It would be relatively simple and cheap to overwhelm the system with much cheaper drones.
Not even remotely. A drone missile is an ICBM in it's own right - expensive and complex. A drone warhead replaces a real warhead, which means you need more of your (expensive and complex) ICBM's to deliver your strike.
"Our nuclear threat will not be coming to us in the nose-cone of an SS-20, it will come to us in a Ryder Truck" - Me discussing missle defense on the Bernie Ward show 9/10/2001
Extremely unlikely - once you actually understand the roles of nuclear weapons in international politics. See this post for an explanation.
Realistically, a rogue state with a nuke wanting to hit the US would probably use black market connections to get it on a cargo ship in a US harbor.
Here in the real world unstable dictators typically don't like to have weapons that can be used against them get out of their control.
Theres the risk of the 'connections' selling the nuke to a 3rd party - then taking the money and heading for Rio. There's also the risk of one or more of the emplacement agents turning or being turned. There's the risk of a rival faction/country outbidding the agent hiring the 'connections'... The cargo ship idea is actually the *least likely*. There's a reason why every state that has developed nuclear weapons, or is developing them, is developing ICBM's at the same time.
Smuggling something into the US by conventional means is far more reliable than an untested long-range missile, assuming you're only sending a few at most.
Nuclear weapons are elements of statecraft - not weapons of warefare. Building (and testing) long range missiles and nuclear weapons Sends A Serious Message.
There are too many easy ways to defeat the shield - another really easy choice is to drop dummies all over the place (like missle command, except only a few are live - and you don't know which ones). Balloons can be used to distract targetting too. I went to a pretty convincing talk about this at the Hopkins Physics department.
I've seen the presentation, or at least multiple one like it. There's a lot they don't tell you - mostly because their specialty is handwaving objections, not missile design. (I.E. it's not as simple as the eggheads suggest.) Another failing of theirs (a common actually) is that they insist on comparing yesterday shield against tommorows anti-shield tactics... And the tactics are allowed (in their handwaving) to evolve and mutate endlessly - but the shield is not.
The annual robot table tennis championships have proven time and again that striking moving objects is an extremely difficult problem. And they have the advantage that the bat can be large, relatively speaking, and doesn't have to move very much.
They also have the disadvantage that they are designed by amatuers with limited resources. I.E. apples and oranges.
OTOH, the history of [S|A]AM missiles shows that hitting a moving object is very doable - when done by a professional organization. (You don't even have to go as high tech as missile as your interceptor. I've seen what's left of a 5 inch shell after being hit by a bullet from Phalanx. It wasn't much.)
Apollo cost about $135 billion in 2005 dollars, and the CEV is expected to cost $15 billion.
Note that you are comparing apples (the cost of the entire Apollo program) to oranges (the cost of one spacecraft program).
The whole VSE pork barrel includes the CEV, two new shuttle 'derived' launchers, the lunar modules, launch pad modifications, VAB modifications, new buildings and trainers, etc..., etc... *That* is what you should be comparing to the cost of the Apollo program.
(For reference, the Apollo CSM project *alone* cost 17 billion 2005 dollars.)
The industry that produced the Saturn V doesn't exist anymore, so it is not really possible to produce it again. We can produce a new rocket like the Saturn V (or buy off the Energia, take your pick)
The Energia is just as dead as the Saturn V.
What we want to build this time is an infrastructure that will keep us on the moon instead of merely sending up a few tons there and back.
Which is precisely what NASA isn't doing. The current scheme, just like Apollo, will end up providing expensive white elephants. Too expensive to keep us on the moon.
f there was an emergency, I imagine we could get to the moon inside two years. Most of the lander equipment can be remanufactured and lifted by the Space Shuttle, and strap-on boosters could be lifted to propell the module. But that's not the point. That's why we're doing this the right way this time.
Expensive new launchers with virtually zero use beyond the moon mission isn't the right way - but it is how NASA is doing it.
Or to put it in perspective, the Apollo missions started out with 2,900 tons of hardware. They came back with about 6 tons. That means that they expended 2,300 tons of hardware to get 3 people to the moon and back. That's a hell of a lot of waste!:-)
In the 10 Apollo launches aboard the Saturn V rocket, there were no problems with the launch vehicle.
