I've never been convinced that the 300mW that a cell phone puts out can cause any harm. If it could there would have already been catastrophies caused by people who ignored the rules or simply forgot to turn their phones off.
Crossair Flight 498. Instrumentation failure exactly concurrent with the receiving of an SMS text message by someone on the plane. Perhaps it's just coincidence, but 10 lost their lives, possibly because some dipshit like you thought he or she knew too much about cell phones and planes to ignore a simple safety rule to shut the damn phone off.
What's even more amazing is that Fahrenheit 9/11 isn't even the highest grossing documentary any more! It's been supplanted... indeed, run over, by the "Spider-Man 2" expose $328,453,000, which explores how Bush's ties with transspecies mutants.
Using an infrared laser versus a visible light laser to "decrease beam width" makes no sense; the minimum waist radius of a Gaussian laser is directly proportional to the wavelength of light; therefore using an IR laser with the same optics will give you an increase in beam width and an increase in divergence. Gaussian beam optics tutorial.
According to the mission status page on SpaceFlightNow, Melvill heard three large bangs in flight (see 11:11am update)... if there was a premature shutdown, perhaps this was the reason?
Open sourcing discoveries in bio-tech would lead to reduced research costs, reduced development times and ultimatly reduced prices of drugs.
No, it wouldn't. The high cost of drugs (and the inflated cost of drugs in the US) is due to a number of factors. Did you notice that very few of the quotes in the economist article were from actual researchers in the biotech field? Rather, most of the people they quoted were from management and public policy professors, without a firm grasp of what it takes to develop new biotechnologies.
According to a Tufts University study (funded by the pharmaceutical lobbying group), it costs $800m nowadays to make a new drug come to market; and a fraction of these actually recoup this investment; and a fraction of these make good money for the drug companies. Where does the largest portion of this cost go? Into clinical trials, the multi-phase, multi-year, multi-million dollar experiments required to get FDA approval. First you need to find out if your drug candidate will harm or kill human subjects; then you find out how effective it is to treat an injury or disease; and then you find out what dose you can safely give, and what dose you need to be effective. How does "open sourcing" of biotechnology solve these problems?
The Economist article, in my opinion (FYI I'm a pharmaceutical researcher planning on going to med school), is poorly written, poorly conceived, and poorly researched. They mention, briefly, what are known as "use patents," whereby an existing drug can be patented for a different therapeutic use. They mentioned that "it might" be possible for a company or research group to patent a drug for a new use, but no one would do so, which is just flat out false. Multiple companies hold use patents for the same drug; the Economist fails to explain how open source would increase new therapeutic avenues for existing drugs, when the company will have to go through the same laborious and cost-intensive procedure of clinical trials.
Thing is, economists on any wavelength of the political spectrum generally {\em agree} that outsourcing is good for the economy in general (though obviously, bad for the individual who loses their job).
Seriously, do you think that NASA, with its team of experienced scientists and engineers, DIDN'T think of this? Considering how the Viking landers, the Voyager orbiters, and other probes use nuclear power, it's not like you just came up with a brilliant new idea. Spirit and Opportunity both have several pellets of plutonium to generate heat.
I don't know the exact reason why solar power was chosen over nuclear power. Suffice it to say, an informed decision was made that weighed all of the pros and cons of all power generating technologies.
Furthermore, this "$400m each pricetag" is a red heering. The Mars Exploration Rover Project was funded with $800m. This included Spirit, Opportunity, and their identical twin rover which remains on Earth for testing (and certainly will become a museum piece sometime in the future). It pays for design, testing, development, and Q/A. It pays for the launch, cruise, and landing on Mars. The $800m includes the cost of staffing mission control around the clock, and pays for the time used on the Deep Space Network to send and receive commands and data.
Most importantly, the $800m pays for a mission that is done right. Looking at all the cost cutting the led to the loss of the Mars Polar Lander, the inadequate testing/contingency planning leading to the loss of the Beagle 2, the ongoing problems with the shuttle... I think the cost is cheap.
