First of all, I'm affected by this because our company experienced some pretty hefty layoffs due to some science cuts at Ames. We had two projects cut prematurely: one that was probably near 90% complete and another just over 50% complete.
Here's my problem with what NASA did: Say what you want about whether NASA should have built the ISS. It was their decision. The issue arises when NASA makes the decision to build the ISS, then years later in the middle of the build, simply quits. Make a decision and stick with it, NASA. Had you completed the ISS, all that money would not have been lost. Had you never started the ISS, all that money would not have been lost. In your current situation, you have royally screwed yourselves.
How about a competitive marketplace for cable television? Charter sucks. Lots. Some of us Madison residents lease their dwellingplaces and are not allowed to mount satellite dishes. Therefore, I, and many other Madisonians, are stuck with over-the-air standard TV or Charter Cable.
Fortunately, I occasionally hear IPTV radio commercials for nearby towns. Hopefully those will make it to Madison before too long.
There is a room with n people in it, where all their birthdays (only the month and day; year is disregarded) are randomly distributed. For what value of n is P(at least one pair of people have the same birthday) > 0.50 and for n-1, the same operation yields a probability of less than 0.50?
Growing up, playing games with the family meant getting out classic boardgames like Monopoly, Risk, etc. The Civilization games seem like a prime candidate for breaking into the family-game-playing field. What, if any, steps has your team taken to bring your game(s) to the level of "game night with the kids?" What technologies, such as display and control, need to be developed before such an environment is realized?
Growing up, whenever my parents wanted to join in a game with us kids, it was generally a board game of some type: Scrabble, Monopoly, Risk, etc. Video games seem to have trouble with this quality: uniting different generations into the same game at the same time. What do the classic board games have that video games don't?
Scene: me and 50 coworkers at a NASA subcontractor watching the webcast a la MSN Video on an XP box.
20 seconds before launch, the feed goes blank. Way to piss off a bunch of rocket scientists, Microsoft. Way to go. We ended up watching the rest on NASATV on a puny TV, which was ahead of the webcast by a minute. In other words, by the time the webcast went blank, back on the regular TV, we had already missed ignition and lift off.
First of all, the mission to Hubble has been in the works the whole time. It has just been a question of "Should we stop working on this?" I know for a fact that some of my coworkers have been working on the Hubble Battery situation over the last few months. And we're sort of latecomers to the project.
As far as sending robots to Mars... didn't we just do that? Twice? Spirit and Opportunity did an excellent job, living far beyond their statistical MTBF. But what you get with sending humans to the moon and Mars is adaptability. Call it "The MacGuyver Function." Once humans get to Mars, if something abnormal happens, a person would be able to better adapt and fix/explore the situation.
One of the main problems with NASA (which is not really their fault) is that everything they put into space needs to be reliable. Really freaking reliable. Better-than-Cisco reliable. Because when you're in space, nobody can hear you scream... because your RAM went bad. That kind of reliability has a price, both financial and temporal. Assuring reliability like that takes lots of time, and hence stuff that goes up is slightly outdated. I see no way around that.
As far as the next president goes, I can only hope that he/she has the same enthusiasm for space exploration as Bush.
HP has already done this. In fact, I own a (now non-functioning) HP 2000c printer. It has separate ink cartridges and print heads. The ink carts stayed stationary off to the side of the unit while the printheads did the panning.
I got this ~5 years ago, so it's not exactly eleven years old, but the model is discontinued, so it has certainly been awhile.
Sheesh, HP doesn't even know their own product history.
Calling the cell company and pretending to be the owner of the account. Since SSNs are apparently easy to acquire, access via pretexting should not be all that difficult. Of course, it is illegal.
Because the location you speak of, the first Lagrangian Point (L1), is unstable. In strict three-body motion, if you place the "disk" exactly L1, it will stay there. Unfortunately, any slight deviation will cause it to move further and further from L1. Perturbations to consider:
There are quite a few other bodies you must deal with, so it's really not 3-body motion.
The disk is continuously under solar pressure. This "disk" is essentially acting as a solar sail!
Stationkeeping under these circumstances is very difficult. There are plenty of other concerns... heat rejection, debris, etc.
It was a good idea, but not feasible... at least not as feasible as the ring idea.
The ISS is most definitely not useless. It is essentially the world's only permanent microgravity laboratory. In addition, if the station reaches assembly-complete, it would have low-g capabilities a la the Centrifuge Accommodation Module (CAM). Not only should we have the CAM installed, but we are obliged to. The Japanese agreed to fabricate the CAM only if the USA would provide its lift to the ISS. As of now, the completed CAM is sitting in Florida collecting dust. It would be an international gaffe to not send the CAM up.
Now, the science aspect of the CAM is quite significant, as it allows long-term biology experiments at lunar- or martian-level gravity. Therefore, it would be possible to study the effects of low gravity on plants or small animals without requiring an expensive trip to the moon or mars.