This is a bit misleading, the summary starts out talking about the engines, the swaps to the launch vehicle. In fact, the J-2 engines had considerable problems on the flight of Apollo 6. The pogo problem was not cured until Apollo 14. (In fact, though it was overshadowed by later events, it came quite close to causing an abort on Apollo 13.)
In fact, when the Apollo series is looked at critically - one becomes astonished by the number of near misses and diving catches. NASA was lucky, very lucky.
IF, and a big if, google released a linux distro, I wouldn't see it as an alternative to windows directly as much as an alternative to all the other already released linux distros. Indirectly it would be, at least in the initital stages. Later on it would be of course. There's a dozen or so top distros, then hundreds of smaller ones. And we also have macosx and solaris, both backed by big companies. None of them, or even collectively, have made it beyond 5% or so desktop market penetration compared to windows, even though they exist.
Indeed. I was looking at the OS stats for BOINC the other day - the one place you'd think that geeks (and by extension Linux) would rock and rule, would be in support of a large science effort.
Linux accounts for around 9% of the total CPU cycles available to BOINC, other UNIX distro collectively about 3%.
Share holders. If I was a major share holder of Google, I'd want to know why we weren't competing head on with Microsoft. Whilst Microsoft are the dominant OS, they control peoples initial perceptions of the web: Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Hotmail and Outlook.
If I were a major shareholder (and assuming shareholders had any power at Google, they don't), I wonder why Google was going head-to-head with Microsoft. Google is an advertising company - not an OS or application company.
How would creating a Linux distribution even come *close* to being a Windows killer?
Well, what does Linux lack from the point of view of the general populace?
1. Usability. Google should have this pretty well covered
Considering the interface problems that both Maps and Mail 'shipped' with... I wouldn't be so certain of this.
Also, given Google's slow trend towards 'evil' [1], I'm not certain their OS would be any better than Redmond's.
[1] A recent Pontiac commercial states "want to know how good we are? google us!"... And shows the Google home page (and the appropriate disclaimers), thus trading on Google's reputation for accurate and relevant results - which a google on Pontiac doesn't provide. The first result is the corporate home page, and the rest are either Classic Pontiac collecters clubs or the City of Pontiac.
To reiterate, this benchmark is really for comparing versions of wine against other versions of wine; it is not intended to be a good or thorough comparison between wine and Windows.
Ok, I'm sure most folks on Slashdot have something they eat or drink that helps you stay awake far beyond what your body wants you to for, whatever reason:
Maybe coffee, maybe some hot tea... But usually just concentration. Only young whippersnappers used to constantly reaching for a drug to solve whatever ails them need these drinks.
"Here in the real world, we've already had two launch failures - one destroyed the vehicle, and the other resulted in an Abort-to-Orbit."
No, you've had three. Two destroyed the vehicle, one would have destroyed it, if the crew hadn't overridden the computers that wanted to shut down two of the three engines. Columbia was a _launch vehicle_ failure.
Count Columbia how you will, the facts remain the same. The difference in reliability (considering launch accidents) between the two vehicles is statistically insignificant. (In the end, the difference between 3/113 and 2/87 is.003, hardly noticeable.)
"The bald fact is that Soyuz, in 87 flights, has racked up a worse record in every single category you can name when you compare it to the Shuttle's record in 114 flights."
The bald fact is that Soyuz hasn't killed a crew member since the 70s.
So what? That doesn't change the facts - Soyuz has an ongoing record of problems and near fatal accidents and incidents. (Unless one cares to argue from emotion rather than engineering.)
The shuttle has killed fourteen people in that time.
As an engineer you look at many things, one of them is trends. The shuttle has been getting progressively worse with time. That is why it is being replaced with the CEV. The Soyuz on the other hand has been experiancing less failures with time - most of the failures you cite were early in the development cycle and have been resolved.
In fact - the Soyuz has *not* been getting better with time. Out of (IIRC) six flights of the TMA mark to date, four have had significant problems. When you look at accidents and incidents, you find them fairly evenly spread across the whole range from Soyuz-1 down to Soyuz TMA-6.
