It would be a good thing, if the people [on both sides] had an open mind about the matter. But they don't and never will - the moon conspiracy theorists will never, ever, no matter what evidence you put in front of them, believe we landed on the moon. In fact, I strongly believe that a some of the die-hard nuts would try and refute it while actually standing on the moon. What's the point in arguing? Just punch them in the face and be done with it.
My guess would be that it's the same sort of motivation that drives f@%$wits to beat up a pensioner for the $1.50 they might find.
OK, it's a dodgy analogy, but I'm just saying that I'm not sure it's possible to understand the motivation without having it yourself. To you and I (and many others), corrupting the results of the research is a terrible thing, but these arseholes just don't give a shit.
I think the best is somewhere between the US and the UK attitudes, UK goes not far enough, US, to far.
[puts on the baggy green]
Now that would be an aussie mate!
Combine the patriotism of the USians (I got told off for calling you americans;) ) with the tempered sensibility of the UK, shake it around and compress into a nation of 20 million. ta da!
I can see it now - Junkyard Wars wouldn't work in Australia unless the losers had to buy the beer for the winners !!
Hell I've been a lot further down than 20 feet with no air line or tanks.
yes, you're correct - taking a breath at the surface and then diving down and coming back up is not dangerous because the original breath of air will compress (when you dive down) and expand back to it's original volume - your lungs - when you surface again.
BUT, if you took that breath at 10m (whether they are pumping compressed air into the bell, or you are breathing directly from the comressed atmosphere of the bell - I didn't see the show, but assume it was the first), you have actually breathed air which is at twice the pressure of the surface. Since it is occupying the same volume - your lungs - it is now twice as dense. As you ascend, that air expands as the ambient pressure around you increases. At the surface, it now wants to occupy twice the original volume - 2 x your lungs. At which point you hear a high pitched gurgle and you will start frothing red stuff out of your mouth...
I'm not an instructor myself, but as far as I am aware, the free ascent has been removed from most diving courses. Besides the fact that it is potentially quite dangerous for students (although they should be past panicking by this stage), there is also the issue of the instructor doing 6-10 bounce-dives to a depth of 10m and having to leave students on their own at 10m (the instructor has to ascend with the student [PADI]).
Despite knowing and understanding all the theory, it's still a very cool sensation to breathe out continuously for that length of time and actually feel the air expanding in your lungs:-)
I'd be very surprised, since it's not really practical to just boost the ISS' orbit up a bit. And besides, there is still many things that can be done at the orbit of ISS. If the station is there and can be used, why not use it?
It's become fairly obvious that certain nations (*ahem Russia*) are intent on using the ISS as SpaceDisney, letting any jackass with $20M up there.
Whatever your views on space tourism, this is simply not true, particularly for the first two 'tourists' (Tito & Shuttleworth). They were both highly trained (not to do anything, just what to do if anything goes wrong). I would object if it really did become a space tourist thing (without extensive training), or if it started to be hijacked for corporate gain/advertising (ie. Lance Bass), but I think the first two were handled correctly. NASA were quite within their rights to insist on proper training on their side, but I got the impression they were just being plain stubborn about the whole thing.
So NASA might be trying to get their own space station back.
It was never NASA's station anyway. Wherever the idea germinated from, the actual, physical station that is being built up there right now is an International Space Station. OK, I acknowledge that the US (and Russia) may have supplied most of it, and that the idea would (very) likely never have become a reality without the US on board, but that doesn't make it "NASA's station".
ISS was really a political animal anyway (Congress loved the idea of unity or some similar crap).
I'm not American, so I'm not familiar with the reasons congress approved it, but I would be extremely surprised if in this day and age the decision was made on the grounds of a bold, future vision for humanity. It makes me laugh to think that any political decision is made thinking any further into the future than the next election. Even Kennedy's bold vision to go to the moon was not really motivated by some great vision of space exploration or realising a dream. But, for whatever reason the [US] decision to approve ISS was made, NASA can't just go an "repossess" the station.
The US (NASA) cancelled the ISS modules that allowed ISS to be a useful research tool (habitation modules) due to budget overruns, which essentially makes it a really, really expensive Skylab and takes away many of the reasons for building ISS in the first place.
Now I don't want to get into a US-vs-the-world debate here, because I think that the contributions of NASA to space exploration are second to none.
[Rant mode on] But what I really hate is the idea that we shouldn't have great, bold visions (like going back to the Moon or Mars in the longer term) because it might cost a lot. That's not how we got to where we are now and lack of money should never, ever be a valid reason for not aiming high. [Rant mode off]
remember that "mathematicans do it smoothly and continuously"
Heh, I got that beat hands down - I'm a tribologist.