If you're going strictly for size, then yes, the A380 would be better than a 744. But, the A380 isn't going to be delivered until 2006 at the earliest. It's impossible to know whether their ambitious specs will live up to the promise; besides, early planes in a generation tend to underperform as the manufacturer works out the kinks in the production line.
I was an EE major at MIT, and our core requirements were very similar. In terms of math, Calculus I and II (multivariable) are requried of all students, even the philosophy majors^H. For EECS majors, differential equations and linear algebra are also required, plus an additional math class (for EE it was probabilistic statistical analysis, for CS it was "math for CS majors," basically induction, proofs, etc.) That's about it in terms of the undergrad requirements (and for master's I only needed one additional 'advanced' math class, for which I took complex numbers)... so it seems like the UofI math requirements are more rigorous! Most CS majors also take an algorithms class, but it's not a requirement. (btw at MIT the most basic intro math class is Calculus I, so it's assumed you have a good grasp of algebra, geometry, and trig)
But the two planes that generally serve as Air Force One (I believe they are officially designated VC-135 or something like that) are specially modified 747-200s... smaller, with less advanced avionics (although, you figure the modifications involved significant upgrades to a plane with a 40-year old design) and first flew in 1970. The 747-400 is a new design with improved aerodynamic efficiency, larger fuselage, longer upper deck, and first flew in 1988. So unless new planes have been ordered to replace the existing AF1 planes, it's definitely not being used on GWB's ride.
1) Bush has done everything a frank opponent of space would do (cancel existing programs). That you agree with him about the worthlessness of the current space program is immaterial.
If he was a frank opponent of the space program, he would have gutted NASA funding. Although funding is down by a small percentage, this is more likely due to the budget situation than any vendetta against the space program. In your mind, it seems, Bush cutting a boondoggle like the X-33, is a sign of his opposition to manned space flight... and the fact that the X-33 was vastly over budget and behind schedule would be immaterial.. right?
2) The idea that the $400 billion expenditure and vision (ha!) should not be mentioned in the State of the Union is ludicrous--unless of course he doesn;t mean it. Which he doesn't.
Maybe Bush had other things he wanted to talk about. Maybe Bush realized that his proposal is a 5 year, $1 billion increase to NASA's budget so that the options for a grander space plan can be achieved... and talking of such things when so much is uncertain should be avoided in the SOTU.
3) It hardly needs to be pointed out that Bush I's Mars proposal meant ZIP. It went nowhere, just as this one will. So we are left with cancellations, and no replacement efforts.
Well, considering the Hubble is already going to be replaced, I've just debunked one point you've failed to make. Space shuttle and failed next-generation technologies (X-33/X-34, etc) are being replaced with the orbital space plane, the crew exploration vehicle, and the space launch initiative. Once again, little in terms of respectable science is going to be performed on the ISS... so why continue to pour billions of dollars into it?
He is a proven liar. 600 dead soldiers and countless wounded later, he does not deserve a second chance.
That's neither here nor there. This is a discussion of the space plan. But if you want to declare Bush a proven liar, go ahead. I'll go ahead and say that Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, etc. are proven liars as well. What's your point?
There are so many things wrong with your post that it's hard to know where to begin.. so we'll just begin chronologically.
He (or rather his scriptwriter) is no more sincere about really mounting such an effort than W's daddy was.
How do you know how sincere Bush I's plans were? AFAIK what killed those plans were the media and the public's reaction to the $400b price tag.
Cancellation of all current space efforts (Shuttle, Hubble, Space Station, many other NASA projects, ASAP).
The cancellation of the shuttle was called for by many space proponents. It is simply not capable of doing what it was designed for, and most missions it carries out can be performed by EELV's. The space station has questionable scientific value. The Hubble was scheduled to be replaced in the 2010's anyway. You can make good arguments for the cancellation of all.
Proof of the plan's vaporware nature is that there was no mention of this "vision" in the State of the Union speech that occurred the very same week.
