Actually the "faulty" part was the roller bearing for the bay doors, and it should be noted that the part was being used so far outside its design parameters at the time of failure that the analysis provides no useful information.
Actually, it does - because titanium is, and will be for a long time, a major structural material for spacecraft.
none of whom are paying the bills. The people paying the bills are largely indifferent to the science, and only want to know "whats in it for us?"
Yeah, much of the vox populi are largely indifferent to the science - but they're also largely indifferent to the idea of man in space too.
I'm not off at all, and space flight had the cold war which saw the USA alone spending many times what the entirety of world war II cost the entire world.
Yes, you are off, way off. And if space flight has the Cold War - that was it's WWI.
Almost anyone you talk with about the value of the Space Station eventually starts talking about Mars. When they do, it's clear that we don't yet have a very grown-up space program. The folks we send to space still don't have any real autonomy, because no one was imagining having to "practice" autonomy when the station was designed and built.
That's old news to anyone actually paying attention. It was highlighted as a problem as far back as the Skylab SL-3 and SL-4 missions. In an email exchange with NASA scientists working with the Flashline Research Station back in 2002 (or so) I outlined the need to streamline communications and transfer some of the decision making and planning authority from the (simulated) mission control to the station commander and from the station commander to his subordinates. Unsurprisingly, the NASA study ended up reaching the opposite conclusion - the existing system worked,and there was no need to even seriously try any other system. That, ultimately, is why they don't have any real autonomy or practice having real autonomy.
A good example of the over-thinking that NASA does is the Columbia Crew survivability report. Many tens of thousands of hours were spent on the analysis that concluded the same thing that just about anyone could have stated after 30 seconds of deliberation: There were many different factors involved in supersonic re-entry, most of which are fatal, and there is no known technology that could have saved the crew from any significant portion of those factors. Yet NASA felt it necessary to spend millions on that part of the investigation...
And here you aptly demonstrate what "just about anyone" in their cluelessness doesn't grasp - there's a vast gulf between a thirty second conclusion, and actual analysis. Among other things, the Crew Survivability study discovered an unexpected failure mode in the titanium structures of the crew compartment.
I can virtually guarantee that no one cares if NASA achieves any more science. What people want NASA to be achieving is the engineering of going into space and staying there.
I can completely guarantee you have no clue what you're talking about. The man-vs-machine debate is one of the loudest, deepest, and bitterest debates there is when it comes to space travel and exploration. There's many people who want NASA to be doing *more* science, and much less of anything having to do with people in space.
Given the progression of human engineering expression, space travel should be accessible to a significant minority of the worlds population. 35 years after the wright brothers, the entire upper middle class could afford to fly.
You're off by at least twenty years and a second world war's worth of engineering investment. You also fail to note that air travel has an economic function (in connecting existing destinations and enabling economic activity) - while space travel is largely a money pit.
I don't think the great-grandparent grasps the degree of specialization the various sub-components of and individuals in the services have.
It's more that I don't see how the Army can have the level of generalisation enough to have an air corps, and an engineering corps, but somehow running their own A-10 division is suddenly out of scope. The division seems arbitrary.
Like I said... you don't grasp the level of specialization. Army engineers (which isn't the same thing as the Corps of Engineers) are specialists in battlefield engineering. The aviation corps (like the tank corps) is specialized to Army needs (and isn't quite the same thing as the TAC air groups of the USAF and USN).
As far as the A-10 goes, yes, the division is somewhat arbitrary and dates back to the Key West Agreement (and subsequent updates) that split the various roles and missions of the armed services up to prevent duplication. Any system is going to have edge cases, and the A-10 is one of them.
Seriously, though, as long as the combined size is about the same and the respective size of the service branches (or "specialty branches") stays the same, all you will have done is to (slightly) rearrange the deck chairs.
Indeed. And your warfare specialists will still be specialists... an infantryman will still be an infantryman, and you'll still need differently trained techs to work on the gas turbines in a tank or on the gas turbines of a tin can or a cruiser. A land based pilot still won't be a carrier based aviator. Etc... etc... You *might* save little bit on the aviation side by only having one school for some of the subsystems on the JSF, or only one basic electronics school, but that's about it.
I don't think the great-grandparent grasps the degree of specialization the various sub-components of and individuals in the services have.
That's a lie for good programmers, for mediocre ones, it might be true.
And, NAICT, it only applies to "tech industry" jobs. Every time I see a picture of a team working the Shuttle software, or the flight control software for a major civil airframe, etc... etc... it's older programmers. The "kids" are the minority.