Tribology = study of friction, wear and lubrication
What's more, my specialisation is biotribology (lubrication mostly) - tribology applied to biological systems. I'm sure you can see where this is headed...
The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television , in Bradford actually has a couple of the sets from the Wallace and Gromit films. They are only about 2m x 2m in size, but the attention to detail is absolutely amazing. It really brought home just how special the work these guys do is.
The short is great... can't wait for the new film!
that would be whingers I assume? [interesting that it's listed as being a 'chiefly british' word!]
To some extent I agree with you - the article certainly paints that picture anyway, but I don't think it's any more representative of the whingers of generation X than the whingers of the baby boomer generation, and the whingers of whatever the next generation is going to be labelled. Whingers will always whinge that they actually have to get off their ass because somebody else won't do it for them.
I don't know whether they (Generation Xers) are actually better off, but things are certainly different.
Anyone else fed up with being put in a basket that says 'generation X' or whatever? I sure as bloody hell am...
I can look around at my group of close friends and see a bunch of people who are very successful, each in their own way. Some have successful careers, some great education, some a wonderful marriage, some have great kids, some own their own house or car, some have travelled widely, some have achieved great things and they all have their own dreams and aspirations. They are all fantastic people (hey, I wouldn't be friends with them if they weren't!) who accept responsibility for their own lives. Not a single one of them could be described by that article, and maybe that's a good thing.
That's not to say it's been all roses - there have been some [very] tough times, but you know what? That's life.
Get out there and live your life and stop worrying about what others think.
way back in the good old days (TM), my mates and I once had a game of Civilisation (the original) that lasted... 5 days straight!
Everyone had their own tribe (6 players if I remember right?) and each person would go into the computer room and have their turn while everyone else hung around in the rest of the house (strict privacy/secrecy rules!). Near the end of the game you could usually get 2 hours between your turns - plenty of time for sleeping, eating, and other necessities!
I'm sure others will say it, but it's an absolutely massive step from the Moon to Mars [for a manned misson]. Even if you ignore the huge difference in distance (Mars is about 100 times further away at the point of closest approach than the Moon is), there are still some gigantic hurdles to overcome.
One of the biggest hurdles to long-distance space travel is the degeneration of bone in low gravity atmosphere. It's extremely important in prolonged exposure to zero-g - human bone wastes away and becomes weaker, and we don't really know that much about how to reverse the effect. Excercise helps a bit, but the amount of effort required is significant for such a small gain. Account for a 3 month journey to Mars, even if you stay there for only a few weeks, factor in a return journey and you are talking about spending 9 months or so in very low gravity.
Those two are space shuttle/astronaut biased, but there is a LOT of other stuff like robotics, astronomy, planets, etc at NASA's Photo Media Gallery.
All of these have lots of high res (I've found 72MB(!) jpg's there) images. Be warned though, you can lose hours of your life at these sites! Hope that helps.
I agree 100% with everything you say (very well I might add!).
Science progresses because somewhere out there, somebody has a burning desire to discover something "just because". Having just seen Shackleton at IMAX, I can only marvel at the sheer sense of adventure (some would argue stupidity) that the explorers showed. That sense of exploration should be directed at space, but unfortunately the corporate beurocrats and government have turned the "just because" into "has an immediate use".
George Mallory said "Because it is there" when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest. Why should you need any other reason?
Basically, there is concern in a variety of sectors (primarily civil and mechanical) that the engineers coming out today choose to be too reliant on the software and not focus on using their brain to solve the problem and confirm that the software is correct.
I went through my (mechanical) engineering degree as CAD started being introduced into the course. I have also done a fair amount of tutoring in mech eng, and my experience agrees with what you say exactly.
The thing that I find interesting is that the trend (particularly with maths skills) seems to be driven from high school. In Australia, the final year high school maths exams (which are what qualify you for uni) are impossible to do without not just a scientific calculator, but a programmable graphic calculator. I have no problem with using these (I love my HP48), but the students no longer understand what, for example, a derivative is. To them, it's what the calculator says when I press the button that gives me the derivative of this curve at that point. When the calculator says that the car is doing 112m/s this number is blindly believed.
They love numbers and equations because these can be plugged into a calculator/computer and be solved to n decimal places. But they can't interpret/translate a graph (e.g.) in real, physical terms.
Just to balance the crowd a bit more, I'm a mechanical engineer too:)
I can look up designs, formulas, fluids data, metallurgy data, and any number of other things that Edison had to figure out by experimentation.
Yes, but that is because all of the data that you mention above has now become 'basic' engineering because of the research done by others in the past.