Where is it stated that every initiative of the president has to be mentioned in the SOTU? How is not mentioning this in the SOTU proof of anything?
GHWB also had a problem with the "vision thing" and came up with similar smoke and mirrors about Mars before his own doomed election effort in 1992. As an indication of his insincerity, he put Dan Quayle in charge of the effort.
Considering the NASA Administrator reports to the Vice President, this should be no surprise. Of course, don't let that stop you from spreading political FUD.
OK, there are loads of people out there who can do good impressions of the Simpsons' characters and they threatened to use these last time - is it finally time they'll get rid of everyone and get new talent in there?
When the voice actor that played Maude Flanders, Edna Krabappel, et al. quit the show, for a few episodes there was a replacement that played both. You could definitely tell the difference, and for hard-core fans was quite distracting! Soon enough they ended up killing off Maude. (I think she came back to work this season)
Flying from DC to Baltimore or NYC seems silly to me. On the other hand, travelling from NY to LA seems like an airline job to me - it's just too far over ground to get there in anything approaching the same time frame.
I went to school in Boston, but am from NYC. At the time I was in school, both airline shuttles (Delta and USAirways) offered "youth discounts" for people under 25, wherein the amount for a ticket, if you bought in "bulk" packs of 4 or 8 tickets, would cost about the same as the train. Even with Acela, the trip time on an airplane was about a quarter that of the train, bus or car. Plus, I lived in Queens, 10 minutes from LaGuardia. Although those outside the northeast might scoff at the excesses of the DC-NYC-Boston shuttles, they're extremely quick, relatively comfortable, and compared to the train, rather cost effective. (or... used to be. I've heard that they're stopped offering the youth discount). They're also massively profitable for the airlines.
Several years ago, there was a beta version of Frame for Linux (I think it was a public beta). It went out to decent reviews, and then was abruptly killed. Although Frame was a bit of a nuisance at times, I used Frame extensively for word processing before OO.o and before I learned LaTeX, and my school was switching its SGI boxes to Linux boxes, and was looking forward to using Frame on Linux.
Just like with people, you cannot just shove a test in their face and guage them based on the results. There are factors that cannot be easily determined.
OK, don't trust the reputation of MIT. Here are the results. 57 MIT-affiliated Nobel Prize winners, including the co-inventor of the transistor (Shockley), one of the world's best organic chemists (Woodward), inventor of one of the most important chemistry experiments (Mulliken oil drop experiment). One of the architects of the free software movement (RMS) and the inventor of the WWW (TBL) are MIT affiliates. Several potential soon-to-be Nobel laureates (Langer, Guth, maybe even Chomsky given the political attitudes of Stockholm these days) in a variety of science, engineering, and social science fields. Back in 1997, BankBoston released a study that calculated that if all of the MIT-related businesses were put into a separate economy, it would be the 11th largest economy in the world.
Is the MIT name overhyped? Perhaps, but the results speak for themselves.
No, it's not. The tunnels might be open, but they're not complete, and won't be for at least a year. Currently they're open to the elements (tunnels couldn't be completely enclosed until the elevated artery was demolished) and the southbound tunnel near Dewey Square only has 2 lanes instead of the 3-4 lanes it was designed for. It's scheduled to be finished in 12-18 months or so, I think, which only makes ita decade or so behind schedule.
I have a good friend who works at NASA HQ. According to her, the whole moon/mars idea is basically a boondoogle to shift NASA subcontractor jobs into Ohio and Florida, two very important states for the 2004 elections.
I doubt that could be true. The full effects of the NASA vision change won't be felt until probably the _next_ election cycle. At this point, contracts haven't even been made on the vital components of the new plan, like the crew exploratory vehicle and the moon base. There's just no way to know where those jobs will end up. If Bush were really planning to use this to boost his reelection chances in swing states, this would have to be cleared up before the election, which it won't.
Now, as far as Hubble, that might be a different story, since the science telescope research institute is in heavily democratic Maryland.
