They are really starting to mess hard with the core structure of the internet. But of course, these pirates do not care. They get their thrills, and as usual someone else gets to sort out the mess later on.
There, fixed that for you.
Seriously, Slashdot forgets that it's the pirates that are legally in the wrong.
You don't even understand the thing that you're bashing. Memorial Day is about honoring those who died in battle, not everyone in the military.
As much as it pains me to do so... I have to say that you're wrong and he's correct.
The historical reason for Memorial Day was to honor those who fell in service, but over the years it has expanded. Over the years it grew to encompass all service members who have died including veterans and retirees that passed quietly in their beds decades after their service. In particular, over the last decade is has further expanded in the public mind to include living servicembers and veterans as well.
The US Navy asked the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company to build submarines, a task far beyond their existing capabilities, but assured them that the Electric Boat Company, with the only shipyard in the country capable of building submarines, would provide plans and whatever assistance they would need.
This isn't completely true... Electric Boat was the only private shipyard building submarines, but Mare Island Naval Shipyard and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard were building them too.
'It appears from the results obtained at Manitowoc that given a set of good plans, competent engineers and skilled workman can follow them and build what is called for even though it might be very much more sophisticated than anything they have built before,' writes Rear Admiral William T. Nelson.
Admiral Nelson considerably oversimplifies a complex situation. EB provided more than just plans... They also provided experienced engineers and trained workmen to bootstrap Manitowoc's efforts. In the early stages, they sent parts and components from EB to Manitowoc as well. Manitowoc also sent people to EB for training and experience. Engineers and experienced Naval Constructors came from BUSHIPS in Washington D.C and Portsmouth and Mare Island Naval Shipyards.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled rants about the military-industrial complex and anti-military sentiment. /submarinehistorypedant.
You say that like they'll be building guns out of steel pipe and ball bearings. But the truth is, making guns in a new caliber and making ammunition to match is easy enough that some hobbyists do it in their garage.
That's making one, or at best a small handful of weapons that will babied on the range. It's cool and all... But it's not building weapons by the gross lot capable of withstanding field conditions, being maintained by the lowest common denominator, etc... That's a very different problem.
I Am Not A Military Expert
Yet, that doesn't stop you from pontificating at length.
The Dragon spacecraft is the first vehicle which has been built primarily with private funds, where the "ownership" of the vehicle does not belong to a government agency.
Wrong. There's a whole raft load of satellites on orbit built entirely with private funds, launched on private boosters by private companies, with no "ownership" whatsoever by any government agency.
It is revolutionary from the standpoint that the government didn't lay down the requirements for what they wanted (or just designed the item themselves) in a space vehicle, just ISS interface requirements. SpaceX built what they wanted without NASA or DoD people sticking their noses in.
That's the geek urban legend. And it's utter bullshit.
Nothing flies from the Cape that doesn't meet DoD safety requirements and (for commercial flights, of which there are many) FAA requirements. Nothing docks to the ISS that doesn't meet NASA safety requirements. Etc... etc... The DoD, and NASA, and the FAA, and the State Dept, and... well, a whole raftload stuck their noses in.
Since then he has goofed around with sports teams and had a bunch of failed business ventures. Apparently on Slashdot this makes you a technology genius who's every blog post is front page material.
No, it's much simpler than that. Slashdot hasn't had a Two Minute Hate yet today, and this article is pure gold for that - it let's Slashdotters both rail at Facebook *and* worship Google in the same post. Shame the editors couldn't find some some tripe somewhere that tied in Microsoft or Apple for the trifecta.
Every ship is manned until it is decommissioned. One third of the crew is on board at all times to stand security watches and maintain the ship.
The third of the crew requirement is so they can man at least one watch fully and get underway. But they're not getting underway when completely shutdown, in the shipyard, in drydock, with the reactor de-fueled, at night... under those conditions, there would have been only a handful or so of crew onboard. Maybe three forward, four aft, and two topside. The balance of the duty section would have been asleep on the residence barge or in the barracks.
For that matter, there's probably not even a full crew assigned or present at the moment. When a boat goes in the yards, they transfer non-essential and junior personnel away. Of the crew that remains, a fair portion will be away at schools or temporarily assigned to other boats either for experience or to keep their skills sharp.
