It's like television monitors that are monitors only -- they don't contain audio speakers. I wish there were more models like that, because I never use a television's internal speakers -- I always disable the TV's internal speakers and connect the TV to my stereo system. In theory such models should be cheaper, since they don't contain and audio amplifier or speakers, but in reality they're always more expensive.
I was comfortable playing the odds that an extinction-level event would hold off for the couple of centuries it would take us to actually be able to deal with it
Isn't it much too pessimistic to believe that we'll be totally defenseless for centuries?
If we had a warning time of a few days, that would be sufficient to calculate targeting information to launch a few ICBMs to intercept an incoming rock. The intercept would take place above the atmosphere (some ICBMs are suborbital, and some of them are able to put payloads in orbit).
With a bit longer warning time (a few months), we could fit a more powerful launch vehicle (say, a Titan IV) with a nuclear warhead. This would allow the intercept to take place well away from the earth (reducing the magnitude of the angular deflection needed to make the object miss Earth entirely).
And with a few years' warning time (and a few billion dollars), more sophisticated approaches than a brute-force nuclear attack could be implemented. (I.e., attaching ion engines to the asteroid in order to change its orbit, or painting it white in order to make the increased reflection of sunlight subtly change its orbit.)
these calculations are part of why a space elevator won't work. Even if you can pull something up to the right altitude, once you let go it will fall straight down.
"Disclaimer": I am an Orbital Analyst.
Skippy, please stop commenting about space elevators; you don't know what you're talking about. If you use a space elevator to lift a satellite to the altitude of geosync orbit, then release it, IT STAYS IN GEOSYNC ORBIT (which is a circular orbit).
If you release it at an altitude lower than geosync orbit, it won't have sufficient velocity to stay in a circular orbit. The lower the altitude at which you release it, the more eccentric its orbit will be. If you release it quite close to the earth's surface, the orbit will be so eccentric that it will appear to "fall straight down" to the ground.
If you release it at an altitude higher than geosync orbit, the orbit again won't be circular because it will have excess velocity. At a sufficiently high altitude, it will exceed escape velocity and be flung onto an interplanetary trajectory. All without expending any rocket fuel!
if you're designing delivery systems for the US military, I think you've already lost the moral high ground.
The U.S. military has put a stop to this and this. If you're designing systems that make the U.S. military more effective, you're standing firmly on the moral high ground.
In building these "corpora" of spam, aren't you trying to hit a moving target? Spammers are always evolving their techniques to avoid filters; as the identifying characteristics of "spam" therefore change constantly, I fear that your corpora will result in filters that do an excellent job of blocking last year's spam.
If it's true that producing ethanol from corn results in a net energy loss, it's highly irresponsible for our government to subsidize this activity! Now I'm starting to understand the reason for all the Archer Daniels Midland advertisements when I watch Meet the Press...
A recent article in Consumer Reports also blamed America's obesity epidemic on these subsidies. The subsidies make sources of empty calories, such as corn syrup, very inexpensive. On the other hand, growers of healthy foods like spinach do not receive subsidies.
There's nothing special about the profession of agriculture that makes its practitioners more worthy of government subsidies than any other industry (say, auto body repair, Java programming, or plumbing). If you think the subsidies help to preserve "family farms," you've been duped. If you think farmers deserve subsidies because their incomes are subject to disruption by drought, etc., let's give then private crop insurance instead.
Subsidies in general almost always distort economic activity away from the most efficient paths. It's time to level the playing field and eliminate all subsidies, especially agricultural ones. Yeah, I might have to pay three cents more for a can of Coke (because it's sweetened with corn syrup). But the tens of billions of dollars the government is spending on subsidies could then be redirected into deficit reduction and/or tax relief. Not to mention, we'd be able to eliminate a large chunk of the bureaucracy at the Dept. of Agriculture. The benefits to 280 million Americans would far outweigh the costs to a small special interest group (the agribusiness recipients of the current subsidies).
I wouldn't exactly call this a "watercolor concept"... a lot of serious design work went into it before Congress ordered a re-design in an attempt to "cut costs." In fact, Congress ordered five re-designs before we finally arrived at the current design. All those re-designs added tremendously to the cost... if we had just gone ahead and built the original design, we would have spent less money overall, and had a tremendously more capable Station.
Previous NASA studies for Mars missions have seldom if ever used the Moon as a launching pad because that would take about twice as much energy as going from the Earth or an Earth outpost.
Here we have a NYT reporter overstepping his limited technical knowledge and making stuff up again.
The best place from which to embark on a Mars mission, in terms of lowest delta-V (i.e. least amount of fuel required), is a high earth orbit. Second best is from the moon's surface. The worst, by far, is from Earth's surface.
