There are a lot of very good reasons why missions back to the moon are a better idea than just going to the Lagrangian point.
First, and most importantly, it provides a (relatively) close-by testing ground for requisite technologies. Many tasks that people take for granted are completely untested in such exotic environments as the moon and mars. In-situ resource utilization, for example, requires mining and processing operations which have no terrestrial equivalent. The problems present in off-earth mining are stumping even the most veteran mining engineers. We can't just "get water out of the ground" or "use the regolith to make bricks." Massive amounts of engineering need to be (and are being) initiated.
Building a base at L4 or L5 does not give us the chance to "try out" these technologies long-term before committing them to the trip to Mars.
This is a necessary, but difficult transition. Yes, difficult. Maybe it's pretty easy for the programmers, but for the mechanical guys out there (like myself), this introduces a huge relearning phase. Say, for example, I need some sheet metal to function as a structural piece. I can be pretty confident that my initial guess will be pretty close to the final thickness value if specified in imperial units. I also know what's typically readily available from suppliers (eg: 1/4" is far more common than 15/64"). Not only must I do a conversion from my ingrained inch units into "foreign" metric, but I must also look up which sizes are common.
With time, I would be just as good with metric as with imperial units. And I want to change to metric for its obvious advantages. It's just that my design confidence and productivity would falter through the transition. I'm quite sure I'm not alone on this.
As a mechanical engineer, I tend to integrate parts into assemblies. It is very useful to have two screens: one with the part I'm currently working on and the other with the assembly it fits into. The only problem is that my CAD package is MDI. In other words, when I switch between sub-windows, the toolbars do not switch screens. So when I'm working on the assembly on the second screen, I have to reach back into the first screen for the toolbar AND menubar. Keyboard and mouse shortcuts can only do so much.
I suppose a larger screen helps, but you still have the problem of over-reaching for the toolbar and menubar.
The labor is definitely at issue, but you make one flaw in your argument.
Aerospace engineers in smaller businesses do not make 120 big ones in a year. That is preposterously high. The cost adds up when you add more engineers to the equation. At a minimum, you need a jack-of-all-trades aerospace engineer (ie: theory, design, drafting, and analysis... a fairly rare combination seeing as drafting is usually "below" an aerospace engineer), an electrical engineer, a software engineer, maybe a propulsion engineer, and a project manager. That's 4-5 salaries at the absolute minimum. Generally, you want at least two of each type of engineer (the second need not be full time on the project) to bounce ideas back and forth. Quality and safety engineers are also nice to have, though they would split time amongst a company's projects.
Now add your materials, construction, and infrastructure: custom one-off fabrication is NOT CHEAP, especially with the typical requirements put forth by NASA (generally NASA's GIDEP requirements involve extremely high quality, and expensive, commercial off-the-shelf compoents)... though it will probably only add up to $100k, depending. Construction is more labor... a few techs working on it, albeit at lower salaries than the engineers. And in an ideal world, infrastructure doesn't matter much if you have enough projects amongst which to split the costs.
No, aerospace engineering is not an inexpensive enterprise. But removing NASA's interaction (and obscenely high "support staff" for your project) is a wonderful step.
I think the first line of my sig should explain where I'm coming from.
I, for one, appreciate the carte blanche for making childish pee jokes. It's fun to be immature sometimes... and isn't that what most video games are about? Being childish and carefree?
Even in games like Halo 2, you can kneel down and keep punching your dead opponent. Heck, the entire concept of GTA is like this. How many people play GTA for more than an hour before just going on virtual rampages, trying to get as many stars as possible? Your masculinity may hide it, but deep inside, you're crying out "Wiiiii!"
Am I the only one imagining Jazmine DuBois from The Boondocks [adult swim] screaming "Oh my god!!! Ponies!!!" in the lemonade stand episode? Because if you do that, it's even funnier.
I love the taste of real pork, hate the stench of political pork, and yet my latest project at work (ie: the one that is ensuring I don't get laid off) is an "earmark."
Please, drop the "laser" idea. It's completely infeasible, impractical, and dangerous from an engineering standpoint.
As far as cement inner walls: that's generally perceived as the ideal method. Lunar regolith provides excellent radiation insulation. The good news: it blocks harmful solar radiation. The bad news: it blocks heat dissapation from the base. We'll need a clever way to expel heat from the underground base (eg: radiating plates).
