I can't imagine digging a hole and filling it back in would cost more than all of the engineering, permits, environmental concerns, etc of building a permanent coastal docking facility and the long term savings from not having to worry about mooring, storms, water levels & maintenance should be significant.
Not so, sadly. What you propose would cost upwards of 100s of millions of dollars, would probably be more of a permitting and environmental nightmare, and it isn't physically feasible in a lot of places (places where it is feasible already are dock yards, like Brooklyn NYC).
And then there is the experience of stepping onto a floating vessel, even at dock. It is a museum, and so a big part of the draw is the experience. It is an amazing thing to see the Massachusetts, a big hulking piece of steel, floating.
$10,000-$20,000, same as the first one. It currently costs about $10,000 per pound to get anything to low Earth orbit.. Doesn't matter if it is a wrench or a can of ham salad or toilet paper - $10,000 per lb. You have to put the thing on a pricey rocket to get it to orbit. If you go to Mars, things get even more expensive.
This work that they are doing on the "Irrelevant Space Stopgap" is the stuff that they need to figure out before we can get to Mars or beyond. We have to sort out parts and tools and make sure that the astronauts can get their hands on what they need to get the job done and go to these places. Yes, it's a lot of seemingly basic and mundane crap, but it needs to be done and it is being done on the ISS today. There isn't a Tractor Supply on Phobos (not to my knowledge, anyway).
I'm not worried about some internet group getting into the systems remotely. A Stuxnet-type attack is definitely possible, but smart protocols (no unauthorized electronics, thumb drives, etc. on site) will make this very hard. Someone will eventually goof up, but even then there are so many overrides that executing a safe shutdown is possible even if the control systems are hacked.
I think a physical on-site attack is far more probable and worrisome (terrorists with guns taking control of a plant). There is a lot of security around U.S. plants these days, but a whole lot of complacency has built up since 9/11 and a few thousand days of nothing happening takes a toll. 20 well-armed jihadis ready to give their all for Allah and their 72 virgins could probably get into a plant. What they could do from there, who knows. Simply getting into a containment and draining a reactor pool would be pretty bad if there was a significant amount of fuel stored (which is the case in a lot of old plants) but containable. They would have to figure out how to shut down and/or disable a lot of safety controls to do anything serious. The plant itself would fight them pretty hard. If they got physical access to the containment and tried to blow up stuff, could be bad but likely containable. PWRs have systems to cope with large break loss-of-coolant accidents, which is pretty much a massive steam explosion and loss of core cooling, as bad as things get.
I honestly don't think terrorists could do anything that would cause anything worse than contained damage and contamination, nothing that would harm the neighbors. However, given the FUD already circulating about nuclear power (yeah, I'm looking at you Mr. Burne) I think it would be enough for them to just take the plant and then sit around drinking coffee. Even if they did no damage at all to the plant, got mowed down by the good guys in 10 minutes, the simple act would have the world shitting bricks. And that is what terrorism is all about, stirring up unaccountable fear.
Cost to get $1 metal wrench to space station: $10,000-$20,000. Oh, and you have to wait until the next launch, which might be weeks off. Developing a capability to make your own tools in space: priceless.
If you know you are limited to a certain material, in some instances you can modify the part design to do the intended job with that material. In some instances you absolutely need a certain surface hardness or thermal properties or whatever which prevents this. But you can redesign a wrench for requisite stiffness and strength, it just won't look like a steel wrench and might be too bulky and unwieldy to use in certain places.
Most currently active reactors were designed, built and certified in the sixties and seventies. All systems in those plants are 60's or 70's electronics. Most won't even have something as modern as a pdp-8 to control stuff. Go watch the China Syndrome if you need a reminder.
Having worked in the field, I need to call bullshit on this. Umm, yeah, the China Syndrome was fiction. And yes, while many active reactors were designed, built, and initially certified (FTFW) in the 60's and 70's, they have all undertaken numerous upgrades and safety improvements since.
Hollywood and Reality are two different things (hard to tell in the U.S., but it's true!). Nuclear operators have to work very damned hard and jump through a lot of hoops to demonstrate that their plants are safe to operate. Dealing with FUD dispensed by people who think they know it all because they watched it in a movie is the reason nuclear power is so expensive relative to other alternatives. But you can spout your ignorance some more if you would like; it's a free country I'm told.
These ships are not cheap to maintain, even in museum status. The battleship U.S.S. Massachusetts, berthed at Battleship Cove, costs over $1M per year to keep in presentable and safe condition for tourists, keep the lights and ventilation on, etc.., and that doesn't count the significant volunteer work that is done for free.The pier built for it was something over $10M IIRC. That's all for a ship that doesn't go anywhere anymore. It just sits and floats. I believe Battleship Cove was offered the U.S.S. JFK (Enterprise(?) class nuclear carrier), but they simply could not afford to build the proper pier structure for a ship of that size, never mind the annual upkeep.
Just sitting in the water takes a big toll on these vessels. They need hull maintenance and paint regularly. Their hulls wear thin over the years due to corrosion, and periodic corrosion removal and repainting. If you just left them to the weather and never maintained the hulls they'd probably rot through and sink in a few decades.
