Yeah, I sighed. It's a shame that this concept is so hard to explain.
To go to the Moon you need a booster, a capsule and a lander. Without an Apollo sized budget its too expensive to build all three at once. So the question becomes: what can we do with just the booster and the capsule while the lander is being built?
There's lots of things of value. Developing cis-lunar space. Going to asteroids, to learn how to divert one that may threaten the Earth. To the Moons of Mars to learn how to do long duration deep space flights.
Eventually, the lander will be ready and NASA will try it out on the Moon, and then onto a Mars landing.
But that's not the kind of argument you can put on a bumpersticker or insert into a presidential speech.
Which is why I've used AMEX for my daily expenses for close to ten years now.
You must have racked up a lot of those fees and surcharges that everyone puts up signs about because AMEX demands 2% more than Visa from the merchant and the merchants refuse to wear it.
Pah. The way the entrepreneurial mind works: Oh I wish I could do something with rockets but it's all so hard and I don't know if I can make a go of it. Hey, is that John Carmack the guy who wrote Doom flying rockets to win a million dollar prize? Wow, I can do better than him, I've actually got an aerospace degree! Quits job, starts company.
Prizes serve the same purpose as early customers: they take startups out of stealth mode and announce their business plan to the world. Other entrepreneurs see this and want some of the action. They you get competition.. then you get innovation.. then you get lower prices.
There's some tether concepts for trading delta-v with asteroids that could both be used to divert them or to provide slingshot maneuvers.. but more likely is to use the asteroid as fuel - most asteroids are believed to be between 50 and 80% water by mass.
One day we'll be able to predict events like this. You'll see something in the sky, go to a website, or pull up an app on your smart phone, and it'll have a designation based on when it was first detected and the flight path that object took to hit the atmosphere. Maybe the website will look something like this, but hopefully not;) Tracking small rocks like this might seem like a waste of time, until we predict one that is going to hit a major populated area - lives could be saved. This would be a side-benefit of the real purpose of the program - detecting planet killer sized hazards and preparing for the day when we need to divert one. The economic benefits of capturing asteroids in orbit and utilizing the materials should also be considerable.
Ok.. Jeff Foust is a great guy to follow if you're into spaceflight. He goes to all the conferences.. reports what he hears. He also makes up the hash tags and most people follow his lead. Hash tags seem to work but they're primitive and they take up valuable characters. Twitter doesn't seem to know how to separate metadata from message. The list functionality they've added recently is interesting. Being able to save searches is also interesting. As for third party clients... yeah, the website is superior, imho.
Fermi wasn't just talking about radio signals. Colonizing an entire galaxy doesn't take a whole lot of time, on geological timescales. When Fermi posed the question, where are they, he was wondering where the obvious mega-engineering is. How come we don't see any dismantled planets? Where's the stars blotted out by solar collectors?
I think all these questions have one simple answer: you're asking the wrong question.
Radio is primitive and totally unsuitable for an interstellar civilization to be using. They'd have something better. We've only had it for 100 years and we're already going dark.. that's just too short a time to expect an alien civilization to detect us, that way. It seems fair to imagine we'll never detect each other that way.
Although I suppose technological alien civilizations, and us eventually too, will build large colonies in free space, I doubt we'd be able to detect them. Not now and not back when Fermi was asking where they are. In about 25 years we might build some interesting gravitational lensing telescopes out at 500 au, and that may let us image the surface of planets around other stars.
The last one, Dyson spheres, they're a great idea but they make little sense for a civilization that has mastered interstellar flight. Just like radio, they're more likely to have something better.
I hate to tell you this, but it's usually not financially great for the person who wins either. The prize hardly ever covers the development costs. From a purely "let's start a team to win the prize" standpoint its a really dumb idea. Now, if you have a clue, you'll be wondering why *anyone* enters the competition. For the answer to that question, read the article... the activity that the prize is an incentive for is commercially interesting. Without the prize, people would still be interested in it but they wouldn't have as much incentive to get their shit together within the timeline of the competition. This also explains how to go about making a good competition... find something you want to encourage that people are doing *anyway* and offer a prize for them to show some progress by a deadline.
