In a word, yes. All flights to the station are planned years in advance, even to which orbiter for Shuttle flights. The planning is coordinated among all involved space agencies. As long as the crew of manned flights (typically selected at least a year in advance) are all astronauts/cosmonauts, there isn't a problem with who exactly is going. Tourists are not a usual case and it's entirely reasonable to expect everyone to sign off on it. Since NASA has never tried to send a tourist, the case you describe is untested, but in principle would be analogous to this one.
Re:$44 trillion is PV of debt in perpetuity
on
A Mighty Wind
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· Score: 1
You know, during the recent unpleasantness in California (importing power from outside the state) I wonder why the wind farm between SF & LA didn't rescue everyone...after all it takes up several acres.
Because in the years before the crisis Pacific Gas & Electric refused to build the high-capacity power lines necessary to get the electricity from that wind farm to the outside world. Instead, they paid Oak Creek (I believe that's its name?) for lost profits, which was cheaper all around. Then during the crisis the wind farm had the generator capacity to cover the shorfall completely, but couldn't do anything with it. The problem, like most in this world, was not technological but political.</editorializing>
Its mission has been and always will be to service the ISS.
Minor bit of trivia - the first mission of the Shuttle was to service the Skylab. It was a desire to save money that the Saturn program was cut to focus on the shuttle, the intention being that it would be ready to fly soon enough to continue operations at that station. Then there were delays, there was no longer a way to get an Apollo up there to reboost it, and Skylab made a pretty streak across the sky. There were, however, a million and one other space station designs as well as satellite maintenance & recovery ideas floating around at the time, to give the Shuttle plenty to do.
"Dime" comes from the french La Disme, a pamphlet advocating a decimalized system of money, influential in our country's early search for a national coinage.
Interestingly, the "nickel" was first called a "half disme". Calling it a nickel came into the vernacular when the silver half-dimes were phased out, even though a nickel three-cent piece had started production just a year earlier.
In all, throughout our history, we've had coins in these denominations (all units are dollars):
Over hundreds of years all sorts of new denominations have been minted, and the popular ones survived. Let's hear it for evolution!
Re:Don't get me started
on
Making Change
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· Score: 1
What really bugs me is when cashiers give me paper change first, then drop the coins on top. It seems like such a small deal, but with the vagaries of bifolded, trifolded, various-corner folded and semicrumpled bills standing between my hand and the pile of coins, it can be a real challenge to either pocket the metal first then stick the bills in my wallet, or try to flip the pile in my hand to get a positive grip on the coins before moving the bills about.
I suppose they do it "wrong" for the same reason I want them to do it "right": it's easier to pick the coins out of the drawer first, then bills, and pop the stack handing them to me. Still, it doesn't seem that much of a dexterity challenge to go coins-bills-coins-bills.
Every good Slashdotter should know the Prime Directive!
Seriously, although a strict hands-off approach like the fictional directive is probably not a good idea in these circumstances, rapidly changing a culture can cause serious harm that's often not recognized until later, and usually can't be undone. And missionaries have a long history of carelessness and even intentional destruction.
Case in point: they used to be able to support themselves; but they've been taught to cover themselves with western clothing that they must get from elsewhere, creating a need that never existed before. How does that do them any good in any way?
Like another poster said, this is chemical-, not codon-level parity. Sure their interpretation of purines as 0 and pyrimidines as 1 is arbitrary. If they'd done it the other way, it'd still be parity, just odd parity. The point is, if a proofreading enzyme had to match specific H-bond donor/accepter patterns with nucleoside type, or if there had to be a separate proofreader for each invalid combination, proofreading would be extremely expensive (either too complex to reliably implement or require too much overhead for all those proofreaders). If the proofreading enzyme can check for validity with simple rules based on "purines have an even number of proton donors, pyrimidines have an odd number" it has more of a chance of succeeding. In biology as most everywhere else, simpler is better.
The free market is a very useful economic tool and system, when applied appropriately. It is an unmitigated disaster when it is applied inappropraitely (think of what things would be like if, in addition to the local telco and power monopolies, there were also the local highway and street monopoly, if you're having trouble imagining an inappropraite application of the free market....)
Yes, it would terrible if a single organization controlled the construction, maintenance, and regulation of all the roads in a locality. They might impose draconian corporate policies about helmets and seat belts, give their employees minimal incentive to repair damage quickly, force everyone who lived in their territory to partially pay for their operation, regardless of whether they drove on their roads or not, and consequently have no incentive to respond to customers' preferences except through an inefficient and complex system of selecting managers from a short list, often in a "lesser of two evils" manner.