Going private is nice and all, but the governmental infrastructure is already in place. The costs of replacing that in the near term is simply not cost effective.
PS: this "stuff" is not way too expensive. Every flight-certified piece of equipment needs a ridiculously high MTBF. Preventing the expense of on-orbit replacement is simply applied before the unit flies. You don't want stuff just breaking in outer space (see: Russian-made O2 units).
That's the easy part. Try replacing all the shelf-life-critical parts. Any adhesive used in the thing probably needs replacing. And many air-tight/EMI seals require the use of adhesive.
I should know, I'm currently working on a self-sealing On-Orbit Replacement Unit for NASA....well, I will be once I stop checking/. =)
The problem with ignoring "scientific" missions is that they form a significant basis for over-lifetime cheaper stuff. Sure, you can throw together some pieces of hardware for a fraction of the cost of what NASA does now, but what happens when it falls apart up in space? Do you realize how insanely expensive it is to get stuff TO ORBIT? Forget the X-Prize... they got to sub-orbit, something that's nice and all, but it sure as hell ain't orbit.
When you start putting junk up into orbit and hope that it lasts through its expected lifetime, you're gonna have A LOT of unnecessary expenditures in maintenence and replacement. The REASON Spirit and Opportunity have lasted so far beyond their "expected" lifetimes is because a lot of expensive engineering went into ensuring that individual parts wouldn't cause failure before a certain time. And no, NASA did not underestimate the expected lifetimes. It's all statistics. Fortunately, when all components make it to their MTBF, the system lasts much longer than its designated lifetime.
And for the record, how do you propose we establish a permanent presence on the moon if we haven't yet developed proper methods for plant growth in micro-g conditions? Performing "science" missions would result in ~95% germination and fruition whereas a thrown-together garden could do ~50%. That is a lot of wasted mass.
1. More experiementation to study the effects of low-g and zero-g on plants: Plant Research Unit 2. Miniature greenhouses for growing salad crops and recreation for the astronauts: Vegetable Production System
Disclaimer: Yes, I am affiliated with the above links.
That's exactly the point. Deleting the old firefox2.exe and renaming the new one from firefox.exe to firefox2.exe is what I do. Unfortunately, the installer overwrites all the old links and shortcuts to make use of "firefox.exe"
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like to put in my 2c.
First of all, I'm affected by this because our company experienced some pretty hefty layoffs due to some science cuts at Ames. We had two projects cut prematurely: one that was probably near 90% complete and another just over 50% complete.
Here's my problem with what NASA did: Say what you want about whether NASA should have built the ISS. It was their decision. The issue arises when NASA makes the decision to build the ISS, then years later in the middle of the build, simply quits. Make a decision and stick with it, NASA. Had you completed the ISS, all that money would not have been lost. Had you never started the ISS, all that money would not have been lost. In your current situation, you have royally screwed yourselves.
Go Space Privatization!
How about a competitive marketplace for cable television? Charter sucks. Lots. Some of us Madison residents lease their dwellingplaces and are not allowed to mount satellite dishes. Therefore, I, and many other Madisonians, are stuck with over-the-air standard TV or Charter Cable.
Fortunately, I occasionally hear IPTV radio commercials for nearby towns. Hopefully those will make it to Madison before too long.
Complaining about a few scratches?!? How about running over it twice with a car and still playing music on it?
People are being too obsessive about the "status" the iPod gives the owner, and not realizing that it's a damn solid product.
There is a room with n people in it, where all their birthdays (only the month and day; year is disregarded) are randomly distributed. For what value of n is P(at least one pair of people have the same birthday) > 0.50 and for n-1, the same operation yields a probability of less than 0.50?
It's the same everytime... and yet it's not.
http://www.qwantz.com/
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/
That hurts. Not only rejected on a story well before it showed up on the main page, but it was duped!
Grouse, grouse, grouse.
Growing up, playing games with the family meant getting out classic boardgames like Monopoly, Risk, etc. The Civilization games seem like a prime candidate for breaking into the family-game-playing field. What, if any, steps has your team taken to bring your game(s) to the level of "game night with the kids?" What technologies, such as display and control, need to be developed before such an environment is realized?
Growing up, whenever my parents wanted to join in a game with us kids, it was generally a board game of some type: Scrabble, Monopoly, Risk, etc. Video games seem to have trouble with this quality: uniting different generations into the same game at the same time. What do the classic board games have that video games don't?
Finally! My dreams have come true!
Interestingly enough, the page works in firefox but not safari. I wonder whose fault that is? ...I actually am being serious.
Scene: me and 50 coworkers at a NASA subcontractor watching the webcast a la MSN Video on an XP box.
20 seconds before launch, the feed goes blank. Way to piss off a bunch of rocket scientists, Microsoft. Way to go. We ended up watching the rest on NASATV on a puny TV, which was ahead of the webcast by a minute. In other words, by the time the webcast went blank, back on the regular TV, we had already missed ignition and lift off.
ARGH!
