Skylight == big hole in roof of cave. You need a cable or wireless going from where you are to above the surface.
I think a static line or a set of routers / repeaters would be better, as it will hard to get much good lift from a Martian balloon, and the winds tend to be pretty stiff.
Mesh communication systems running DTN and MANET can take care of this now. Picture dropping bread crumbs as you go along, except that each is a miniature router.
The real interest here is biological. Caves will protect whatever is inside from UV radiation and cosmic rays, and will also trap water (and may even be warm, due to geothermal heating). That makes them of high biological interest. The geology would just be an added bonus. (Note that the geology may not even be super compelling - the lava tube I have personally seen was just one unit of lava, with no layers or anything very revealing. I think that's pretty common for lava tubes, and who knows if there are any erosional caves on Mars.)
The Phoenix based drill they are talking about would go down 2 meters or so, which is about as far as the Apollo astronauts drilled too. It would take many missions (i.e., many decades) to develop a deep drilling capability, while probably one mission could put some sort of micro-rover in a cave, saving perhaps 20 years.
And of course, there is the entire biological aspect of cave systems, which I am posting on directly.
Even AFTER the tsa boards the guy, the pilot, lord of his personal fiefdom, can expel a passenger just for wearing a t-shirt, and even after he already paid for his plane ticket?
You bet. The pilot is Captain, and no one flies on his (or her) plane unless he approves.
More than that -
I know someone who received a lifetime ban from British Airways for getting very drunk on a trans-Atlantic flight. (Among other things, they spilled a Bloody Mary on an entire row of passengers.)
Now, I am not saying that it wasn't deserved, but it was done on the spot, with recourse and no appeal. So, yes, they can do that too.
In this case, apparently he and his wife were flown the next day. Inconvenient, but not so bad.
I have to wonder what reaction a t-shirt saying "Banned for Life from British Airways" might get from Delta.
As most of you, I only read TFS, but this wasn't the TSA to blame.
It's completly in a pilots discretion if he want's to have some prankster on board who doesn't care if the whole flight gets delayed because of a funny shirt.
However, if the TSA didn't waste time harassing him over a stupid t-shirt, the flight would of been in no risk of being delayed. So who's fault is it again?
Sorry, but if the frakking airline says that they think that someone is a security risk, the TSA is going to have to check it out, even if they think it is BS. They did, and they passed him again. I don't see that as doing anything wrong.
In my experience, if you are kicked off a flight "for cause," they will not refund your money. And if (as I suspect) his wife could have flown, but chose not to board before him, they won't refund her money either.
I was once part of a party where one member was kicked off by the Chief Stewardess, not the pilot. I saw the whole thing, strongly felt it wasn't justified, and said, if he is not flying, I am not flying either. That really surprised the crew, but they didn't back down, so in the end 4 of us left the plane. They then called us over to the counter for some bullshit reason as a ruse to get the cops there, so we could be escorted out of the airport. I had to rent a van to get us all to DC.
I guess what I learned is, if you get kicked off an airplane, just walk away. And, I must admit, I had a sense of sublime joy when that particular airline went out of business.
And while private companies are excused from violating constitutional rights (free speech in this case) if they have "special" status like common carrier (which airlines do have) then perhaps their special status should be yanked...
How can anyone be naive enough to think that you can wear an anti-TSA T-shirt when you're going through a TSA checkpoint and not have a problem?
Once again, read the article. He had no problem from the TSA. He went through the checkpoint just fine. He had a problem with Delta. He was cleared again by the TSA. Delta then wouldn't let him on the plane.
I hate to feel like an apologist for the TSA, but I don't see that they did anything out of line here.
Actually, they can throw you off for more or less any reason they want to make. The pilot is the Captain. The plane doesn't take off until he says it does. Doesn't mean there might not be consequences, but, in the end, it's his call.
Poke an animal or a person, with a sharp stick, and see what kind of reaction you get - it won't be a smile and a "Let me do whatever it takes to help you...". Instead it will be similar to what this guy saw, by metaphorically poking the bureaucrats that are the TSA and airline security crowd with an offensive-to-them shirt.
If you read the article, TSA passed him just fine, it was a Delta employee who triggered the mess, and a Delta employee who wouldn't let him on the plane. Once Delta raises a flag, of course the TSA is going to have to do something, but they actually seem pretty reasonable from the report in TOA.
Since the average burglar is doing it for a living, on a regular basis, even a 2% clearance rate means that any given burglar will be caught soon enough.
Slashdot Mirror
Skylight == big hole in roof of cave. You need a cable or wireless going from where you are to above the surface.
I think a static line or a set of routers / repeaters would be better, as it will hard to get much good lift from a Martian balloon, and the winds tend to be pretty stiff.
Mesh communication systems running DTN and MANET can take care of this now. Picture dropping bread crumbs as you go along, except that each is a miniature router.
