... it [the government] decided that the problem was that readily available methyl (industrial) alcohol — itself a poison — didn't taste nasty enough.
The article got it right:
Industrial alcohol is basically grain alcohol [ethyl alcohol] with some unpleasant chemicals mixed in to render it undrinkable.... Some 70 denaturing formulas existed by the 1920s. Most simply added poisonous methyl alcohol into the mix.
It's not as if you would ever need to denature methanol. Denatured alcohol is typically ethanol with 10% methanol (a toxin) added. Such a formulation is also called methylated spirits.
--
I find it amusing that one of the antidotes used to treat methanol poisoning is ethanol.
Or for that matter did they not think to try testing the actual module on the ground prior to launch?
Lead ISS Flight Director Bob Dempsey was asked that during the most recent mission update briefing.
(He discusses the problem in his initial remarks at 5:00, and answers the fit test question at 12:50.)
He replied, "The main reason is the Center Disk Cover that we are installing was on orbit for many years before it could be fit checked on the module. Similar Disk Covers were fit into the module, but not the actual flight hardware, and not exactly in the configuration with the Cupola mated to the Node 3 as well." He later said that "every Center Disc Cover is a little bit different" (while discussing the Cupola relocation at 17:15) but didn't elaborate on it any further.
ISS commander Jeffrey Williams removed two bolts from a Cupola handrail mount which gave just enough clearance to install the center disc cover, but at the time of the briefing the ground engineers were still determining if the clearance was sufficient to proceeded with the relocation of the Cupola to the Node 3 nadir port, or if they should remove additional pieces and delay the relocation by a day. They eventually decide to go ahead with the relocation as is, and shuttle pilot Col. Terry Virts and lead robotics mission specialist Capt. Kathryn Hire will be relocating it in a couple of hours.
I looked on Youtube for some videos of the HP calculators,...
For a good video of the philosophy behind RPN, see Rocket Girls Ep.2:
What are the values of delta v1 and delta v2?
But some of those numbers have seven digits...
You have a calculator, don't you?
Right, right!... the heck is this? There's no equals key!
Of course not! Don't you know reverse Polish calculation?
Of course not!
Oh, really? In that case... I'll take five minutes to cram its operation into your head. When I'm done with you, you'll never be able to use a regular calculator again. Prepare yourself.
Toward the end of Administrator Bolden's presentation at the National Press Club (0:48:40) he mentioned that "game changing technology enables us to go to Mars in days, not months". Is this grounded in any reasonable expectation of propulsion development over even the next several decades?
To gain a sense of the openness of Skylab, check out some of the old video of astronauts "jogging" inside around its circumference, such as this. Then compare it to a tour of the ISS.
RPN maps better to how I think about a problem than algebraic entry does.
I've always assumed that to be one of the biggest sources of resistance to RPN. Those who are uncomfortable with math can use algebraic entry without thinking about the meaning of the problem.
Has the entire Space Station Biological Research Program gone down the drain? Their planned experiments seemed the most important science that could be done on the ISS, but I believe that they depended on the rack space, glove boxes, and centrifuges of the CAM.
I think we need to send people there. But when we do, it should be a one-way trip. We should continue to send robots until we figure out a good spot for an initial landing site, then send a few more robots to build a permanent, self-sustaining base there. THEN we send people.
Agreed.
In the mean time, in order to determine the feasibility of such permanent outposts, we need to pursue two biological research programs -- medical mediation of radiation exposure and understanding long term low-g exposure.
While one can be done on earth, the other can't. We have a lot of information on long term micro-g exposure but we know nothing about the biological effects of long term low-g exposure. Since we have a LEO presence, why in the world did we abandon the Centrifuge Accommodations Module which would have permitted such experiments on test animals?
How much of a blow to low-g biological research was the cancellation of the Centrifuge Accommodations Module? It seems that a good amount micro-g biological research has been done (and hopefully will continue to be done during the next ten years), but very little is known about low-g effects. I would think that multiple generation vertebrate (lab rat) study of the effects of prolonged 1/3 and 1/6 g exposure would be critical to understanding the issues of a mars mission or a lunar base.