(Been there done that when we brought the 655 out of overhaul at Newport News.)
Remember the "oversight" was exactly the reason for the Columbia disaster , the manager types/overhead overruled the engineers.
No, the engineers spent over a decade (from the time the leaks past the O-rings were discovered in the early prototypes of the SRB's) that the backup O-ring made it 'safe'. When flight after flight landed with damage to the primary O-ring... the engineers insisted that (whether or not the backup was damages) since no full scale leakage had occurred, it was "safe enough". Eventually, and without completely understanding the cause of the leakage (which was joint rotation, not cold [1]), the engineers decides it was "safe enough, but we'd better get a new design in the works [2]".
On the evening of Jan 27th and in the early hours of the 28th - they didn't override the engineers, the asked the engineers to explain why they were changing their story. The engineers couldn't, and so management instead went ahead with the launch based on years of experience and engineers asserting that it was "safe".
Big example of removing overhead the CEO is also the Chief Designer , unlike other aerospace companies where they have advance degrees in management.
I hate to burst your bubble - but Musk's graduate degree is in business. He only has a bachelors in physics, and no aerospace experience or qualifications whatsoever.
[1] The worst cases of O-ring damage pre-Challenger occurred at temperatures in the 70's - well within the operating specs.
[2] How do you think they had a new design all ready to present to the Rogers Commission just days after the accident?
There's a very legitimate question of jurisdiction. The U.S. has no legal authority over the moon, any more than they do venus or mars.
They have no legal authority over territory, but they do have legal authority over their property (I.E. the physical objects left on the moon).
I'd say something which has been left unattended for 50+ years would qualify as "abandoned"
The law disagree with you. In general, government property remains government property forever unless legally and specifically abandoned. (I.E. it doesn't happen by accident). In particular, various treaties regarding space have specified that the responsible governments retain ownership in perpetuity. (Mostly to prevent them from wriggling out of responsibility if there is damage caused by said property.)
So no there is no legitimate question of jurisdiction, it's part and parcel of international law.
Either that or Elon Musk will get it all to auction on eBay
The moment he does Federal Marshals will be on his doorstep. NASA and the US Government may not be able to do much about it on the moon (mostly because it's a legal grey area), but it *is* government property and once it's on Earth they can do something about it (and the law on that is pretty much black-and-white and widely accepted in the civilized world).
They abandoned that stuff out there on a rock in space. They have no intention of doing anything further with it and have no authority over it. How is it not salvage to pick up some leftovers?
Because there's a whole lot more to salvage law than "finders keepers". In particular, property doesn't become "abandoned" by default, it has to be specifically pronounced as being abandoned. They don't need authority or intention, they just have not take the legal step of abandoning it.
The US government, like pretty much all governments in the civilized world, has a firm policy of never taking that step. It was under this legal theory that the USN took custody of the wreck of the Hunley, since the US government was the successor to the CSA government and neither had ever legally abandoned the wreck.
Because a laser range finder fired from Earth has a spot size tens of miles across by the time it reaches the moon, and only a handful of photons from any given pulse make it back to a detector on Earth. And because a satellite in lunar orbit moves too fast to track a given sub-meter (approaching centimeter really) spot on the lunar surface.
Yet, unlike Chernobyl, Fukushima is still far from over
Chernobyl isn't exactly over either - there's still contamination being found in both farm and game animals. They're also building a new shelter over the reactor as the original one is in danger of collapse. Permanent residence is still prohibited near the reactor complex due to contamination.
The government has worked with private agencies pretty much since it's founding. Heck, a private company handle assembling and dissembling nuclear weapons for the government.
If launch becomes less expensive - then design margins widen, you can make stuff heavier, incorporate more spare subsystems, launch more consumables,... all in the same budget.
That's the theory as espoused by people who know pretty much nothing about the issues. The reality is very different however.
For example, as compared to the Shuttle a payload launched on Falcon has enormous weight penalties against it before it even gets off the cocktail napkin. (To replace all the support and services provided by the Shuttle that aren't provided by Falcon.) And given the great expense of the subsystems, it's very unlikely they'll add more spares - especially because that adds to maintenance and support workload. (And the educated will note they don't do that on Earth in extreme environments either.)
