Why does this bother you that rich folks can pay to play. Why should they not if they can? It's the way of the world and always has been.
Always has been? You might learn a little bit about the history you misquote so freely.
Setting aside the use of influence and nepotism (which are fraternal - not identical, twins of outright purchase)...
Persons of wealth buying the positions (in the Church and in the Armed Services) isn't something that happened (or happens) in tribal societies - nor (in the Western) world does it happen today. (It was largely wiped out in the late 1800's to early 1900's.) It was rare in feudal Japan and virtually nonexistent in classical China. It was extremely rare in classical Greece and semi-common only in later period Rome. In fact in the Western world - the practice was only widespread from late medieval times to early modern times.
Or in short, no - it's not commonly the way of the world nor has it always been.
the story should be looked at carefully by whoever designs nuclear or chemical wast storage areas.
Why? That's like asking the guys designing the launch pads for NASA's next launcher to come look at the shelves I knocked together today from scrap.
Professional designers of long term storage are quite aware of these issues - but there is no evidence the Tulsa bunker/capsule was designed by professionals.
I'm amazed at the Slashdot community... Everytime a discussion of Wikipedia or performing research on the WWW comes up, they insist that people should be (and in fact are) capable of determining the validity of a source of information for themselves. We don' need no steenkin' experts...
Yet nobody so far seems to have noticed that this report was generated by an agency that feeds at the public trough and thus has a vested interest in creating the impression that they are being starved! Instead - to a man you've hared off on blaming the Usual Suspects, President Bush, the religious right, education, etc... etc...
Rather than asking why they aren't getting a bigger share of pork - why aren't you asking what they have done to adress the rising costs?
It's great to know that there's at least a few people with a sense of integrity and responsibility walking the halls of government agencies. People like Bill Proenza.
Yes - because insisting your agency needs greater funding to replace stuff that's failing now (and lacks a replacement), because you failed to get the ball rolling five years ago is such a well proven indicator of integrity and responsibility. Heck - by that test virtually every agency head is a paragon of integrity and responsibility.
Now, I don't know that is what happened or is happening - and niether do you. Right now, we only have one side of the story - but the truth is people are muzzled all the time for a wide variety of reasons, and only one of those reasons is "telling an unpleasent truth".
And so hurricane season actually started several weeks early this year, whereas when I was a kid, I remember them announcing the start of hurricane season, but then you didn't actually have any storms out there until August. And now you get them in May!
Have you actually compared the records of the years 'you were a kid' with your memories? Or are simply supposed to make a judgement based on your imperfect and anecodotal evidence? I have done so - and found that not only did I miss multiple storms as a child, I also seem to have created a storm or two in my memories as a young adult!
Not only that - I stopped reading when I realized the logic of the example depended on the ludicrous proposition that "knowing twice as much" was somehow a quantifiable and testable quality.
Especially as one of the key elements of a properly written test is the wording of the questions - which is generally specifically written to confuse the "guesser". Very few people will actually (as the article presupposes) simply randomly choose an answer, most will attempt to read the question as a guide for their "guesses".
If it's all about population density, then why does Canada have a much better broadband penetration.
That's an easy one - it's not just about population density, it's also about population distribution.
The US has a population density of 31 people per square kilometer, while Canada's population density is 3.2 people per square kilometer.
This is where raw statistics gets a bit misleading because of the distribution issue I mentioned above - Canada is bigger (in land area) and smaller (in population), but the key factor in the broadband penetration issue that that 90% of Canada's population lives on a tiny fraction of it's land, I.E. a long narrow strip within (IIRC) 20 miles of the US border. Tilting the scales even further - if you are a Canadian living along that strip, you are far more likely to live in an urban metroplex (like Greater Vancouver or Toronto) than in a rural area.
OTOH, the US population is much more spread out with a higher proportion of them living in smaller cities and towns.
Now, tell again - which is the real bucket of bolts? ISS or Atlantis?
Niether - because outside of the consumer (and computer) world, equipment and large installations are routinely expected to last decades, and routinely do.
It's not like the Russians would send crappy stuff up to the ISS anyways, they would put all their best into it.
The truth is sadly quite the opposite. For example, they installed an unmodified Elektron oxygen generation system - despite the fact that it had a long and less than stellar record when installed on Mir.
Do you just leave it half finished and abandon it or do you keep pumping money into it?
The key is to understand the ISS isn't really 'half complete' - virtually all of the modules are complete, and the remaining ones are nearing completion. What has fallen behind is actual assembly of the station on orbit, not construction of the components.
