Current U.S. standards limit an astronaut’s lifetime radiation exposure to 1 Sievert, or 1,000 milliSieverts, which equates to about a five percent chance increase in developing a fatal cancer.
A new study shows that with currently available propulsion technologies and similar shielding to Curiosity’s, astronauts on even the shortest roundtrips to Mars would get radiation doses of about 662 millisieverts and that doesn’t include radiation dosages for any time spent on the Martian surface.
Sounds like a rather low risk compared to that of the mission as a whole.
I remember walking to the school bus stop in the dark when Nixon implemented year-round daylight savings time as a result of the oil embargo. It was just starting to get light by the time the bus arrived. From 1973 oil crisis:
Year-round daylight saving time was implemented from January 6, 1974, to February 23, 1975. The move spawned significant criticism because it forced many children to commute to school before sunrise. The pre-existing daylight saving rules, calling for the clocks to be advanced one hour on the last Sunday in April, were restored in 1976.
The cost of one-way would certainly be much less than round-trip, but both are speculative, and would probably exceed estimates. We know how much robotic missions cost. The big advantage to having humans on Mars would probably be that they could operate rovers remotely with essentially zero latency, much more productively than from Earth. The rovers could be anywhere on the planet, whereas at least in the beginning the humans would all want to stay together, limiting their ability to explore directly. For that matter, we could have the humans in a space colony orbiting Mars. This would both allow Earth-equivalent gravity from rotation, and minimize the risk of contaminating the Martian environment before we've studied it thoroughly.
This kind of thinking might not sit well with planetary geologists who want more rock-hunting missions, but NASA has to play a PR role as much as it focuses on hard science.
Those "rock-hunting" missions (including Curiosity) are providing valuable information on where future missions should look to find life. It may not be as immediately exciting to the general public to work that way, but it's more productive in the long run, and without that, both NASA's results and its funding may dry up.
Besides, it's not true that the public "doesn't give a shit" about robotic missions. Spirit and Opportunity got significant publicity, for years, on a relatively small investment. (Widespread Internet access probably has a lot to do with that.) The latter is still functioning. Curiosity has barely started on its mission, and may well last longer than the others.
This is why sending robots to Mars, while scientifically interesting, doesn't really help rally the nation. Do you think sending a rover to the moon instead of an astronaut would have created the same excitement and motivation? How far behind would we be with technology had that excitement not lead to all kinds of collateral innovations along the way?
There haven't been any manned missions to the Moon in 40 years. We can send dozens of robotic missions to Mars for the cost of a single manned one, making it sustainable.
I don't think the standard has any business dictating what the default setting is. People can choose their software partly based on whether its defaults correspond to what they want. Here, the standard perversely says that in order to indicate an active user choice, the default has to be the opposite of that.
A vote for third party is a vote for the incumbent.
No, a vote for a third party is one less vote for the candidate you would have otherwise voted for if you got off your high horse and realized government and politics are about compromise and practicality (and that "you" is not you the poster, I think we agree with the point that third party votes in this elections are basically making a statement at the expense of your future...)
Anyone who doesn't live in a swing state may as well vote for a third party, since the only effect of their vote is to make a statement, in which case it's best to make an accurate one.
Given all this, why is increasing longevity a good thing? How does it help society? Taxes cannot be paid by people who don't work.
It should actually be possible to save money, since people would need to spend a smaller fraction of their life in formal education, as opposed to paid work. This only requires 1) an increase in healthy life expectancy, and 2) the retirement age is increased accordingly.
If you don't want to read the data until the chest is opened, encrypt it and only put the encryption key in the chest (something like a piece of paper will do). Periodically migrate the encrypted data itself to new media as you would with any data.
Eventually, to get a straight-line path, they'll either have to use neutrinos to communicate, find a way to lay a cable straight through the earth from one end to the other, or move everything into space.
Slashdot Mirror
From the article:
Current U.S. standards limit an astronaut’s lifetime radiation exposure to 1 Sievert, or 1,000 milliSieverts, which equates to about a five percent chance increase in developing a fatal cancer.
A new study shows that with currently available propulsion technologies and similar shielding to Curiosity’s, astronauts on even the shortest roundtrips to Mars would get radiation doses of about 662 millisieverts and that doesn’t include radiation dosages for any time spent on the Martian surface.
Sounds like a rather low risk compared to that of the mission as a whole.
The legendary Fountain of Youth was supposed to actually reverse aging. This would only slow it down.
There was also a Gilligan's Island video which so far the IRS has kept private.