You do not simply design the same way, and fly exactly the same hardware.
I never said you did - I said you're ignorant of the ways the differences will manifest. There's a difference.
Much of the expense comes from lightening everything.
That's the article of faith among the faithful. And it's wrong - because the environment, the need for extreme reliability, etc... etc... all play a large role too, and they aren't going away.
The 'shirt sleeve' environment of pressurised craft is in many ways pretty similar to earth.
In a universe where all the equipment is inside the pressurized volume... that's relevant. But we don't live inside such a universe, and likely never will.
If a kilo of wasted mass costs you not $10K, but $1K - suddenly a _lot_ of the time it becomes much cheaper to buy a commercial part, and test it, rather than spending $20K to design a fresh part - where that is sensible if you've got only one launch opportunity in the budget, and you're screwed if it doesn't work.
In a universe where lowered launch costs don't mean lower budgets and remove the constraints of reliability, vibration resistance, extreme environments, atmosphere and environmental restraints (I.E. no outgassing, high fire resistance) etc... etc... That would be a true statement. In reality, it's cloud cuckoo land fantasy. Weight is far, far from the only constraint.
Also, a rather large amount of time is spent shielded by either the moon or the earth, roughly 50%.
Nope. Cosmic rays come from all directions, so the moon provides insignificant shielding - just the dose from the visible sky in enough to cause problems. And speaking of the visible sky, the Earth covers something less than a fraction of a percent of it... so no noticeable shielding there either.
In the past, the vehicles have been turned over to NASA (or other relevant space agency)
Only if they were purchased by NASA (or other relevant space agency). Otherwise, they (or their launch capacity) went to the whoever was writing the checks. NASA isn't the only game in town, and hasn't been for decades. Private vehicles carrying private payloads have been taking off for decades.
My feeling is social sites are like restaurants. They have a fashion clock. Players in the F&B biz sell a popular restaurant after 18 months. They know that it will come off the boil. The in crowd will move on.
That's true for the percentage of restaurants that require the 'in' crowd to be profitable.* That's not true of all restaurants. That's not true of *most* restaurants.
Facebook will be history in five years.
Slashdot has been saying that ever since Facebook debuted - eight years ago.
*Generally because they're over tightly tied to a theme or a trend. They literally can't with the times without cannibalizing themselves. Most don't need to, and sail along for years or decades if they survive the first year or so.
This is arguing that you need a helicopter to compete in construction, you can't make do with much cheaper trucks.
The level of illogical thinking required to believe that simply boggles the mind.
Technically the shuttle is more flexible. If, two people offer to build you a house - one has a helicopter, one has a truck - are you going to pick the one that ends up with the house needing to be custom-made out of lightweight materials at vast cost...
Since the 'house' in question requires the same lightweight materials and custom building in either case... well, there's no reason to chose between one or the other on that basis. Your comparison also fails because launch costs, while not quite down in the noise, don't dominate "house" construction in space anyhow (because of the aforementioned lightweight materials and custom construction).
That's an interesting idea, but there is no need for it. Once a Soyuz is up, it doesn't cost any more to get down.
On the other hand, they've already had to perform unplanned on orbit maintenance to a Soyuz...
On the other hand, this will mean that we will now have a decent downmass capability.
We had decent downmass capacity - far exceeding that of Dragon.
In the end, the one thing the Shuttle could do that Crew Dragon or Falcon Heavy won't ever be able to do is return full-size modules. It will only be able to return what you can stuff through the hatch, but that's not too bad of a limitation.
Falcon/Dragon cannot provide "free" (byproduct) water to the station. Nor, as currently configured and contracted for and with current plans, can it provide reboost capability. (Or, yes it may be able to do it in the misty future, but that's going to be expensive and it currently not on anyone's radar.) It's currently, and for the foreseeable future, very limited in the amount and configuration of unpressurized cargo it can deliver. (Again, future improvements to that are currently not on that radar.) Nor can it deliver specialized equipment and trained operators in a single flight. (Which increases your total program risk.) Etc... etc...