The 'sunk costs dilemma' mentioned by another poster doesn't really apply here for the same reason - 90% of the construction/assembly budget is already spent, you don't really 'waste' much by completing assembly. (Not to mention that the 'sunk costs dilemma' is a general rule that must be analyzed and applied on an individual and case-by-case basic. It is emphatically not a hard and fast rule.)
Also, according to the article the US computers don't control attitude thrusters and that particular life support system, so the state of the US computers doesn't matter.
The US computers do however control the CMG's - the backups for the attitude thrusters[1], and the life support for the US side of the station. So even the loss of all the Russian computers wouldn't leave the station in trouble. (Unless CMG desaturation was required - which doesn't happen all that often.)
[1] Next year, IIRC, a second set of CMG's goes active and then the CMG's become primary with the attitude thrusters going into the backup role.
Hello SS1? how many projects from Europe were serious contenders for the X-Prize?
About the same as there were in the rest of the world - essentially none. And the reality is Scaled wasn't a serious contender either, until Paul Allen funded them.
Who the hell tagged this article "humor"? "fuckingsad" would be more appropriate. We should be encouraging people who dabble in alternate fuel sources, not punishing them.
If the article in question was about a guy being so punished - you'd have a point. But it's not - it's about a guy who failed to pay his taxes on an alternate fuel source, a different matter indeed.
Americans have become so used to their loss of freedoms in day-to-day life, they forget how absolutely invasive and totalitarian their government has become.
You can't forget something that hasn't happened. Like the folks who toss the term 'facist' about, you need to learn what 'totalitarian' means.
Big Brother didn't get his cut, so here's a fine for $2000, and if you do it again, we'll toss you in jail as a threat to "society". It's just like the mafia telling the new business owner on the block that he needs to pay a hefty protection fee like his neighbours do, and it would be a shame if someone burnt down his shop otherwise.
Folks being threatened with fines and jail because "Big Brother didn't get his cut" goes back to the American Revolution (in America) and at least as far back as when mankind invented taxes.
The sad thing is, I fully expect to see many misguided Slashdotters stand up for the state here and defend this ridiculous fine.
Someone who a) doesn't properly understand what a pair of common words means and b) is not entirely acquainted with history should be really careful of his own glass walls before throwing stones.
Forget about the statistical model, the Slashdot blurb has completely missed the point (as usual) by emphasing it. The point that Mrs. Sullivan is trying to make - and it's a good point - is that the traditional criteria for assessing the outcome of the conflict and whether you have won or lost (such as the number of buildings blown up and enemies killed, number of square kilometers controlled, etc) have become irrelevant in new types of (asymetrical) conflicts, where the objectives are political more than geographical
War has _always_ been about politics (or economics, which is virtually the same thing), and geographical objectives are chosen (or forced upon the combatants) in support of those goals.
and where sociological aspects (support of the population, curbing down radicalism or sectarianism, promoting a particular form of government) determine the outcome of the conflict more than raw firepower.
Nothing new their either - sociological aspects have long played a role in ending and/or winning wars. Compare the ends of WWI and WWI in Europe with each other and with the end of WWII in Japan for example. (And compare the occupations of Germany and Japan at the end of WWII.) Examine the War of the Roses and the English Civil War, etc... etc...
So, don't panic. No one is seriously trying to "predict" the outcome of a war by statistics alone. It's about time the American academia and military ditch the Cold War mindset they've been stuck in since 1947, and start adjusting to the new realities of warfare and conflict resolution.
American academia (just like their European counterparts) have been studying this type of war for decades (centuries?) - because it's nothing new. Conquering territory and winning the hearts and minds of a hostile populace (or eradicating them outright) goes back at least as far as the campaigns of Julius Caesar.
The massive and unwieldy size of the 9x11 rule books stems from the inexpensive printing of such sizes. By printing on such large paper (usually in mono-color black and white) they can reduce the cost of both printing and binding. Just run the paper through the printer, staple, and fold.
Nonsense. Regardless of the size of the paper - the steps are the same.
Printing in smaller sizes is bound to be a sign of quality rather than the lack thereof. Especially if grayscale, color, or (*gasp*) glossy paper are used.
Nonsense. Quality comes from layout, typeface selection, binding design, paper selection, etc... etc... Plus QA on the layout, printing, and binding processes. Glossy paper is like artificial colors in your sports drink - it makes everything bright and neon, but is totally unrelated to the quality of the total product. Making the paper glossy is like adding sugar to the sports drink - it's a cheap additive that makes the drink more 'attractive' and allows a hefty price bump.