The real interest here is biological. Caves will protect whatever is inside from UV radiation and cosmic rays, and will also trap water (and may even be warm, due to geothermal heating). That makes them of high biological interest. The geology would just be an added bonus. (Note that the geology may not even be super compelling - the lava tube I have personally seen was just one unit of lava, with no layers or anything very revealing. I think that's pretty common for lava tubes, and who knows if there are any erosional caves on Mars.)
The Phoenix based drill they are talking about would go down 2 meters or so, which is about as far as the Apollo astronauts drilled too. It would take many missions (i.e., many decades) to develop a deep drilling capability, while probably one mission could put some sort of micro-rover in a cave, saving perhaps 20 years.
And of course, there is the entire biological aspect of cave systems, which I am posting on directly.
The words "modest proposal" do not appear in the actual article.
It got rid of the carbon from the carboniferous era for a hundred million years or so.
What fusion reaction where you planning on using ? I don't think you are going to get much out of triple alpha.
Probably not.
Dr. Agee et al.. If you want people to read it, submit your paper to Arxiv. Publishing via Slashdot is just not the same.
So let me get this straight.
Even AFTER the tsa boards the guy, the pilot, lord of his personal fiefdom, can expel a passenger just for wearing a t-shirt, and even after he already paid for his plane ticket?
You bet. The pilot is Captain, and no one flies on his (or her) plane unless he approves.
More than that -
I know someone who received a lifetime ban from British Airways for getting very drunk on a trans-Atlantic flight. (Among other things, they spilled a Bloody Mary on an entire row of passengers.)
Now, I am not saying that it wasn't deserved, but it was done on the spot, with recourse and no appeal. So, yes, they can do that too.
In this case, apparently he and his wife were flown the next day. Inconvenient, but not so bad.
I have to wonder what reaction a t-shirt saying "Banned for Life from British Airways" might get from Delta.
As most of you, I only read TFS, but this wasn't the TSA to blame.
It's completly in a pilots discretion if he want's to have some prankster on board who doesn't care if the whole flight gets delayed because of a funny shirt.
However, if the TSA didn't waste time harassing him over a stupid t-shirt, the flight would of been in no risk of being delayed. So who's fault is it again?
Sorry, but if the frakking airline says that they think that someone is a security risk, the TSA is going to have to check it out, even if they think it is BS. They did, and they passed him again. I don't see that as doing anything wrong.
In my experience, if you are kicked off a flight "for cause," they will not refund your money. And if (as I suspect) his wife could have flown, but chose not to board before him, they won't refund her money either.
I was once part of a party where one member was kicked off by the Chief Stewardess, not the pilot. I saw the whole thing, strongly felt it wasn't justified, and said, if he is not flying, I am not flying either. That really surprised the crew, but they didn't back down, so in the end 4 of us left the plane. They then called us over to the counter for some bullshit reason as a ruse to get the cops there, so we could be escorted out of the airport. I had to rent a van to get us all to DC.
I guess what I learned is, if you get kicked off an airplane, just walk away. And, I must admit, I had a sense of sublime joy when that particular airline went out of business.
And while private companies are excused from violating constitutional rights (free speech in this case) if they have "special" status like common carrier (which airlines do have) then perhaps their special status should be yanked...
Good luck with that.
How can anyone be naive enough to think that you can wear an anti-TSA T-shirt when you're going through a TSA checkpoint and not have a problem?
Once again, read the article. He had no problem from the TSA. He went through the checkpoint just fine. He had a problem with Delta. He was cleared again by the TSA. Delta then wouldn't let him on the plane.
I hate to feel like an apologist for the TSA, but I don't see that they did anything out of line here.
Actually, they can throw you off for more or less any reason they want to make. The pilot is the Captain. The plane doesn't take off until he says it does. Doesn't mean there might not be consequences, but, in the end, it's his call.
I'm not sure my wife would wait that long...
If Delta raises a red flag, the TSA is going to have to check it out, even if they think it is bullshit (which they probably did).
Poke an animal or a person, with a sharp stick, and see what kind of reaction you get - it won't be a smile and a "Let me do whatever it takes to help you...". Instead it will be similar to what this guy saw, by metaphorically poking the bureaucrats that are the TSA and airline security crowd with an offensive-to-them shirt.
It wasn't the TSA that reacted, it was Delta.
If you read the article, TSA passed him just fine, it was a Delta employee who triggered the mess, and a Delta employee who wouldn't let him on the plane. Once Delta raises a flag, of course the TSA is going to have to do something, but they actually seem pretty reasonable from the report in TOA.
I bet the rendering is cropped.
They can use robot guards, presumably running Windows, to guard the site
Got the Republicans two more Senators (the original motivation for splitting Dakota, but it's not as solidly Republican as it was a century + ago).
The People's Democratic Republic of Korea is still available.
As a general rule, if someone in the free world just says "Korea," they usually mean South Korea.
But, the story would be much more interesting if they actually meant the DPRK.
Since the average burglar is doing it for a living, on a regular basis, even a 2% clearance rate means that any given burglar will be caught soon enough.