The Shuttle was a full sized crew cab pickup truck - Falcon/Dragon is a subcompact, and is never going to be anything but. Falcon Heavy is a stack of power points and not currently on NASA's radar.
Let me put it in perspective: the Falcon Heavy is projected to put cargo into orbit for 3% of the cost of the shuttle (~1/30th the cost).
On the other hand, the Falcon Heavy has a fraction of the capabilities of the Shuttle. It has no ability to return payloads. It has no ability to launch operators and payloads on the same flight. It requires the payloads to provide all of their own support. Etc... Etc...
In fact, the only way for a Falcon Heavy based program to even fractionally replace a Shuttle based system is for the Falcon to supplying a space station... Which increases your fixed costs (as the station must be supplied and supported whether or not it's in use), and limits you to payloads and projects suitable to the station's construction and orbit. (If your station is in a 40 degree orbit and you need a 60 or 20 degree orbit, you're screwed.) On top of that, since the major costs of a station aren't the launches required to put it in place... you don't save as much money as you might think.
It's not just about cost, it's also about capabilities.
What the article does not note is that Tesla didn't really claim to have invented alternating current
Which should neither come as a surprise, nor be the subject of criticism. The article wasn't about Tesla's claims, but rather it was about the mistaken beliefs widely held *about* Tesla's claims. Yes, Tesla accomplished much, but not nearly so much as his legions of fan(atic)s and acolytes would have you believe.
Judaism has a concept of a "geder", a "fence" around a law to prevent oneself from getting close to violating it.
Catholics have the same general concept, hence they pray that they "not be lead into temptation". The idea is, as you say, to avoid encountering a situation where temptation may arise to prevent having to deal with that temptation face on. A lot of religions have this "drive 5mph under and you'll never get a speeding ticket" mentality.
I suspect that these folks are viewing filtering software as a geder.
And despite what the more excitable posters here think - they're not trying to impose it on others.
Slashdot Mirror
There, fixed that for you.
Seriously, Slashdot forgets that it's the pirates that are legally in the wrong.
Nit: That's not one class of subs, that's 25 subs out of two classes (Gato and Balao) built by a single shipyard.
At it's peak, the US Submarine Force in WII numbered over 250, including 77 Gato's and 128 Balao's.
As much as it pains me to do so... I have to say that you're wrong and he's correct.
The historical reason for Memorial Day was to honor those who fell in service, but over the years it has expanded. Over the years it grew to encompass all service members who have died including veterans and retirees that passed quietly in their beds decades after their service. In particular, over the last decade is has further expanded in the public mind to include living servicembers and veterans as well.
(And, FWIW, I'm a vet too.)
This isn't completely true... Electric Boat was the only private shipyard building submarines, but Mare Island Naval Shipyard and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard were building them too.
Admiral Nelson considerably oversimplifies a complex situation. EB provided more than just plans... They also provided experienced engineers and trained workmen to bootstrap Manitowoc's efforts. In the early stages, they sent parts and components from EB to Manitowoc as well. Manitowoc also sent people to EB for training and experience. Engineers and experienced Naval Constructors came from BUSHIPS in Washington D.C and Portsmouth and Mare Island Naval Shipyards.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled rants about the military-industrial complex and anti-military sentiment.
/submarinehistorypedant.
That's making one, or at best a small handful of weapons that will babied on the range. It's cool and all... But it's not building weapons by the gross lot capable of withstanding field conditions, being maintained by the lowest common denominator, etc... That's a very different problem.
Yet, that doesn't stop you from pontificating at length.
Wrong. There's a whole raft load of satellites on orbit built entirely with private funds, launched on private boosters by private companies, with no "ownership" whatsoever by any government agency.
That's the geek urban legend. And it's utter bullshit.
Nothing flies from the Cape that doesn't meet DoD safety requirements and (for commercial flights, of which there are many) FAA requirements. Nothing docks to the ISS that doesn't meet NASA safety requirements. Etc... etc... The DoD, and NASA, and the FAA, and the State Dept, and... well, a whole raftload stuck their noses in.