These jobs represent an exit for most of these workers, the opportunity to build their life as they wish - or try.
Yeah. She's one of the lucky ones, she got out. Most don't. You'll never hear from them though.
Before any uninformed comments start blossoming
The crappy living conditions, the crappy hours, the lack of industrial safety, the crappy pay... all these things are well documented. Commenting on them is far from uninformed.
That's called the "matching principle " and is a basic part of GAAP. When corporations fail to follow GAAP, the executives can go to prison.
The USPS isn't a public corporation, so how public corporations behave and the penalties for not doing so are completely and utterly irrelevant.
What USPS was doing was having people work now, and promising to pay them 30-50 years later, but making no provision to make it possible to actually pay them.
Which is actually bog standard for government retirement - pensions are paid from current revenue.
I won't disagree with you. But I also believe that NASA should be allowing basic launch stuff to go to companies like SpaceX, which reap the rewards of all of that public domain knowledge - the fruits of publicly funded NASA research. It's past time for basic Earth orbit access (and somewhat beyond) to be business as usual.
Get with the times - NASA has been buying boosters and launch services from "companies like SpaceX" since the 1950's. Basic Earth orbit access has been "business as usual" since at least the 1970's.
He would like to enact budget reforms that take funding decisions away from the Office of Management and Budget and gives them solely to Congress.
And there is the real prize - hidden in plain sight. He wants to usurp the power of the Executive Branch and arrogate it to Congress. But it's for the children!, er, NASA! and so it slides right by most commenters here.
Because your typically ERP System SAP & Oracle to name the big to be frail twins does exactly this. It interconnects production, accounting, document maangement, it can control your whole material workflow. All on the same system. Yes, this is a weakness
Yes, it's a weakness - but it's also the whole point of having an integrated system in the first place. The armchair sysadmins here on Slashdot keep missing that point... these systems exist for a reason.
It's interesting, the asker asks for information about making games and the posters almost universally reply with information about making code. You guys do know these are two completely different activities? (And that computer games are only a small slice of the total gaming universe?)
RTFA. It clearly says that it wasn't all from textbook sales but also from "astute investments". Sounds like the guy worked hard and had his shit together financially.
Use some common sense - unless you have Warren Buffet levels of financial acuity or a great deal of luck, you don't accumulate that much cash via investments unless you start with a pile of cash nearly that size.
Deniers pretend to be skeptics. However, they are actually exactly the opposite: the distinguishing feature of deniers is not skepticism, but credulity-- they seen to credit pretty much anything they hear (or read on a blog somewhere)-- if it supports their pre-existing opinions.
And how is that different from the True Believer? Very few people who claim to worship at the altar of science behave in any way notably differently - tell 'em it's Science and if it supports their pre-existing opinions they adopt it as Gospel. Many people who claim to respect Science as little better than cargo cultists.
I use that as an example because it is more clear-cut than the climate issue, where there are a lot of people who hold a spectrum of views which are probably somewhere between being very skeptical and being outright deniers, but for sure there are those who pretty clearly aren't interested in any science that says man-made climate change might be real.
Nobody with any sense denies that such people (those who completely ignore science) exist. The problem is that a lot of people, almost all of which should know better, wants to lump everyone who questions the dogma of climate change in with that minority. Which doesn't actually surprise me, as practically all religions behave that way - dividing the world into Us and Them. And make no mistake, nowadays science *is* a religion, a fetish brandished by many to mark themselves part of the tribe. Like the most fervent bible thumper, they don't really understand the world around them - but the Gospel according to Jaime and the Gospel of St. Niel assures them they are among the smartest and thus among the righteous and the saved.
Words mean things, and I wish people would use them the way I wish them to be used
TFTFY.
Because you don't actually want them used correctly or with the meanings they've long possessed, but rather in the manner you've rather narrowly redefined as "correctly".
What exactly is Yahoo's "core business"? Their webdirectory is defunct, search outsourced to Bing, and email largely been eaten by its competitors.
They still have a considerable gaming community. Their stock, business, and financial management pages are still top notch. Flickr, despite a couple of recent "hold my beer and watch this" moments is still strong in the photography community... Their front page still draws a huge number of hits.
The problem is less one of Yahoo than it is of hedge fund managers, stock "analysts", and you pretty much knowing nothing of Yahoo's business.