This dire scenario in no way resembles the current system of city, county, state and federal roads. All hail our wise and benevolent leaders!
I got a kick out of a freshman physics problem where you had to estimate the velocity of a student falling into the depths of hell by the doppler shift of his scream as heard by a stationary devil. Cool problems really make the boring math go down easier.
First, if you're riding a segway at it's top speed of about 14 MPH, you can stop in about 15 feet- a runner going that fast takes about 20 feet to stop.
I'm curious as to where you get that "20 feet" number. Curious enough, in fact, to step outside for a quick drill... From a speed of around 14 MPH (about a 16 second 100 pace) I stopped in 5 feet. Of course, I knew when I was going to stop so reaction time didn't come into play, but assuming a moderately slow reaction time (0.2 seconds) at that speed that only adds 4 feet. To be sure, stopping that quickly puts some undesirable stress on a person's legs, but in a panic-stop situation that's not an issue. So don't dismiss the human body too quickly.
A thing that is really serious because the human brain doesn't have an infrastructure that tags information as "not usuable for Open Source" and so on. Or can you imagine a school that learns you how to add 1+1 and then tells you: You are not allowed to use this knowledge. And keep that in mind!
If I remember correctly, I think Neal Stephenson described just such a thing in Snow Crash. It had something to do with government workers having access to classified information in some contexts (such as when they were physically inside a secured building) but in all other contexts couldn't even remember knowing that information. I don't know how possible this sort of thing would be, but do you really think that, if it was, the Powers that Be wouldn't hestiate to use it? Scary.
In his "Rocheworld" series Robert L. Forward describes a robot that did just that, called the Christmas Bush.
From a core body it had six arms, these branched into six fingers each, which themselves branched likewise until reaching near-microscopic size. Each segment had a power store, motor, and limited processing capability. Power, communications, and senses were driven by laser diodes giving the machine a colored, sparkly appearance (hence the name), and it was operated remotely by the habitat's supercomputer, relying on its own processors for simple reflex behavior.
A pretty cool machine it was; it'd be quite an accomplishment to build something like it in real life.
The sun is bright and something that big makes an excellent reflector. Once it gets up and there isn't so much atmosphere between it and people viewing from farther away it could be quite visible. Have you ever seen a far-distant airplane glinting in the sun?
My former adviser was telling me about an experiment that's planned to fly on some future Mars probe: they're collecting DNA samples from representatively diverse lifeforms which they will tag with a fluorescent marker and bring to Mars in something like a microwell dish. Then when it gets to Mars the probe'll toss in some Martian soil (no doubt processed in some way) and see if any of the DNA hybridizes by measuring the fluorescence.
Obviously this won't find any really weird organisms like something silicon-based (which is at least theoretically possible, see Genetic Takeover and the Mineral Origins of Life by A. G. Cairns-Smith) but it could confirm the panspermia hypothesis (Mars->Earth or Earth->Mars); and even if there was no direct relationship between Earth and Mars life, there would be some level of hybridization as long as Martian life used DNA (or a closely related analogue).
So although the bulk of the focus now is on looking for more general life-conducive factors like liquid water, past atmospheric composition, and temperature history, there's also some attention to specific tests for life, even if they are expected to fail.
IA(m)AB(iochemist) (well, B.S. anyway) and think ecosystem change is a very real concern. Yes, new species will rush in to fill a niche, but their idea of "rushing" isn't nearly fast enough to keep pace with the rate of change possible by human-caused tampering. Often one or two species will dominate the void (think purple loosestrife or zebra mussels) and occupy it, retarding the progress of other species. It often takes a long time for biodiversity to return to pre-affected levels.
Of course, we have been genetically engineering our environment for thousands of years, but the rapid development and sudden large-scale implementation of GM technology is too fast for either nature or science to cope with. I honestly hope that, in the future, our world will be greatly improved due to what GM technology has to offer us. But the internal combustion engine was a mixed bag, nuclear power was a mixed bag, TV was a mixed bag. Let's use some caution.
OK, from what I know of astrobiology the going hypothesis *is* that life originates in a more conducive (micro)environment (which we could still consider harsh) first.
With Mars this is the past climate which had liquid water, more atmosphere, and warmer temperatures. On Europa the theories are less settled, but one idea I saw looked at cracks in the ice cover that routinely bring liquid water to the surface as a potential microenvironment that supports photosynthetic life.
