Whatever happened to NASP (National Aerospace Plane) and all the high-tech and, more importantly, affordable to orbit vehicles that were under development before the rampant budget cuts?
Hopefully those designs have been put in the circular file drawer where they belong. 100 years from now, our fascination with space-planes will be seen as a great folly of the later 1900's.
Capsules are a superior re-entry vehicle in every way, and cheaper too, when you factor in maintenance costs on reusable space vehicles (with the exception of the suborbital "toys" that we hear so much about, but they won't get huge wings into LEO and back again cheaply).
NASA knew this simple truth back in the day when they were the crackinest aerospace research agency in the world. They had blank checks for designing ugly but functional space vehicles and boy did they. Aesthetics didn't enter to into the design of the capsule and LEM then, and shouldn't now.
A capsule has a much smaller reentry profile, accordingly it needs to protect a much smaller area. Hence a much smaller amount of heat shielding is required.
Further, a Capsule falling through atmosphere is kept in the proper orientation through simple newtonian mechanics, it requires no gadgetry to keep it stable, unlike a spaceplane, which is an inherently unstable reentry vehicle.
The capsule is the way to go for cheap and reliable missions.
"However, it is likely that the CEV will follow the module and capsule design principles used in the Apollo, Gemini, Soyuz and Shenzhou systems, instead of the reusable spaceplane design principle used in the space shuttle system"
The religious enthusiasm with you people are bashing the parent is frightening. Step back and listen to yourselves, you're only a few steps away from the same degree of religious fundamentalism on the far right that you abhor.
I am a solid left leaning Democrat. I abhor Bush, his administration, the war on Iraq and his policies.
And yet, I cannot help but see the fundamentalism in the environmentalists on my "side" and it's damned frightening. Ask yourself really if this person is so ignorant, or his post so badly written that you should label him as such? Or maybe it's that you assume he's a Bushite, and so break out the tar and feathers without even stopping to consider his points?
I model for a living, and it's practically an impossibility to get a model to reproduce complex data that already exists, much less predict the future.
People need to stop believing in these models, they are being used to force junk science on us.
Well of course. But that doesn't make it a good idea, either for them, or anyone at all (except criminals for whom this is great news).
It's not as if supporting pirated copies of windows is a drain on resources, so the cost to them is minimal, in fact they have to spend money to implement this kind of security.
But the real cost for this is going to be an enormous increase in hacked PC's spewing out spam, and DOS attacks to the world at large.
And this can't help but hurt Microsoft in the long run either, their machines, already renowned for being the source of most internet plagues, will be an ever increasing proportion of the problem boxes, as as Microsoft loses market share.
but where is the market crying out for a disposable phone?
Are you kidding?
If, when traveling to a foreign country in which my phone either doesn't work, or costs a boatload in roaming fees, I could buy a disposable mobile on the local network, I'd pick one up at the airport in a cold second.
Re:Wow, this is great news for criminals everywher
on
Cell Phone On A Chip
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Offtopic? Not that I care about my karma, but where the hell did you people go to moderation school?
Wow, this is great news for criminals everywhere!
on
Cell Phone On A Chip
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
No longer will they have to keep their 10 sim cards on a keychain and swap them into their phone. Now they can just have 10 phones, enabling them to set up deals for buying and selling drugs to different parties *at the same time*.
Haven't you heard of Mr. Sigmund Freud?? Repression of memories into the subconscious and things like that??
It has been quite awhile since Freud was considered by the scientific body at large to be correct about anything.
And yes, I've heard of repression of memories. Fortunately, most of the scientific community is coming around to the opinion that they are bullshit before more innocent people have their lives ruined by self-aggrandizing memory recovery experts who brainwash people into putting their fathers and uncles into jail for a hefty paycheck.
I'm not saying child abuse doesn't happen, I'm saying that when it does, people tend to remember it.
I think this is anthropomorphosizing the bits of the brain a bit.