We stand on the backs of the great engineers
that's right, and, in turn, in another 25 (or whatever) years, it is the engineers of that time who will use the data that todays' research engineers are discovering to do what they consider 'basic engineering'. But to us when we were discovering it, it was not easy stuff - it was bloody hard. As they say, "hindsight is 20-20"
I'd have to say that engineering things nowadays is vastly easier than in the time of, say, Edison.
I completely disagree with you - there is no real difference except for the fact that the discoveries of Edison have had a century or more to come into common household usage. You have to look at what is the cutting edge of engineering (or the converse, what was considered routine design engineering back then) now for a fair comparison.
Take for example, nano-structured materials - they are very difficult to design and make now, but at some point in the future after 50 years of successful experience, they will become 'basic' engineering for students of that generation.
Re:Engineering is more difficult now
on
Engineer in a Box?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
With respect, that is complete and utter bullshit.
Engineering something now that was engineered many years ago is much easier now.
With hindsight, and knowing all that we do now, yes it would be easy to engineer a lightbulb. But it wasn't an easy thing to do when Edison did it.
Engineering a quantum processor or an artifical joint for your hip/knee/shoulder is not easy now, but it will be 20+ years after it's been done.
To get back to the discussion, all of the computers/programs are tools - they will never make up for an intuitive understanding of the problem and a good 'engineering brain', something that a good Bachelor course will try to teach. And that is the problem - engineering students now start on the computer programs and have little appreciation of their status as a tool. The real problem here is that when the computer program spits out an answer that is completely illogical, it doesn't register as being wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
I can tell its feelings were hurt: this morning it asked me if it looked fat.
oh you poor, poor bastard. I hope you didn't hesitate in answering...
If only I could afford one of those nice, shiny powerbooks ...
:(
Apple's laptop machines are awesome and I'd gladly switch over from windows if I could afford it
One of the most insightful comments on this board, and I couldn't agree more.
Where is the daring? The exploration? The pushing of boundaries? The capturing of public imagination?
Sorry mate
It would be a good thing, if the people [on both sides] had an open mind about the matter. But they don't and never will - the moon conspiracy theorists will never, ever, no matter what evidence you put in front of them, believe we landed on the moon. In fact, I strongly believe that a some of the die-hard nuts would try and refute it while actually standing on the moon. What's the point in arguing? Just punch them in the face and be done with it.
2. Sell units on eBay (it does happen...)
Wow. The depths of humanity that eBay churns up will never stop amazing me.
The saddest thing of all is not that the units are being sold, but that there are people out there buying them. GET A LIFE
My guess would be that it's the same sort of motivation that drives f@%$wits to beat up a pensioner for the $1.50 they might find.
OK, it's a dodgy analogy, but I'm just saying that I'm not sure it's possible to understand the motivation without having it yourself. To you and I (and many others), corrupting the results of the research is a terrible thing, but these arseholes just don't give a shit.
I think the best is somewhere between the US and the UK attitudes, UK goes not far enough, US, to far.
;) ) with the tempered sensibility of the UK, shake it around and compress into a nation of 20 million. ta da!
[puts on the baggy green]
Now that would be an aussie mate!
Combine the patriotism of the USians (I got told off for calling you americans
I can see it now - Junkyard Wars wouldn't work in Australia unless the losers had to buy the beer for the winners !!
Hell I've been a lot further down than 20 feet with no air line or tanks.
...
yes, you're correct - taking a breath at the surface and then diving down and coming back up is not dangerous because the original breath of air will compress (when you dive down) and expand back to it's original volume - your lungs - when you surface again.
BUT, if you took that breath at 10m (whether they are pumping compressed air into the bell, or you are breathing directly from the comressed atmosphere of the bell - I didn't see the show, but assume it was the first), you have actually breathed air which is at twice the pressure of the surface. Since it is occupying the same volume - your lungs - it is now twice as dense. As you ascend, that air expands as the ambient pressure around you increases. At the surface, it now wants to occupy twice the original volume - 2 x your lungs. At which point you hear a high pitched gurgle and you will start frothing red stuff out of your mouth
I'm not an instructor myself, but as far as I am aware, the free ascent has been removed from most diving courses. Besides the fact that it is potentially quite dangerous for students (although they should be past panicking by this stage), there is also the issue of the instructor doing 6-10 bounce-dives to a depth of 10m and having to leave students on their own at 10m (the instructor has to ascend with the student [PADI]).
:-)
Despite knowing and understanding all the theory, it's still a very cool sensation to breathe out continuously for that length of time and actually feel the air expanding in your lungs
This may be almost a replacement for ISS.
