The designs I saw come out of this workshop, which of course are very preliminary, did indeed have direct return vehicles, but the goal is also to get the "mothership" back to Earth so that it can be used for the next asteroid mission, and the next, and the next.
Getting the "mothership" back into orbit is going to require an enormous amount of fuel to slow down, which means that fuel has to be boosted to the target, slowed down at the target, and boosted back towards Earth... That's going to be very expensive to support. Refitting the craft after each trip even more so.
""Brian Wilcox, a JPL roboticist, spoke at a NASA workshop about the possibility of detaching one of the International Space Station's modules and using it as the primary living space for astronauts on a trip to an asteroid."
And, with sufficient wing area, pigs could fly.
Seriously, Tranquility (Node 3) would require such major reconstruction to do this that they might as well build a new module. Not only is it not built for the thermal, radiation, and micrometeorite enviroment beyond LEO... It's also not built to take the stresses of being boosted out of orbit. (Module's launched by the Shuttle 'hang' by their sides, not sit on their tails.)
Nor can it really be rebuilt on orbit. When the shuttle goes out of service, we lose the ability to boost the racks that fit Tranquility's existing structure. We also lose the ability to resupply the US airlock, which means we won't have the capacity to support the spacewalks such a conversion would require.
The government, of course, hides behind the claim that "we're primarily concerned with the safety of our troops and of civilians" while refusing to accept the offer to help redact information. If the safety of those people was such a concern to them, they would take any opportunity to redact those names given, even if it comes at some sacrifice to their principals (aiding Wikileaks in redaction).
Why should the Pentagon help with the redaction? I seriously cannot understand this attitude - that's like blaming me for being robbed when a criminal holds a gun on my while another holds a knife to my wife's throat to force me to give up the combination to my safe.
While I clearly have concern over the safety of persons who may be innocent, it's also vital to note that Assange does not (presumably) work for the government in any way. If they don't want information to be leaked, they should protect their information in the first place.
I bet you blame rape victims for being provocatively dressed and believe they 'actually wanted it' too.
In other words, you're either bullshit grandstanding, cutting and pasting what someone else has written, or just fucking ignorant.
Keep in mind that the Constitution of the United States declares treaties signed and ratified by the federal government the "supreme Law of the land".
You not only have no fucking idea what the Geneva conventions do or do not cover, to who they do or don't apply, you also have no fucking idea which parts the US is or is not a signatory to.
I think the writer is referring to the early days of the "FOSS as political statement" movement, which came some time after Stallman's "FOSS as philosophical statement" movement.
And for some reason, the best part about TOS was gone from every Rick Berman Star Trek that followed: the background jibber-jabber on the bridge, that stuff about "gravity is down to point-eight" that is heard to make the bridge sound like there's A LOT going on... All the other bridges are dead-quiet, even the "earlier" NX-01 Enterprise.
Having been on actual ship's bridges underway - they generally *are* dead quiet other than when absolutely necessary. They're not places where you want background distractions.
TOS bridge and engineering are prime examples of something that looks pretty cool to the uninitiated, but makes those with experience collapse in laughter.
I dunno, it seems to me the iPad and the PADD aren't particularly analogous. iPads are interactive application frameworks; PADDs were usually only used exactly the same way paper is
Usually, but not always. ISTR them being used interactively during engineering diagnostics and for data entry in Sickbay.
I do recall an interview in the early 90's where Micheal Okuda stated that a PADD could act like any main display [like the ones on the bridge] and thus, in theory, one could operate the entire ship while strolling down a corridor with a PADD in hand. My copies of the technical manual have long since been consigned to the basement, but I believe those [theoretical] capabilities were discussed there as well.
It's amazing how much you can 'predict' given nearly a quarter century of hindsight. Not to mention that much of this technology is older than Okuda & Co. would have you believe.
I saw my first flat screen display with software configurable buttons in 1982, as this was the interface used to operate the simulation computers that drove the trainers for the MK88/2 and MK98/0 (Trident Backfit and Trident-I respectively) missile fire and launch control systems. (Though the screens were activated via a stylus rather than true touch screens.) The systems weren't new even then, they were at least six years old. (And thus designed even earlier.) For that matter, the many of the 'buttons' on the fire control console themselves (whose design dates to the early/mid 1970's) were actually miniaturized slide projectors that could display different messages under software control. Heck, the MK88/1 Poseidon system could (under software control) display different colors on a single button (though not different message text as the 88/2 and 98 could) as far back as the late 60's.