Anyway, to create these "cement blocks," we basically need to make them out of the regolith. There's no way hauling up cement is cost-effective. Regolith bonds very well, seeing as it hasn't eroded, and thus each particle has many sharp edges/points for interlocking. We just need to provide a resin of some sort to prevent shear degradation.
Call up your congressman: tell them our lunar mining researchers need more resources.:)
Lunar regolith is not something you want to build into. In-situ resource utilization is a tremendous idea, but the regolith needs to be prepared for building. Sure, it's extremely strong in compression, but lunar regolith fails miserably in shear. This "dense rock" you speak of is merely compacted dust. You need to extract the regolith, mix it with a bonding agent (eg: resin), and then form it.
How do I know? I've spent the last few weeks trying to simulate the density of lunar regolith with the appropriate simulant. Lunar mining is something the US is working on, but by no stretch of the imagination has mastered.
What about the number of buttons? I presume that you would turn the controller on its side to play the old-style games, but there are only two buttons for the right hand. Maybe the other two buttons (A and B, as opposed to a and b) are easy enough to reach in the sideways position?
Seems like it would be an issue for SNES, N64 and GameCube games as well.
AFAIK, there is no plugin facility for iTunes under Windows. Run it under OS X, though, and you can put AppleScript files in your ~/Library/iTunes/Script (must be created by user first). So says the website: http://www.apple.com/applescript/itunes/
The two plugins that I have installed on my PB are LAME ("encode selection with LAME") and a batch ID3 renamer (eg: "Myartist - Mytrack.mp3 w/ no ID3 info" -> ID3:artist:Myartist, ID3:track:Mytrack). I downloaded both since there seems to be a large-enough dev community out there, therefore I didn't have to roll my own.
As far as "library not updating automatically," I don't see how that ever comes into play. Adding new songs can be done by drag-drop. Acquisition can be set to automatically add downloaded (and, er, CC-licensed) mp3s to the library. And updating the filename is just something that is tedious and unnecessary, since iTunes does that for you.
And finally, the only shortcut most people ever really need is spacebar: play/pause.
Along with it being 15000 feet long and 300 ft wide, the shuttle runway has other special characteristics. For example, the surface roughness is so great that it can handle an incredible amount of rain (~4 inches per hour, IIRC) before requiring a landing scrub due to a hydroplaning landing. Of course, the Shuttle can't handle rain anyways, since it would damage those cursed tiles. The result is that the really really expensive Shuttle tires are replaced after every landing because so much rubber is worn away.
Also, the macroscopic flatness (ie: delta elevation/foot of runway) is an order of magnitude better than typical airport runways.
If you ever get the chance to have an escorted tour around the Johnson Space Center (students: find alumni working there!), make sure to check out the test landing strip there. It is beyond cool. They accelerate a multi-ton carriage at 30 g's to simulate a landing... and then dump copious amounts of water in front of it.
I personally know ~30 people who got laid off last summer because of NASA's recent penchant for cutting science programs. And I know of another 50 who received the same fate. And that's just for one small payload project.
But if you listen to the talking head that is Michael Griffin, "The science program has not--in our forward planning, we do not take one thin dime out of the science program in order to execute this architecture." (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=1812 2)
Yes, Mr. Griffin, but you take out a few thousand employees overall.
Nearly all of the stock charts out there neglect the time span between market closing and opening the next day. They usually just take the difference and indicate this as an overnight jump.
The real story is that the stock plummeted about 16-18% in about the 20 minutes after market close. Overnight, that number readjusted to about 4%. Therefore, all the charts out there will neglect the momentary 16-18% drop, and just show the 4% drop. I've personally taken a small hit from the recent GOOG shakiness, but realize that it's only the short-term investors that are causing this. I bought (a small amount of) GOOG stock not for a quick buck, but for long-term appreciation. I sincerely think Google is doing good things that will make money for its investors (eg: me).
Have you ever tried PyObjC? XCode already has language files for python (IIRC), and PyObjC exposes the entire Cocoa/Carbon libs via an Objective C bridge.
Slashdot Mirror
There are a lot of very good reasons why missions back to the moon are a better idea than just going to the Lagrangian point.
First, and most importantly, it provides a (relatively) close-by testing ground for requisite technologies. Many tasks that people take for granted are completely untested in such exotic environments as the moon and mars. In-situ resource utilization, for example, requires mining and processing operations which have no terrestrial equivalent. The problems present in off-earth mining are stumping even the most veteran mining engineers. We can't just "get water out of the ground" or "use the regolith to make bricks." Massive amounts of engineering need to be (and are being) initiated.
