But native compiled Java, with Java's bounds checks, would be far safer than C++.
Or how about native compiled C++, with bounds checks?
There's nothing about C++ that means you can't have bounds checking! The specification allows for undefined behavior when an array is accessed incorrectly. The compiler author can decide for himself what that undefined response could be. It might be an invalid access (like most current compilers do), but there's no reason it couldn't hit a boundary-check and abort the program.
Assorted add-in libraries to C++ compilers do this. They're not very popular, of course. But if programmers cared about safe insurance against memory overruns, they could achieve it without switching languages.
Seriously, worms like this that damage computers are very un-cool
It doesn't damage computers. It erases data; the computer itself is fine.
Sure, this is destructive... but it's much better than if it were installing BO2K everyplace, so the worm author could collect CCNs. That'd be much more damaging than simple erasures.
Zonealarm is a Windows program. And because of that bug, the worm is able to infect: Windows systems.
Therefore it's a Windows worm. Whose fault allowed it to spread is irrelevant to the fact of which platform winds up hosting the infection. Most Windows worms have been the fault of Microsoft, but that doesn't always have to be the case (and usually the vulnerable code was not the OS itself, but free applications shipped with it)
Whenever Outlook spreads a worm, that's a Windows infection. If it ever happened that Gnome Evolution spread something, it'd probably be a Linux worm.
"X Windows"? What's this, some weird custom project of yours? I haven't heard of it before.
It sounds a little like the "X Window System", but that has never had the word "Windows" (with a final "s") in its name. "Windows" is completely unambiguous when referring to software programs.
Windows is a generic English word and a generic computer marketing term.
No. The claim you're repeating was retroactively invented last year to defend Lindows' infringing on Microsoft's trademark.
Prior to Microsoft, "windows" were a minor feature of a variety of computer interaction programs. They were never used as a marketing term or the name for a whole product until Bill Gates's whiteboard.
Untrue. Roughly one third of NASAs budget (5 billion of 15 billion) is devoted to manned space flight.
Untrue. In 2004, NASA claimed expenses of 7.7 billion for manned spaceflight. And of the remainder, some of it (1.5 billion+) is research for more manned spaceflight. And some money goes to non-spaceflight activities.
So manned flight not only takes the a majority of their resources, but more pertinently, it gets much much more than unmanned flight.
Not to mention that the program of Lunar Base plus Manned Mars program will be unlikely to be anywhere near one thousand times the price of Spirit and Opportunity.
It can't possibly be less, so I guess you're saying it'll be a lot more. Could be.
Right now we're looking at (best case) about $1000 per pound just to low earth orbit.
All your back-of-envelope math is based on that figure, which means its irrelevant. The value we currently get from extracting the electricity from pound of uranium is less than $10.
So any disposal system that uses more than that to take care of the leftovers is just economically ludicrous.
Eventually, we might get more efficient nuclear reactors. And more importantly, as petroleum and coal becomes rarer, the market value of the same amount of wattage will rise greatly. But is it ever likely to hit $1000/lb?
hire three shifts of fifteen guards
Who are powerless to stop a single hijacked airliner.
That's a common quotation, but historical research has proven it to be false (unless it is meant as an insult to the mother's contributions in childbirth).
A survey through (for one example) the top 20 inventions of the 20th century will reveal that all the most innovative inventions were created without any pressing necessity- or indeed, without any good expectation of what need it would eventually go to fulfil. (This is true for airplanes, telephone, computer, and many more)
No. In 1993 Microsoft had 88%, Apple had 10%, Commodore had 1% and others split the rest.
I can't think of any other operating systems available for x86.
There were a few, including GEM and DR-DOS (which competed independently against Windows3.x and MS-DOS). Ironically, if Novell had given away DR-DOS for free in 1992, instead of continuing to charge for it (but making no profit), they could've killed the MS monopoly.
Re:Hubble cost seven times too much using shuttle
on
The Wrong Stuff
·
· Score: 1
The choice was not between 1 Hubble + shuttle and 7 Hubbles + disposable launchers, because absolutely nobody would take the latter seriously.