Is it only me wondering why the foam thing wasn't a problem in the 80s and 90s, and then after it came up as an issue, the people who pulled off some fantastic stuff with the Mars rovers are surprised when they don't have a problem with the foam, and everything is so tenuous?
It was a problem in the 80's and 80's - but it never caused significant damage, so NASA largely ignored it. Just as with Challenger and the O-rings.
I have noticed that the older I get the louder I need music to be. Especially voice. In fact I am 35 and I watch all DVDs with the subtitles. (Of course, part of that is that I watch a lot of DVDs at 1.2x to 2x speed, but... Really who the Hell could actually stand "A Scanner Darkley" at normal speed?) But back to my point, as I age I am less and less able to sift background noise from speech. And we now live in an aging society.
If you are experiencing significant hearing loss at 35... one of three conditions exist; a) you work in a job that has damaged your hearing (unlikely with OSHA etc...), b) you have a medical condition (unlikely, but possible), or c) you've been listening to loud music/tv/whatever for so long you've damaged your own hearing.
Spacelab cannot carry any passengers, all passengers must ride in the crew compartment. Nor can the Shuttle 'divert', it must be intentionally sent to the station (which takes weeks to prepare).
The odds of an accident that both a) damages one recovery vehicle and b) leaves the ISS uninhabitable are exceedingly slim. There has never been a viable method of crew rescue in that circumstance in the first place - the retirement of the Shuttle changes nothing. There is simply no reasonable way to provide crew recovery capability in that instance. If it happens, you hoist a few beers, dry your tears and head back to work the next day. As I said, real life is like that.
In that instance, the second half of my reply applies;
We've learned plenty about how to plan for the worst. But realize this; no matter how much you plan, there are contingencies for which no reasonable recovery exists. You hope they don't happen - but when they do, you hoist a few at the local watering hole, cry a few tears, then wash your face and head back to work. Real life is like that.
But at any rate, it's still a bullshit complaint (by the OP) - if all that is left is the Orion, it can't take back the whole of the ISS crew, period. It's not a matter of weight, it's a matter of their physically not being enough seats in the spacecraft.
Ok, Let me get this straight....They can take off with the suits, but they can't come back with them...because of weight? So, the craft has the power to lift off with the suit, but doesn't have the power to fall from the sky with the extra weight of the suit? Does not compute Will Robinson....
If you increase the weight of the spacecraft - you have to increase the weight of fuel for the retrorockets, the size of the chute, the weight of the heatshield, etc... Pretty soon you end up exceeding the weight that your booster can carry. So there are limits on the downmass.
Another issue is center of gravity - you might have enough fuel/heatshield/chute, but nowhere to put the weight that won't unbalance the spacecraft. Apollo 13 had this problem in reverse; they had to keep things onboard the CM that would normally have been disposed of with the LM ascent stage, as well as moving some extra stuff from the LM - because they had expected the CM to have several hundred pounds of rocks onboard, which 13 didn't have because they never landed. Without that weight the spacecraft was unbalanced far enough that the RCS would not have been able to compensate.
But if they cant even fly down a EMU because of its weight... whats going to happen if god-forbid they need to emergency evac the ISS and the only thing left to leave on is a Orion? I realize there is a Soyuz, but say its damaged in the emergency, or say it happens at a point where they are switching out the lifeboat.
They won't need an EMU to do those things - because they won't be performing spacewalks. Instead, they'll use the suits they flew up in.
TFA doesn't make this entirely clear - but both NASA and the Russians use two suits each. Both have an individually fitted lightweight suit for ascent and entry (and each is interoperable with the other countries spacecraft), and a one-size-fits-all spacewalk suit (which only operates with the airlock module provided by the country that built the suit). It's the latter that is being transformed into a disposable, and which wouldn't be needed (at can't be used anyhow) in your scenario anyhow.
Your telling me that this new spacecraft is going to be so poorly designed in relation to our assets as to be useless in the case of a emergency? Have we learned NOTHING in regards to planning for the worst?
We've learned plenty about how to plan for the worst. But realize this; no matter how much you plan, there are contingencies for which no reasonable recovery exists. You hope they don't happen - but when they do, you hoist a few at the local watering hole, cry a few tears, then wash your face and head back to work. Real life is like that.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be bullshit - as royalty claims come under Federal law, which is the same regardless of the state the activity takes place in.
Always has been? You might learn a little bit about the history you misquote so freely.
Setting aside the use of influence and nepotism (which are fraternal - not identical, twins of outright purchase)...