There's also sonar and torpedo fire control equipment from the same (early 70's) era with software configurable interfaces.
For that matter, as early as my VIC-20, the buttons on the keyboard could do various things depending on the software that was running at the time.
Thus increasing the ease of seizing their property under the guise of a Coast Guard inspection/quaranteen, firing on them at sea, sinking them and blaming it on pirates/terrorists, etc? Sounds like a good plan to me.
Well, setting aside the matter of a government coming after you no matter what (a risk on land or on a ship, and one vastly overstated), there's a whole raft load of regulatory risks that come with operating a ship that a land based server farm doesn't have.
First off, if you plan on going from port-to-port, your ship needs to be registered with one of the registration bodies recognized by the host nation(s) - like Lloyd's. No registration means no insurance and no civilized nation will allow you to moor. An oceangoing vessel will require a Master and a certain number of crewmen - and their tickets damn well better be current when the local harbor authority, coast guard, or the registration agent stops by. You'll need lifeboats and lifejackets, and the crew better know how to use them. You'll need firefighting gear (up to standards and certified) and your crew will need to know how to use it. (And the above mentioned agencies will look, both during their regular inspections and during surprise inspections.) Etc... etc...
It's a lot different and a lot more expensive than a building on land.
Other than 'land is expensive' which is hard to believe since you can build a datacenter more or less anywhere on cheap land OUTSIDE of major cities...
Sure, land and buildings are expensive - but that expense is trivial compared to the cost of building and operating a ship. You're operating in a marine environment, and that means corrosion and a constant battle against it. That means algae and seaweed growing in your heat exchangers, or worse yet barnacles and clams/mussels/oysters taking up residence inside them. That means storms not only threaten you directly like they do a building, but they also strain your mooring lines and shore service connections (which will require routine maintenance). Etc... etc...
There's also tons of training, safety, insurance, and environmental regulations to contend with - and in most Western nations (I.E. those most likely to have the infrastructure you'll need to hook your ship to), the various regulatory bodies have no sympathy and no compunctions about shutting you down and/or seizing your vessel.
Not to mention that anyone who thinks land is expensive has never paid for mooring. Look at a map of any harbor and compare how much waterfront there is with how much land there is - waterfront is essentially one dimensional, while land is two dimensional. Worse yet, building new mooring is expensive. There's a whole raft load of environmental (much more so than on land) regulations on top of the zoning regulations.
This might work in an area with a lot of disused piers and infrastructure... But everywhere I'm familiar with in the US they're either already at capacity (and straining for more), or have repurposed this disused piers to new purposes. (Where they haven't demolished them outright either for new construction for new purposes or for habitat restoration.)
This is not "just an engineering problem," as you so glibly assert. There are fundamental technologies that we lack.
If you think you can repeal having to spend energy to transport energy, get in line at the Nobel ceremonies right behind the guys with their perpetual motion machines. (Or, in other words, like a lot of space fans you haven't a fucking clue what you're talking about.)
"there isn't anywhere to go in space" -- have you been there? Interesting that you should use the colonisation of the Americas as an example, since the first European expeditions were simply exploring to see what was there -- look at the ROI they acheived!
Don't have to go there to see there isn't anything there - I can see it plainly from my backyard every night. It's a vast emptiness. Sure, there's a few tiny islands, but unlike North America - there isn't a damn thing there worth bringing back and the cost of supporting any people you send there is prohibitive of any trade. Protip: colonization depends on economics. (Or, in other words, like a lot of space fans you haven't a fucking clue what you're talking about.)
Digg's and Slashdot's faults are pretty much the same: they use a moderation system that doesn't allow the end-user to filter out bad moderators.
In some ways, that's a feature rather than a bug. If this 'solution' were implemented, pretty soon most discussions would consist of people who agree with each other sitting around around agreeing with each other.