No, that certainly wasn't the choice. Weinberg never suggested it was, and you should be ashamed that you somehow got the idea he wrote that.
If I tell you that for the cost of one iMac you can buy seven LindowsPCs at Walmart, are you going to reply that it's foolish to buy 7 computers at once? That would make as much sense as the way you interpreted the article.
Stating that 1 of item A costs the same as X of item B is just a way to say that A is much cheaper than B, and doesn't mean you actually have to buy all X of them.
The ratio according to one study of lunar flight is 300:1 of human efficiency to robot efficiency.
Oh, a study computed from 1971, huh? I'm sure its results are exactly valid today! Computer technology hasn't advanced at all in 35 years.
As long robots are truely less efficient than humans, the right solution is to improve the robots.
It's not an argument between "space program or no space program". It's not even an argument between "astronauts or no astronauts"- it's really between "astronauts and androids".
I'm for the androids! Any serious scientist, engineer, or computer-nerd should be too.
Too many people nowadays can only think of their own generation...
No, we think about other generations. We just don't do anything about them, because we can't. Unless you're Marty McFly, you have no ability to take action more than 50-90 years from now.
That's why when somebody says "We shouldn't put men into space", he means it only for as long as he can expect to be alive, and is in no way restricting the ability of our descendants in 2204 to give it a try. In fact, as Weinberg explained, stopping manned spaceflight today will increase the rate of technological growth, making it more likely that future generations will be able to enjoy a Martian vacation.
work on preserving and inventing things that require long-term attention
Putting men in space doesn't invent anything. I just costs money to repeat 30-year old rocket-science demonstrations, money that could be better spent on actual new learning, not feeding astronauts.
So, indeed, it can be 'wrong'...but to whome? What is wrong for you can be right for another.
To scientists and engineers. As has been abundantly and repeated stated in the article!
You're the one pushing strawmen when you bring up comparisons between the space program and poverty, or tons and tons of unrelated things. The question we're looking at is very simple: "Is manned or unmanned space exploration better for learning about the solar system and expanding technology?"
That's why, given a finite amount of money one can spend on spacetravel, and the fact that human spacetravel is more expensive, the bigger part of the budget is bound to go to the human-part.
You've wasted 100s of kilobytes of text now, without writing one word to support that assertion.
Noticing that manned flight is more expensive than unmanned and deciding it should get more money is no more sensible than saying that air travel should get more money than car travel, because it too is more expensive.
The same fallacious argument can be levelled against any area of pure scientific research many of which would be hard pressed to articulate any economic return
But he isn't arguing against economic return. He's saying that manned spaceflight won't give purely scientific benefits. For doing astronomy or for doing planetology, manned-flight is a step in the wrong direction. Most prominent scientists agree with this: the experiments they've conducted with astronauts could've been completely "better, faster, cheaper" without humans in the loop.
IMHO, those who say humanity (not just Americans) doesn't need manned spaceflight are not looking far enough into the future.
Well, of course not. English lesson: "doesn't" is a present-tense negation. It applies right now. (Compare it against "will never")
Example: "She doesn't need a wheelchair" indicates that the woman is currently able to walk on her own. It doesn't constitute a promise that she'll never need one, and it'd be foolish to construe it as such.
The article in question only talks about the present, and the immediately forseeable future. It would be hubris to presume we can predict future technological capabilities enough to lay plans more than 50 years out.
My argument was that 'you can spend it better elsewhere' is a non-argument.
The only thing you're right about is that "you can spend it better elsewhere" is not the argument. The argument itself is much longer. This is equivalent to noticing that "The Bible" is not a holy book: it's just two words!
My point is, that everyone can say about everything that something would be better spend on something else.
They can say it. And they can be wrong.
This article has just heavily illustrated why manned spaceflight projects are the wrong idea for both scientific and economic reasons.
If you disagree, you have to attack the reasons given, not push out theoretical mumbo-jumbo that attacks the very idea that different things deserve different levels of spending.
definition of what constitutes 'better' and 'more efficient' spenditure is not any more valid then that of anyone else
If you don't even believe that people can validly compare the relative worth of different goals, then why even talking to anybody at all? You seem to have no trust in the effectiveness of human communication.