We have one spare shuttle external tank beyond the current manifest, so even if the shuttle is retired, the program could be extended for one more flight. (Early Augustine Commission discussions suggested this as a good idea for a number of reasons.) Could CAM construction be restarted and rushed to completion in time for a launch 18 months of so from now?
Imagine an ambitious mars program that spent the next decade with humans not traveling beyond LEO, but doing the serious research needed. After five years or so of low-g biological research on the ISS, long term human exposure tests could be done in a spinning "habitat on a cable attached to a counterweight". That way, after ten years of accelerated rover exploration and materials and technology development, we would have the knowledge to plan a serious mars mission, quite possible involving one-way trips and permanent stays.
We also launched CIA ops to goad the Soviets to invade Afghanistan,...
Can you refer me to any material on this?
From what I have read I seems that while some in the Carter administration hoped that the Soviets might get tangled up in Afghanistan, possibly giving them "their Vietnam," they were by no means pleased at the invasion, and the the U.S. Dept of Stale long thought that nothing much could be done about it, only hoping that the Soviets would stop there and not push on. Wasn't the post-invasion support for the mujahadeen pushed upon a reluctant CIA by congressional action?
I wonder if we had anything observing the opposite side of the Sun when this happened.
The project's orbital information page states that the two spacecraft are currently separated by 128 degrees. (They orbit about 0.05 AU inside and outside earth's orbit, so that their orbital periods are 346 and 388 days, and their separation changes by about 44 degrees annually.) The entire sun will be visible when they achieve 180 degrees separation in February 2011. With earth based observations, the full sun will continue to be visible another eight years. A few months of contact will be lost in 2015 as they pass behind the sun. (If only Ulysses was still operating, we could get some polar views as well. It should be silently making its next solar passes sometime around 2013-2014.)
STEREOs lunar gravitational slingshot (animated at the project's orbital simulation page) was very cool.
They are supposed to be searching for Trojan asteroids as they pass through Earth's L4 and L5 Lagrangian points, but I've not heard of any results yet.
That's a very precise figure for something that's just a rough estimate!
Besides being both overly precise and essentially meaningless, there is no indication of how it was derived. They give a number of subtotals that sum to less than 5% of their total.
22,837,511,120 kg = 570,937,778 computers * 40 kg/computer [those are heavy boxen]
1,754,809,310 kg = 175,480,931 servers * 10 kg/server
87,000,000 kg = 15,000 km TAT-14 cable * 5.8 kg/m-of-cable
6,075,000 kg = 42,000,000 iPhones * approx 144.64 g/iPhone [the review they link to claims 133 g]
6,800,000 kg = 50,000,000 Blackberries * 136 g/Blackberry
24,692,195,430 kg sum
498,438,559,990 kg their total
The cable figure is only for the "TAT-14 cable that links the US to France, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and the UK", but they make no indication that they are scaling it up.
So, I wonder how they did arrive at their meaningless number.
Slashdot Mirror
... it [the government] decided that the problem was that readily available methyl (industrial) alcohol — itself a poison — didn't taste nasty enough.
The article got it right:
Industrial alcohol is basically grain alcohol [ethyl alcohol] with some unpleasant chemicals mixed in to render it undrinkable. ... Some 70 denaturing formulas existed by the 1920s. Most simply added poisonous methyl alcohol into the mix.
It's not as if you would ever need to denature methanol. Denatured alcohol is typically ethanol with 10% methanol (a toxin) added. Such a formulation is also called methylated spirits.
--
I find it amusing that one of the antidotes used to treat methanol poisoning is ethanol.
... and switched to "type in something you wouldn't want your coworkers to know, like your SSN".
or "I HAVE HERPES"?
Exactly. Does anybody remember seeing a movie called the Cube?
Wow. Just wow.
Does anybody remember seeing a movie called Cube 2: Hypercube?
Wow. (That's "wow" spelled backwards.)
Or for that matter did they not think to try testing the actual module on the ground prior to launch?
