It's impossible to make a moral argument about which license is more "free". You're both using the copyright system to get what you want.. and in the case of the 3 clause BSD license you're mostly just being vain. How about a dedication to the public domain? It works just fine for Wei Dai, although even he has put together some wacky "compilation copyright" nonsense to cover his ass.. paranoia is contagious it seems.
Imagine you're living on an island in the pacific. You have a pretty good technology base but you've never seen a sailing ship before. You have fishing boats of course and you consider that maybe there might be other people out there over the horizon but you have no idea how to go farther than a few miles offshore. Imagine your people managed to make a telescope that could see over that horizon and saw a society that had similar technology to your own. Would you honestly sit and wait until they invented the sailing ship or would you get your best minds working on it? Think of the military implications.
So will I. But the rest of the world will see the coverage of such an event after the sports and the weather, if at all. If you think that's acceptable, fine, but I'd rather see what I can do to make sure it isn't the case.
The public's attention for exoplanets is already waning.
One day I expect Kepler to discover an Earth-like planet with an Earth-like atmosphere and the public won't even care. Getting funding to image the surface of that planet will be an uphill battle and even if the returned images show undoubted proof of intelligent life, people still won't care.
As I'm sure you wouldn't just base your dismissal of a device on the reputation of the man building it, I'll ask you again, what's your opinion on dense plasma focus and its use in fusion research. If someone you found more reputable was doing the work, what respectful things would you say about what they are likely to find?
What part of this don't you understand? The space environment is hard. Anything stored up there for too long deteriorates. Parts are made to last a certain amount of time. In the case of the ISS, the parts were made to last until the end of the program.
The program ends in 2016. They *want* more money from Congress to extend that to 2020.. whether or not Congress will *give* them more money is the question..
I'd go into detail about all the fantastic research that is being done on the ISS, but I simply don't have the facts.. NASA doesn't make them publicly available, so all I can say is that if fantastic research is being done on the ISS then NASA should let us all know about it.. otherwise opinions like yours are perfectly reasonable.
As for science on Mars.. It's not a stunt, it's simply the case that putting humans on Mars is the best way to do science there. All the research that has been done by probes to-date will be exceeded in the first month of a ground mission (which, btw, will necessarily involve 18 month ground stays). The only possible argument you could make is that this research isn't necessary.. or that it doesn't matter whether it takes hundreds of years to do - which is much the same argument.
I think all the people who's lives have been saved by the medical research done on the ISS would disagree.
You've gotta understand.. every scientist will say that the research of every other scientist is unworthy of being funded, because they want the funding for themselves.
There's vast amounts of work being done on the ISS.. and on the Shuttle for that matter.. but you've gotta dig to find it. Why? Because the media has repeatedly told NASA that it is boring and they don't wanna hear about it.
Science is boring.. yeah.. that's the society we live in.
The US has the responsibility to deorbit it. Whether they do that in 2016 or 2020 is a question of budget. The only way to not deorbit it would be transfer ownership and the new owner would have to be ITAR-compatible and be able to prove that they could deorbit it when they are done with it.
The problem is down mass. The shuttle has it, no other vehicle does, and the station was designed to require it.
Say something breaks on-orbit that can't be fixed there.. do you just send up a new part? That will cost a lot more than sending the part down, having it repaired, and sending it back up.
It has a mass of 303t.. and it is in such a low orbit that atmospheric drag is still a major effect.. so you've got to boost that vast mass back into its orbit every couple of months.
The "permanent" adjective applied to the station means that it is "permanently manned" - as in, there is always someone on-board for as long as the station is up there.
People are often talking about moving the ISS into an orbit that is more useful for exploration.. say, an orbit that crosses the inclination of the Moon now and then. Basic calculations though, show that any attempt to "move" the ISS would cost as much delta-v as launching a brand new station.. and as launch costs remain the major dominating factor in space activities, you might as well make a new station.
Slashdot Mirror
Some of us find the copyright system offensive.
It's impossible to make a moral argument about which license is more "free". You're both using the copyright system to get what you want.. and in the case of the 3 clause BSD license you're mostly just being vain. How about a dedication to the public domain? It works just fine for Wei Dai, although even he has put together some wacky "compilation copyright" nonsense to cover his ass.. paranoia is contagious it seems.
Yeah, cause all that litigation that the SFLC has done has been for big business.
Idiot.
umm.. isn't causing mass extinction of other species what evolution is all about?
I'm just saying..
And by "post-its" you mean 500gb external hard drives right? no-one follows the backup policy anyway.. They're just going to waste!
