I think the problem is that you're confusing the political branches with the military; the military is very good at secrets - witness their record keeping the SR71 quiet,
Oh yeah - so secret the President announced it's existence almost a year before it's first test flight and almost two years before it entered squadron service. By the early 1970's, pictures of it could be had in pretty much any aviation book. Heck, in 1972, for my ninth birthday, I was a given a book "Famous Aircraft of the World" - a slender volume of aircraft painting aimed at kids, and it had a painting of the SR-71.
I don't know where this myth arose, but while the SR-71's performance and operations were classified (like most USAF aircraft), its existence was not - it was openly acknowledged (again, like most USAF aircraft). I suspect people who believe this either a) have watched too many programs on the History Channel, or b) confuse the SR-71 with the A-12/OXCART.
the specifics of satellite imagery, and the NSA's contribution to DES. Contrast that with Watergate and you'll see who sucks at secrets.
Given that none of those three secrets were the (US) military's to keep - you really haven't illustrated or proven anything. The fact is - the military has a mixed record at keeping secrets. Think of Project Jennifer or Ivy Bells for example.
It's disappointing that so many slashdotters - intelligent and educated people that they tend to be - are reactionary blowhards who obviously haven't even seen the film, and that these same people are so unable to stomach criticism.
Newsflash folks: criticism is the basis of both science and democracy. The ability to be self-critical is what makes science and democracy different from religion and theocracy. You can't criticize Jesus. That means you can't learn, you can't grow, and you can't improve. Hurray!
When Micheal Moore upgrades his films from (self serving) political propoganda to criticism - you'll have a point.
People who scream 'Michael Moore hates America' are pathologically incapable of thinking critically or handling criticism, even when it is constructive criticism that is desperately needed.
Precisely. Constructive criticism is exactly what is needed. 'Sicko' doesn't provide it. It provides sensationalist and heavily slanted propoganda.
It's fascinating that someone can title a post 'critical thinking', and not only fail to provide any, but instead provides nothing flames, stereotypes, and insults to those who fail to agree with the posters point of view.
I have an even easier solution - I don't carry a ton of expensive gadgetry about my person on a daily basis.
When I do carry expensive gadgetry about (usually only when geocaching) I do as I was taught as a kid - the gadget is either in use, or it's where it belongs. (I.E. in the appropriate belt pouch with the closure fastened.) I never lay stuff down for 'just a moment'.
Ironically, the map most used to claim that "OMG! Russia wants it all!" is the one from the BBC (http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42433000/gi f/_42433630_arctic_ice_map416_3.gif) which shows their supposedly outrageous claim based on the sea-floor ridge argument. If one compares that to the more sedate, reasonable NYT analysis here: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/10/09/inter national/20051010_ARCTIC_GRAPHIC_2.html... they are almost the same.
The BBC map is most used as it shows what the Russians want to claim - the NYT map shows the situation as it currently exists. (Note that the grey hued area marked "Russian claimed territory" on the BBC map is absent from the NYT map - and lies considerably beyond the borders marked on both maps.) The two maps differ considerably.
If humans plan to move boldly into space, private investment and development is critical. Imagine the westward expansion of the United States if it had only been performed by governmental institutions.
Yes, lets imagine a west... Without the trancontinental railroad. Without the US Army. Without the Homestead Act. Etc... Etc...
The west I'm imagining would be a pretty empty and desolate place without all the things the goverment did to open it up.
Now imagine no westward rushes - only slow, methodical probes such as the Lewis and Clark expedition. Lewis and Clark did a lot of knowledge of the Louisiana Purchase, but the percentage of territory actually explored was miniscule.
Sure. But they were only the first of hundreds (if not thousands) of explorers and surveyors sent by the Federal, State, and Territorial goverments - many of them well in advance of any settlers.
For a clue: Look at the arrangments of land west from Ohio westward and southwestward. See how it's almost all arranged neatly in little squares? That's because the goverment paid surveyors to survey the land and parcel it up - then the goverment opened the parcels for the settlers to buy or homestead.
How does this all relate to space?
It doesn't really. The West opened up because the various levels of goverment, from the Feds on down, spent decades and dollars making it possible. It didn't "just happen" and wasn't done by private investment on it's own hook.