The pity about beagle 2 is that it showed you could do space exploration on a reasonable budget. If it had worked we could of planned lots more cheap probelets round the solar system.
Actually, I'd argue that Mars Pathfinder showed that back in 1997. The mission was cheap; I think something on the order of $200m. The rover itself cost $25million. It was a pioneer program in that it tested a new landing methodology copied by the Mars Spirit/Opportunity teams as well as ESA's Beagle 2. It was the first interplanetary rover ever built, and the MER rovers are direct descendants of Sojourner. It was supposed to be a test vehicle for the MESUR program, which would have been a network of 16 or so lander/rovers as well as a sample return program. The Pathfinder was so successful that until the 1999 loss of Climate Orbiter, NASA was seriously considering sending a duplicate using the test vehicles for the original Pathfinder mission.
If the rovers had a nuclear power source then once they broke down (as in not able to drive around or operate the arm), they could become fixed position weather stations. The data provided could aid in adjusting future landings, which could potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars.
Not a bad idea. I suppose, had the Mars Climate Orbiter not failed due to imperial-to-metric conversion error, better data might have been available to the ESA Beagle and NASA MER mission teams.
you're obviously being facetious... but if oil were discovered... that would be a monumental discovery scientifically, since oil is formed by decayed organic matter under high pressure...
you're mostly correct.. however, thalimode in its optically pure form is perfectly safe for pregnant women. when clinical trials were performed with thalidomide, they were done with a specific enantiomer; however once approved and on the market, a racemic mixture (50% L, 50% R enantiomers) was used. at the time, i imagine the significance of the variations in optical stereoconformation probably weren't known...
Copy of the US space shuttle. Decreased development costs because they knew they had a design that worked, vs what NASA knew when the shuttle was designed. NASA chose SRB's because in the 70s it was determined that development costs would be too high for liquid boosters (which many engineers in NASA wanted, but were overruled by budget conscious managers)
I imagine Buran would have been cheaper to develop, primarily because they copied the US design with a few changes (ie liquid booster rockets instead of the SRB's on the STS). Considering there was only 1 flight, unmanned, it's horrendously unfair to say that the Soviet shuttle was way better than anything.
The more advanced we get, the greater the advantage socialism has over capitalism...
WARNING.. POLITICAL TROLL DETECTED. Please... innovation derives from competition, which is substantively reduced in a socialist economic structure.
I don't understand why people are so in love with the Russian space program. The Soyuz has the same safety record as the shuttle; ie 2 catastrophic failures with total loss of life over ~110 flights. The shuttle was an economic failure because it couldn't keep up with a launch schedule that justified keeping the production lines open. (ie 2 shuttle launches would cost roughly the same amount, in overhead, as 10 launches, b/c technicians, mechanics, engineers, management have to be paid whether there is a flight or not). NASA has had issues, primarily because it has been more ambitious, technically, than Soyuz. When was the last time the Russian space program even tried to build a next-generation launch vehicle?
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Crossair Flight 498. Instrumentation failure exactly concurrent with the receiving of an SMS text message by someone on the plane. Perhaps it's just coincidence, but 10 lost their lives, possibly because some dipshit like you thought he or she knew too much about cell phones and planes to ignore a simple safety rule to shut the damn phone off.
What's even more amazing is that Fahrenheit 9/11 isn't even the highest grossing documentary any more! It's been supplanted... indeed, run over, by the "Spider-Man 2" expose $328,453,000, which explores how Bush's ties with transspecies mutants.
Using an infrared laser versus a visible light laser to "decrease beam width" makes no sense; the minimum waist radius of a Gaussian laser is directly proportional to the wavelength of light; therefore using an IR laser with the same optics will give you an increase in beam width and an increase in divergence. Gaussian beam optics tutorial.
According to the mission status page on SpaceFlightNow, Melvill heard three large bangs in flight (see 11:11am update)... if there was a premature shutdown, perhaps this was the reason?