No, it's much simpler than that. Slashdot hasn't had a Two Minute Hate yet today, and this article is pure gold for that - it let's Slashdotters both rail at Facebook *and* worship Google in the same post. Shame the editors couldn't find some some tripe somewhere that tied in Microsoft or Apple for the trifecta.
The third of the crew requirement is so they can man at least one watch fully and get underway. But they're not getting underway when completely shutdown, in the shipyard, in drydock, with the reactor de-fueled, at night... under those conditions, there would have been only a handful or so of crew onboard. Maybe three forward, four aft, and two topside. The balance of the duty section would have been asleep on the residence barge or in the barracks.
For that matter, there's probably not even a full crew assigned or present at the moment. When a boat goes in the yards, they transfer non-essential and junior personnel away. Of the crew that remains, a fair portion will be away at schools or temporarily assigned to other boats either for experience or to keep their skills sharp.
(Been there done that when we brought the 655 out of overhaul at Newport News.)
No, the engineers spent over a decade (from the time the leaks past the O-rings were discovered in the early prototypes of the SRB's) that the backup O-ring made it 'safe'. When flight after flight landed with damage to the primary O-ring... the engineers insisted that (whether or not the backup was damages) since no full scale leakage had occurred, it was "safe enough". Eventually, and without completely understanding the cause of the leakage (which was joint rotation, not cold [1]), the engineers decides it was "safe enough, but we'd better get a new design in the works [2]".
On the evening of Jan 27th and in the early hours of the 28th - they didn't override the engineers, the asked the engineers to explain why they were changing their story. The engineers couldn't, and so management instead went ahead with the launch based on years of experience and engineers asserting that it was "safe".
I hate to burst your bubble - but Musk's graduate degree is in business. He only has a bachelors in physics, and no aerospace experience or qualifications whatsoever.
[1] The worst cases of O-ring damage pre-Challenger occurred at temperatures in the 70's - well within the operating specs.
[2] How do you think they had a new design all ready to present to the Rogers Commission just days after the accident?
They have no legal authority over territory, but they do have legal authority over their property (I.E. the physical objects left on the moon).
The law disagree with you. In general, government property remains government property forever unless legally and specifically abandoned. (I.E. it doesn't happen by accident). In particular, various treaties regarding space have specified that the responsible governments retain ownership in perpetuity. (Mostly to prevent them from wriggling out of responsibility if there is damage caused by said property.)
So no there is no legitimate question of jurisdiction, it's part and parcel of international law.
The moment he does Federal Marshals will be on his doorstep. NASA and the US Government may not be able to do much about it on the moon (mostly because it's a legal grey area), but it *is* government property and once it's on Earth they can do something about it (and the law on that is pretty much black-and-white and widely accepted in the civilized world).
Because there's a whole lot more to salvage law than "finders keepers". In particular, property doesn't become "abandoned" by default, it has to be specifically pronounced as being abandoned. They don't need authority or intention, they just have not take the legal step of abandoning it.
The US government, like pretty much all governments in the civilized world, has a firm policy of never taking that step. It was under this legal theory that the USN took custody of the wreck of the Hunley, since the US government was the successor to the CSA government and neither had ever legally abandoned the wreck.
Because a laser range finder fired from Earth has a spot size tens of miles across by the time it reaches the moon, and only a handful of photons from any given pulse make it back to a detector on Earth. And because a satellite in lunar orbit moves too fast to track a given sub-meter (approaching centimeter really) spot on the lunar surface.
Chernobyl isn't exactly over either - there's still contamination being found in both farm and game animals. They're also building a new shelter over the reactor as the original one is in danger of collapse. Permanent residence is still prohibited near the reactor complex due to contamination.
The government has worked with private agencies pretty much since it's founding. Heck, a private company handle assembling and dissembling nuclear weapons for the government.
That's the theory as espoused by people who know pretty much nothing about the issues. The reality is very different however.
For example, as compared to the Shuttle a payload launched on Falcon has enormous weight penalties against it before it even gets off the cocktail napkin. (To replace all the support and services provided by the Shuttle that aren't provided by Falcon.) And given the great expense of the subsystems, it's very unlikely they'll add more spares - especially because that adds to maintenance and support workload. (And the educated will note they don't do that on Earth in extreme environments either.)