Once commercial interests develop space-based platforms, we will begin to see true innovation, and perhaps, affordable spacebased transit and colonization in the very-long term.
The key problem being that commercial interests won't develop those platforms unless the affordable transportation already exists. (Bigelow is gambling against long odds that will happen anyhow.) In alt.space circles this is known (by those few who think about these things) as " the chicken and the egg problem". Most alt.spacers think like you do - wish real hard, and hope that magic happens and that "if you build it, they will some". Economics however is a cruel mistress.
It wasn't always pretty, but hard work and planning got people from cities to the frontier of the New World in the 1850's. I believe the same will happen with space.
There's no reason to believe it will happen in space, at least not on the model of opening the west (which was heavy on govermental intervention). Not to mention that there ample economic reasons for opening the west - reasons which don't apply in space. (No resources to easily mine, no agriculture to ship food to the cities of the East, etc... etc..)
What few economic incentives do exist require massive upfront investment, a healthy helping of technologies that are currently not only immature but also not really in the realm of private experience, and decades before they are likely turn a profit. Historically such ventures have been the province of govermental agencies or companies wholly or largely backed by the goverment. (Either tacitly or implicitly via such mechanisms as the issuance of exclusive licenses.)
I was a big fan of the first two civilization games and the idea of making one that is more action heavy is quite mouth watering. I just hope they don't put too much effort into the action and not enough into the planning and strategy that made the originals so good.
I would think that calling them an 'action-packed' game featuring a 'streamlined experience' would be a clue of how faint your hopes are.
I would guess this is quite feasible indeed to be part of whatever happened nearly 100 years ago. Check out the last page of this PDF which seems to show the comet/asteroid approaching at an angle (thus the strange blast pattern). At that trajectory, you'd think there'd be a chance for whatever hit to break apart and skip. Maybe the other abnormal marks in the stream are from other pieces/debris?
You might want to read the paper rather than just look at the pretty pictures. (In fact, I'm not even sure you looked at the pretty pictures - as it plainly shows the object to have fragmented.) The odd blast pattern is a result of the object fragmenting - not it's approach angle. Once you have multiple blasts - the resulting pattern will always be 'odd', regardless of approach angle.
"They have come a long way from even just a year ago."
The linked video may have been uploded about a year ago, but it cites as its source a PBS production from 1995. (Which, incidentally, is discussing an entirely different airplane, the 777.)
The video is further unrelated as the Scuttle Monkey doesn't seem to understand the difference between normal overload testing (discussed in the article) and 'what happens if I do this' experiments (shown in the video).
You are correct - testing is critical. But TFA does not make entirely clear that it is dicussing two different tests, one practical and one theoretical.
The first, practical, test is now complete - the wing has been tested (stressed) beyond the design limits thus proving it meets the safety standards. Thus the wing, and by extension the technology, is proven and reasonably safe to proceed to flight testing.
The second, theoretical, test is under consideration - stressing the wing even further. Two different variants are being proposed: First a 150% load test, and second an ultimate stress test (stressing the wing until it or the testing machine breaks).
Since this seems like such a new concept (please correct me if I'm wrong; I don't follow plane technology too much), it would just seem prudent to try bending the wings until they break... how can they make accurate judgments and calculations without knowing exactly how much stress the wings can take before snapping?
Once the wing has been tested to a 'century storm' level (case 1 above) - any testing beyond that (case 2 above) is largely of academic interest, it proves very little about the performance of the wing within the required envelope. Also (AIUI), as the overload percentage increases, the strength of the wing starts to depend more on the individual wing's characteristics (I.E. manufacturing flaws that wouldn't be a problem at 130% overload) than it does on the basic design.
As I said, I've walked a total of 4km on that particular railroad, and there isn't a gap anywhere. So, uh, whatever.
4 Km on an average railroad is a trivial distance. Having no gaps in a distance that short is all but meaningless.
kewise, as I said in another bit of this thread, my understanding of the space elevator is that the fibers are not intended to be 36,000 miles long. They're intended to be meters long, and attached one-to-another by adhesives, just as current composite construction is performed.
Well, no. Current composite construction embeds fibers in a matrix, which is not quite the same thing as attaching them to each other. (I.E., in current composite construction the fibers function more like rebar in concrete construction.)