For the NYT to say both earth and an earth-orbiting station are superior launch points to the moon is quite ignorant.
It was never intended to use the ISS as a starting point for planetary missions.
You must be too young to remember: the original Reagan-era vision for the station was that "after 2000, the Space Station would evolve into a space harbour in low Earth orbit for lunar and planetary missions as well as commercial exploitation of space resources." The design included a hangar for on-orbit assembly of large interplanetary spacecraft. Here is one of the sources that will back me up on this.
the station design is that of a scientific laboratory, not of an orbital drydock. Having already ruled out refueling, can you imagine constructing a transport vehicle in the middle of that tangle of trusses and solar panels?
The original Reagan-era design for the station included a large hangar for on-orbit assembly of interplanetary spacecraft. Loss of features like that is what we're lamenting. Nobody is saying it would be a good idea to do spacecraft assembly with the current design.
a) a weapon of truly mass destruction (capable of sterilizing a large portion of a galaxy) independently invented time and time again by civilizations all over the universe, or
b) accidents that happen when a civilization experiments with extreme high-energy supercolliders
I have read quite a bit about the Columbia accident. Everything I read indicated that the crew were completely oblivious to the damage sustained by their vehicle. That's why your claim to the contrary raised my bullshit flag, and I replied, "what the heck are you talking about?"
What you are quoting is an assumed timeline that NASA came up with at the request of the Accident Investigation Board.
Lamer.
Longest maybe -- but is it the biggest?
on
Longest Snake
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· Score: 1
Here's what I'm getting at: the redwood is the tallest tree, but it's not the biggest. Due to its greater diameter, the sequoia is bigger by volume.
Similarly, I wonder if there is a snake bigger than this longest python?
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But in reality, they're more expensive.
It's like television monitors that are monitors only -- they don't contain audio speakers. I wish there were more models like that, because I never use a television's internal speakers -- I always disable the TV's internal speakers and connect the TV to my stereo system. In theory such models should be cheaper, since they don't contain and audio amplifier or speakers, but in reality they're always more expensive.
I was comfortable playing the odds that an extinction-level event would hold off for the couple of centuries it would take us to actually be able to deal with it
Isn't it much too pessimistic to believe that we'll be totally defenseless for centuries?
If we had a warning time of a few days, that would be sufficient to calculate targeting information to launch a few ICBMs to intercept an incoming rock. The intercept would take place above the atmosphere (some ICBMs are suborbital, and some of them are able to put payloads in orbit).
With a bit longer warning time (a few months), we could fit a more powerful launch vehicle (say, a Titan IV) with a nuclear warhead. This would allow the intercept to take place well away from the earth (reducing the magnitude of the angular deflection needed to make the object miss Earth entirely).
And with a few years' warning time (and a few billion dollars), more sophisticated approaches than a brute-force nuclear attack could be implemented. (I.e., attaching ion engines to the asteroid in order to change its orbit, or painting it white in order to make the increased reflection of sunlight subtly change its orbit.)
these calculations are part of why a space elevator won't work. Even if you can pull something up to the right altitude, once you let go it will fall straight down.
"Disclaimer": I am an Orbital Analyst.
Skippy, please stop commenting about space elevators; you don't know what you're talking about. If you use a space elevator to lift a satellite to the altitude of geosync orbit, then release it, IT STAYS IN GEOSYNC ORBIT (which is a circular orbit).
If you release it at an altitude lower than geosync orbit, it won't have sufficient velocity to stay in a circular orbit. The lower the altitude at which you release it, the more eccentric its orbit will be. If you release it quite close to the earth's surface, the orbit will be so eccentric that it will appear to "fall straight down" to the ground.
If you release it at an altitude higher than geosync orbit, the orbit again won't be circular because it will have excess velocity. At a sufficiently high altitude, it will exceed escape velocity and be flung onto an interplanetary trajectory. All without expending any rocket fuel!
I know he did about a year ago. Don't know if he has moved on or not...
I can't remember the last time a /. article generated 3100+ comments. This is a mildly interesting topic... but why 3100+ comments?
if you're designing delivery systems for the US military, I think you've already lost the moral high ground.
The U.S. military has put a stop to this and this. If you're designing systems that make the U.S. military more effective, you're standing firmly on the moral high ground.
OK, what's "scrumtrelescence"?
In building these "corpora" of spam, aren't you trying to hit a moving target? Spammers are always evolving their techniques to avoid filters; as the identifying characteristics of "spam" therefore change constantly, I fear that your corpora will result in filters that do an excellent job of blocking last year's spam.
http://google.netscape.com/search?q=cache:Q-GXBuQJ rJEJ:www.atomicengines.com/ships.html
All the pro-nuke voices, like yours, are voices of reason. All the anti-nuke guys I've ever listsned to were simply misinformed.