Building a base at L4 or L5 does not give us the chance to "try out" these technologies long-term before committing them to the trip to Mars.
As a frequently-disgruntled Charter customer, I was given a golden ticket. I feel obliged to share it:
Charter Corporate Complaint Line: 314-288-3150
This is a necessary, but difficult transition. Yes, difficult. Maybe it's pretty easy for the programmers, but for the mechanical guys out there (like myself), this introduces a huge relearning phase. Say, for example, I need some sheet metal to function as a structural piece. I can be pretty confident that my initial guess will be pretty close to the final thickness value if specified in imperial units. I also know what's typically readily available from suppliers (eg: 1/4" is far more common than 15/64"). Not only must I do a conversion from my ingrained inch units into "foreign" metric, but I must also look up which sizes are common.
With time, I would be just as good with metric as with imperial units. And I want to change to metric for its obvious advantages. It's just that my design confidence and productivity would falter through the transition. I'm quite sure I'm not alone on this.
Of course, if your city has municipal wifi, you're all set.
But I agree, I really want this phone, but I also really don't want to buy an unlimited data plan.
Wow. Never have I seen that pricing scheme before. Especially not at Napster.
Speaking of Napster... how are they getting along?
As a mechanical engineer, I tend to integrate parts into assemblies. It is very useful to have two screens: one with the part I'm currently working on and the other with the assembly it fits into. The only problem is that my CAD package is MDI. In other words, when I switch between sub-windows, the toolbars do not switch screens. So when I'm working on the assembly on the second screen, I have to reach back into the first screen for the toolbar AND menubar. Keyboard and mouse shortcuts can only do so much.
I suppose a larger screen helps, but you still have the problem of over-reaching for the toolbar and menubar.
Hey SolidWorks! Give us the option to use SDI!
Whoa! How'd you type...
My mind reels.
Cripes, I work for the wrong aerospace company.
Um... well done!
The labor is definitely at issue, but you make one flaw in your argument.
Aerospace engineers in smaller businesses do not make 120 big ones in a year. That is preposterously high. The cost adds up when you add more engineers to the equation. At a minimum, you need a jack-of-all-trades aerospace engineer (ie: theory, design, drafting, and analysis... a fairly rare combination seeing as drafting is usually "below" an aerospace engineer), an electrical engineer, a software engineer, maybe a propulsion engineer, and a project manager. That's 4-5 salaries at the absolute minimum. Generally, you want at least two of each type of engineer (the second need not be full time on the project) to bounce ideas back and forth. Quality and safety engineers are also nice to have, though they would split time amongst a company's projects.
Now add your materials, construction, and infrastructure: custom one-off fabrication is NOT CHEAP, especially with the typical requirements put forth by NASA (generally NASA's GIDEP requirements involve extremely high quality, and expensive, commercial off-the-shelf compoents)... though it will probably only add up to $100k, depending. Construction is more labor... a few techs working on it, albeit at lower salaries than the engineers. And in an ideal world, infrastructure doesn't matter much if you have enough projects amongst which to split the costs.
No, aerospace engineering is not an inexpensive enterprise. But removing NASA's interaction (and obscenely high "support staff" for your project) is a wonderful step.
I think the first line of my sig should explain where I'm coming from.
Blazing Angels
An Ubisoft joint.
It smokes the competition!
I, for one, appreciate the carte blanche for making childish pee jokes. It's fun to be immature sometimes... and isn't that what most video games are about? Being childish and carefree?
Even in games like Halo 2, you can kneel down and keep punching your dead opponent. Heck, the entire concept of GTA is like this. How many people play GTA for more than an hour before just going on virtual rampages, trying to get as many stars as possible? Your masculinity may hide it, but deep inside, you're crying out "Wiiiii!"
Or maybe Madonna et al are money-grubbing who...
Seriously. $250 per ticket? Whatever happened to "making music for the purpose of making music?"
Am I the only one imagining Jazmine DuBois from The Boondocks [adult swim] screaming "Oh my god!!! Ponies!!!" in the lemonade stand episode? Because if you do that, it's even funnier.
I love the taste of real pork, hate the stench of political pork, and yet my latest project at work (ie: the one that is ensuring I don't get laid off) is an "earmark."
I'm so torn!
Please, drop the "laser" idea. It's completely infeasible, impractical, and dangerous from an engineering standpoint.
:)
As far as cement inner walls: that's generally perceived as the ideal method. Lunar regolith provides excellent radiation insulation. The good news: it blocks harmful solar radiation. The bad news: it blocks heat dissapation from the base. We'll need a clever way to expel heat from the underground base (eg: radiating plates).