One plan for an elevator is to attach the carbon nanotubes (which are not quite the same thing as current carbon fibers) to one another (like the rails, but with an adhesive) - but there are two major problems; a) the same properties that make them superstrong make them very hard to attach to each other, and b) we don't actually know how to make them attach to each other very well. This is why most current plans rely on minimizing joints by maximizing fiber lengths - and hoping that in addition to developing fibers more than a few millimeters long (and being able to produce them in megaton lots), someone comes up with the appropriate adhesive (and production process for the ribbon/cable).
Which is why some people are critical of elevator plans in general and LiftPort in specific. Proponents present the scheme as if it were merely a short step from current fibers and matrix to the required nanotubes and adhesives - but in reality there is a vast difference between the two.
The closest he got was using the money from gullible investors to buy an office building. While it doesn't have any tenants, it does have an elevator.
Laine bought the office building years before LiftPort was founded.
The OP has the facts right - he just has the wrong set of gullible investors/bankers/goverment grant givers. Micheal bought the building with money from gullible investors/bankers/goverment grant givers back in the 90's when he promised everyone he was going to make Bremerton a high tech community.
Mr. Laine and colleagues, Everyone to ever attempt anything truly grand in the history of the world has faced ridicule for it. It is a great honor for you and your team to join their company.
Sure, the laughed at Columbus. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
After all, how much energy does it take to accelerate a huge spacecraft resting on the ground to 50 mph??
A few tens of thousands of dollars worth of fuel. Compared to a billion or more dollars for the 'gun' and the insane design constraints imposed on your vehicle... The tradeoff isn't even close.
So why can't a space gun be used to break a ship or shuttle of it's initial inertia?
Because in exchange for billions of dollars for the gun and insane design constraints on your ship or shuttle, you save a few tens of thousands of dollars worth of fuel.
I was told by my welding instructor (I am a shitty welder and dropped out of the arc welding class twice, but anyway) that the rail running closest to our town was a solid rail across like three states or something.
The only word to described that claim is - bullshit. Gaps are required for heat expansion, as well as for track safety and management systems to work.
Additionally, an unbroken line that long would be economic insanity - you wouldn't be able to stop and drop or pickup cargo without bringing the whole line to a halt. Without switches and sidings you wouldn't be able to drop off a failed car, or run the line two-way. Etc... Etc... (Yes, I do study railroads.)
Watch track crews thermite-welding railroad tracks together some time.
Need I point out the difference between miles of track welded together and tens of thousands of miles of carbon fiber that must be manufactured as a complete unit? (I.E. not welded or fastened - but one complete unit utterly without fault or discontinuity.)
Try about 300 million dollars for a typical shuttle launch.
Who cares? The Shuttle isn't representative of typical launch prices - in fact it is way the hell over on the right hand side of the bell curve.
The costs for launches don't drop because the fuel and equipment costs are basically fixed (and rising). Fuel isn't getting any cheaper.
Equipment costs are variable - and dropping. (See Elon Musk and SpaceX.) Fuel is prices are (currently) down in the noise when it comes to costing out a space launch (the cryogenics for a Shuttle will run you about a million, million and half on the open market). Fuel prices would have to rise by an order of magnitude or more before they even became a faint concern. (And the cost of cryogenic fuels will vary with the price of coal - not oil. Electricity is the only energy input into their production.)
Does anyone here think that the Atlantic Clipper ships happened because a beancounter looked at a rowboat and said, "Let's make it bigger."
I wouldn't peg it as an unlikely scenario - as a clipper represented the ability to make a much larger profit in a shorter time. This is a scenario beancounters have wetdreams over.
so... it's not taught in engineering schools, but it is taught in engineering schools?
Yes, the Narrows bridge is taught in engineering schools. No, it is not taught for the reasons Micheal alludes to.
He talks about standards of safety before talking about the Tacoma Narrows bridge, which yes I think is applicable.
Certainly safety standards are applicable. But the problem at the Narrows was not failure to conform to the accepted standards of the day. The failure lay in inadequetly accounting for the effects of the unique wind conditions at the Narrows - and arguably that failure was to some extent unavoidable as no theoretical or practical standards existed for the bridge to violate in the first place. (The history of bridges and their engineering is one of my hobbies.)