Incidentally, the discovery of life on Mars wouldn't confirm the ubiquity of life. If the extraterrestrial life was found to be related to terrestrial life it would simply expand the biosphere slightly. On a cosmic scale, the difference between life on one planet in a solar system and life on several planets of a solar system are minor--it's far easier to transplant space spoors between planets than it is to get them out of the source star's gravity well and through interstellar space. What we'd really need to call life ubiquitous would be proof of interstellar panspermia, or (more interesting) some form of independently evolved life.
Slashdot Mirror
In a word, yes. All flights to the station are planned years in advance, even to which orbiter for Shuttle flights. The planning is coordinated among all involved space agencies. As long as the crew of manned flights (typically selected at least a year in advance) are all astronauts/cosmonauts, there isn't a problem with who exactly is going. Tourists are not a usual case and it's entirely reasonable to expect everyone to sign off on it. Since NASA has never tried to send a tourist, the case you describe is untested, but in principle would be analogous to this one.
Because in the years before the crisis Pacific Gas & Electric refused to build the high-capacity power lines necessary to get the electricity from that wind farm to the outside world. Instead, they paid Oak Creek (I believe that's its name?) for lost profits, which was cheaper all around. Then during the crisis the wind farm had the generator capacity to cover the shorfall completely, but couldn't do anything with it. The problem, like most in this world, was not technological but political.</editorializing>
Minor bit of trivia - the first mission of the Shuttle was to service the Skylab. It was a desire to save money that the Saturn program was cut to focus on the shuttle, the intention being that it would be ready to fly soon enough to continue operations at that station. Then there were delays, there was no longer a way to get an Apollo up there to reboost it, and Skylab made a pretty streak across the sky. There were, however, a million and one other space station designs as well as satellite maintenance & recovery ideas floating around at the time, to give the Shuttle plenty to do.
"Dime" comes from the french La Disme, a pamphlet advocating a decimalized system of money, influential in our country's early search for a national coinage.
Interestingly, the "nickel" was first called a "half disme". Calling it a nickel came into the vernacular when the silver half-dimes were phased out, even though a nickel three-cent piece had started production just a year earlier.
In all, throughout our history, we've had coins in these denominations (all units are dollars):
0.005, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2.5, 5, 10, 20
Over hundreds of years all sorts of new denominations have been minted, and the popular ones survived. Let's hear it for evolution!
What really bugs me is when cashiers give me paper change first, then drop the coins on top. It seems like such a small deal, but with the vagaries of bifolded, trifolded, various-corner folded and semicrumpled bills standing between my hand and the pile of coins, it can be a real challenge to either pocket the metal first then stick the bills in my wallet, or try to flip the pile in my hand to get a positive grip on the coins before moving the bills about.
I suppose they do it "wrong" for the same reason I want them to do it "right": it's easier to pick the coins out of the drawer first, then bills, and pop the stack handing them to me. Still, it doesn't seem that much of a dexterity challenge to go coins-bills-coins-bills.
No, I don't have anything better to do.
But then the graboids will get you!
Every good Slashdotter should know the Prime Directive!
Seriously, although a strict hands-off approach like the fictional directive is probably not a good idea in these circumstances, rapidly changing a culture can cause serious harm that's often not recognized until later, and usually can't be undone. And missionaries have a long history of carelessness and even intentional destruction.
Case in point: they used to be able to support themselves; but they've been taught to cover themselves with western clothing that they must get from elsewhere, creating a need that never existed before. How does that do them any good in any way?
Stinks of acute criticitis to me.
Like another poster said, this is chemical-, not codon-level parity. Sure their interpretation of purines as 0 and pyrimidines as 1 is arbitrary. If they'd done it the other way, it'd still be parity, just odd parity. The point is, if a proofreading enzyme had to match specific H-bond donor/accepter patterns with nucleoside type, or if there had to be a separate proofreader for each invalid combination, proofreading would be extremely expensive (either too complex to reliably implement or require too much overhead for all those proofreaders). If the proofreading enzyme can check for validity with simple rules based on "purines have an even number of proton donors, pyrimidines have an odd number" it has more of a chance of succeeding. In biology as most everywhere else, simpler is better.
Yes, it would terrible if a single organization controlled the construction, maintenance, and regulation of all the roads in a locality. They might impose draconian corporate policies about helmets and seat belts, give their employees minimal incentive to repair damage quickly, force everyone who lived in their territory to partially pay for their operation, regardless of whether they drove on their roads or not, and consequently have no incentive to respond to customers' preferences except through an inefficient and complex system of selecting managers from a short list, often in a "lesser of two evils" manner.