The Soyuz has been so successful that (a) NASA is purchasing Soyuz flights
NASA is purchasing seats on Soyuz flights because it's the only thing available.
(b) China is implementing the Soyuz design for their own space program.
Shenzhou resembles the Soyuz the same way a 2006 Camaro resembles a 1976 Camaro. Though the body lines are (kind of) the same, under the skin it's all new.
Like it or not, the Soyuz design is proven, cost-effective
By any rational engineering standards, Soyuz is far from proven. With only 87 flights under it's belt (scattered across half a dozen different marks), there is insufficient engineering data to make any statistically valid claim. (And the fact is, we don't know what Soyuz costs - we only know it's price.)
However, I doubt they'll sell many of these. The only places I can think of that would benefit from this are supercomputing institutes, but they often build their own redudant RAID systems and/or NAS systems.
I suspect the marketing strategy is to sell the smaller versions of the system - the petabyte version is just an assembly of modular components.
It's nice and all, but seriously people, who's the audience?
For the full meal deal? Probably nobody - but it makes a hell of an advertisement for the smaller systems in the same product line.
In other words, contrary to popular belief, the difference in reliability between Shuttle and 'more traditional rockets' is insignificant."
The difference is, when a shuttle launch is 'unreliable', you lose an irreplaceable multi-billion dollar spacecraft and kill the crew...
Only in some fantasy world where every 'unreliable' launch ends in complete vehicle failure. Here in the real world, we've already had two launch failures - one destroyed the vehicle, and the other resulted in an Abort-to-Orbit. (The resulting orbit was too low for the payload, so they landed and flew it again later.) Yes, there are scenarios that lead to a complete LOCV or LOV - but there are also many more that lead to a crew and craft standing on Terra Firma making brave statements at the press conference after.
when, say, a Soyuz launch is 'unreliable', you lose a launcher that you were going to throw away anyway, and the crew get an exciting ride.
In a universe where the Soyuz was (unlike everything else) perfect, and everything else imperfect - that would be true. Here in the real world where the Soyuz emergency escape system performed marginally the one time it was used, and where Soyuz seems to have an ongoing problem with automatic sequences... I'd suspect it's not true.
Soyuz has had two launch accidents - in the first (a fire on the pad) the was not engaged, which meant the crew had to beg the ground to activate it - which they finally did with less than a second between activation and the launch vehicle exploding. In the second, the first stage failed to seperate - and again, the automatic system failed, requiring manual intervention, and again - almost too late.
Heck, if I remember correctly one Soyuz even survived entering the atmosphere backwards: try that with a shuttle and see how far you get.
You don't remember correctly.
Let's see - Soyuz re-entry accidents; six that I can think of offhand, two of which were fatal - and the remaining four only missed being so by sheer luck. (Out of 87 flights, and not mentioning at least five landing accidents.) Shuttle - one reentry accident, fatal. (Out of 114 flights, with only one landing accident.)
Which vehicle has the worse record? The bald fact is that Soyuz, in 87 flights, has racked up a worse record in every single category you can name when you compare it to the Shuttle's record in 114 flights.
Does anyone have any percentage or statistical data illustrating the success to failure ratio of past Shuttle deployments to (say) Saturn rockets (or past similar systems)? It would be a nice graph comparing the ~20 years of shuttle incident vs. ~20 years of Saturn incidents (or similar). Surely, those studies have occurred somewhere.
You can't usefully compare Shuttle to Saturn any more than you can compare apples to oranges. Among other things, Saturn doesn't face the re-entry and landing phase, and is essentially dead within a few hours after launch. It's an expendable, not a re-useable. Furthermore, no rocket has accumulated enough flights for any statistical analysis to be completely valid.
All those disclaimers aside - what you do get from the current numbers is this, comparing only the launch phase: Booster reliability (non Shuttle) = approx 98%. Shuttle reliability = approx 98%.
In other words, contrary to popular belief, the difference in reliability between Shuttle and 'more traditional rockets' is insignificant.
The "Powers That Be" are reverting the entries back to what they should be and blocking the IPs of those who are carrying out the action.