No, it wouldn't. The high cost of drugs (and the inflated cost of drugs in the US) is due to a number of factors. Did you notice that very few of the quotes in the economist article were from actual researchers in the biotech field? Rather, most of the people they quoted were from management and public policy professors, without a firm grasp of what it takes to develop new biotechnologies.
According to a Tufts University study (funded by the pharmaceutical lobbying group), it costs $800m nowadays to make a new drug come to market; and a fraction of these actually recoup this investment; and a fraction of these make good money for the drug companies. Where does the largest portion of this cost go? Into clinical trials, the multi-phase, multi-year, multi-million dollar experiments required to get FDA approval. First you need to find out if your drug candidate will harm or kill human subjects; then you find out how effective it is to treat an injury or disease; and then you find out what dose you can safely give, and what dose you need to be effective. How does "open sourcing" of biotechnology solve these problems?
The Economist article, in my opinion (FYI I'm a pharmaceutical researcher planning on going to med school), is poorly written, poorly conceived, and poorly researched. They mention, briefly, what are known as "use patents," whereby an existing drug can be patented for a different therapeutic use. They mentioned that "it might" be possible for a company or research group to patent a drug for a new use, but no one would do so, which is just flat out false. Multiple companies hold use patents for the same drug; the Economist fails to explain how open source would increase new therapeutic avenues for existing drugs, when the company will have to go through the same laborious and cost-intensive procedure of clinical trials.
Thing is, economists on any wavelength of the political spectrum generally {\em agree} that outsourcing is good for the economy in general (though obviously, bad for the individual who loses their job).
I don't know the exact reason why solar power was chosen over nuclear power. Suffice it to say, an informed decision was made that weighed all of the pros and cons of all power generating technologies.
Furthermore, this "$400m each pricetag" is a red heering. The Mars Exploration Rover Project was funded with $800m. This included Spirit, Opportunity, and their identical twin rover which remains on Earth for testing (and certainly will become a museum piece sometime in the future). It pays for design, testing, development, and Q/A. It pays for the launch, cruise, and landing on Mars. The $800m includes the cost of staffing mission control around the clock, and pays for the time used on the Deep Space Network to send and receive commands and data.
Most importantly, the $800m pays for a mission that is done right. Looking at all the cost cutting the led to the loss of the Mars Polar Lander, the inadequate testing/contingency planning leading to the loss of the Beagle 2, the ongoing problems with the shuttle... I think the cost is cheap.
If you're going strictly for size, then yes, the A380 would be better than a 744. But, the A380 isn't going to be delivered until 2006 at the earliest. It's impossible to know whether their ambitious specs will live up to the promise; besides, early planes in a generation tend to underperform as the manufacturer works out the kinks in the production line.
I was an EE major at MIT, and our core requirements were very similar. In terms of math, Calculus I and II (multivariable) are requried of all students, even the philosophy majors^H. For EECS majors, differential equations and linear algebra are also required, plus an additional math class (for EE it was probabilistic statistical analysis, for CS it was "math for CS majors," basically induction, proofs, etc.) That's about it in terms of the undergrad requirements (and for master's I only needed one additional 'advanced' math class, for which I took complex numbers)... so it seems like the UofI math requirements are more rigorous! Most CS majors also take an algorithms class, but it's not a requirement. (btw at MIT the most basic intro math class is Calculus I, so it's assumed you have a good grasp of algebra, geometry, and trig)
But the two planes that generally serve as Air Force One (I believe they are officially designated VC-135 or something like that) are specially modified 747-200s... smaller, with less advanced avionics (although, you figure the modifications involved significant upgrades to a plane with a 40-year old design) and first flew in 1970. The 747-400 is a new design with improved aerodynamic efficiency, larger fuselage, longer upper deck, and first flew in 1988. So unless new planes have been ordered to replace the existing AF1 planes, it's definitely not being used on GWB's ride.
If he was a frank opponent of the space program, he would have gutted NASA funding. Although funding is down by a small percentage, this is more likely due to the budget situation than any vendetta against the space program. In your mind, it seems, Bush cutting a boondoggle like the X-33, is a sign of his opposition to manned space flight... and the fact that the X-33 was vastly over budget and behind schedule would be immaterial.. right?
