak of their attitude before the Service Module launch...
Actually this "dead cosmonauts" page refutes those claims that Gagarin wasn't the first man in space; the cosmonauts missing from the "doctored" pictures are accounted for with training fatalities and disciplinary actions.
Looks like the Mars defense force is going to have another target so shoot at.
But have you noticed that, unlike previous launch windows, we are launching only one spacecraft instead of two? An orbiter and no lander. But there is a lander, which was deemed "unsuitable" simply because it was too similar to Mars Polar Lander.
The only logical explanation is that this one is a decoy, and the lander will be launched as a top-secret payload, and nuke the Martian missile silos.
NASA... please, oh please, don't make any dumb mistakes.. if the mars mission fails again, the project will die. Check your units!
You can bet the units are fine. The real question is what kind of computer is there on board, is it an AI, and has it been given the same orders as HAL?
Well, If they send a few satallites to Mars equipped with communication hardware along with surveying stuff, etc- we would be able to communicate with anything there almost. And if there was multiple satallites doing certain tasks they could get the job done much quicker.
Mars Odyssey has that capability for future lander missions. Mars Climate Orbiter also had, but you know how that ended. Mars Global Surveyor can also provide a limited service, but it won't live there forever. The European Space Agency's Mars Express will also be able to act as a relay.
I think they plan on sending people to mars, that's why they are surveying... or atleast I hope they plan on it:)
Sure, they all like to dream... But IMHO it's going to be a long time before they get the credits for that.
I would be interested of learning when Nasa decides to perform similar probes on our more local cellestial partners Venus and Mercury, or any other local body for that matter.
Hard to tell, given the titanic budget overruns on the space station, which are very effective at consuming other missions' credits. Well, there had been MESSENGER, which was supposed to get into orbit around Mercury, but I guess this has been cancelled at the same time as Deep Impact. I am not aware of any project for Venus, maybe all the data from Magellan hasn't been digested yet?
Aside from that, I wouldn't call Mercury "more local" than Mars; it's more difficult to get there. Maybe Venus, but then landing there without melting/crushing/falling apart is even harder...
Slashdot Mirror
Am I missing something?
I have used Thomson TO7's at school a long, long time ago. Keys were flat but did require a non-zero force, and in fact you had to push them madly to type a character...
OTOH, that zero-force keyboard could be a step in the direction of movement-activated controls in the HHGG, where you just wave at them to activate them, with all the annoying side-effects you can imagine.
Mutt supports reading a mailbox from multiple instances of itself. I guess that would do the job, just start another xterm or use screen.
An Orion engine, if you please... Silently omitting that it would have been powered by atomic explosions so as not to upset the Greens.
Yes, it was cool!
Now, wait, there has been quite a number of probes which missed their targets; can you name any, other than NEAR, which caught up with their target after doing so at the first encounter? Perhaps Japan's Planet-B in 2003, kind of... And which performed a soft landing on said target? None so far.
Ah, but if I'm not mistaken, NEAR was operated by JPL, not NASA; perhaps that's what you meant?
NASA no longer is adapted to crash-course missions; they'll ask for 10 years and/or a few trillion dollars. Better contract with private companies...
No oxygen, no problem...
Very true. But we're looking for life anywhere we think it's likely to appear, and optimists think that it will evolve anywhere with the right conditions.
Furthermore, I recall some crazy idea mentioned in Stephen Baxter's Titan, that life could exist there, based on nitrogen, ammonia and cyanide instead of oxygen, water and carbon dioxyde... Who knows? Not us, and that's why we're trying to get a look.
It could be snowing steadily? And there's still the change in sunlight every few weeks, as Titan revolves around Saturn...
Wait, who said it would be water? It is supposed that various hydrocarbons `rain' or `snow' to the surface, definitely not water.
"Thicker" doesn't mean "higher pressure". IIRC the pressure on Titan would be around 1.5 atm; however, since it is much colder than on Earth and the atmosphere doesn't have the same composition, its density can very well be ten times as much as ours.
That could be bigger than the 1999 double Mars probe failure, Galileo's jammed antenna, or Hubble's nearsighted mirror!
Maybe offtopic, but I found this online document converter quite helpful:s e/objweb/
http://wheel.compose.cs.cmu.edu:8001/cgi-bin/brow
No problem, just replace "www" by "channel", the actual story is at http://channel.nytimes.com/aponline/obituaries/AP- Obit-Adams.html
BTW, anybody compared it to the same obituary by CNN?