Taking into account that we now know how to do missions cheaper and more quickly
But our abiltity to estimate the costs of missions may also have improved.
You cite Congress's $400 billion guess in 1992 as a basis. Well, in 1984 they estimated the cost of the ISS, and so far we've spent 6 times what they said (and it's not finished yet).
So taking that factor into account, $2 trillion would be more accurate.
a human geologist could have done the same work and much more in a matter of days instead of weeks.
I fear you over-estimate a human's ability to survive an extra-planetary crash wearing only a sturdy beach-ball.
That geologist would've spent the first 10 hours exsanguinating, before shifting all efforts towards decomposition until oxygen runs out at hour 300.
The robot has a distinct advantage in retaining mobility after a drop like that. (It has the further benefit of not complaining when it is eventually abandonend on the barren surface)
you could fire a thousand Mars Rovers into the richest fossil beds on earth,
Untrue. The richest fossil beds have identifiable bones just laying out there in open view.
However, it's certainly true that the robotic explorers need improving. In fact, so does all of our robotics technology. Investments in that area will improve not only space exploration, but life on earth as well. Once NASA builds one good robot, we'll soon have thousands of helpful robo-aides all around the world.
Humans are still needed, directly, at the very frontier of the search for life on Mars
Absolutely wrong and dangerous! Putting humans on Mars will contaminate the environment to the extent that accurate scienctific results might be forever tainted.
If a mars explorer finds a weird little microcobe living on the outside of his spacesuit, how can he prove it's really a Mars native, and not an Earth organism that's uniquely survivable? (That has prehaps recently mutated, or whatever)
Robots can be thoroughly purged of bio-organisms before (and after) launch. Don't try that with a human...
Manned space flight for the purposes of science and exploration is not necessary yet.
It should be noted that "yet" is an inaccurate word. "Now" would be correct, because prior to the advancement of computer technology circa 1990, robotic probes weren't advanced enough.
Manned flight was the only way to do the moon-landing right, but today we woudn't need it.
if you're for the survival of the human race, nothing is more important than the space program.
You seem to be committing the alarmingly common error of mixing up the "space program" with "manned spaceflight". They are not the same thing. The article supports the space program, but argues against manned flight in the forseeable future.
Manned flight is just one portion of the space program. It's the part that uses the majority of the funding and produces the smallest results (outside of advertising shots). There is no logical reason to put human in space until we've first done a whole lot more with robots.
How much is the survival of the human race worth to you?
We'll get to the point of functioning extraterrestrial habitats faster if we take a break from dumping 80% of NASA's budget into life-support and concentrate on good research.
Maybe once robots have built a long-running powerplant on Mars and are regularly sending back rockets full of soil samples, then it will be time to move some breathing explorers out there.
send computerized, unmanned probes and rockets all over the galaxy
The phrase "all over the galaxy" has no place in a discussion of spending priorities within our own lifetimes. Your timeframe is beyond reasonable planning.
Best case, it'll be 85 years before we're ready to send anything much better than Voyager outside of this sstar system. We should explore the local area first, before heading outward.
I'm not sure where you get your figure of humans costing 100 times more. That's simply wild speculation on your part.
You are correct that a 100x factor is a rather silly number. If we expect to get the humans back, it'll be much, much more. However, 100x is what the US Congress found when adding up George Bush's recent proposal.
Space tourism will need to follow government sponsored missions.
A comment like that indicates an underlying misconception about thrust cost. It suggests the lowest form of "Buck Rodgers" mentality.
Slashdot Mirror
But native compiled Java, with Java's bounds checks, would be far safer than C++.
Or how about native compiled C++, with bounds checks?
There's nothing about C++ that means you can't have bounds checking! The specification allows for undefined behavior when an array is accessed incorrectly. The compiler author can decide for himself what that undefined response could be. It might be an invalid access (like most current compilers do), but there's no reason it couldn't hit a boundary-check and abort the program.