See how it says "use the dependencies tab to change the build order"... no Microsoft, *I* want to change the build order. I had control, you took it away.. why?
Yes, serious technological breakthroughs are required for solar power sats to work. Increasing the efficiency of solar collectors, reducing their mass, and reducing launch costs are all required. But that's the normal case for anything space-based.
some random examples of the 2005 to 2008 transition:
* The entire Tool menu is different, in particular, Lookup Error is gone.. annoys me daily. * The solution file format didn't change but they still added the "convert solution" nonsense that means you have to maintain two sln files to maintain backwards compatibility with 2005.. and means people who are using 2008 simply can't supply sln files to 2005 users.. and the vcproj files often need hacking. Why can't they maintain backwards compatibility... it's a text file! * The Build Order dialog is completely gone. In 2008 Microsoft decides your build order, no control for you.
but, primarily, I dislike the forced upgrade of the runtime/compiler with the IDE. Another poster says this is addressed in VS2010.
agreed. A good IDE is superior to grep.. and that's the right metric. That said, often VS fails so hard at being better than grep that I reach for the built-in grep (it's called Find In Files). If anyone wants to try beating Microsoft at making a better IDE than VS, study the way people use Find In Files and make it better.. for example, if I they added a dropdown on the Find In Files which let me select "function calls", or "templates" or "class definitions", that'd be great.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I sighed. It's a shame that this concept is so hard to explain.
To go to the Moon you need a booster, a capsule and a lander. Without an Apollo sized budget its too expensive to build all three at once. So the question becomes: what can we do with just the booster and the capsule while the lander is being built?
There's lots of things of value. Developing cis-lunar space. Going to asteroids, to learn how to divert one that may threaten the Earth. To the Moons of Mars to learn how to do long duration deep space flights.
Eventually, the lander will be ready and NASA will try it out on the Moon, and then onto a Mars landing.
But that's not the kind of argument you can put on a bumpersticker or insert into a presidential speech.
In a time when every other discretionary budget is being cut, any increase is a show of support.
Anything under a few tons is perfectly safe.. as the article says, objects of this size hit our atmosphere all the time.
Which is why I've used AMEX for my daily expenses for close to ten years now.
You must have racked up a lot of those fees and surcharges that everyone puts up signs about because AMEX demands 2% more than Visa from the merchant and the merchants refuse to wear it.
Pah. The way the entrepreneurial mind works: Oh I wish I could do something with rockets but it's all so hard and I don't know if I can make a go of it. Hey, is that John Carmack the guy who wrote Doom flying rockets to win a million dollar prize? Wow, I can do better than him, I've actually got an aerospace degree! Quits job, starts company.
Prizes serve the same purpose as early customers: they take startups out of stealth mode and announce their business plan to the world. Other entrepreneurs see this and want some of the action. They you get competition.. then you get innovation.. then you get lower prices.
How the banks advertise it: "Use your own money to shop online!"
What it actually means: "Expose the cash you need to live on to fraud."
The banks like it because you're putting your money at risk, not theirs.
There's some tether concepts for trading delta-v with asteroids that could both be used to divert them or to provide slingshot maneuvers.. but more likely is to use the asteroid as fuel - most asteroids are believed to be between 50 and 80% water by mass.
One day we'll be able to predict events like this. You'll see something in the sky, go to a website, or pull up an app on your smart phone, and it'll have a designation based on when it was first detected and the flight path that object took to hit the atmosphere. Maybe the website will look something like this, but hopefully not ;) Tracking small rocks like this might seem like a waste of time, until we predict one that is going to hit a major populated area - lives could be saved. This would be a side-benefit of the real purpose of the program - detecting planet killer sized hazards and preparing for the day when we need to divert one. The economic benefits of capturing asteroids in orbit and utilizing the materials should also be considerable.
If you don't want people telling you what to do, there is a simple solution: don't live in a society. Go be a hermit somewhere.
The law still applies to hermits, as it more often than not these days regulates what one can do in the privacy of one's own home.