Why, of course, it should be well-known that while nobody looks at a quantum computer, it can be on, off, or both, right?
We are at the first step: we know of the possibility of being in the way of a celestial body big enough to cause enormous harm. But if we are to do something about it, we have to know where they all are; and that means all of them! All the most as it is critical that we know of any possible impact years or decades in advance.
Hence the importance of Spaceguard-like projects to perform systematic surveys of near-Earth objects. That's where the priority has to lie at the beginning (and the easiest thing to do). The steps after that being to study them at close quarters, and maybe an actual deflection test, which could even prove useful if we also are to extract construction materials from them for space installations...
Yes. But three is more troublesome.
Let's see... If I'm not mistaken, there are at least two Soyuz/Progress docking ports: Zvezda's aft port, to which a Soyuz is currently attached, and Zarya's nadir port, at which the next Soyuz is to dock; other ports may be available (maybe on Zvezda) but apparently they are never used for docking (maybe thay are not equipped for automatic docking?)
Furthermore, there are two shuttle docking ports, one on Destiny, where Endeavour currently is, and another on Unity's side, but I don't think it's really usable.
So, in the current configuration (see NASA's diagram), if a Soyuz is to dock at Zarya's nadir port while a shuttle is there, it has to pass within a few meters of the shuttle's tail. Nobody really knows how this would affect the docking radars and so on.
Needless to say, the reckless Russians say it's not a problem, while paranoid NASA is scared to death of anybody even trying.
Musabayev, Baturin and Tito - hence a hypothetical other third crew member, had the latter not flown - are only staying a week or so. They are on a "taxi mission", to change the Soyuz lifeboat, which is only certified for six months in space. You can't lose much more than a few days' worth of research.
He's rebuffing that NASA myth that normal people can't fly in space, despite MsMcAuliffe's tragic death. While other people, equally or even less qualified, have already flown, that's the picture the media are sending.
As for the ISS' "serious work", well, one could argue that the main job being done there is politics. That station hasn't been designed with science in mind, nor can it be considered a "stepping stone" for future missions. So...
I agree. However, you can't fund such a project unless you can be sure you will make a profit, that is, people will want to pay and go, but you can't see that before people do pay and go, etc. Bootstrapping the process fits perfectly into the governmental space agencies' missions, IMHO.
Calm down. Umberto Guidoni is an ESA astronaut, he trained hard for this mission, and if you look at his biography, you'll see that it's his second space flight. He's not the one to compare with.
That said, I fully agree that people much less qualified than Dennis Tito have been sent on shuttle missions for purely political reasons. I don't see any reason why he shouldn't have flown.
On the other hand, the Russians haven't been too nice either, presenting all their partners with a fait accompli, totally disregarding those of NASA arguments which were valid (Canadarm2 testing is not exactly the best time for a tourist visit), not to speak of their attitude before the Service Module launch...
Actually this "dead cosmonauts" page refutes those claims that Gagarin wasn't the first man in space; the cosmonauts missing from the "doctored" pictures are accounted for with training fatalities and disciplinary actions.
Is that the same site as the one Sven Grahn debunks here?
According to this "Dead Cosmonauts" page, this is a hoax, possibly a garbled version of an Apollo-1-style fatality of an early cosmonaut.
But have you noticed that, unlike previous launch windows, we are launching only one spacecraft instead of two? An orbiter and no lander. But there is a lander, which was deemed "unsuitable" simply because it was too similar to Mars Polar Lander.
The only logical explanation is that this one is a decoy, and the lander will be launched as a top-secret payload, and nuke the Martian missile silos.
Right?
You can bet the units are fine. The real question is what kind of computer is there on board, is it an AI, and has it been given the same orders as HAL?
Mars Odyssey has that capability for future lander missions. Mars Climate Orbiter also had, but you know how that ended. Mars Global Surveyor can also provide a limited service, but it won't live there forever. The European Space Agency's Mars Express will also be able to act as a relay.
Sure, they all like to dream... But IMHO it's going to be a long time before they get the credits for that.
Hard to tell, given the titanic budget overruns on the space station, which are very effective at consuming other missions' credits. Well, there had been MESSENGER, which was supposed to get into orbit around Mercury, but I guess this has been cancelled at the same time as Deep Impact. I am not aware of any project for Venus, maybe all the data from Magellan hasn't been digested yet?
Aside from that, I wouldn't call Mercury "more local" than Mars; it's more difficult to get there. Maybe Venus, but then landing there without melting/crushing/falling apart is even harder...
According to the BBC, the rocket caught fire and the launch was aborted.