Assorted add-in libraries to C++ compilers do this. They're not very popular, of course. But if programmers cared about safe insurance against memory overruns, they could achieve it without switching languages.
Seriously, worms like this that damage computers are very un-cool
It doesn't damage computers. It erases data; the computer itself is fine.
Sure, this is destructive... but it's much better than if it were installing BO2K everyplace, so the worm author could collect CCNs. That'd be much more damaging than simple erasures.
That's a bug in ZoneAlarm.
Zonealarm is a Windows program. And because of that bug, the worm is able to infect: Windows systems.
Therefore it's a Windows worm. Whose fault allowed it to spread is irrelevant to the fact of which platform winds up hosting the infection. Most Windows worms have been the fault of Microsoft, but that doesn't always have to be the case (and usually the vulnerable code was not the OS itself, but free applications shipped with it)
Whenever Outlook spreads a worm, that's a Windows infection. If it ever happened that Gnome Evolution spread something, it'd probably be a Linux worm.
Windows platform (X Windows)
"X Windows"? What's this, some weird custom project of yours? I haven't heard of it before.
It sounds a little like the "X Window System", but that has never had the word "Windows" (with a final "s") in its name. "Windows" is completely unambiguous when referring to software programs.
Windows is a generic English word and a generic computer marketing term.
No. The claim you're repeating was retroactively invented last year to defend Lindows' infringing on Microsoft's trademark.
Prior to Microsoft, "windows" were a minor feature of a variety of computer interaction programs. They were never used as a marketing term or the name for a whole product until Bill Gates's whiteboard.
Untrue. Roughly one third of NASAs budget (5 billion of 15 billion) is devoted to manned space flight.
Untrue. In 2004, NASA claimed expenses of 7.7 billion for manned spaceflight. And of the remainder, some of it (1.5 billion+) is research for more manned spaceflight. And some money goes to non-spaceflight activities.
So manned flight not only takes the a majority of their resources, but more pertinently, it gets much much more than unmanned flight.
Not to mention that the program of Lunar Base plus Manned Mars program will be unlikely to be anywhere near one thousand times the price of Spirit and Opportunity.
It can't possibly be less, so I guess you're saying it'll be a lot more. Could be.
Right now we're looking at (best case) about $1000 per pound just to low earth orbit.
All your back-of-envelope math is based on that figure, which means its irrelevant. The value we currently get from extracting the electricity from pound of uranium is less than $10.
So any disposal system that uses more than that to take care of the leftovers is just economically ludicrous.
Eventually, we might get more efficient nuclear reactors. And more importantly, as petroleum and coal becomes rarer, the market value of the same amount of wattage will rise greatly. But is it ever likely to hit $1000/lb?
hire three shifts of fifteen guards
Who are powerless to stop a single hijacked airliner.
Necessity being the mother of invention,
That's a common quotation, but historical research has proven it to be false (unless it is meant as an insult to the mother's contributions in childbirth).
A survey through (for one example) the top 20 inventions of the 20th century will reveal that all the most innovative inventions were created without any pressing necessity- or indeed, without any good expectation of what need it would eventually go to fulfil. (This is true for airplanes, telephone, computer, and many more)
Apple had 20% market share then.
No. In 1993 Microsoft had 88%, Apple had 10%, Commodore had 1% and others split the rest.
I can't think of any other operating systems available for x86.
There were a few, including GEM and DR-DOS (which competed independently against Windows3.x and MS-DOS). Ironically, if Novell had given away DR-DOS for free in 1992, instead of continuing to charge for it (but making no profit), they could've killed the MS monopoly.
The choice was not between 1 Hubble + shuttle and 7 Hubbles + disposable launchers, because absolutely nobody would take the latter seriously.
No, that certainly wasn't the choice. Weinberg never suggested it was, and you should be ashamed that you somehow got the idea he wrote that.
If I tell you that for the cost of one iMac you can buy seven LindowsPCs at Walmart, are you going to reply that it's foolish to buy 7 computers at once? That would make as much sense as the way you interpreted the article.