Ok.. Jeff Foust is a great guy to follow if you're into spaceflight. He goes to all the conferences.. reports what he hears. He also makes up the hash tags and most people follow his lead. Hash tags seem to work but they're primitive and they take up valuable characters. Twitter doesn't seem to know how to separate metadata from message. The list functionality they've added recently is interesting. Being able to save searches is also interesting. As for third party clients... yeah, the website is superior, imho.
Fermi wasn't just talking about radio signals. Colonizing an entire galaxy doesn't take a whole lot of time, on geological timescales. When Fermi posed the question, where are they, he was wondering where the obvious mega-engineering is. How come we don't see any dismantled planets? Where's the stars blotted out by solar collectors?
I think all these questions have one simple answer: you're asking the wrong question.
Radio is primitive and totally unsuitable for an interstellar civilization to be using. They'd have something better. We've only had it for 100 years and we're already going dark.. that's just too short a time to expect an alien civilization to detect us, that way. It seems fair to imagine we'll never detect each other that way.
Although I suppose technological alien civilizations, and us eventually too, will build large colonies in free space, I doubt we'd be able to detect them. Not now and not back when Fermi was asking where they are. In about 25 years we might build some interesting gravitational lensing telescopes out at 500 au, and that may let us image the surface of planets around other stars.
The last one, Dyson spheres, they're a great idea but they make little sense for a civilization that has mastered interstellar flight. Just like radio, they're more likely to have something better.
Stop talking sense! We must think of the poor wittle animals.
'cept for all the guids.
I hate to tell you this, but it's usually not financially great for the person who wins either. The prize hardly ever covers the development costs. From a purely "let's start a team to win the prize" standpoint its a really dumb idea. Now, if you have a clue, you'll be wondering why *anyone* enters the competition. For the answer to that question, read the article... the activity that the prize is an incentive for is commercially interesting. Without the prize, people would still be interested in it but they wouldn't have as much incentive to get their shit together within the timeline of the competition. This also explains how to go about making a good competition... find something you want to encourage that people are doing *anyway* and offer a prize for them to show some progress by a deadline.
See how it says "use the dependencies tab to change the build order" ... no Microsoft, *I* want to change the build order. I had control, you took it away.. why?
Yes, serious technological breakthroughs are required for solar power sats to work. Increasing the efficiency of solar collectors, reducing their mass, and reducing launch costs are all required. But that's the normal case for anything space-based.
whats the t&c's on these competitions? you might find anything you invent for the comp isn't your property
You may be completely ignorant of the Centennial Challenges program too..
Having actually spoken with competitors I can tell you that they all say they're glad they entered the competition even when they don't win.
It's productive for all the teams though.. having a clear focus, competition and a cash prize to win does a lot to drive productivity.
heh! I try to make Slashdot less retarded but I am just one man.
all the recent news of NASA being marginalized
You should look at where you're getting your news from.
yes, and there's no reason why they couldn't maintain backwards compatibility... They just didn't try.
at&t syntax sucks but at least it is consistent. And ModR/M and SIB bytes are not that complicated, but the Intel manuals sure are painful to read.
Eclipse might be better than VS, but I've never been able to get it to run fast enough to be usable.
Last time I installed it the person advocating it to me looked over my shoulder and said "yeah, I think you need to upgrade your video drivers".
some random examples of the 2005 to 2008 transition:
* The entire Tool menu is different, in particular, Lookup Error is gone.. annoys me daily.
* The solution file format didn't change but they still added the "convert solution" nonsense that means you have to maintain two sln files to maintain backwards compatibility with 2005.. and means people who are using 2008 simply can't supply sln files to 2005 users.. and the vcproj files often need hacking. Why can't they maintain backwards compatibility... it's a text file!
* The Build Order dialog is completely gone. In 2008 Microsoft decides your build order, no control for you.
but, primarily, I dislike the forced upgrade of the runtime/compiler with the IDE. Another poster says this is addressed in VS2010.
agreed. A good IDE is superior to grep.. and that's the right metric. That said, often VS fails so hard at being better than grep that I reach for the built-in grep (it's called Find In Files). If anyone wants to try beating Microsoft at making a better IDE than VS, study the way people use Find In Files and make it better.. for example, if I they added a dropdown on the Find In Files which let me select "function calls", or "templates" or "class definitions", that'd be great.