So we shouldn't do anything that takes a longer term to produce a profit?
What profit can we get from space, and what's the up-front investment going to be ?
If you're going to suggest mining asteroids, or something like that, please present a rough estimate on how to get the stuff back to earth for a price that can compete with earth mining.
Except that we know more about space than Columbus knew about the earth. We can be pretty sure that on our way to that asteroid, there's only a cold hard vacuum.
But the same problems would face the designers of a large airship. The helium may not leak through the skin itself, but it will be challenging to keep all the seams tight enough to prevent leakage. Also, after a while, microscopic cracks could develop due to flexing and bending in the wind.
The $6.45 chip you're pointing at is exactly the kind of single chip microcontroller I was talking about.
This chip won't run Linux. It doesn't even support external memories, and it doesn't have an MMU. The nice things about this chip is that is internal Flash, internal RAM, and internal peripherals, so all you need is a 3.3V power supply, and it'll run your application.
Doesn't have to be millions. Even for 10,000 pieces I would prefer a $5 chip over a $25 chip set, even if it takes a few months extra work to get the software in there.
I know, but those applications were written with the hardware limitations in mind. Similarly, the first PDPs were running C compilers and UNIX. However, my local/usr/bin/python is 2MB, and uses 350kB of RAM, and that's excluding shared libraries and OS support that it requires.
Porting Python to a microcontroller would certainly be possible, but it wouldn't be a matter of downloading the source tree, and typing 'make'. You'd probably have to rewrite most of the stuff in order to make it fit.
I find C preferable for embedded work, but if you wanted to keep the same language interface as Arduino, you could simply use an appropriate library, such as this one: http://leaflabs.com/docs/libmaple.html
The ARM is much more powerful than the Atmega in the Arduino, and easier to program due to its unified address space. It also has 8 times the RAM, and more flash. It's a good choice if you need a bit more oomph than the Arduino offers.
The BCM2835 isn't very open, though. Apparently, you need to sign an NDA to obtain a data sheet. For tinkering hobbyists, that's going to be a big hurdle.
Sure, for single users playing around, a ready-made Raspberry Pi works fine. For higher volume commercial applications, a custom board with a microcontroller is still cheaper, smaller, lower power, and simpler to design and manufacture.
And for many applications, running Linux is not an advantage.
The ship is heavier than air, helium isn't. And because of it's small size, helium can escape through the tiniest leaks. Most likely, the airship will require regular helium refills. Once helium is in the atmosphere, it's too hard to purify, and it will also leak into space.
Shouldn't a truly scientific community welcome (un-politically biased) dissent and skepticism?
Who says well informed skeptics aren't welcomed ? The only people I see that aren't welcome are plain old crackpots.
People with interesting ideas, such as Kirkby et al, who performed the CLOUD experiments at CERN do get a chance to publish papers in scientific journals, and participate in the debate.
A few other skeptics also get articles published. Of course, so far, none of these have gathered significant traction, but that's because they've been lacking as a viable alternative explanation.
Slashdot Mirror
What profit can we get from space, and what's the up-front investment going to be ?
If you're going to suggest mining asteroids, or something like that, please present a rough estimate on how to get the stuff back to earth for a price that can compete with earth mining.
The question was about manned vs robotic travel. While that's a beautiful picture, it could have been made just fine by an unmanned probe.
Of course they knew. It's pretty obvious that a railroad or a ship would be able to produce a profit pretty quickly.
Except that we know more about space than Columbus knew about the earth. We can be pretty sure that on our way to that asteroid, there's only a cold hard vacuum.
All those things has a positive return on investment. People invested in railroads and ships because they could make money moving stuff around.
Manned space travel is just a useless money pit.
What kind of worthwhile first hand accounts have we gotten from astronauts that went to the moon or to low earth orbit ?
There's not much difference between pictures from Italy taken by a remote webcam, or pictures from Italy taken by an astronaut.
Why ? Even if the helium is going to run out, we could still waste it for a few more decades.
But the same problems would face the designers of a large airship. The helium may not leak through the skin itself, but it will be challenging to keep all the seams tight enough to prevent leakage. Also, after a while, microscopic cracks could develop due to flexing and bending in the wind.
The $6.45 chip you're pointing at is exactly the kind of single chip microcontroller I was talking about.
This chip won't run Linux. It doesn't even support external memories, and it doesn't have an MMU. The nice things about this chip is that is internal Flash, internal RAM, and internal peripherals, so all you need is a 3.3V power supply, and it'll run your application.
Doesn't have to be millions. Even for 10,000 pieces I would prefer a $5 chip over a $25 chip set, even if it takes a few months extra work to get the software in there.
Which ARM capable of running a full OS from internal memory is only $1 ?
I know, but those applications were written with the hardware limitations in mind. Similarly, the first PDPs were running C compilers and UNIX. However, my local /usr/bin/python is 2MB, and uses 350kB of RAM, and that's excluding shared libraries and OS support that it requires.
Porting Python to a microcontroller would certainly be possible, but it wouldn't be a matter of downloading the source tree, and typing 'make'. You'd probably have to rewrite most of the stuff in order to make it fit.
I find C preferable for embedded work, but if you wanted to keep the same language interface as Arduino, you could simply use an appropriate library, such as this one: http://leaflabs.com/docs/libmaple.html
You mean they aren't telling you.
Paint it black ?
The ARM is much more powerful than the Atmega in the Arduino, and easier to program due to its unified address space. It also has 8 times the RAM, and more flash. It's a good choice if you need a bit more oomph than the Arduino offers.
I think it would be quite challenging to run any of the more modern languages with only 64kB RAM, and 512 kB of Flash.
The BCM2835 isn't very open, though. Apparently, you need to sign an NDA to obtain a data sheet. For tinkering hobbyists, that's going to be a big hurdle.
Sure, for single users playing around, a ready-made Raspberry Pi works fine. For higher volume commercial applications, a custom board with a microcontroller is still cheaper, smaller, lower power, and simpler to design and manufacture.
And for many applications, running Linux is not an advantage.
And most submarines are too heavy to float in the air.
Mylar party balloons will typically only hold enough helium long enough to float for a couple of days.
The ship is heavier than air, helium isn't. And because of it's small size, helium can escape through the tiniest leaks. Most likely, the airship will require regular helium refills. Once helium is in the atmosphere, it's too hard to purify, and it will also leak into space.
As long as we're in fantasy land, why not get it from the Sun ? It's a lot closer.
Who says well informed skeptics aren't welcomed ? The only people I see that aren't welcome are plain old crackpots.
People with interesting ideas, such as Kirkby et al, who performed the CLOUD experiments at CERN do get a chance to publish papers in scientific journals, and participate in the debate.
A few other skeptics also get articles published. Of course, so far, none of these have gathered significant traction, but that's because they've been lacking as a viable alternative explanation.