Stating that 1 of item A costs the same as X of item B is just a way to say that A is much cheaper than B, and doesn't mean you actually have to buy all X of them.
Or isn't a miniscule bit of a lower profitmargin worth the lives of those patients, even if they are few?
It isn't "profit vs few lives". It's "many lives vs few lives", and I think we know who wins.
The ratio according to one study of lunar flight is 300:1 of human efficiency to robot efficiency.
Oh, a study computed from 1971, huh? I'm sure its results are exactly valid today! Computer technology hasn't advanced at all in 35 years.
As long robots are truely less efficient than humans, the right solution is to improve the robots.
It's not an argument between "space program or no space program". It's not even an argument between "astronauts or no astronauts"- it's really between "astronauts and androids".
I'm for the androids! Any serious scientist, engineer, or computer-nerd should be too.
Too many people nowadays can only think of their own generation...
No, we think about other generations. We just don't do anything about them, because we can't. Unless you're Marty McFly, you have no ability to take action more than 50-90 years from now.
That's why when somebody says "We shouldn't put men into space", he means it only for as long as he can expect to be alive, and is in no way restricting the ability of our descendants in 2204 to give it a try. In fact, as Weinberg explained, stopping manned spaceflight today will increase the rate of technological growth, making it more likely that future generations will be able to enjoy a Martian vacation.
work on preserving and inventing things that require long-term attention
Putting men in space doesn't invent anything. I just costs money to repeat 30-year old rocket-science demonstrations, money that could be better spent on actual new learning, not feeding astronauts.
So, indeed, it can be 'wrong'...but to whome? What is wrong for you can be right for another.
To scientists and engineers. As has been abundantly and repeated stated in the article!
You're the one pushing strawmen when you bring up comparisons between the space program and poverty, or tons and tons of unrelated things. The question we're looking at is very simple: "Is manned or unmanned space exploration better for learning about the solar system and expanding technology?"
That's why, given a finite amount of money one can spend on spacetravel, and the fact that human spacetravel is more expensive, the bigger part of the budget is bound to go to the human-part.
You've wasted 100s of kilobytes of text now, without writing one word to support that assertion.
Noticing that manned flight is more expensive than unmanned and deciding it should get more money is no more sensible than saying that air travel should get more money than car travel, because it too is more expensive.
The same fallacious argument can be levelled against any area of pure scientific research many of which would be hard pressed to articulate any economic return
But he isn't arguing against economic return. He's saying that manned spaceflight won't give purely scientific benefits. For doing astronomy or for doing planetology, manned-flight is a step in the wrong direction. Most prominent scientists agree with this: the experiments they've conducted with astronauts could've been completely "better, faster, cheaper" without humans in the loop.
IMHO, those who say humanity (not just Americans) doesn't need manned spaceflight are not looking far enough into the future.
Well, of course not. English lesson: "doesn't" is a present-tense negation. It applies right now. (Compare it against "will never")
Example: "She doesn't need a wheelchair" indicates that the woman is currently able to walk on her own. It doesn't constitute a promise that she'll never need one, and it'd be foolish to construe it as such.
The article in question only talks about the present, and the immediately forseeable future. It would be hubris to presume we can predict future technological capabilities enough to lay plans more than 50 years out.
My argument was that 'you can spend it better elsewhere' is a non-argument.
The only thing you're right about is that "you can spend it better elsewhere" is not the argument. The argument itself is much longer. This is equivalent to noticing that "The Bible" is not a holy book: it's just two words!
My point is, that everyone can say about everything that something would be better spend on something else.
They can say it. And they can be wrong.
This article has just heavily illustrated why manned spaceflight projects are the wrong idea for both scientific and economic reasons.
If you disagree, you have to attack the reasons given, not push out theoretical mumbo-jumbo that attacks the very idea that different things deserve different levels of spending.
definition of what constitutes 'better' and 'more efficient' spenditure is not any more valid then that of anyone else
If you don't even believe that people can validly compare the relative worth of different goals, then why even talking to anybody at all? You seem to have no trust in the effectiveness of human communication.