Lead ISS Flight Director Bob Dempsey was asked that during the most recent mission update briefing. (He discusses the problem in his initial remarks at 5:00, and answers the fit test question at 12:50.) He replied, "The main reason is the Center Disk Cover that we are installing was on orbit for many years before it could be fit checked on the module. Similar Disk Covers were fit into the module, but not the actual flight hardware, and not exactly in the configuration with the Cupola mated to the Node 3 as well." He later said that "every Center Disc Cover is a little bit different" (while discussing the Cupola relocation at 17:15) but didn't elaborate on it any further.
ISS commander Jeffrey Williams removed two bolts from a Cupola handrail mount which gave just enough clearance to install the center disc cover, but at the time of the briefing the ground engineers were still determining if the clearance was sufficient to proceeded with the relocation of the Cupola to the Node 3 nadir port, or if they should remove additional pieces and delay the relocation by a day. They eventually decide to go ahead with the relocation as is, and shuttle pilot Col. Terry Virts and lead robotics mission specialist Capt. Kathryn Hire will be relocating it in a couple of hours.
Watch it all live on NASA TV.
Falcon 9 launches no earlier than next month ...
Fixed that. (Or did SpaceX recently make a more specific announcement?)
Focus-follows-mouse made no sense back in the old days with Solaris work stations. It still makes no sense.
Focus-follows-mouse without raise-on-focus makes tons of sense to me. Something along the lines of FVWM's sloppyFocus makes it even better.
I looked on Youtube for some videos of the HP calculators, ...
For a good video of the philosophy behind RPN, see Rocket Girls Ep.2:
What are the values of delta v1 and delta v2?
But some of those numbers have seven digits...
You have a calculator, don't you?
Right, right! ... the heck is this? There's no equals key!
Of course not! Don't you know reverse Polish calculation?
Of course not!
Oh, really? In that case ... I'll take five minutes to cram its operation into your head. When I'm done with you, you'll never be able to use a regular calculator again. Prepare yourself.
Toward the end of Administrator Bolden's presentation at the National Press Club (0:48:40) he mentioned that "game changing technology enables us to go to Mars in days, not months". Is this grounded in any reasonable expectation of propulsion development over even the next several decades?
To gain a sense of the openness of Skylab, check out some of the old video of astronauts "jogging" inside around its circumference, such as this. Then compare it to a tour of the ISS.
RPN maps better to how I think about a problem than algebraic entry does.
I've always assumed that to be one of the biggest sources of resistance to RPN. Those who are uncomfortable with math can use algebraic entry without thinking about the meaning of the problem.
Has the entire Space Station Biological Research Program gone down the drain? Their planned experiments seemed the most important science that could be done on the ISS, but I believe that they depended on the rack space, glove boxes, and centrifuges of the CAM.
I think we need to send people there. But when we do, it should be a one-way trip. We should continue to send robots until we figure out a good spot for an initial landing site, then send a few more robots to build a permanent, self-sustaining base there. THEN we send people.
Agreed.
In the mean time, in order to determine the feasibility of such permanent outposts, we need to pursue two biological research programs -- medical mediation of radiation exposure and understanding long term low-g exposure.
While one can be done on earth, the other can't. We have a lot of information on long term micro-g exposure but we know nothing about the biological effects of long term low-g exposure. Since we have a LEO presence, why in the world did we abandon the Centrifuge Accommodations Module which would have permitted such experiments on test animals?
How much of a blow to low-g biological research was the cancellation of the Centrifuge Accommodations Module? It seems that a good amount micro-g biological research has been done (and hopefully will continue to be done during the next ten years), but very little is known about low-g effects. I would think that multiple generation vertebrate (lab rat) study of the effects of prolonged 1/3 and 1/6 g exposure would be critical to understanding the issues of a mars mission or a lunar base.
We have one spare shuttle external tank beyond the current manifest, so even if the shuttle is retired, the program could be extended for one more flight. (Early Augustine Commission discussions suggested this as a good idea for a number of reasons.) Could CAM construction be restarted and rushed to completion in time for a launch 18 months of so from now?