Star Trek, Star Wars, The Hobbit...all potentially great story lines, but all dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, with meaningful story replaced with CGI and endless fight scenes. Each show in the original series had more plot than any of these movies. I saw about 20 minutes of the last Trek movie for free at my friends house, and I have to say that I'd probably refuse a free showing of it again.
And the movie producers wonder why they are fighting such a battle to prevent piracy? The reason is that the perceived content in these movies has an assigned monetary value of $0 by most consumers. I haven't been to a movie theater in maybe 15 years - there is simply nothing coming out of Hollywood worth the cost and effort. My DVD player has been collecting dust for years as well, as nothing now even warrants purchasing or renting a DVD.
Maybe those 14 articles were cited more because they weren't buried under the paywalls imposed by the three "elite" journals? Scientists could actually get their eyes on these articles without paying a steep subscription or per unit cost?
Maybe the elite journals actually hinder the exchange of information and ideas that science needs to move forward? Nah! Can't be!
For the size of the asteroids they are considering, the response would be similar to that of of a nuclear strike, without the radiation.
For ones the size of Chixulub, I think the plan should be to party like it was the end of the world.
Yeah, and I'd totally be able to afford and prevail in a legal battle with Google.
So this is a big tall glass of FuckNo for me. The hipster Glassholes can be the early adopters and hash through the class action suits when these things do take out a schoolyard of kids. We'll see how things settle out after that shitstorm sweeps through
It would be interesting if a couple of dozen Glassholes have problems with these cars and have the video to prove it.
Now is the time at Sprockets when Kim Jon Un jumps up and down angrily, threatens a fiery death to all the enemies of the glorious republic, and lobs some shells and missiles into the Sea of Japan.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be such an appropriate first line of code for the POTUS, in so many ways.
I can't imagine digging a hole and filling it back in would cost more than all of the engineering, permits, environmental concerns, etc of building a permanent coastal docking facility and the long term savings from not having to worry about mooring, storms, water levels & maintenance should be significant.
Not so, sadly. What you propose would cost upwards of 100s of millions of dollars, would probably be more of a permitting and environmental nightmare, and it isn't physically feasible in a lot of places (places where it is feasible already are dock yards, like Brooklyn NYC).
And then there is the experience of stepping onto a floating vessel, even at dock. It is a museum, and so a big part of the draw is the experience. It is an amazing thing to see the Massachusetts, a big hulking piece of steel, floating.
Can't we simply send the mediocre 95% of programmers out of the country? Then we would have 100% awesome programmers!
$10,000-$20,000, same as the first one. It currently costs about $10,000 per pound to get anything to low Earth orbit.. Doesn't matter if it is a wrench or a can of ham salad or toilet paper - $10,000 per lb. You have to put the thing on a pricey rocket to get it to orbit. If you go to Mars, things get even more expensive.
This work that they are doing on the "Irrelevant Space Stopgap" is the stuff that they need to figure out before we can get to Mars or beyond. We have to sort out parts and tools and make sure that the astronauts can get their hands on what they need to get the job done and go to these places. Yes, it's a lot of seemingly basic and mundane crap, but it needs to be done and it is being done on the ISS today. There isn't a Tractor Supply on Phobos (not to my knowledge, anyway).
I'm not worried about some internet group getting into the systems remotely. A Stuxnet-type attack is definitely possible, but smart protocols (no unauthorized electronics, thumb drives, etc. on site) will make this very hard. Someone will eventually goof up, but even then there are so many overrides that executing a safe shutdown is possible even if the control systems are hacked.
I think a physical on-site attack is far more probable and worrisome (terrorists with guns taking control of a plant). There is a lot of security around U.S. plants these days, but a whole lot of complacency has built up since 9/11 and a few thousand days of nothing happening takes a toll. 20 well-armed jihadis ready to give their all for Allah and their 72 virgins could probably get into a plant. What they could do from there, who knows. Simply getting into a containment and draining a reactor pool would be pretty bad if there was a significant amount of fuel stored (which is the case in a lot of old plants) but containable. They would have to figure out how to shut down and/or disable a lot of safety controls to do anything serious. The plant itself would fight them pretty hard. If they got physical access to the containment and tried to blow up stuff, could be bad but likely containable. PWRs have systems to cope with large break loss-of-coolant accidents, which is pretty much a massive steam explosion and loss of core cooling, as bad as things get.
I honestly don't think terrorists could do anything that would cause anything worse than contained damage and contamination, nothing that would harm the neighbors. However, given the FUD already circulating about nuclear power (yeah, I'm looking at you Mr. Burne) I think it would be enough for them to just take the plant and then sit around drinking coffee. Even if they did no damage at all to the plant, got mowed down by the good guys in 10 minutes, the simple act would have the world shitting bricks. And that is what terrorism is all about, stirring up unaccountable fear.
Cost to get $1 metal wrench to space station: $10,000-$20,000. Oh, and you have to wait until the next launch, which might be weeks off. Developing a capability to make your own tools in space: priceless.