I'd be very surprised, since it's not really practical to just boost the ISS' orbit up a bit. And besides, there is still many things that can be done at the orbit of ISS. If the station is there and can be used, why not use it?
It's become fairly obvious that certain nations (*ahem Russia*) are intent on using the ISS as SpaceDisney, letting any jackass with $20M up there.
Whatever your views on space tourism, this is simply not true, particularly for the first two 'tourists' (Tito & Shuttleworth). They were both highly trained (not to do anything, just what to do if anything goes wrong). I would object if it really did become a space tourist thing (without extensive training), or if it started to be hijacked for corporate gain/advertising (ie. Lance Bass), but I think the first two were handled correctly. NASA were quite within their rights to insist on proper training on their side, but I got the impression they were just being plain stubborn about the whole thing.
So NASA might be trying to get their own space station back.
It was never NASA's station anyway. Wherever the idea germinated from, the actual, physical station that is being built up there right now is an International Space Station. OK, I acknowledge that the US (and Russia) may have supplied most of it, and that the idea would (very) likely never have become a reality without the US on board, but that doesn't make it "NASA's station".
ISS was really a political animal anyway (Congress loved the idea of unity or some similar crap).
I'm not American, so I'm not familiar with the reasons congress approved it, but I would be extremely surprised if in this day and age the decision was made on the grounds of a bold, future vision for humanity. It makes me laugh to think that any political decision is made thinking any further into the future than the next election. Even Kennedy's bold vision to go to the moon was not really motivated by some great vision of space exploration or realising a dream. But, for whatever reason the [US] decision to approve ISS was made, NASA can't just go an "repossess" the station.
The US (NASA) cancelled the ISS modules that allowed ISS to be a useful research tool (habitation modules) due to budget overruns, which essentially makes it a really, really expensive Skylab and takes away many of the reasons for building ISS in the first place.
Now I don't want to get into a US-vs-the-world debate here, because I think that the contributions of NASA to space exploration are second to none.
[Rant mode on]
But what I really hate is the idea that we shouldn't have great, bold visions (like going back to the Moon or Mars in the longer term) because it might cost a lot. That's not how we got to where we are now and lack of money should never, ever be a valid reason for not aiming high.
[Rant mode off]
Thank you for letting me rant.
remember that "mathematicans do it smoothly and continuously"
...
Heh, I got that beat hands down - I'm a tribologist.
Tribology = study of friction, wear and lubrication
What's more, my specialisation is biotribology (lubrication mostly) - tribology applied to biological systems. I'm sure you can see where this is headed
Well you'll be glad to hear that Shaun makes an appearance in one of the shorts as reported by the BBC.
Heh, as a foreigner (Australian, no less) living in Yorkshire, I reckon that's because a proper yorkshire accent would need subtitles!
The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television , in Bradford actually has a couple of the sets from the Wallace and Gromit films. They are only about 2m x 2m in size, but the attention to detail is absolutely amazing. It really brought home just how special the work these guys do is.
... can't wait for the new film!
The short is great
And there I was thinking this was going to be an article that vindicated consumption of copious quanitities of alcoholic beverages when flying.
:)
Oh well, I shall have to continue my "research"
that would be whingers I assume? [interesting that it's listed as being a 'chiefly british' word!]
To some extent I agree with you - the article certainly paints that picture anyway, but I don't think it's any more representative of the whingers of generation X than the whingers of the baby boomer generation, and the whingers of whatever the next generation is going to be labelled. Whingers will always whinge that they actually have to get off their ass because somebody else won't do it for them.
I don't know whether they (Generation Xers) are actually better off, but things are certainly different.
Anyone else fed up with being put in a basket that says 'generation X' or whatever? I sure as bloody hell am ...
I can look around at my group of close friends and see a bunch of people who are very successful, each in their own way. Some have successful careers, some great education, some a wonderful marriage, some have great kids, some own their own house or car, some have travelled widely, some have achieved great things and they all have their own dreams and aspirations. They are all fantastic people (hey, I wouldn't be friends with them if they weren't!) who accept responsibility for their own lives. Not a single one of them could be described by that article, and maybe that's a good thing.
That's not to say it's been all roses - there have been some [very] tough times, but you know what? That's life.
Get out there and live your life and stop worrying about what others think.
way back in the good old days (TM), my mates and I once had a game of Civilisation (the original) that lasted ... 5 days straight!
Everyone had their own tribe (6 players if I remember right?) and each person would go into the computer room and have their turn while everyone else hung around in the rest of the house (strict privacy/secrecy rules!). Near the end of the game you could usually get 2 hours between your turns - plenty of time for sleeping, eating, and other necessities!