There may be special cases, such as childbirth, in which mechanisms kick in to prevent harmful memories, but I don't buy this protective mechanism for big-bads, like car accidents
I think people don't remember big-bads because their brains are swelling from the impact trauma and certain parts, such as the hippocampus, stop working well enough to encode memory. Hence, people have missing parts of their memory near the time of trauma not because pain needs to be forgotten, but because our encoder was flaking out as a result of the trauma.
Your brain, built around the need to survive, certainly does not want to forget about pain. It wants to remember pain, and more importantly what caused it.
Because if everything else about pain is working correctly, pain is a good indication that we've done or encountered something that is bad for us.
Sounds like you've been reading too many books about recovered memories. That pile of crockery has destroyed more lives than it has helped.
And yet, postulating the existence of an entire civilization based on absolutely zero evidence is kind of... pointless. At least in the God-existance debate we have spiritual texts.
"We many not even be the first sentient species to evolve on this planet. There may have been something before us that polluted the world to the point where they died off. Our oil fields may very well be their landfills."
I uh, think we would have figured that one out.
Christ we've found fossils of *flesh* from x million years ago, you think we couldn't find evidence of buildings from a society developed enough to pollute itself out of existence?
Delicate scientific instruments like this are not meant to be used multiple times as if it were the first trial. You can hit reset on a memory core and reboot the machine, but you can't turn back time in wear and tear on a delicate sensor.
To be fair to the Cassini mission, they only have one trial to test it.
The system of checklists you are using has been finetuned over many decades and probably *millions* of flights. And your operating procedures evolved alongside the hardware.
I'm sure on their millionth flight, the Cassini operation would be just as airtight.
If we were to turn back the clock to the first weeks of commercial airline travel, I imagine things were quite a bit different than the industry you describe.
Slashdot Mirror
Whatever happened to NASP (National Aerospace Plane) and all the high-tech and, more importantly, affordable to orbit vehicles that were under development before the rampant budget cuts?
Hopefully those designs have been put in the circular file drawer where they belong. 100 years from now, our fascination with space-planes will be seen as a great folly of the later 1900's.
Capsules are a superior re-entry vehicle in every way, and cheaper too, when you factor in maintenance costs on reusable space vehicles (with the exception of the suborbital "toys" that we hear so much about, but they won't get huge wings into LEO and back again cheaply).
NASA knew this simple truth back in the day when they were the crackinest aerospace research agency in the world. They had blank checks for designing ugly but functional space vehicles and boy did they. Aesthetics didn't enter to into the design of the capsule and LEM then, and shouldn't now.
A capsule has a much smaller reentry profile, accordingly it needs to protect a much smaller area. Hence a much smaller amount of heat shielding is required.
Further, a Capsule falling through atmosphere is kept in the proper orientation through simple newtonian mechanics, it requires no gadgetry to keep it stable, unlike a spaceplane, which is an inherently unstable reentry vehicle.
The capsule is the way to go for cheap and reliable missions.
"However, it is likely that the CEV will follow the module and capsule design principles used in the Apollo, Gemini, Soyuz and Shenzhou systems, instead of the reusable spaceplane design principle used in the space shuttle system"
Hoo-ray for NASA! There's hope for them yet.
Nice idea and I hope it works.
But it's the kind of gadgety feature I can imagine going bonkers and effectively shutting down your computer until you send it in for a refit.
No, this is what people call a joke.
I still have my first customer!
Realize he's talking about his mom.
The religious enthusiasm with you people are bashing the parent is frightening. Step back and listen to yourselves, you're only a few steps away from the same degree of religious fundamentalism on the far right that you abhor.
I am a solid left leaning Democrat. I abhor Bush, his administration, the war on Iraq and his policies.
And yet, I cannot help but see the fundamentalism in the environmentalists on my "side" and it's damned frightening. Ask yourself really if this person is so ignorant, or his post so badly written that you should label him as such? Or maybe it's that you assume he's a Bushite, and so break out the tar and feathers without even stopping to consider his points?
These models are practically worthless.
I model for a living, and it's practically an impossibility to get a model to reproduce complex data that already exists, much less predict the future.