That's what I see on most blogs I visit, and why the number of blogs I visit is steadily declining, people agreeing with each other and driving away counter viewpoints with flames and bans. Despite it's flaws and the prevalence of groupthink, Slashdot does a better job than any other site of letting well written counterpoints bubble to the surface while moderating the outright trolls and flamers down into oblivion.
Well and good, but where do we get the energy to boost enough humans and tools into space to create a viable life-supporting ecosystem elsewhere?
Use electricity to create liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. No, really, it's just that simple.
Hawking is a physicist, so I'm a bit surprised to hear him proposing something like this without explaining where the lift capacity is going to come from. There's a reason why Pan Am never began the orbital shuttle service depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey (aside, of course, from the fact that they went out of business).
Well, now you're moving the goalposts - first you ask about energy and then you blame it on lift capacity, which isn't the same thing at all. But the answer is equally simple - if we need that much lift capacity, we simply build that much lift capacity. As with energy, it's just an engineering problem.
The real problem has nothing to do with engineering, or cash, as many posters like to think. (Mostly because it lets them get their Twenty Minutes Hate in, using the current or past Administrations as the topic.) It's that there isn't anywhere to go in space. It's all about economics. Transport grows and prospers because it fills a need in moving people and goods from point A to point B, and in space there is no point B. (This is why the 'colonization of North America' and 'subsidize rockets like the government did railroads and airmail' models so beloved of space enthusiasts won't work.)
And the only cost-effective ways to do that are propulsion based on nuclear explosions or a space elevator. One technology people are afraid of, the other is not ready.
One technology people are afraid of, two technologies that are not ready.
Seriously, people treat nuclear pulse production as if were a done deal, but there's been damn little actual engineering work accomplished. Exactly none of the equipment has been tested except in the form a non-nuclear (very small) scale model. Huge questions remain about the design of the pusher plate and the shock absorbers, as well as the of pulse unit itself.
I can only imagine that aligning and presenting imagery data from an aircraft is a lot easier and requires less compute/man hours than satellite imagery.
Since they're exactly the same job - no, I see no reason why there should be any significant difference in the work involved.
Especially if the need is only for new imagery of a small area.
True of *one* small area. Multiply that by the (tens of?) thousands of changes annually in the US alone...
And you think they'll act any better when they have to play up their act to get re-appointed? Dream on, because history doesn't support you.
The Senate was far, far more rational before becoming popularly elected.
As I said, go study some history.
Care to back your assertion that today's Senate is more thoughtful and civil than the Senate of old?
Had I claimed that, that would be a valid question. But since I didn't, fuck the hell off.
Or is that one of those revisions where we ignore history so we can claim anything we want today
Coming from the guy who is not only ignoring history, but also denying reality...
And how is somebody meant to represent the state supposed to vote his conscience as you think he would (above)? Or, to put it another way, how do you think the patronage and pork system got started in the first place?
It's a lot easier to explain to 30 or 50 or even 100 people why you voted the way you did, especially if you make a habit of consulting with them along the way, than it is to explain to millions of individuals why you voted against the Save the Children and Feed the Puppies Act of 2010,
ROTFLMAO. You think those voters you sneer at won't be on the phone to the Legislature? You think the Legislature isn't beholden to same campaign contributors? You must be on drugs.
So, now that I've answered it, let me flip the question... how is the direct election of Senators better for the states and people than the old system prior to the 17th Amendment?
Let's focus on the here and now. A guy named John Wayland who works for Dow Kokam built a 10 second car from LiON batteries, and is now going around to America's drag strips and laying waste to Corvettes and Nissan GTRs in his 1960s Datsun 1200.
When our national transportation infrastructure shifts to being built around dragsters - that will be a useful data point.
That was my first thought too - where the energy input into the system? Making gasoline locally may or may not be sane, depending on how much energy input (from other sources) is required to produce a given energy output in the form of gasoline.
These days, the Senate tends to be just as petty and partisan as the House, if not even moreso, and it's all because the Senators have to play up their act to get re-elected rather than being able to vote their conscience.
And you think they'll act any better when they have to play up their act to get re-appointed? Dream on, because history doesn't support you.
As an added bonus, it might just slow down the federal government's powergrab from the states (see things like speed limits or drinking age) since, you know, someone would actually be representing the states in the united STATES government.