I remember walking to the school bus stop in the dark when Nixon implemented year-round daylight savings time as a result of the oil embargo. It was just starting to get light by the time the bus arrived. From 1973 oil crisis :
Year-round daylight saving time was implemented from January 6, 1974, to February 23, 1975. The move spawned significant criticism because it forced many children to commute to school before sunrise. The pre-existing daylight saving rules, calling for the clocks to be advanced one hour on the last Sunday in April, were restored in 1976.
Can it be done with a tricopter? Or a bicopter with propellers that pivot?
Posting to cancel mistake in karma. Sorry.
The cost of one-way would certainly be much less than round-trip, but both are speculative, and would probably exceed estimates. We know how much robotic missions cost. The big advantage to having humans on Mars would probably be that they could operate rovers remotely with essentially zero latency, much more productively than from Earth. The rovers could be anywhere on the planet, whereas at least in the beginning the humans would all want to stay together, limiting their ability to explore directly. For that matter, we could have the humans in a space colony orbiting Mars. This would both allow Earth-equivalent gravity from rotation, and minimize the risk of contaminating the Martian environment before we've studied it thoroughly.
This kind of thinking might not sit well with planetary geologists who want more rock-hunting missions, but NASA has to play a PR role as much as it focuses on hard science.
Those "rock-hunting" missions (including Curiosity) are providing valuable information on where future missions should look to find life. It may not be as immediately exciting to the general public to work that way, but it's more productive in the long run, and without that, both NASA's results and its funding may dry up.
Besides, it's not true that the public "doesn't give a shit" about robotic missions. Spirit and Opportunity got significant publicity, for years, on a relatively small investment. (Widespread Internet access probably has a lot to do with that.) The latter is still functioning. Curiosity has barely started on its mission, and may well last longer than the others.
This is why sending robots to Mars, while scientifically interesting, doesn't really help rally the nation. Do you think sending a rover to the moon instead of an astronaut would have created the same excitement and motivation? How far behind would we be with technology had that excitement not lead to all kinds of collateral innovations along the way?
There haven't been any manned missions to the Moon in 40 years. We can send dozens of robotic missions to Mars for the cost of a single manned one, making it sustainable.
It's a typo. Remove the trailing apostrophe in the URL.
So you are subject to provions in a contract that you are not allowed to know. It would surprise me very much if they could hold that up in court...
MagicJack does it. In their terms of service they have a usage limit of 20 times that of the average user, but they won't tell you how much that is.
I don't think the standard has any business dictating what the default setting is. People can choose their software partly based on whether its defaults correspond to what they want. Here, the standard perversely says that in order to indicate an active user choice, the default has to be the opposite of that.
A vote for third party is a vote for the incumbent.
No, a vote for a third party is one less vote for the candidate you would have otherwise voted for if you got off your high horse and realized government and politics are about compromise and practicality (and that "you" is not you the poster, I think we agree with the point that third party votes in this elections are basically making a statement at the expense of your future...)
Anyone who doesn't live in a swing state may as well vote for a third party, since the only effect of their vote is to make a statement, in which case it's best to make an accurate one.
It was actually not a joke. There is *no* issue which this man has not claimed to stand for just one side of.
I'm pretty sure he's never been against waterboarding.
Sorry to respond to myself, but the following article suggests it may be possible to recover DNA from celloidin-preserved brain tissue.
Shelf-Preservation: Researchers Tap Century-Old Brain Tissue for Clues to Mental Illness
Has anyone tried to recover DNA from the preserved brain tissue? According to this article it was preserved in celloidin.
Given all this, why is increasing longevity a good thing? How does it help society? Taxes cannot be paid by people who don't work.
It should actually be possible to save money, since people would need to spend a smaller fraction of their life in formal education, as opposed to paid work. This only requires 1) an increase in healthy life expectancy, and 2) the retirement age is increased accordingly.
Bender's guarantee
If you don't want to read the data until the chest is opened, encrypt it and only put the encryption key in the chest (something like a piece of paper will do). Periodically migrate the encrypted data itself to new media as you would with any data.
Tachyons would have imaginary mass.
A few months ago an entire high-quality 30,000-year old Denisovan genome was published.
Especially since the number of people who want to donate to the FSF while using Microsoft's software is approximately zero.
Eventually, to get a straight-line path, they'll either have to use neutrinos to communicate, find a way to lay a cable straight through the earth from one end to the other, or move everything into space.
Although not a direct image, Betelgeuse was also the first star (other than the Sun) to have its angular diameter measured by interferometry, in 1920.
Someone who's lived a long time is old by definition (even if not decrepit).