If it's true that producing ethanol from corn results in a net energy loss, it's highly irresponsible for our government to subsidize this activity! Now I'm starting to understand the reason for all the Archer Daniels Midland advertisements when I watch Meet the Press...
A recent article in Consumer Reports also blamed America's obesity epidemic on these subsidies. The subsidies make sources of empty calories, such as corn syrup, very inexpensive. On the other hand, growers of healthy foods like spinach do not receive subsidies.
There's nothing special about the profession of agriculture that makes its practitioners more worthy of government subsidies than any other industry (say, auto body repair, Java programming, or plumbing). If you think the subsidies help to preserve "family farms," you've been duped. If you think farmers deserve subsidies because their incomes are subject to disruption by drought, etc., let's give then private crop insurance instead.
Subsidies in general almost always distort economic activity away from the most efficient paths. It's time to level the playing field and eliminate all subsidies, especially agricultural ones. Yeah, I might have to pay three cents more for a can of Coke (because it's sweetened with corn syrup). But the tens of billions of dollars the government is spending on subsidies could then be redirected into deficit reduction and/or tax relief. Not to mention, we'd be able to eliminate a large chunk of the bureaucracy at the Dept. of Agriculture. The benefits to 280 million Americans would far outweigh the costs to a small special interest group (the agribusiness recipients of the current subsidies).
Want to create diamond films under relatively low-temperature, low-power, mild conditions? See http://blacklightpower.com/pdf/technical/Diamond88 121503.pdf.
The Washington Post's story on this says, "this white dwarf has a diameter of 2,500 miles."
But it also says, "Most known white dwarves are smaller than the sun, but BPM 37093 is slightly larger and is the most massive known dwarf."
Both statements cannot be true! If it's larger than the sun, its diameter is certainly not 2,500 miles.
Apple must have a fair amount of sales in Poland; they put some effort into their Polish web site. It's pretty nice! http://www.apple.com.pl/start/
I wouldn't exactly call this a "watercolor concept"... a lot of serious design work went into it before Congress ordered a re-design in an attempt to "cut costs." In fact, Congress ordered five re-designs before we finally arrived at the current design. All those re-designs added tremendously to the cost... if we had just gone ahead and built the original design, we would have spent less money overall, and had a tremendously more capable Station.
"We need to go back to the moon before we can go to Mars," he told space scientists, academics and industrialists in London.
How can the ESA go "back" to the moon, when they never went there in the first place?!
Previous NASA studies for Mars missions have seldom if ever used the Moon as a launching pad because that would take about twice as much energy as going from the Earth or an Earth outpost.
Here we have a NYT reporter overstepping his limited technical knowledge and making stuff up again.
The best place from which to embark on a Mars mission, in terms of lowest delta-V (i.e. least amount of fuel required), is a high earth orbit. Second best is from the moon's surface. The worst, by far, is from Earth's surface.
For the NYT to say both earth and an earth-orbiting station are superior launch points to the moon is quite ignorant.
IAAOA (I am an orbital analyst).
It was never intended to use the ISS as a starting point for planetary missions.
You must be too young to remember: the original Reagan-era vision for the station was that "after 2000, the Space Station would evolve into a space harbour in low Earth orbit for lunar and planetary missions as well as commercial exploitation of space resources." The design included a hangar for on-orbit assembly of large interplanetary spacecraft. Here is one of the sources that will back me up on this.
Solid fuel and liquid, throttleable oxidizer. Restartable, too. Read all about it here.
the station design is that of a scientific laboratory, not of an orbital drydock. Having already ruled out refueling, can you imagine constructing a transport vehicle in the middle of that tangle of trusses and solar panels?
The original Reagan-era design for the station included a large hangar for on-orbit assembly of interplanetary spacecraft. Loss of features like that is what we're lamenting. Nobody is saying it would be a good idea to do spacecraft assembly with the current design.
)women accounted for $55 billion of the $96 billion dollar market
No surprise here; women spend more on everything than men.
Gamma ray bursts could be
a) a weapon of truly mass destruction (capable of sterilizing a large portion of a galaxy) independently invented time and time again by civilizations all over the universe, or
b) accidents that happen when a civilization experiments with extreme high-energy supercolliders
Thank you.
I have read quite a bit about the Columbia accident. Everything I read indicated that the crew were completely oblivious to the damage sustained by their vehicle. That's why your claim to the contrary raised my bullshit flag, and I replied, "what the heck are you talking about?"
What you are quoting is an assumed timeline that NASA came up with at the request of the Accident Investigation Board.
Lamer.
Here's what I'm getting at: the redwood is the tallest tree, but it's not the biggest. Due to its greater diameter, the sequoia is bigger by volume.
Similarly, I wonder if there is a snake bigger than this longest python?