And how is somebody meant to represent the state supposed to vote his conscience as you think he would (above)? Or, to put it another way, how do you think the patronage and pork system got started in the first place?
So what you're saying is that every thing went perfect right out of the gate with every R&D project you've ever worked on? There weren't any teething problems or unexpected interactions/consequences/eventualities?
No, I'm not saying that. You're an absolute idiot or utterly drug addled fool if you have somehow come to the delusional belief I said anything close to that.
As an airplane homebuilder, the rule of thumb is that you can expect to build three of everything. The first is to understand what it is you're building. The second is to get the skills right. The third is to make a viable airplane piece. I would expect that in pushing hard against the envelope of materials engineering as these guys are, that they would have more failures than they have to overcome the learning curve.
So what? The fact is, they are still at the bottom of a very steep learning curve - and at the top of that hill, the goal the original poster posited is a distant and steeper range just barely visible on the horizon. When all one can build is RC aircraft models, and poorly at that, it's a wee bit premature to predict the ability to build a Concorde.
What you miss is that launches have to work because satellites are expensive. However because launches are so unbelievably expensive, then the satellites also have to work. So you end up with spiralling costs.
That's partly true. But satellites also have to work because you can't get at them for maintenance and because if one goes down it can mean significant lost revenue, lost coverage, loss of years of work, etc. They're also expensive because they must operate in an extremely hostile environment.
Conceptually what most satellites do is very simple - take a comms satellite or a GPS sat as an example - far simpler than what your mobile phone has to do. So if getting one to orbit cost no more than getting a truck from one city to another then you can be certain that they would be orders of magnitude cheaper themselves. So even if only 20% of them made it you've still won.
The problem with this theory is that 'costing no more than a truck from one city to the next' is a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper than even the most fevered dreams of (sane) space advocates - and those prices are orders of magnitude cheaper than what SpaceX is charging.
IOW, your argument here is irrelevant to the issues I raised in my previous posts. Not to mention that if you seriously believe that a launch service offering only 20% reliability (because mathematically that means each bird on orbit effectively costs *five times* as much as a service with 98% reliability) would long survive - you're seriously detached from reality. How long do you think UPS would stay in business if they lost four out of five packages handed into their care?
Slashdot Mirror
Getting the "mothership" back into orbit is going to require an enormous amount of fuel to slow down, which means that fuel has to be boosted to the target, slowed down at the target, and boosted back towards Earth... That's going to be very expensive to support. Refitting the craft after each trip even more so.
""Brian Wilcox, a JPL roboticist, spoke at a NASA workshop about the possibility of detaching one of the International Space Station's modules and using it as the primary living space for astronauts on a trip to an asteroid."
And, with sufficient wing area, pigs could fly.
Seriously, Tranquility (Node 3) would require such major reconstruction to do this that they might as well build a new module. Not only is it not built for the thermal, radiation, and micrometeorite enviroment beyond LEO... It's also not built to take the stresses of being boosted out of orbit. (Module's launched by the Shuttle 'hang' by their sides, not sit on their tails.)
Nor can it really be rebuilt on orbit. When the shuttle goes out of service, we lose the ability to boost the racks that fit Tranquility's existing structure. We also lose the ability to resupply the US airlock, which means we won't have the capacity to support the spacewalks such a conversion would require.
Why should the Pentagon help with the redaction? I seriously cannot understand this attitude - that's like blaming me for being robbed when a criminal holds a gun on my while another holds a knife to my wife's throat to force me to give up the combination to my safe.
I bet you blame rape victims for being provocatively dressed and believe they 'actually wanted it' too.
In other words, you're either bullshit grandstanding, cutting and pasting what someone else has written, or just fucking ignorant.
You not only have no fucking idea what the Geneva conventions do or do not cover, to who they do or don't apply, you also have no fucking idea which parts the US is or is not a signatory to.
Maybe it's a slashvertisement, but if you're going after that elusive extra '9' of uptime it's certainly food for thought.
I think the writer is referring to the early days of the "FOSS as political statement" movement, which came some time after Stallman's "FOSS as philosophical statement" movement.
Having been on actual ship's bridges underway - they generally *are* dead quiet other than when absolutely necessary. They're not places where you want background distractions.