2) The idea that the $400 billion expenditure and vision (ha!) should not be mentioned in the State of the Union is ludicrous--unless of course he doesn;t mean it. Which he doesn't.
Maybe Bush had other things he wanted to talk about. Maybe Bush realized that his proposal is a 5 year, $1 billion increase to NASA's budget so that the options for a grander space plan can be achieved... and talking of such things when so much is uncertain should be avoided in the SOTU.
3) It hardly needs to be pointed out that Bush I's Mars proposal meant ZIP. It went nowhere, just as this one will. So we are left with cancellations, and no replacement efforts.
Well, considering the Hubble is already going to be replaced, I've just debunked one point you've failed to make. Space shuttle and failed next-generation technologies (X-33/X-34, etc) are being replaced with the orbital space plane, the crew exploration vehicle, and the space launch initiative. Once again, little in terms of respectable science is going to be performed on the ISS... so why continue to pour billions of dollars into it?
He is a proven liar. 600 dead soldiers and countless wounded later, he does not deserve a second chance.
That's neither here nor there. This is a discussion of the space plan. But if you want to declare Bush a proven liar, go ahead. I'll go ahead and say that Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, etc. are proven liars as well. What's your point?
He (or rather his scriptwriter) is no more sincere about really mounting such an effort than W's daddy was.
How do you know how sincere Bush I's plans were? AFAIK what killed those plans were the media and the public's reaction to the $400b price tag.
Cancellation of all current space efforts (Shuttle, Hubble, Space Station, many other NASA projects, ASAP).
The cancellation of the shuttle was called for by many space proponents. It is simply not capable of doing what it was designed for, and most missions it carries out can be performed by EELV's. The space station has questionable scientific value. The Hubble was scheduled to be replaced in the 2010's anyway. You can make good arguments for the cancellation of all.
Proof of the plan's vaporware nature is that there was no mention of this "vision" in the State of the Union speech that occurred the very same week.
Where is it stated that every initiative of the president has to be mentioned in the SOTU? How is not mentioning this in the SOTU proof of anything?
GHWB also had a problem with the "vision thing" and came up with similar smoke and mirrors about Mars before his own doomed election effort in 1992. As an indication of his insincerity, he put Dan Quayle in charge of the effort.
Considering the NASA Administrator reports to the Vice President, this should be no surprise. Of course, don't let that stop you from spreading political FUD.
When the voice actor that played Maude Flanders, Edna Krabappel, et al. quit the show, for a few episodes there was a replacement that played both. You could definitely tell the difference, and for hard-core fans was quite distracting! Soon enough they ended up killing off Maude. (I think she came back to work this season)
I went to school in Boston, but am from NYC. At the time I was in school, both airline shuttles (Delta and USAirways) offered "youth discounts" for people under 25, wherein the amount for a ticket, if you bought in "bulk" packs of 4 or 8 tickets, would cost about the same as the train. Even with Acela, the trip time on an airplane was about a quarter that of the train, bus or car. Plus, I lived in Queens, 10 minutes from LaGuardia. Although those outside the northeast might scoff at the excesses of the DC-NYC-Boston shuttles, they're extremely quick, relatively comfortable, and compared to the train, rather cost effective. (or... used to be. I've heard that they're stopped offering the youth discount). They're also massively profitable for the airlines.
Several years ago, there was a beta version of Frame for Linux (I think it was a public beta). It went out to decent reviews, and then was abruptly killed. Although Frame was a bit of a nuisance at times, I used Frame extensively for word processing before OO.o and before I learned LaTeX, and my school was switching its SGI boxes to Linux boxes, and was looking forward to using Frame on Linux.