I think you can even infer it was a margins issue, the margin of the resonant frequency to the driver.
Only if you use some perfectly standard and well understood engineering terms - in completely nonstandard and unusual ways.
I too live near the Tacoma Narrows Bridge - and no, that is not how the bridge collapse is taught in engineering schools.
Uh, it was a lesson taught when I went to engineering school. The Tacoma Narrows engineers f*ed up and didn't take all of the variables into account.
Thank you for pretty much repeating what I said. The bridge didn't fall because they had insufficient margins, as Mr Laine implies, it fell because they didn't account for the wind.
What's the point of this? Steam reached the peak of its development for transportation in the 1920s.
The designers of naval powerplants would be surprised to learn this - as they were making performance and efficiency gains right up until (fossil fuel combustion) steam went out of fashion for new builds... Within the last twenty years. Word on the street is that guys over on the nuclear side of the house are still making a few improvements to the steam side of the cycle even today.
Precisely why the internal combustion engine was developed. The IC engine is far more efficient in comparison.
Back in Ye Olden Tymes (TM), it wasn't at all clear how those newfangled horseless carriages were going to be powered. There were electric ones, steam ones, and gasoline powered ones. Steam was a mature technology and well-understood, electric was silent but had range issues, and gasoline was just plain dangerous. Steam was the initial leader. Henry Ford selected gasoline for his Model T, and the rest was history.
It's important however to understand *why* gasoline won out however. External combustion cars required anywhere from half an hour upwards before they were ready to creep, and required considerable maintenance. Internal combustion cars were ready to go within a few minutes and required much less maintenance.
The gasoline engine car makers actually ran FUD ads about how dangerous electric cars were. They were so quiet that you couldn't hear them coming, and risked getting run over!
Within the limits of anecdotal evidence... I've seen three people nearly run over by hybrids within the last year and some. Twice because niether the driver nor the pedestrian were paying attention, and the third because driver pushed a joke (trying to sneak up on someone) almost to far. So, such FUD may not have been entirely without some factual basis.
It's interesting all the people they list at the end with their credentials. However, someone with experience at designing high capacity high pressure boilers is noteable by his absence from the list. (The heat exchangers listed in one fellow's brief biography are almost, but not quite the same thing.)
One of the pictures on another page shows the water becoming superheated steam inside one of the boilers - seemingly in the last of the four boilers. Though much depends on the exact layout of the tubes in their boiler, normally superheaters are behind a wall of other tubes. It is very easy to overheat a superheater - leading to tube failure.
But most interestingly - there is no steam seperator between the water tubes and the superheater. This will make it easier (trivial in fact) for a slug of water to reach the turbine if things go pear shaped.
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Oh yeah - so secret the President announced it's existence almost a year before it's first test flight and almost two years before it entered squadron service. By the early 1970's, pictures of it could be had in pretty much any aviation book. Heck, in 1972, for my ninth birthday, I was a given a book "Famous Aircraft of the World" - a slender volume of aircraft painting aimed at kids, and it had a painting of the SR-71.
I don't know where this myth arose, but while the SR-71's performance and operations were classified (like most USAF aircraft), its existence was not - it was openly acknowledged (again, like most USAF aircraft). I suspect people who believe this either a) have watched too many programs on the History Channel, or b) confuse the SR-71 with the A-12/OXCART.
Given that none of those three secrets were the (US) military's to keep - you really haven't illustrated or proven anything. The fact is - the military has a mixed record at keeping secrets. Think of Project Jennifer or Ivy Bells for example.
When Micheal Moore upgrades his films from (self serving) political propoganda to criticism - you'll have a point.
Precisely. Constructive criticism is exactly what is needed. 'Sicko' doesn't provide it. It provides sensationalist and heavily slanted propoganda.
It's fascinating that someone can title a post 'critical thinking', and not only fail to provide any, but instead provides nothing flames, stereotypes, and insults to those who fail to agree with the posters point of view.
I have an even easier solution - I don't carry a ton of expensive gadgetry about my person on a daily basis.
When I do carry expensive gadgetry about (usually only when geocaching) I do as I was taught as a kid - the gadget is either in use, or it's where it belongs. (I.E. in the appropriate belt pouch with the closure fastened.) I never lay stuff down for 'just a moment'.