If the 'powers that be' are reverting, then it's *not* working as designed - as the correction of entries is the province of the individual editors (I.E. anyone with net acess and time on their hands), not the 'powers that be'. (Especially since straight reversion can make the situation worse - as it also erases any subsequent edits.)
I hope they simply don't do a block reversion - as not all of the edits were made to political articles, and a lot of them are legitimate additions to the 'pedia.
The ultimate result of this will be that the greatest stregth of Wikipedia - peer editing - will be lost forever,
The problem is that strength has never existed in the first place. The concepts of 'peer editing' (in it's true meaning rather than the definition used by the Wikipedia) and 'editable by anyone' are mutually incompatible.
As flawed as the Wikipedia system might be, at least it is known to all what sort of errors are being made.
Not at all. First you have to understand the material (and if you do, you don't the 'pedia). In my own (narrow) field of specialization, about 75-80% of the articles are erroneous, ranging from minor errors to flat out wrong. The interesting part is 99% of the errors match precisely the widely held beliefs of the general public.
In other words, if you chose to compare the contents of those articles to the web, Wikipedia would look like it was 100% correct. But if you compare it to the standard reference works on the topic - the errors leaps out at you immediately. But the standard reference works cost upwards of $100 US, and few have them immediately to hand as I do.
I myself have put information into the 'pedia that cannot be verified by comparing to the web or the popular books on the topic - it simply isn't there. But it is a direct paraphrase of the sole serious technical work on the topic.
But you do know who used it last, and what specifically they changed. It's extremely easy to compare different versions of the same article. You can even be shown exactly what text differs between the two, for instance.
So rather than suggesting it's a flaw that anyone can change the most recent copy of the information, we need to realize that it's beneficial that we can see past edits, and who performed them.
So? What I can't see is the most important bit of information - what were the qualifications/biases of the individual that made the edit?
If I see a line in the article about Charmed that states "Paige is widely considered a wimp", I can, with some effort, see who wrote it. But I can't see who the writer is - a TV critic? Someone annoyed because Prudence was killed and replaced by Paige? If it's been there awhile, is it true? or is it just that nobody has noticed the change? Or that all the edits subsequent have been made by people who agree? (even if they are in the minority.) Or maybe it's just that the experts haven't fixed it yet.
This is how it is: space is now empty, dirty, and dark. The space shuttle is an antique. The laptop that I write this blog post on is incredibly more powerful than the ones that control the space shuttle.
I know it's hard to understand - but you don't need but about a tenth (or less) of the power of your laptop to control the Shuttle.
Bush's announcement of a moonbase and a trip to Mars was more political foliage than inspirational provocation.
Something else hard to understand space flight, as practiced by goverments, has never been anything other than political.
No, I don't give a damn about the fact that some people do not consider a fireball an explosion - re: an earlier story. I take the line that a powerful outrush of hot gasses as the result of an uncontrolled reaction is an explosion,
Think what you may, but the wreckage of Challenger was examined and zero shock damage and negligible flame damage was discoved. It wasn't an explosion.
Ok, how could it have been done? There are two answers, depending on the angle you want to follow. If you assume EXACTLY the same resources and EXACTLY the same configuration (ie: no escape chutes, etc) then survivors would have needed to have opened the hatch at close to the maximum altitude (ie: when the cabin was no longer supersonic) and sky-dived.
By that point they were unconcious as they had no supplementary oxygen. (The PEAPS used compressed air, not O2.)
Columbia is an easier one all-round. A space repair would have been impossible and I'll allow for the fact that they were in the wrong orbit to get to the ISS. I'll even be generous and allow for the fact that Columbia may not have had enough supplies to have lasted until the Russians could have launched a rocket to bring them down. (The Americans don't have any rockets capable of such a mission, but the Russians do.)
No the Russian don't. Soyuz capsules are pretty much built 'just in time' - there aren't any spares just sitting around. And that's just the smallest of the flaws in your plans. (Suffice it to say, the remainder are so laughable it's not even worth the time to debunk them beyond that.)