People need to stop believing in these models, they are being used to force junk science on us.
I'm willing to bet that upon looking back, this statement is going to be much less funny in 10 years.
Well of course. But that doesn't make it a good idea, either for them, or anyone at all (except criminals for whom this is great news).
It's not as if supporting pirated copies of windows is a drain on resources, so the cost to them is minimal, in fact they have to spend money to implement this kind of security.
But the real cost for this is going to be an enormous increase in hacked PC's spewing out spam, and DOS attacks to the world at large.
And this can't help but hurt Microsoft in the long run either, their machines, already renowned for being the source of most internet plagues, will be an ever increasing proportion of the problem boxes, as as Microsoft loses market share.
that's all well and good if you've got a european phone....
Bring it on you toolboxes.
I've got karma to burn
but where is the market crying out for a disposable phone?
Are you kidding?
If, when traveling to a foreign country in which my phone either doesn't work, or costs a boatload in roaming fees, I could buy a disposable mobile on the local network, I'd pick one up at the airport in a cold second.
Offtopic? Not that I care about my karma, but where the hell did you people go to moderation school?
No longer will they have to keep their 10 sim cards on a keychain and swap them into their phone. Now they can just have 10 phones, enabling them to set up deals for buying and selling drugs to different parties *at the same time*.
Being a crook was never easier!
Next on "Numbers that Equal 100", the percentage chance that the poster of this story is a Microsoft employee.
Haven't you heard of Mr. Sigmund Freud?? Repression of memories into the subconscious and things like that??
It has been quite awhile since Freud was considered by the scientific body at large to be correct about anything.
And yes, I've heard of repression of memories. Fortunately, most of the scientific community is coming around to the opinion that they are bullshit before more innocent people have their lives ruined by self-aggrandizing memory recovery experts who brainwash people into putting their fathers and uncles into jail for a hefty paycheck.
I'm not saying child abuse doesn't happen, I'm saying that when it does, people tend to remember it.
I think this is anthropomorphosizing the bits of the brain a bit.
There may be special cases, such as childbirth, in which mechanisms kick in to prevent harmful memories, but I don't buy this protective mechanism for big-bads, like car accidents
I think people don't remember big-bads because their brains are swelling from the impact trauma and certain parts, such as the hippocampus, stop working well enough to encode memory. Hence, people have missing parts of their memory near the time of trauma not because pain needs to be forgotten, but because our encoder was flaking out as a result of the trauma.
That's precisely wrong.
Your brain, built around the need to survive, certainly does not want to forget about pain. It wants to remember pain, and more importantly what caused it.
Because if everything else about pain is working correctly, pain is a good indication that we've done or encountered something that is bad for us.
Sounds like you've been reading too many books about recovered memories. That pile of crockery has destroyed more lives than it has helped.
First, this 80% figure is outlandish.
Second, there are many people that *would* prefer to live in security under a tyrant than in a warzone.
I might.
And yet, postulating the existence of an entire civilization based on absolutely zero evidence is kind of... pointless. At least in the God-existance debate we have spiritual texts.
"We many not even be the first sentient species to evolve on this planet. There may have been something before us that polluted the world to the point where they died off. Our oil fields may very well be their landfills."
I uh, think we would have figured that one out.
Christ we've found fossils of *flesh* from x million years ago, you think we couldn't find evidence of buildings from a society developed enough to pollute itself out of existence?
It's a wonderful idea, but no.
Delicate scientific instruments like this are not meant to be used multiple times as if it were the first trial. You can hit reset on a memory core and reboot the machine, but you can't turn back time in wear and tear on a delicate sensor.
To be fair to the Cassini mission, they only have one trial to test it.
The system of checklists you are using has been finetuned over many decades and probably *millions* of flights. And your operating procedures evolved alongside the hardware.
I'm sure on their millionth flight, the Cassini operation would be just as airtight.
If we were to turn back the clock to the first weeks of commercial airline travel, I imagine things were quite a bit different than the industry you describe.
I'm sure they'll have plenty of time to try again.
They send these missions all the time don't they?