I never said you did - I said you're ignorant of the ways the differences will manifest. There's a difference.
That's the article of faith among the faithful. And it's wrong - because the environment, the need for extreme reliability, etc... etc... all play a large role too, and they aren't going away.
In a universe where all the equipment is inside the pressurized volume... that's relevant. But we don't live inside such a universe, and likely never will.
In a universe where lowered launch costs don't mean lower budgets and remove the constraints of reliability, vibration resistance, extreme environments, atmosphere and environmental restraints (I.E. no outgassing, high fire resistance) etc... etc... That would be a true statement. In reality, it's cloud cuckoo land fantasy. Weight is far, far from the only constraint.
Nope. Cosmic rays come from all directions, so the moon provides insignificant shielding - just the dose from the visible sky in enough to cause problems. And speaking of the visible sky, the Earth covers something less than a fraction of a percent of it... so no noticeable shielding there either.
Only if they were purchased by NASA (or other relevant space agency). Otherwise, they (or their launch capacity) went to the whoever was writing the checks. NASA isn't the only game in town, and hasn't been for decades. Private vehicles carrying private payloads have been taking off for decades.
That's true for the percentage of restaurants that require the 'in' crowd to be profitable.* That's not true of all restaurants. That's not true of *most* restaurants.
Slashdot has been saying that ever since Facebook debuted - eight years ago.
*Generally because they're over tightly tied to a theme or a trend. They literally can't with the times without cannibalizing themselves. Most don't need to, and sail along for years or decades if they survive the first year or so.
The level of illogical thinking required to believe that simply boggles the mind.
Since the 'house' in question requires the same lightweight materials and custom building in either case... well, there's no reason to chose between one or the other on that basis. Your comparison also fails because launch costs, while not quite down in the noise, don't dominate "house" construction in space anyhow (because of the aforementioned lightweight materials and custom construction).
On the other hand, they've already had to perform unplanned on orbit maintenance to a Soyuz...
We had decent downmass capacity - far exceeding that of Dragon.
Falcon/Dragon cannot provide "free" (byproduct) water to the station. Nor, as currently configured and contracted for and with current plans, can it provide reboost capability. (Or, yes it may be able to do it in the misty future, but that's going to be expensive and it currently not on anyone's radar.) It's currently, and for the foreseeable future, very limited in the amount and configuration of unpressurized cargo it can deliver. (Again, future improvements to that are currently not on that radar.) Nor can it deliver specialized equipment and trained operators in a single flight. (Which increases your total program risk.) Etc... etc...
The Shuttle was a full sized crew cab pickup truck - Falcon/Dragon is a subcompact, and is never going to be anything but. Falcon Heavy is a stack of power points and not currently on NASA's radar.
On the other hand, the Falcon Heavy has a fraction of the capabilities of the Shuttle. It has no ability to return payloads. It has no ability to launch operators and payloads on the same flight. It requires the payloads to provide all of their own support. Etc... Etc...
In fact, the only way for a Falcon Heavy based program to even fractionally replace a Shuttle based system is for the Falcon to supplying a space station... Which increases your fixed costs (as the station must be supplied and supported whether or not it's in use), and limits you to payloads and projects suitable to the station's construction and orbit. (If your station is in a 40 degree orbit and you need a 60 or 20 degree orbit, you're screwed.) On top of that, since the major costs of a station aren't the launches required to put it in place... you don't save as much money as you might think.
It's not just about cost, it's also about capabilities.
Which should neither come as a surprise, nor be the subject of criticism. The article wasn't about Tesla's claims, but rather it was about the mistaken beliefs widely held *about* Tesla's claims. Yes, Tesla accomplished much, but not nearly so much as his legions of fan(atic)s and acolytes would have you believe.
Catholics have the same general concept, hence they pray that they "not be lead into temptation". The idea is, as you say, to avoid encountering a situation where temptation may arise to prevent having to deal with that temptation face on. A lot of religions have this "drive 5mph under and you'll never get a speeding ticket" mentality.
And despite what the more excitable posters here think - they're not trying to impose it on others.