It's the same view that makes progress on medication for very rare diseases so slow
Well good! Lets first cure cancer, or something else that actually harms people I know.
If a disease is "very rare", then that's a fine reason to hold back working on it. I think 200 million HIV patients will agree with me.
Taking into account that we now know how to do missions cheaper and more quickly
But our abiltity to estimate the costs of missions may also have improved.
You cite Congress's $400 billion guess in 1992 as a basis. Well, in 1984 they estimated the cost of the ISS, and so far we've spent 6 times what they said (and it's not finished yet).
So taking that factor into account, $2 trillion would be more accurate.
a human geologist could have done the same work and much more in a matter of days instead of weeks.
I fear you over-estimate a human's ability to survive an extra-planetary crash wearing only a sturdy beach-ball.
That geologist would've spent the first 10 hours exsanguinating, before shifting all efforts towards decomposition until oxygen runs out at hour 300.
The robot has a distinct advantage in retaining mobility after a drop like that. (It has the further benefit of not complaining when it is eventually abandonend on the barren surface)
you could fire a thousand Mars Rovers into the richest fossil beds on earth,
Untrue. The richest fossil beds have identifiable bones just laying out there in open view.
However, it's certainly true that the robotic explorers need improving. In fact, so does all of our robotics technology. Investments in that area will improve not only space exploration, but life on earth as well. Once NASA builds one good robot, we'll soon have thousands of helpful robo-aides all around the world.
Humans are still needed, directly, at the very frontier of the search for life on Mars
Absolutely wrong and dangerous! Putting humans on Mars will contaminate the environment to the extent that accurate scienctific results might be forever tainted.
If a mars explorer finds a weird little microcobe living on the outside of his spacesuit, how can he prove it's really a Mars native, and not an Earth organism that's uniquely survivable? (That has prehaps recently mutated, or whatever)
Robots can be thoroughly purged of bio-organisms before (and after) launch. Don't try that with a human...
Manned space flight for the purposes of science and exploration is not necessary yet.
It should be noted that "yet" is an inaccurate word. "Now" would be correct, because prior to the advancement of computer technology circa 1990, robotic probes weren't advanced enough.
Manned flight was the only way to do the moon-landing right, but today we woudn't need it.
if you're for the survival of the human race, nothing is more important than the space program.
You seem to be committing the alarmingly common error of mixing up the "space program" with "manned spaceflight". They are not the same thing. The article supports the space program, but argues against manned flight in the forseeable future.
Manned flight is just one portion of the space program. It's the part that uses the majority of the funding and produces the smallest results (outside of advertising shots). There is no logical reason to put human in space until we've first done a whole lot more with robots.
How much is the survival of the human race worth to you?
We'll get to the point of functioning extraterrestrial habitats faster if we take a break from dumping 80% of NASA's budget into life-support and concentrate on good research.
Maybe once robots have built a long-running powerplant on Mars and are regularly sending back rockets full of soil samples, then it will be time to move some breathing explorers out there.
send computerized, unmanned probes and rockets all over the galaxy
The phrase "all over the galaxy" has no place in a discussion of spending priorities within our own lifetimes. Your timeframe is beyond reasonable planning.
Best case, it'll be 85 years before we're ready to send anything much better than Voyager outside of this sstar system. We should explore the local area first, before heading outward.
I'm not sure where you get your figure of humans costing 100 times more. That's simply wild speculation on your part.
You are correct that a 100x factor is a rather silly number. If we expect to get the humans back, it'll be much, much more. However, 100x is what the US Congress found when adding up George Bush's recent proposal.
Space tourism will need to follow government sponsored missions.
A comment like that indicates an underlying misconception about thrust cost. It suggests the lowest form of "Buck Rodgers" mentality.
You can also strip it down a bit.
Joy, I can illegally distribute it in a form modified from what Sun provided!
Read something somewhere that they got it down to under 5megs
Joy, now my 100k Tetris-clone can be 5,100k !
Also, I have tested some installers that will go out and grab a jre if not present.
Joy, I can just completely forget about running "applets"!