Anyway, to create these "cement blocks," we basically need to make them out of the regolith. There's no way hauling up cement is cost-effective. Regolith bonds very well, seeing as it hasn't eroded, and thus each particle has many sharp edges/points for interlocking. We just need to provide a resin of some sort to prevent shear degradation.
Call up your congressman: tell them our lunar mining researchers need more resources.
Lunar regolith is not something you want to build into. In-situ resource utilization is a tremendous idea, but the regolith needs to be prepared for building. Sure, it's extremely strong in compression, but lunar regolith fails miserably in shear. This "dense rock" you speak of is merely compacted dust. You need to extract the regolith, mix it with a bonding agent (eg: resin), and then form it.
How do I know? I've spent the last few weeks trying to simulate the density of lunar regolith with the appropriate simulant. Lunar mining is something the US is working on, but by no stretch of the imagination has mastered.
What about the number of buttons? I presume that you would turn the controller on its side to play the old-style games, but there are only two buttons for the right hand. Maybe the other two buttons (A and B, as opposed to a and b) are easy enough to reach in the sideways position?
Seems like it would be an issue for SNES, N64 and GameCube games as well.
AFAIK, there is no plugin facility for iTunes under Windows. Run it under OS X, though, and you can put AppleScript files in your ~/Library/iTunes/Script (must be created by user first). So says the website: http://www.apple.com/applescript/itunes/
The two plugins that I have installed on my PB are LAME ("encode selection with LAME") and a batch ID3 renamer (eg: "Myartist - Mytrack.mp3 w/ no ID3 info" -> ID3:artist:Myartist, ID3:track:Mytrack). I downloaded both since there seems to be a large-enough dev community out there, therefore I didn't have to roll my own.
As far as "library not updating automatically," I don't see how that ever comes into play. Adding new songs can be done by drag-drop. Acquisition can be set to automatically add downloaded (and, er, CC-licensed) mp3s to the library. And updating the filename is just something that is tedious and unnecessary, since iTunes does that for you.
And finally, the only shortcut most people ever really need is spacebar: play/pause.
Along with it being 15000 feet long and 300 ft wide, the shuttle runway has other special characteristics. For example, the surface roughness is so great that it can handle an incredible amount of rain (~4 inches per hour, IIRC) before requiring a landing scrub due to a hydroplaning landing. Of course, the Shuttle can't handle rain anyways, since it would damage those cursed tiles. The result is that the really really expensive Shuttle tires are replaced after every landing because so much rubber is worn away.
Also, the macroscopic flatness (ie: delta elevation/foot of runway) is an order of magnitude better than typical airport runways.
If you ever get the chance to have an escorted tour around the Johnson Space Center (students: find alumni working there!), make sure to check out the test landing strip there. It is beyond cool. They accelerate a multi-ton carriage at 30 g's to simulate a landing... and then dump copious amounts of water in front of it.
You just said Windows ME is greater than Windows 2000.
Speech fails me.
I personally know ~30 people who got laid off last summer because of NASA's recent penchant for cutting science programs. And I know of another 50 who received the same fate. And that's just for one small payload project.
2 2)
But if you listen to the talking head that is Michael Griffin, "The science program has not--in our forward planning, we do not take one thin dime out of the science program in order to execute this architecture." (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=181
Yes, Mr. Griffin, but you take out a few thousand employees overall.
Nearly all of the stock charts out there neglect the time span between market closing and opening the next day. They usually just take the difference and indicate this as an overnight jump.
The real story is that the stock plummeted about 16-18% in about the 20 minutes after market close. Overnight, that number readjusted to about 4%. Therefore, all the charts out there will neglect the momentary 16-18% drop, and just show the 4% drop. I've personally taken a small hit from the recent GOOG shakiness, but realize that it's only the short-term investors that are causing this. I bought (a small amount of) GOOG stock not for a quick buck, but for long-term appreciation. I sincerely think Google is doing good things that will make money for its investors (eg: me).
What's your favorite movie? Favorite food? Favorite digital camera? Favorite pen? Feel free to add any other non-software related favorites.
Not quite. Engineers say that the glass is 1.67 times the necessary volume, taking into account a 1.2 sloshing safety factor.
Have you ever tried PyObjC? XCode already has language files for python (IIRC), and PyObjC exposes the entire Cocoa/Carbon libs via an Objective C bridge.