Man flies to f*&%ing space!
-your friends at the onion
*magical finances hand waving* ...OSS is capitalistic.
First of all, the mission to Hubble has been in the works the whole time. It has just been a question of "Should we stop working on this?" I know for a fact that some of my coworkers have been working on the Hubble Battery situation over the last few months. And we're sort of latecomers to the project.
As far as sending robots to Mars... didn't we just do that? Twice? Spirit and Opportunity did an excellent job, living far beyond their statistical MTBF. But what you get with sending humans to the moon and Mars is adaptability. Call it "The MacGuyver Function." Once humans get to Mars, if something abnormal happens, a person would be able to better adapt and fix/explore the situation.
One of the main problems with NASA (which is not really their fault) is that everything they put into space needs to be reliable. Really freaking reliable. Better-than-Cisco reliable. Because when you're in space, nobody can hear you scream... because your RAM went bad. That kind of reliability has a price, both financial and temporal. Assuring reliability like that takes lots of time, and hence stuff that goes up is slightly outdated. I see no way around that.
As far as the next president goes, I can only hope that he/she has the same enthusiasm for space exploration as Bush.
Can we get a list of mirrors, please? mozilla.org is blocked at the proxy here at work. *grumble*
I sincerely hope this is a joke too.
HP has already done this. In fact, I own a (now non-functioning) HP 2000c printer. It has separate ink cartridges and print heads. The ink carts stayed stationary off to the side of the unit while the printheads did the panning.
I got this ~5 years ago, so it's not exactly eleven years old, but the model is discontinued, so it has certainly been awhile.
Sheesh, HP doesn't even know their own product history.
Calling the cell company and pretending to be the owner of the account. Since SSNs are apparently easy to acquire, access via pretexting should not be all that difficult. Of course, it is illegal.
Stationkeeping under these circumstances is very difficult. There are plenty of other concerns... heat rejection, debris, etc.
It was a good idea, but not feasible... at least not as feasible as the ring idea.
The ISS is most definitely not useless. It is essentially the world's only permanent microgravity laboratory. In addition, if the station reaches assembly-complete, it would have low-g capabilities a la the Centrifuge Accommodation Module (CAM). Not only should we have the CAM installed, but we are obliged to. The Japanese agreed to fabricate the CAM only if the USA would provide its lift to the ISS. As of now, the completed CAM is sitting in Florida collecting dust. It would be an international gaffe to not send the CAM up.
Now, the science aspect of the CAM is quite significant, as it allows long-term biology experiments at lunar- or martian-level gravity. Therefore, it would be possible to study the effects of low gravity on plants or small animals without requiring an expensive trip to the moon or mars.
Going private is nice and all, but the governmental infrastructure is already in place. The costs of replacing that in the near term is simply not cost effective.
PS: this "stuff" is not way too expensive. Every flight-certified piece of equipment needs a ridiculously high MTBF. Preventing the expense of on-orbit replacement is simply applied before the unit flies. You don't want stuff just breaking in outer space (see: Russian-made O2 units).
That's the easy part. Try replacing all the shelf-life-critical parts. Any adhesive used in the thing probably needs replacing. And many air-tight/EMI seals require the use of adhesive.
/. =)
I should know, I'm currently working on a self-sealing On-Orbit Replacement Unit for NASA....well, I will be once I stop checking
The problem with ignoring "scientific" missions is that they form a significant basis for over-lifetime cheaper stuff. Sure, you can throw together some pieces of hardware for a fraction of the cost of what NASA does now, but what happens when it falls apart up in space? Do you realize how insanely expensive it is to get stuff TO ORBIT? Forget the X-Prize... they got to sub-orbit, something that's nice and all, but it sure as hell ain't orbit.
When you start putting junk up into orbit and hope that it lasts through its expected lifetime, you're gonna have A LOT of unnecessary expenditures in maintenence and replacement. The REASON Spirit and Opportunity have lasted so far beyond their "expected" lifetimes is because a lot of expensive engineering went into ensuring that individual parts wouldn't cause failure before a certain time. And no, NASA did not underestimate the expected lifetimes. It's all statistics. Fortunately, when all components make it to their MTBF, the system lasts much longer than its designated lifetime.
And for the record, how do you propose we establish a permanent presence on the moon if we haven't yet developed proper methods for plant growth in micro-g conditions? Performing "science" missions would result in ~95% germination and fruition whereas a thrown-together garden could do ~50%. That is a lot of wasted mass.
We're working on it on two fronts:
1. More experiementation to study the effects of low-g and zero-g on plants: Plant Research Unit
2. Miniature greenhouses for growing salad crops and recreation for the astronauts: Vegetable Production System
Disclaimer: Yes, I am affiliated with the above links.
That's exactly the point. Deleting the old firefox2.exe and renaming the new one from firefox.exe to firefox2.exe is what I do. Unfortunately, the installer overwrites all the old links and shortcuts to make use of "firefox.exe"