If you have a PhD in science or engineering ... where the big bucks are.
;)
hahahahahahahahahahahaha
but still... it seems it's about time.
I'm sure others will say it, but it's an absolutely massive step from the Moon to Mars [for a manned misson]. Even if you ignore the huge difference in distance (Mars is about 100 times further away at the point of closest approach than the Moon is), there are still some gigantic hurdles to overcome.
One of the biggest hurdles to long-distance space travel is the degeneration of bone in low gravity atmosphere. It's extremely important in prolonged exposure to zero-g - human bone wastes away and becomes weaker, and we don't really know that much about how to reverse the effect. Excercise helps a bit, but the amount of effort required is significant for such a small gain. Account for a 3 month journey to Mars, even if you stay there for only a few weeks, factor in a return journey and you are talking about spending 9 months or so in very low gravity.
But every time we see astronauts we get low-quality tv screenshots
Not sure if this is exactly what you are after, but go to NASA's Human Spaceflight Web and use the gallery.
You can also try the Kennedy Space Centre Multimedia Gallery (try the 'Hot Pics')
Those two are space shuttle/astronaut biased, but there is a LOT of other stuff like robotics, astronomy, planets, etc at NASA's Photo Media Gallery.
All of these have lots of high res (I've found 72MB(!) jpg's there) images. Be warned though, you can lose hours of your life at these sites! Hope that helps.
I agree 100% with everything you say (very well I might add!).
Science progresses because somewhere out there, somebody has a burning desire to discover something "just because".
Having just seen Shackleton at IMAX, I can only marvel at the sheer sense of adventure (some would argue stupidity) that the explorers showed. That sense of exploration should be directed at space, but unfortunately the corporate beurocrats and government have turned the "just because" into "has an immediate use".
George Mallory said "Because it is there" when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest. Why should you need any other reason?
Basically, there is concern in a variety of sectors (primarily civil and mechanical) that the engineers coming out today choose to be too reliant on the software and not focus on using their brain to solve the problem and confirm that the software is correct.
I went through my (mechanical) engineering degree as CAD started being introduced into the course. I have also done a fair amount of tutoring in mech eng, and my experience agrees with what you say exactly.
The thing that I find interesting is that the trend (particularly with maths skills) seems to be driven from high school. In Australia, the final year high school maths exams (which are what qualify you for uni) are impossible to do without not just a scientific calculator, but a programmable graphic calculator. I have no problem with using these (I love my HP48), but the students no longer understand what, for example, a derivative is. To them, it's what the calculator says when I press the button that gives me the derivative of this curve at that point. When the calculator says that the car is doing 112m/s this number is blindly believed.
They love numbers and equations because these can be plugged into a calculator/computer and be solved to n decimal places. But they can't interpret/translate a graph (e.g.) in real, physical terms.
Just to balance the crowd a bit more, I'm a mechanical engineer too :)
I can look up designs, formulas, fluids data, metallurgy data, and any number of other things that Edison had to figure out by experimentation.
Yes, but that is because all of the data that you mention above has now become 'basic' engineering because of the research done by others in the past.
We stand on the backs of the great engineers
that's right, and, in turn, in another 25 (or whatever) years, it is the engineers of that time who will use the data that todays' research engineers are discovering to do what they consider 'basic engineering'. But to us when we were discovering it, it was not easy stuff - it was bloody hard. As they say, "hindsight is 20-20"
I'd have to say that engineering things nowadays is vastly easier than in the time of, say, Edison.
I completely disagree with you - there is no real difference except for the fact that the discoveries of Edison have had a century or more to come into common household usage. You have to look at what is the cutting edge of engineering (or the converse, what was considered routine design engineering back then) now for a fair comparison.
Take for example, nano-structured materials - they are very difficult to design and make now, but at some point in the future after 50 years of successful experience, they will become 'basic' engineering for students of that generation.
With respect, that is complete and utter bullshit.
Engineering something now that was engineered many years ago is much easier now.
With hindsight, and knowing all that we do now, yes it would be easy to engineer a lightbulb. But it wasn't an easy thing to do when Edison did it.
Engineering a quantum processor or an artifical joint for your hip/knee/shoulder is not easy now, but it will be 20+ years after it's been done.
To get back to the discussion, all of the computers/programs are tools - they will never make up for an intuitive understanding of the problem and a good 'engineering brain', something that a good Bachelor course will try to teach. And that is the problem - engineering students now start on the computer programs and have little appreciation of their status as a tool. The real problem here is that when the computer program spits out an answer that is completely illogical, it doesn't register as being wrong.