This dire scenario in no way resembles the current system of city, county, state and federal roads. All hail our wise and benevolent leaders!
I got a kick out of a freshman physics problem where you had to estimate the velocity of a student falling into the depths of hell by the doppler shift of his scream as heard by a stationary devil. Cool problems really make the boring math go down easier.
I'm curious as to where you get that "20 feet" number. Curious enough, in fact, to step outside for a quick drill... From a speed of around 14 MPH (about a 16 second 100 pace) I stopped in 5 feet. Of course, I knew when I was going to stop so reaction time didn't come into play, but assuming a moderately slow reaction time (0.2 seconds) at that speed that only adds 4 feet. To be sure, stopping that quickly puts some undesirable stress on a person's legs, but in a panic-stop situation that's not an issue. So don't dismiss the human body too quickly.
If I remember correctly, I think Neal Stephenson described just such a thing in Snow Crash. It had something to do with government workers having access to classified information in some contexts (such as when they were physically inside a secured building) but in all other contexts couldn't even remember knowing that information. I don't know how possible this sort of thing would be, but do you really think that, if it was, the Powers that Be wouldn't hestiate to use it? Scary.
In his "Rocheworld" series Robert L. Forward describes a robot that did just that, called the Christmas Bush.
From a core body it had six arms, these branched into six fingers each, which themselves branched likewise until reaching near-microscopic size. Each segment had a power store, motor, and limited processing capability. Power, communications, and senses were driven by laser diodes giving the machine a colored, sparkly appearance (hence the name), and it was operated remotely by the habitat's supercomputer, relying on its own processors for simple reflex behavior.
A pretty cool machine it was; it'd be quite an accomplishment to build something like it in real life.
The sun is bright and something that big makes an excellent reflector. Once it gets up and there isn't so much atmosphere between it and people viewing from farther away it could be quite visible. Have you ever seen a far-distant airplane glinting in the sun?
My former adviser was telling me about an experiment that's planned to fly on some future Mars probe: they're collecting DNA samples from representatively diverse lifeforms which they will tag with a fluorescent marker and bring to Mars in something like a microwell dish. Then when it gets to Mars the probe'll toss in some Martian soil (no doubt processed in some way) and see if any of the DNA hybridizes by measuring the fluorescence.
Obviously this won't find any really weird organisms like something silicon-based (which is at least theoretically possible, see Genetic Takeover and the Mineral Origins of Life by A. G. Cairns-Smith) but it could confirm the panspermia hypothesis (Mars->Earth or Earth->Mars); and even if there was no direct relationship between Earth and Mars life, there would be some level of hybridization as long as Martian life used DNA (or a closely related analogue).
So although the bulk of the focus now is on looking for more general life-conducive factors like liquid water, past atmospheric composition, and temperature history, there's also some attention to specific tests for life, even if they are expected to fail.
IA(m)AB(iochemist) (well, B.S. anyway) and think ecosystem change is a very real concern. Yes, new species will rush in to fill a niche, but their idea of "rushing" isn't nearly fast enough to keep pace with the rate of change possible by human-caused tampering. Often one or two species will dominate the void (think purple loosestrife or zebra mussels) and occupy it, retarding the progress of other species. It often takes a long time for biodiversity to return to pre-affected levels.
Of course, we have been genetically engineering our environment for thousands of years, but the rapid development and sudden large-scale implementation of GM technology is too fast for either nature or science to cope with. I honestly hope that, in the future, our world will be greatly improved due to what GM technology has to offer us. But the internal combustion engine was a mixed bag, nuclear power was a mixed bag, TV was a mixed bag. Let's use some caution.
P.S. for some interesting research that isn't getting out the way it should, see http://projectcensored.org/c2001stories/7.html
OK, from what I know of astrobiology the going hypothesis *is* that life originates in a more conducive (micro)environment (which we could still consider harsh) first.
With Mars this is the past climate which had liquid water, more atmosphere, and warmer temperatures. On Europa the theories are less settled, but one idea I saw looked at cracks in the ice cover that routinely bring liquid water to the surface as a potential microenvironment that supports photosynthetic life.
Incidentally, the discovery of life on Mars wouldn't confirm the ubiquity of life. If the extraterrestrial life was found to be related to terrestrial life it would simply expand the biosphere slightly. On a cosmic scale, the difference between life on one planet in a solar system and life on several planets of a solar system are minor--it's far easier to transplant space spoors between planets than it is to get them out of the source star's gravity well and through interstellar space. What we'd really need to call life ubiquitous would be proof of interstellar panspermia, or (more interesting) some form of independently evolved life.