Yahoo fantasy football is still about the best around. Same with their sports apps. They bought up Sportstacular and haven't ruined it (it's actually gotten quite better since the acquisition), so those are great.
Yep. And their Stock, business, and financial management pages are top notch too... (to the point where Google has finally given up even trying to compete). Then there's Flickr, which, despite a few missteps, is still the largest and best photographic community out there. Etc... etc...
Yahoo! maybe not be where the cool kids hang out, and it's hasn't been on the tech hipsters hot list for over a decade... but it's far from down and out.
Only in the eyes of the completely clueless or the drooling fanboy (not there's much effective difference between the two) are facts "negative".
If you get it back in one or a few bits then it is a win over just just chucking it up there and knowing you have lost it (as most rockets do)
Since the goal is to recover it whole, no, getting back in 'a few bits' is not a win. It's a failure. That things can and will be learned from such a failure does not change this.
Once again, when not using made up numbers, Green energies are the same.
Which is a very odd claim - since you produce no numbers whatsoever for "green" energy.
And you forget that natural gas isn't just a source of BTU's - it's also a major feedstock for a variety of industrial processes. (A significant portion of "oil derived" plastics are actually derived from natural gas.)
No, I missed the quoting the part that was (more-or-less, mostly less) correct. The parts I quoted were parts that you were wildly incorrect on, as there's considerable distance between what has been tested, and what they are testing. Even so, you're still wrong. Miss the target, by even a little bit, and it's a loss. Land hard and lose the vehicle (not due to sea state) and it's a loss. Tip over and lose the vehicle and damage or lose the barge (not due to sea state), and it's a loss.
So yes, it does matter if they miss, it does matter if they land hard or tip over - because the whole goal of the test is to demonstrate a successful pinpoint landing. You don't really seem to grasp what's being tested here and why.
Slashdot Mirror
Do learn to read - I said nothing about the space industry. I specifically limited my comments to the discussion at hand... manned space travel.
Actually, it does - because titanium is, and will be for a long time, a major structural material for spacecraft.
Yeah, much of the vox populi are largely indifferent to the science - but they're also largely indifferent to the idea of man in space too.
Yes, you are off, way off. And if space flight has the Cold War - that was it's WWI.
That's old news to anyone actually paying attention. It was highlighted as a problem as far back as the Skylab SL-3 and SL-4 missions. In an email exchange with NASA scientists working with the Flashline Research Station back in 2002 (or so) I outlined the need to streamline communications and transfer some of the decision making and planning authority from the (simulated) mission control to the station commander and from the station commander to his subordinates. Unsurprisingly, the NASA study ended up reaching the opposite conclusion - the existing system worked,and there was no need to even seriously try any other system. That, ultimately, is why they don't have any real autonomy or practice having real autonomy.
And here you aptly demonstrate what "just about anyone" in their cluelessness doesn't grasp - there's a vast gulf between a thirty second conclusion, and actual analysis. Among other things, the Crew Survivability study discovered an unexpected failure mode in the titanium structures of the crew compartment.
I can completely guarantee you have no clue what you're talking about. The man-vs-machine debate is one of the loudest, deepest, and bitterest debates there is when it comes to space travel and exploration. There's many people who want NASA to be doing *more* science, and much less of anything having to do with people in space.
You're off by at least twenty years and a second world war's worth of engineering investment. You also fail to note that air travel has an economic function (in connecting existing destinations and enabling economic activity) - while space travel is largely a money pit.
Like I said... you don't grasp the level of specialization. Army engineers (which isn't the same thing as the Corps of Engineers) are specialists in battlefield engineering. The aviation corps (like the tank corps) is specialized to Army needs (and isn't quite the same thing as the TAC air groups of the USAF and USN).
As far as the A-10 goes, yes, the division is somewhat arbitrary and dates back to the Key West Agreement (and subsequent updates) that split the various roles and missions of the armed services up to prevent duplication. Any system is going to have edge cases, and the A-10 is one of them.
Indeed. And your warfare specialists will still be specialists... an infantryman will still be an infantryman, and you'll still need differently trained techs to work on the gas turbines in a tank or on the gas turbines of a tin can or a cruiser. A land based pilot still won't be a carrier based aviator. Etc... etc... You *might* save little bit on the aviation side by only having one school for some of the subsystems on the JSF, or only one basic electronics school, but that's about it.
I don't think the great-grandparent grasps the degree of specialization the various sub-components of and individuals in the services have.