TOS bridge and engineering are prime examples of something that looks pretty cool to the uninitiated, but makes those with experience collapse in laughter.
Usually, but not always. ISTR them being used interactively during engineering diagnostics and for data entry in Sickbay.
I do recall an interview in the early 90's where Micheal Okuda stated that a PADD could act like any main display [like the ones on the bridge] and thus, in theory, one could operate the entire ship while strolling down a corridor with a PADD in hand. My copies of the technical manual have long since been consigned to the basement, but I believe those [theoretical] capabilities were discussed there as well.
It's amazing how much you can 'predict' given nearly a quarter century of hindsight. Not to mention that much of this technology is older than Okuda & Co. would have you believe.
I saw my first flat screen display with software configurable buttons in 1982, as this was the interface used to operate the simulation computers that drove the trainers for the MK88/2 and MK98/0 (Trident Backfit and Trident-I respectively) missile fire and launch control systems. (Though the screens were activated via a stylus rather than true touch screens.) The systems weren't new even then, they were at least six years old. (And thus designed even earlier.) For that matter, the many of the 'buttons' on the fire control console themselves (whose design dates to the early/mid 1970's) were actually miniaturized slide projectors that could display different messages under software control. Heck, the MK88/1 Poseidon system could (under software control) display different colors on a single button (though not different message text as the 88/2 and 98 could) as far back as the late 60's.
There's also sonar and torpedo fire control equipment from the same (early 70's) era with software configurable interfaces.
For that matter, as early as my VIC-20, the buttons on the keyboard could do various things depending on the software that was running at the time.
Bully for you! But you're well off the hump onto the left side of the bell curve.
That's no smug, that's an equal mix of idiot and asshole.
If it's a publicity stunt - then what is it publicizing?
Really, this is yet another solution is search of a problem coupled with gullible investors.
Well, setting aside the matter of a government coming after you no matter what (a risk on land or on a ship, and one vastly overstated), there's a whole raft load of regulatory risks that come with operating a ship that a land based server farm doesn't have.
First off, if you plan on going from port-to-port, your ship needs to be registered with one of the registration bodies recognized by the host nation(s) - like Lloyd's. No registration means no insurance and no civilized nation will allow you to moor. An oceangoing vessel will require a Master and a certain number of crewmen - and their tickets damn well better be current when the local harbor authority, coast guard, or the registration agent stops by. You'll need lifeboats and lifejackets, and the crew better know how to use them. You'll need firefighting gear (up to standards and certified) and your crew will need to know how to use it. (And the above mentioned agencies will look, both during their regular inspections and during surprise inspections.) Etc... etc...
It's a lot different and a lot more expensive than a building on land.
Sure, land and buildings are expensive - but that expense is trivial compared to the cost of building and operating a ship. You're operating in a marine environment, and that means corrosion and a constant battle against it. That means algae and seaweed growing in your heat exchangers, or worse yet barnacles and clams/mussels/oysters taking up residence inside them. That means storms not only threaten you directly like they do a building, but they also strain your mooring lines and shore service connections (which will require routine maintenance). Etc... etc...
There's also tons of training, safety, insurance, and environmental regulations to contend with - and in most Western nations (I.E. those most likely to have the infrastructure you'll need to hook your ship to), the various regulatory bodies have no sympathy and no compunctions about shutting you down and/or seizing your vessel.
Not to mention that anyone who thinks land is expensive has never paid for mooring. Look at a map of any harbor and compare how much waterfront there is with how much land there is - waterfront is essentially one dimensional, while land is two dimensional. Worse yet, building new mooring is expensive. There's a whole raft load of environmental (much more so than on land) regulations on top of the zoning regulations.
This might work in an area with a lot of disused piers and infrastructure... But everywhere I'm familiar with in the US they're either already at capacity (and straining for more), or have repurposed this disused piers to new purposes. (Where they haven't demolished them outright either for new construction for new purposes or for habitat restoration.)
Solar, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, hydroelectric... Any one of a dozen sources that should occur to anyone with an IQ above room temperature.
If you think you can repeal having to spend energy to transport energy, get in line at the Nobel ceremonies right behind the guys with their perpetual motion machines. (Or, in other words, like a lot of space fans you haven't a fucking clue what you're talking about.)