If you know you are limited to a certain material, in some instances you can modify the part design to do the intended job with that material. In some instances you absolutely need a certain surface hardness or thermal properties or whatever which prevents this. But you can redesign a wrench for requisite stiffness and strength, it just won't look like a steel wrench and might be too bulky and unwieldy to use in certain places.
Most currently active reactors were designed, built and certified in the sixties and seventies. All systems in those plants are 60's or 70's electronics. Most won't even have something as modern as a pdp-8 to control stuff. Go watch the China Syndrome if you need a reminder.
Having worked in the field, I need to call bullshit on this. Umm, yeah, the China Syndrome was fiction . And yes, while many active reactors were designed, built, and initially certified (FTFW) in the 60's and 70's, they have all undertaken numerous upgrades and safety improvements since.
Hollywood and Reality are two different things (hard to tell in the U.S., but it's true!). Nuclear operators have to work very damned hard and jump through a lot of hoops to demonstrate that their plants are safe to operate. Dealing with FUD dispensed by people who think they know it all because they watched it in a movie is the reason nuclear power is so expensive relative to other alternatives. But you can spout your ignorance some more if you would like; it's a free country I'm told.
These ships are not cheap to maintain, even in museum status. The battleship U.S.S. Massachusetts, berthed at Battleship Cove, costs over $1M per year to keep in presentable and safe condition for tourists, keep the lights and ventilation on, etc.., and that doesn't count the significant volunteer work that is done for free.The pier built for it was something over $10M IIRC. That's all for a ship that doesn't go anywhere anymore. It just sits and floats. I believe Battleship Cove was offered the U.S.S. JFK (Enterprise(?) class nuclear carrier), but they simply could not afford to build the proper pier structure for a ship of that size, never mind the annual upkeep.
Just sitting in the water takes a big toll on these vessels. They need hull maintenance and paint regularly. Their hulls wear thin over the years due to corrosion, and periodic corrosion removal and repainting. If you just left them to the weather and never maintained the hulls they'd probably rot through and sink in a few decades.
So we should be racing for Frist Mod! instead?
How can the nation that brought us Locke also be bringing us this?
It is the same nation that gave us George Orwell. Sadly they seem to have taken 1984 to be an instruction manual vs. a work of fiction.
Sure, cameras cut down on the use of force by the police.
It also cuts down on the incidence rate of perpetrators claiming they got roughed up by the police in an attempt to get out of their charges.
Dude, what do you think Slashdot is for?
Lucky bastard; I have the choice of Comcast or...Comcast. How the fuck is this not a monopoly, again?
...is that enough people will pay to see them to make them look like a good idea. CGI shiny all over, not a hint of story.
Mel Brooks FTW
Star Trek, Star Wars, The Hobbit...all potentially great story lines, but all dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, with meaningful story replaced with CGI and endless fight scenes. Each show in the original series had more plot than any of these movies. I saw about 20 minutes of the last Trek movie for free at my friends house, and I have to say that I'd probably refuse a free showing of it again.
And the movie producers wonder why they are fighting such a battle to prevent piracy? The reason is that the perceived content in these movies has an assigned monetary value of $0 by most consumers. I haven't been to a movie theater in maybe 15 years - there is simply nothing coming out of Hollywood worth the cost and effort. My DVD player has been collecting dust for years as well, as nothing now even warrants purchasing or renting a DVD.
Maybe those 14 articles were cited more because they weren't buried under the paywalls imposed by the three "elite" journals? Scientists could actually get their eyes on these articles without paying a steep subscription or per unit cost?
Maybe the elite journals actually hinder the exchange of information and ideas that science needs to move forward? Nah! Can't be!
For the size of the asteroids they are considering, the response would be similar to that of of a nuclear strike, without the radiation. For ones the size of Chixulub, I think the plan should be to party like it was the end of the world.
Lazy cat owners bitching about DRM in their robotic kitty box? This is a 1st world problem if there ever was one.
Yeah, and I'd totally be able to afford and prevail in a legal battle with Google.
So this is a big tall glass of FuckNo for me. The hipster Glassholes can be the early adopters and hash through the class action suits when these things do take out a schoolyard of kids. We'll see how things settle out after that shitstorm sweeps through
It would be interesting if a couple of dozen Glassholes have problems with these cars and have the video to prove it.
Did they check to see if North Korea was plugged in?
So if I buy a production Google car without controls, and the vehicle runs off the road and kills 20 kids in a playground, who is at fault?
A. Me (for owning it)?
B. Google (for shoddy programming)?
C. The state (for allowing driverless cars)?
D. The Kids (because they should have gotten out of the way)?
Related question - do I need to carry insurance to use one of these cars as I am not driving, I'm merely riding?
Essentially, what is the model for this type of vehicle - am I the 'driver', or am I 'passenger' (like on a bus or taxi)?
If they can sort this out maybe I'll buy one someday.
Now is the time at Sprockets when Kim Jon Un jumps up and down angrily, threatens a fiery death to all the enemies of the glorious republic, and lobs some shells and missiles into the Sea of Japan.
Is it a single html page saying "Hail Leader!" with animated gifs of the North Korean army marching?