Persons of wealth buying the positions (in the Church and in the Armed Services) isn't something that happened (or happens) in tribal societies - nor (in the Western) world does it happen today. (It was largely wiped out in the late 1800's to early 1900's.) It was rare in feudal Japan and virtually nonexistent in classical China. It was extremely rare in classical Greece and semi-common only in later period Rome. In fact in the Western world - the practice was only widespread from late medieval times to early modern times.
Or in short, no - it's not commonly the way of the world nor has it always been.
Why? That's like asking the guys designing the launch pads for NASA's next launcher to come look at the shelves I knocked together today from scrap.
Professional designers of long term storage are quite aware of these issues - but there is no evidence the Tulsa bunker/capsule was designed by professionals.
I'm amazed at the Slashdot community... Everytime a discussion of Wikipedia or performing research on the WWW comes up, they insist that people should be (and in fact are) capable of determining the validity of a source of information for themselves. We don' need no steenkin' experts...
Yet nobody so far seems to have noticed that this report was generated by an agency that feeds at the public trough and thus has a vested interest in creating the impression that they are being starved! Instead - to a man you've hared off on blaming the Usual Suspects, President Bush, the religious right, education, etc... etc...
Rather than asking why they aren't getting a bigger share of pork - why aren't you asking what they have done to adress the rising costs?
Yes - because insisting your agency needs greater funding to replace stuff that's failing now (and lacks a replacement), because you failed to get the ball rolling five years ago is such a well proven indicator of integrity and responsibility. Heck - by that test virtually every agency head is a paragon of integrity and responsibility.
Now, I don't know that is what happened or is happening - and niether do you. Right now, we only have one side of the story - but the truth is people are muzzled all the time for a wide variety of reasons, and only one of those reasons is "telling an unpleasent truth".
Have you actually compared the records of the years 'you were a kid' with your memories? Or are simply supposed to make a judgement based on your imperfect and anecodotal evidence? I have done so - and found that not only did I miss multiple storms as a child, I also seem to have created a storm or two in my memories as a young adult!
Not only that - I stopped reading when I realized the logic of the example depended on the ludicrous proposition that "knowing twice as much" was somehow a quantifiable and testable quality.
Especially as one of the key elements of a properly written test is the wording of the questions - which is generally specifically written to confuse the "guesser". Very few people will actually (as the article presupposes) simply randomly choose an answer, most will attempt to read the question as a guide for their "guesses".
"Would you ever do this to your peripheral?"
Nope. But then I don't share the [seemingly] common pathological fear of bacteria that's been created in the last decade or so.
That's an easy one - it's not just about population density, it's also about population distribution.
This is where raw statistics gets a bit misleading because of the distribution issue I mentioned above - Canada is bigger (in land area) and smaller (in population), but the key factor in the broadband penetration issue that that 90% of Canada's population lives on a tiny fraction of it's land, I.E. a long narrow strip within (IIRC) 20 miles of the US border. Tilting the scales even further - if you are a Canadian living along that strip, you are far more likely to live in an urban metroplex (like Greater Vancouver or Toronto) than in a rural area.
OTOH, the US population is much more spread out with a higher proportion of them living in smaller cities and towns.
Niether - because outside of the consumer (and computer) world, equipment and large installations are routinely expected to last decades, and routinely do.
The truth is sadly quite the opposite. For example, they installed an unmodified Elektron oxygen generation system - despite the fact that it had a long and less than stellar record when installed on Mir.
The key is to understand the ISS isn't really 'half complete' - virtually all of the modules are complete, and the remaining ones are nearing completion. What has fallen behind is actual assembly of the station on orbit, not construction of the components.
The 'sunk costs dilemma' mentioned by another poster doesn't really apply here for the same reason - 90% of the construction/assembly budget is already spent, you don't really 'waste' much by completing assembly. (Not to mention that the 'sunk costs dilemma' is a general rule that must be analyzed and applied on an individual and case-by-case basic. It is emphatically not a hard and fast rule.)
The US computers do however control the CMG's - the backups for the attitude thrusters[1], and the life support for the US side of the station. So even the loss of all the Russian computers wouldn't leave the station in trouble. (Unless CMG desaturation was required - which doesn't happen all that often.)
[1] Next year, IIRC, a second set of CMG's goes active and then the CMG's become primary with the attitude thrusters going into the backup role.
About the same as there were in the rest of the world - essentially none. And the reality is Scaled wasn't a serious contender either, until Paul Allen funded them.