Don't have to go there to see there isn't anything there - I can see it plainly from my backyard every night. It's a vast emptiness. Sure, there's a few tiny islands, but unlike North America - there isn't a damn thing there worth bringing back and the cost of supporting any people you send there is prohibitive of any trade. Protip: colonization depends on economics. (Or, in other words, like a lot of space fans you haven't a fucking clue what you're talking about.)
In some ways, that's a feature rather than a bug. If this 'solution' were implemented, pretty soon most discussions would consist of people who agree with each other sitting around around agreeing with each other.
That's what I see on most blogs I visit, and why the number of blogs I visit is steadily declining, people agreeing with each other and driving away counter viewpoints with flames and bans. Despite it's flaws and the prevalence of groupthink, Slashdot does a better job than any other site of letting well written counterpoints bubble to the surface while moderating the outright trolls and flamers down into oblivion.
Use electricity to create liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. No, really, it's just that simple.
Well, now you're moving the goalposts - first you ask about energy and then you blame it on lift capacity, which isn't the same thing at all. But the answer is equally simple - if we need that much lift capacity, we simply build that much lift capacity. As with energy, it's just an engineering problem.
The real problem has nothing to do with engineering, or cash, as many posters like to think. (Mostly because it lets them get their Twenty Minutes Hate in, using the current or past Administrations as the topic.) It's that there isn't anywhere to go in space. It's all about economics. Transport grows and prospers because it fills a need in moving people and goods from point A to point B, and in space there is no point B. (This is why the 'colonization of North America' and 'subsidize rockets like the government did railroads and airmail' models so beloved of space enthusiasts won't work.)
One technology people are afraid of, two technologies that are not ready.
Seriously, people treat nuclear pulse production as if were a done deal, but there's been damn little actual engineering work accomplished. Exactly none of the equipment has been tested except in the form a non-nuclear (very small) scale model. Huge questions remain about the design of the pusher plate and the shock absorbers, as well as the of pulse unit itself.
Since they're exactly the same job - no, I see no reason why there should be any significant difference in the work involved.
True of *one* small area. Multiply that by the (tens of?) thousands of changes annually in the US alone...
As I said, go study some history.
Had I claimed that, that would be a valid question. But since I didn't, fuck the hell off.
Coming from the guy who is not only ignoring history, but also denying reality...
ROTFLMAO. You think those voters you sneer at won't be on the phone to the Legislature? You think the Legislature isn't beholden to same campaign contributors? You must be on drugs.
Since I didn't claim it was, fuck the hell off.
When our national transportation infrastructure shifts to being built around dragsters - that will be a useful data point.
That was my first thought too - where the energy input into the system? Making gasoline locally may or may not be sane, depending on how much energy input (from other sources) is required to produce a given energy output in the form of gasoline.
And you think they'll act any better when they have to play up their act to get re-appointed? Dream on, because history doesn't support you.
And how is somebody meant to represent the state supposed to vote his conscience as you think he would (above)? Or, to put it another way, how do you think the patronage and pork system got started in the first place?
You have some very naive political notions.
No, I'm not saying that. You're an absolute idiot or utterly drug addled fool if you have somehow come to the delusional belief I said anything close to that.
So what? The fact is, they are still at the bottom of a very steep learning curve - and at the top of that hill, the goal the original poster posited is a distant and steeper range just barely visible on the horizon. When all one can build is RC aircraft models, and poorly at that, it's a wee bit premature to predict the ability to build a Concorde.
That's partly true. But satellites also have to work because you can't get at them for maintenance and because if one goes down it can mean significant lost revenue, lost coverage, loss of years of work, etc. They're also expensive because they must operate in an extremely hostile environment.
The problem with this theory is that 'costing no more than a truck from one city to the next' is a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper than even the most fevered dreams of (sane) space advocates - and those prices are orders of magnitude cheaper than what SpaceX is charging.
IOW, your argument here is irrelevant to the issues I raised in my previous posts. Not to mention that if you seriously believe that a launch service offering only 20% reliability (because mathematically that means each bird on orbit effectively costs *five times* as much as a service with 98% reliability) would long survive - you're seriously detached from reality. How long do you think UPS would stay in business if they lost four out of five packages handed into their care?