And, NAICT, it only applies to "tech industry" jobs. Every time I see a picture of a team working the Shuttle software, or the flight control software for a major civil airframe, etc... etc... it's older programmers. The "kids" are the minority.
Yeah. She's one of the lucky ones, she got out. Most don't. You'll never hear from them though.
The crappy living conditions, the crappy hours, the lack of industrial safety, the crappy pay... all these things are well documented. Commenting on them is far from uninformed.
TFTFY.
Seriously, read Citizen... RAH handles it so much better than TV.
The USPS isn't a public corporation, so how public corporations behave and the penalties for not doing so are completely and utterly irrelevant.
Which is actually bog standard for government retirement - pensions are paid from current revenue.
Get with the times - NASA has been buying boosters and launch services from "companies like SpaceX" since the 1950's. Basic Earth orbit access has been "business as usual" since at least the 1970's.
And there is the real prize - hidden in plain sight. He wants to usurp the power of the Executive Branch and arrogate it to Congress. But it's for the children!, er, NASA! and so it slides right by most commenters here.
Yes, it's a weakness - but it's also the whole point of having an integrated system in the first place. The armchair sysadmins here on Slashdot keep missing that point... these systems exist for a reason.
Except, the theory is trivially disproved - during the Cretaceous period, the Chicxulub crater and the Deccan traps weren't at each others antipodes.
It's interesting, the asker asks for information about making games and the posters almost universally reply with information about making code. You guys do know these are two completely different activities? (And that computer games are only a small slice of the total gaming universe?)
Use some common sense - unless you have Warren Buffet levels of financial acuity or a great deal of luck, you don't accumulate that much cash via investments unless you start with a pile of cash nearly that size.
It's only obvious to the terminally ignorant - folks exactly like you. who ignore the balance of what I wrote so that they have stones to throw.
And how is that different from the True Believer? Very few people who claim to worship at the altar of science behave in any way notably differently - tell 'em it's Science and if it supports their pre-existing opinions they adopt it as Gospel. Many people who claim to respect Science as little better than cargo cultists.
Nobody with any sense denies that such people (those who completely ignore science) exist. The problem is that a lot of people, almost all of which should know better, wants to lump everyone who questions the dogma of climate change in with that minority. Which doesn't actually surprise me, as practically all religions behave that way - dividing the world into Us and Them. And make no mistake, nowadays science *is* a religion, a fetish brandished by many to mark themselves part of the tribe. Like the most fervent bible thumper, they don't really understand the world around them - but the Gospel according to Jaime and the Gospel of St. Niel assures them they are among the smartest and thus among the righteous and the saved.
TFTFY.
Because you don't actually want them used correctly or with the meanings they've long possessed, but rather in the manner you've rather narrowly redefined as "correctly".
They still have a considerable gaming community. Their stock, business, and financial management pages are still top notch. Flickr, despite a couple of recent "hold my beer and watch this" moments is still strong in the photography community... Their front page still draws a huge number of hits.
The problem is less one of Yahoo than it is of hedge fund managers, stock "analysts", and you pretty much knowing nothing of Yahoo's business.
Yep. And their Stock, business, and financial management pages are top notch too... (to the point where Google has finally given up even trying to compete). Then there's Flickr, which, despite a few missteps, is still the largest and best photographic community out there. Etc... etc...
Yahoo! maybe not be where the cool kids hang out, and it's hasn't been on the tech hipsters hot list for over a decade... but it's far from down and out.
Only in the eyes of the completely clueless or the drooling fanboy (not there's much effective difference between the two) are facts "negative".
Since the goal is to recover it whole, no, getting back in 'a few bits' is not a win. It's a failure. That things can and will be learned from such a failure does not change this.
Which is a very odd claim - since you produce no numbers whatsoever for "green" energy.
And you forget that natural gas isn't just a source of BTU's - it's also a major feedstock for a variety of industrial processes. (A significant portion of "oil derived" plastics are actually derived from natural gas.)
No, I missed the quoting the part that was (more-or-less, mostly less) correct. The parts I quoted were parts that you were wildly incorrect on, as there's considerable distance between what has been tested, and what they are testing. Even so, you're still wrong. Miss the target, by even a little bit, and it's a loss. Land hard and lose the vehicle (not due to sea state) and it's a loss. Tip over and lose the vehicle and damage or lose the barge (not due to sea state), and it's a loss.
So yes, it does matter if they miss, it does matter if they land hard or tip over - because the whole goal of the test is to demonstrate a successful pinpoint landing. You don't really seem to grasp what's being tested here and why.