Imagine an ambitious mars program that spent the next decade with humans not traveling beyond LEO, but doing the serious research needed. After five years or so of low-g biological research on the ISS, long term human exposure tests could be done in a spinning "habitat on a cable attached to a counterweight". That way, after ten years of accelerated rover exploration and materials and technology development, we would have the knowledge to plan a serious mars mission, quite possible involving one-way trips and permanent stays.
We also launched CIA ops to goad the Soviets to invade Afghanistan, ...
Can you refer me to any material on this?
From what I have read I seems that while some in the Carter administration hoped that the Soviets might get tangled up in Afghanistan, possibly giving them "their Vietnam," they were by no means pleased at the invasion, and the the U.S. Dept of Stale long thought that nothing much could be done about it, only hoping that the Soviets would stop there and not push on. Wasn't the post-invasion support for the mujahadeen pushed upon a reluctant CIA by congressional action?
See Roman Numerals#IIII vs IV.
--
Hail IVPPITER!
Now my favorite sport has hired a fucking Dog MURDER.
"Hot dogs! Get your hot dogs here!" (or is that only a baseball thing?)
Americans are so strange in the way they arbitrarily call certain species pets and other species food.
Unlike pingpong balls, charged particles can move through an object, leaving telltale radiation in their wake.
They must not be doing it right.
If only Ulysses was still operating, we could get some polar views as well.
I suppose it would also help if Ulysses had been equipped with a camera.
I wonder if we had anything observing the opposite side of the Sun when this happened.
The project's orbital information page states that the two spacecraft are currently separated by 128 degrees. (They orbit about 0.05 AU inside and outside earth's orbit, so that their orbital periods are 346 and 388 days, and their separation changes by about 44 degrees annually.) The entire sun will be visible when they achieve 180 degrees separation in February 2011. With earth based observations, the full sun will continue to be visible another eight years. A few months of contact will be lost in 2015 as they pass behind the sun. (If only Ulysses was still operating, we could get some polar views as well. It should be silently making its next solar passes sometime around 2013-2014.)
STEREOs lunar gravitational slingshot (animated at the project's orbital simulation page) was very cool.
They are supposed to be searching for Trojan asteroids as they pass through Earth's L4 and L5 Lagrangian points, but I've not heard of any results yet.
Then again whenever someone writes "Barrack Hussein Obama" you just never know ...
That's why I took all those headlines on 2008-11-05 with a grain of salt.
That's a very precise figure for something that's just a rough estimate!
Besides being both overly precise and essentially meaningless, there is no indication of how it was derived. They give a number of subtotals that sum to less than 5% of their total.
22,837,511,120 kg = 570,937,778 computers * 40 kg/computer [those are heavy boxen]
1,754,809,310 kg = 175,480,931 servers * 10 kg/server
87,000,000 kg = 15,000 km TAT-14 cable * 5.8 kg/m-of-cable
6,075,000 kg = 42,000,000 iPhones * approx 144.64 g/iPhone [the review they link to claims 133 g]
6,800,000 kg = 50,000,000 Blackberries * 136 g/Blackberry
24,692,195,430 kg sum
498,438,559,990 kg their total
The cable figure is only for the "TAT-14 cable that links the US to France, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and the UK", but they make no indication that they are scaling it up.
So, I wonder how they did arrive at their meaningless number.
The Pentagon is not in D.C.; it is in Arlington, Virginia. (Not that this bears on your particular argument.)
Although it does use D.C. zip codes.
One private will do, if it's on foreign soil. DC may not be a state, but it's still US soil ...
The Pentagon is not in D.C.; it is in Arlington, Virginia. (Not that this bears on your particular argument.)
You might like this debate, ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvZz_pxZ2lw
Christopher Hitchens does a good job as usual, but Stephen Fry really does steal that show. It is a shame that they didn't have stronger opponents.
A source of water provides a much bigger gain than merely being a source of something to drink (and breathe).
Waterboarding at 0.16G? Will Malia Obama's 2048 presidential campaign include a promise of closing down the Cabeus Crater Detention Facility?