Imagine you're living on an island in the pacific. You have a pretty good technology base but you've never seen a sailing ship before. You have fishing boats of course and you consider that maybe there might be other people out there over the horizon but you have no idea how to go farther than a few miles offshore. Imagine your people managed to make a telescope that could see over that horizon and saw a society that had similar technology to your own. Would you honestly sit and wait until they invented the sailing ship or would you get your best minds working on it? Think of the military implications.
So will I. But the rest of the world will see the coverage of such an event after the sports and the weather, if at all. If you think that's acceptable, fine, but I'd rather see what I can do to make sure it isn't the case.
The public's attention for exoplanets is already waning.
One day I expect Kepler to discover an Earth-like planet with an Earth-like atmosphere and the public won't even care. Getting funding to image the surface of that planet will be an uphill battle and even if the returned images show undoubted proof of intelligent life, people still won't care.
Can you imagine that?
I wonder how many more cold wars it will take to stomp the command economy mentality out of the intelligentsia.
Competition is how you get new products, not government and corporate sponsorship of research.
Not everyone owns a swimming pool.. are you suggesting people should stop making diving boards?
Not everything is about you.
As I'm sure you wouldn't just base your dismissal of a device on the reputation of the man building it, I'll ask you again, what's your opinion on dense plasma focus and its use in fusion research. If someone you found more reputable was doing the work, what respectful things would you say about what they are likely to find?
So what's your opinion of Dense Plasma Focus Fusion then?
It's an Earth orbit spacejunk requirement.. none of those probes are in Earth orbit.
how did your brain even learn human speech?
Ya, and if you'd like a glimpse of the future, read Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir by Bryan Burrough.
What part of this don't you understand? The space environment is hard. Anything stored up there for too long deteriorates. Parts are made to last a certain amount of time. In the case of the ISS, the parts were made to last until the end of the program.
I mentioned this in another post (or two):
1. There's no ion engine that can do the job.
2. The US put it up, they're legally required to bring it down.
And finally:
3. The station barely functions now, it will not function after even 2 years of neglect, let alone 50.
Smarter people than you are working on this program, give em some credit.
What can I say? Dr Sally Ride disagrees with you.. and who the hell are you?
Put ya ego aside for a moment.
ya.. and we'll see how well it goes.
They've taken 30 years to go from TRL1 to TRL5(ish) and meanwhile the rest of the community have focused on actual attainable thrusters.
It's provided many a great PhD thesis (or ten) but I wouldn't expect anything operational soon..
Remember the ultimate goal is nuclear.. fission, then fusion.
There's no ion engine that can lift 303t. Maybe VASIMR will be operational one day.. but it's been in development since 1979, so don't bet on it.
The program ends in 2016. They *want* more money from Congress to extend that to 2020.. whether or not Congress will *give* them more money is the question..
I'd go into detail about all the fantastic research that is being done on the ISS, but I simply don't have the facts.. NASA doesn't make them publicly available, so all I can say is that if fantastic research is being done on the ISS then NASA should let us all know about it.. otherwise opinions like yours are perfectly reasonable.
As for science on Mars.. It's not a stunt, it's simply the case that putting humans on Mars is the best way to do science there. All the research that has been done by probes to-date will be exceeded in the first month of a ground mission (which, btw, will necessarily involve 18 month ground stays). The only possible argument you could make is that this research isn't necessary.. or that it doesn't matter whether it takes hundreds of years to do - which is much the same argument.
I think all the people who's lives have been saved by the medical research done on the ISS would disagree.
You've gotta understand.. every scientist will say that the research of every other scientist is unworthy of being funded, because they want the funding for themselves.
There's vast amounts of work being done on the ISS.. and on the Shuttle for that matter.. but you've gotta dig to find it. Why? Because the media has repeatedly told NASA that it is boring and they don't wanna hear about it.
Science is boring.. yeah.. that's the society we live in.
reading comprehension, you failed it.
The US has the responsibility to deorbit it. Whether they do that in 2016 or 2020 is a question of budget. The only way to not deorbit it would be transfer ownership and the new owner would have to be ITAR-compatible and be able to prove that they could deorbit it when they are done with it.
The problem is down mass. The shuttle has it, no other vehicle does, and the station was designed to require it.
Say something breaks on-orbit that can't be fixed there.. do you just send up a new part? That will cost a lot more than sending the part down, having it repaired, and sending it back up.
It has a mass of 303t.. and it is in such a low orbit that atmospheric drag is still a major effect.. so you've got to boost that vast mass back into its orbit every couple of months.
The "permanent" adjective applied to the station means that it is "permanently manned" - as in, there is always someone on-board for as long as the station is up there.
People are often talking about moving the ISS into an orbit that is more useful for exploration.. say, an orbit that crosses the inclination of the Moon now and then. Basic calculations though, show that any attempt to "move" the ISS would cost as much delta-v as launching a brand new station.. and as launch costs remain the major dominating factor in space activities, you might as well make a new station.