The BBC map is most used as it shows what the Russians want to claim - the NYT map shows the situation as it currently exists. (Note that the grey hued area marked "Russian claimed territory" on the BBC map is absent from the NYT map - and lies considerably beyond the borders marked on both maps.) The two maps differ considerably.
Yes, lets imagine a west... Without the trancontinental railroad. Without the US Army. Without the Homestead Act. Etc... Etc...
The west I'm imagining would be a pretty empty and desolate place without all the things the goverment did to open it up.
Sure. But they were only the first of hundreds (if not thousands) of explorers and surveyors sent by the Federal, State, and Territorial goverments - many of them well in advance of any settlers.
For a clue: Look at the arrangments of land west from Ohio westward and southwestward. See how it's almost all arranged neatly in little squares? That's because the goverment paid surveyors to survey the land and parcel it up - then the goverment opened the parcels for the settlers to buy or homestead.
It doesn't really. The West opened up because the various levels of goverment, from the Feds on down, spent decades and dollars making it possible. It didn't "just happen" and wasn't done by private investment on it's own hook.
The key problem being that commercial interests won't develop those platforms unless the affordable transportation already exists. (Bigelow is gambling against long odds that will happen anyhow.) In alt.space circles this is known (by those few who think about these things) as " the chicken and the egg problem". Most alt.spacers think like you do - wish real hard, and hope that magic happens and that "if you build it, they will some". Economics however is a cruel mistress.
There's no reason to believe it will happen in space, at least not on the model of opening the west (which was heavy on govermental intervention). Not to mention that there ample economic reasons for opening the west - reasons which don't apply in space. (No resources to easily mine, no agriculture to ship food to the cities of the East, etc... etc..)
What few economic incentives do exist require massive upfront investment, a healthy helping of technologies that are currently not only immature but also not really in the realm of private experience, and decades before they are likely turn a profit. Historically such ventures have been the province of govermental agencies or companies wholly or largely backed by the goverment. (Either tacitly or implicitly via such mechanisms as the issuance of exclusive licenses.)
I would think that calling them an 'action-packed' game featuring a 'streamlined experience' would be a clue of how faint your hopes are.
No, the Shuttle isn't a factor. It's going nowhere but the ISS (and one possible mission to Hubble) and it's being retired in three years.
You might want to read the paper rather than just look at the pretty pictures. (In fact, I'm not even sure you looked at the pretty pictures - as it plainly shows the object to have fragmented.) The odd blast pattern is a result of the object fragmenting - not it's approach angle. Once you have multiple blasts - the resulting pattern will always be 'odd', regardless of approach angle.
The video is further unrelated as the Scuttle Monkey doesn't seem to understand the difference between normal overload testing (discussed in the article) and 'what happens if I do this' experiments (shown in the video).
Once the wing has been tested to a 'century storm' level (case 1 above) - any testing beyond that (case 2 above) is largely of academic interest, it proves very little about the performance of the wing within the required envelope. Also (AIUI), as the overload percentage increases, the strength of the wing starts to depend more on the individual wing's characteristics (I.E. manufacturing flaws that wouldn't be a problem at 130% overload) than it does on the basic design.
4 Km on an average railroad is a trivial distance. Having no gaps in a distance that short is all but meaningless.
Well, no. Current composite construction embeds fibers in a matrix, which is not quite the same thing as attaching them to each other. (I.E., in current composite construction the fibers function more like rebar in concrete construction.)
One plan for an elevator is to attach the carbon nanotubes (which are not quite the same thing as current carbon fibers) to one another (like the rails, but with an adhesive) - but there are two major problems; a) the same properties that make them superstrong make them very hard to attach to each other, and b) we don't actually know how to make them attach to each other very well. This is why most current plans rely on minimizing joints by maximizing fiber lengths - and hoping that in addition to developing fibers more than a few millimeters long (and being able to produce them in megaton lots), someone comes up with the appropriate adhesive (and production process for the ribbon/cable).
Which is why some people are critical of elevator plans in general and LiftPort in specific. Proponents present the scheme as if it were merely a short step from current fibers and matrix to the required nanotubes and adhesives - but in reality there is a vast difference between the two.