OK, don't trust the reputation of MIT. Here are the results. 57 MIT-affiliated Nobel Prize winners, including the co-inventor of the transistor (Shockley), one of the world's best organic chemists (Woodward), inventor of one of the most important chemistry experiments (Mulliken oil drop experiment). One of the architects of the free software movement (RMS) and the inventor of the WWW (TBL) are MIT affiliates. Several potential soon-to-be Nobel laureates (Langer, Guth, maybe even Chomsky given the political attitudes of Stockholm these days) in a variety of science, engineering, and social science fields. Back in 1997, BankBoston released a study that calculated that if all of the MIT-related businesses were put into a separate economy, it would be the 11th largest economy in the world.
Is the MIT name overhyped? Perhaps, but the results speak for themselves.
No, it's not. The tunnels might be open, but they're not complete, and won't be for at least a year. Currently they're open to the elements (tunnels couldn't be completely enclosed until the elevated artery was demolished) and the southbound tunnel near Dewey Square only has 2 lanes instead of the 3-4 lanes it was designed for. It's scheduled to be finished in 12-18 months or so, I think, which only makes ita decade or so behind schedule.
I doubt that could be true. The full effects of the NASA vision change won't be felt until probably the _next_ election cycle. At this point, contracts haven't even been made on the vital components of the new plan, like the crew exploratory vehicle and the moon base. There's just no way to know where those jobs will end up. If Bush were really planning to use this to boost his reelection chances in swing states, this would have to be cleared up before the election, which it won't.
Now, as far as Hubble, that might be a different story, since the science telescope research institute is in heavily democratic Maryland.
Actually, I'd argue that Mars Pathfinder showed that back in 1997. The mission was cheap; I think something on the order of $200m. The rover itself cost $25million. It was a pioneer program in that it tested a new landing methodology copied by the Mars Spirit/Opportunity teams as well as ESA's Beagle 2. It was the first interplanetary rover ever built, and the MER rovers are direct descendants of Sojourner. It was supposed to be a test vehicle for the MESUR program, which would have been a network of 16 or so lander/rovers as well as a sample return program. The Pathfinder was so successful that until the 1999 loss of Climate Orbiter, NASA was seriously considering sending a duplicate using the test vehicles for the original Pathfinder mission.
Not a bad idea. I suppose, had the Mars Climate Orbiter not failed due to imperial-to-metric conversion error, better data might have been available to the ESA Beagle and NASA MER mission teams.
you're obviously being facetious... but if oil were discovered... that would be a monumental discovery scientifically, since oil is formed by decayed organic matter under high pressure...
you're mostly correct.. however, thalimode in its optically pure form is perfectly safe for pregnant women. when clinical trials were performed with thalidomide, they were done with a specific enantiomer; however once approved and on the market, a racemic mixture (50% L, 50% R enantiomers) was used. at the time, i imagine the significance of the variations in optical stereoconformation probably weren't known...
Copy of the US space shuttle. Decreased development costs because they knew they had a design that worked, vs what NASA knew when the shuttle was designed. NASA chose SRB's because in the 70s it was determined that development costs would be too high for liquid boosters (which many engineers in NASA wanted, but were overruled by budget conscious managers)
I imagine Buran would have been cheaper to develop, primarily because they copied the US design with a few changes (ie liquid booster rockets instead of the SRB's on the STS). Considering there was only 1 flight, unmanned, it's horrendously unfair to say that the Soviet shuttle was way better than anything.
WARNING.. POLITICAL TROLL DETECTED. Please... innovation derives from competition, which is substantively reduced in a socialist economic structure.
I don't understand why people are so in love with the Russian space program. The Soyuz has the same safety record as the shuttle; ie 2 catastrophic failures with total loss of life over ~110 flights. The shuttle was an economic failure because it couldn't keep up with a launch schedule that justified keeping the production lines open. (ie 2 shuttle launches would cost roughly the same amount, in overhead, as 10 launches, b/c technicians, mechanics, engineers, management have to be paid whether there is a flight or not). NASA has had issues, primarily because it has been more ambitious, technically, than Soyuz. When was the last time the Russian space program even tried to build a next-generation launch vehicle?