If the article in question was about a guy being so punished - you'd have a point. But it's not - it's about a guy who failed to pay his taxes on an alternate fuel source, a different matter indeed.
You can't forget something that hasn't happened. Like the folks who toss the term 'facist' about, you need to learn what 'totalitarian' means.
Folks being threatened with fines and jail because "Big Brother didn't get his cut" goes back to the American Revolution (in America) and at least as far back as when mankind invented taxes.
Someone who a) doesn't properly understand what a pair of common words means and b) is not entirely acquainted with history should be really careful of his own glass walls before throwing stones.
War has _always_ been about politics (or economics, which is virtually the same thing), and geographical objectives are chosen (or forced upon the combatants) in support of those goals.
Nothing new their either - sociological aspects have long played a role in ending and/or winning wars. Compare the ends of WWI and WWI in Europe with each other and with the end of WWII in Japan for example. (And compare the occupations of Germany and Japan at the end of WWII.) Examine the War of the Roses and the English Civil War, etc... etc...
American academia (just like their European counterparts) have been studying this type of war for decades (centuries?) - because it's nothing new. Conquering territory and winning the hearts and minds of a hostile populace (or eradicating them outright) goes back at least as far as the campaigns of Julius Caesar.
Nonsense. Regardless of the size of the paper - the steps are the same.
Nonsense. Quality comes from layout, typeface selection, binding design, paper selection, etc... etc... Plus QA on the layout, printing, and binding processes. Glossy paper is like artificial colors in your sports drink - it makes everything bright and neon, but is totally unrelated to the quality of the total product. Making the paper glossy is like adding sugar to the sports drink - it's a cheap additive that makes the drink more 'attractive' and allows a hefty price bump.
WYIOWAP (Why yes, I once was a printer.)
It was a problem in the 80's and 80's - but it never caused significant damage, so NASA largely ignored it. Just as with Challenger and the O-rings.
That's NASA propaganda. A nuclear submarine or an aircraft carrier is complex - the Shuttle is a child's toy in comparison.
If you are experiencing significant hearing loss at 35... one of three conditions exist; a) you work in a job that has damaged your hearing (unlikely with OSHA etc...), b) you have a medical condition (unlikely, but possible), or c) you've been listening to loud music/tv/whatever for so long you've damaged your own hearing.
Spacelab cannot carry any passengers, all passengers must ride in the crew compartment. Nor can the Shuttle 'divert', it must be intentionally sent to the station (which takes weeks to prepare).
The odds of an accident that both a) damages one recovery vehicle and b) leaves the ISS uninhabitable are exceedingly slim. There has never been a viable method of crew rescue in that circumstance in the first place - the retirement of the Shuttle changes nothing. There is simply no reasonable way to provide crew recovery capability in that instance. If it happens, you hoist a few beers, dry your tears and head back to work the next day. As I said, real life is like that.
But at any rate, it's still a bullshit complaint (by the OP) - if all that is left is the Orion, it can't take back the whole of the ISS crew, period. It's not a matter of weight, it's a matter of their physically not being enough seats in the spacecraft.
If you increase the weight of the spacecraft - you have to increase the weight of fuel for the retrorockets, the size of the chute, the weight of the heatshield, etc... Pretty soon you end up exceeding the weight that your booster can carry. So there are limits on the downmass.
Another issue is center of gravity - you might have enough fuel/heatshield/chute, but nowhere to put the weight that won't unbalance the spacecraft. Apollo 13 had this problem in reverse; they had to keep things onboard the CM that would normally have been disposed of with the LM ascent stage, as well as moving some extra stuff from the LM - because they had expected the CM to have several hundred pounds of rocks onboard, which 13 didn't have because they never landed. Without that weight the spacecraft was unbalanced far enough that the RCS would not have been able to compensate.
They won't need an EMU to do those things - because they won't be performing spacewalks. Instead, they'll use the suits they flew up in.
TFA doesn't make this entirely clear - but both NASA and the Russians use two suits each. Both have an individually fitted lightweight suit for ascent and entry (and each is interoperable with the other countries spacecraft), and a one-size-fits-all spacewalk suit (which only operates with the airlock module provided by the country that built the suit). It's the latter that is being transformed into a disposable, and which wouldn't be needed (at can't be used anyhow) in your scenario anyhow.
We've learned plenty about how to plan for the worst. But realize this; no matter how much you plan, there are contingencies for which no reasonable recovery exists. You hope they don't happen - but when they do, you hoist a few at the local watering hole, cry a few tears, then wash your face and head back to work. Real life is like that.