The OP has the facts right - he just has the wrong set of gullible investors/bankers/goverment grant givers. Micheal bought the building with money from gullible investors/bankers/goverment grant givers back in the 90's when he promised everyone he was going to make Bremerton a high tech community.
Sure, the laughed at Columbus. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
A few tens of thousands of dollars worth of fuel. Compared to a billion or more dollars for the 'gun' and the insane design constraints imposed on your vehicle... The tradeoff isn't even close.
Because in exchange for billions of dollars for the gun and insane design constraints on your ship or shuttle, you save a few tens of thousands of dollars worth of fuel.
The only word to described that claim is - bullshit. Gaps are required for heat expansion, as well as for track safety and management systems to work.
Additionally, an unbroken line that long would be economic insanity - you wouldn't be able to stop and drop or pickup cargo without bringing the whole line to a halt. Without switches and sidings you wouldn't be able to drop off a failed car, or run the line two-way. Etc... Etc... (Yes, I do study railroads.)
For the record, no railroad is.
Need I point out the difference between miles of track welded together and tens of thousands of miles of carbon fiber that must be manufactured as a complete unit? (I.E. not welded or fastened - but one complete unit utterly without fault or discontinuity.)
Who cares? The Shuttle isn't representative of typical launch prices - in fact it is way the hell over on the right hand side of the bell curve.
Equipment costs are variable - and dropping. (See Elon Musk and SpaceX.) Fuel is prices are (currently) down in the noise when it comes to costing out a space launch (the cryogenics for a Shuttle will run you about a million, million and half on the open market). Fuel prices would have to rise by an order of magnitude or more before they even became a faint concern. (And the cost of cryogenic fuels will vary with the price of coal - not oil. Electricity is the only energy input into their production.)
I wouldn't peg it as an unlikely scenario - as a clipper represented the ability to make a much larger profit in a shorter time. This is a scenario beancounters have wetdreams over.
Yes, the Narrows bridge is taught in engineering schools. No, it is not taught for the reasons Micheal alludes to.
Certainly safety standards are applicable. But the problem at the Narrows was not failure to conform to the accepted standards of the day. The failure lay in inadequetly accounting for the effects of the unique wind conditions at the Narrows - and arguably that failure was to some extent unavoidable as no theoretical or practical standards existed for the bridge to violate in the first place. (The history of bridges and their engineering is one of my hobbies.)
Only if you use some perfectly standard and well understood engineering terms - in completely nonstandard and unusual ways.
Thank you for pretty much repeating what I said. The bridge didn't fall because they had insufficient margins, as Mr Laine implies, it fell because they didn't account for the wind.
The designers of naval powerplants would be surprised to learn this - as they were making performance and efficiency gains right up until (fossil fuel combustion) steam went out of fashion for new builds... Within the last twenty years. Word on the street is that guys over on the nuclear side of the house are still making a few improvements to the steam side of the cycle even today.
It's important however to understand *why* gasoline won out however. External combustion cars required anywhere from half an hour upwards before they were ready to creep, and required considerable maintenance. Internal combustion cars were ready to go within a few minutes and required much less maintenance.
Within the limits of anecdotal evidence... I've seen three people nearly run over by hybrids within the last year and some. Twice because niether the driver nor the pedestrian were paying attention, and the third because driver pushed a joke (trying to sneak up on someone) almost to far. So, such FUD may not have been entirely without some factual basis.
It's interesting all the people they list at the end with their credentials. However, someone with experience at designing high capacity high pressure boilers is noteable by his absence from the list. (The heat exchangers listed in one fellow's brief biography are almost, but not quite the same thing.)
One of the pictures on another page shows the water becoming superheated steam inside one of the boilers - seemingly in the last of the four boilers. Though much depends on the exact layout of the tubes in their boiler, normally superheaters are behind a wall of other tubes. It is very easy to overheat a superheater - leading to tube failure.
But most interestingly - there is no steam seperator between the water tubes and the superheater. This will make it easier (trivial in fact) for a slug of water to reach the turbine if things go pear shaped.
No, Bigelow _chose_ to launch them on the Dnepr. If you can pony up the cash, BoLockMart will happily launch your payload from the Cape or Vandenberg.