Even if a dozen slashdot readers pick holes in the options I've described, the point (to me) is clear - there is (almost) no such thing as an unsurvivable accident...
Oh, any accident is survivable, with 20/20 hindsight and a healthy sprinkling of magical fairy dust. It's remarkably easy to convince oneself when one is already convinced.
Slashdot Mirror
Theres the risk of the 'connections' selling the nuke to a 3rd party - then taking the money and heading for Rio. There's also the risk of one or more of the emplacement agents turning or being turned. There's the risk of a rival faction/country outbidding the agent hiring the 'connections'... The cargo ship idea is actually the *least likely*. There's a reason why every state that has developed nuclear weapons, or is developing them, is developing ICBM's at the same time.
Nuclear weapons are elements of statecraft - not weapons of warefare. Building (and testing) long range missiles and nuclear weapons Sends A Serious Message.OTOH, the history of [S|A]AM missiles shows that hitting a moving object is very doable - when done by a professional organization. (You don't even have to go as high tech as missile as your interceptor. I've seen what's left of a 5 inch shell after being hit by a bullet from Phalanx. It wasn't much.)
The whole VSE pork barrel includes the CEV, two new shuttle 'derived' launchers, the lunar modules, launch pad modifications, VAB modifications, new buildings and trainers, etc..., etc... *That* is what you should be comparing to the cost of the Apollo program.
(For reference, the Apollo CSM project *alone* cost 17 billion 2005 dollars.)
In fact, when the Apollo series is looked at critically - one becomes astonished by the number of near misses and diving catches. NASA was lucky, very lucky.
Linux accounts for around 9% of the total CPU cycles available to BOINC, other UNIX distro collectively about 3%.
Also, given Google's slow trend towards 'evil' [1], I'm not certain their OS would be any better than Redmond's.
[1] A recent Pontiac commercial states "want to know how good we are? google us!"... And shows the Google home page (and the appropriate disclaimers), thus trading on Google's reputation for accurate and relevant results - which a google on Pontiac doesn't provide. The first result is the corporate home page, and the rest are either Classic Pontiac collecters clubs or the City of Pontiac.
Soyuz has had two launch accidents - in the first (a fire on the pad) the was not engaged, which meant the crew had to beg the ground to activate it - which they finally did with less than a second between activation and the launch vehicle exploding. In the second, the first stage failed to seperate - and again, the automatic system failed, requiring manual intervention, and again - almost too late.
You don't remember correctly.Let's see - Soyuz re-entry accidents; six that I can think of offhand, two of which were fatal - and the remaining four only missed being so by sheer luck. (Out of 87 flights, and not mentioning at least five landing accidents.) Shuttle - one reentry accident, fatal. (Out of 114 flights, with only one landing accident.)
Which vehicle has the worse record? The bald fact is that Soyuz, in 87 flights, has racked up a worse record in every single category you can name when you compare it to the Shuttle's record in 114 flights.
All those disclaimers aside - what you do get from the current numbers is this, comparing only the launch phase: Booster reliability (non Shuttle) = approx 98%. Shuttle reliability = approx 98%.
In other words, contrary to popular belief, the difference in reliability between Shuttle and 'more traditional rockets' is insignificant.
I hope they simply don't do a block reversion - as not all of the edits were made to political articles, and a lot of them are legitimate additions to the 'pedia.
In other words, if you chose to compare the contents of those articles to the web, Wikipedia would look like it was 100% correct. But if you compare it to the standard reference works on the topic - the errors leaps out at you immediately. But the standard reference works cost upwards of $100 US, and few have them immediately to hand as I do.
I myself have put information into the 'pedia that cannot be verified by comparing to the web or the popular books on the topic - it simply isn't there. But it is a direct paraphrase of the sole serious technical work on the topic.
If I see a line in the article about Charmed that states "Paige is widely considered a wimp", I can, with some effort, see who wrote it. But I can't see who the writer is - a TV critic? Someone annoyed because Prudence was killed and replaced by Paige? If it's been there awhile, is it true? or is it just that nobody has noticed the change? Or that all the edits subsequent have been made by people who agree? (even if they are in the minority.) Or maybe it's just that the experts haven't fixed it yet.