You're right of course, I should've said allies rather than just america. I hope you'll agree though that America was at least partly responsible for making these technologies more than just laboratory curiosities*. (Also, as you pointed out America was responsible for a whole host of other significant inventions).
In any case, my point was that Germany was no slouch when it came to basic science/industrial application of technology either. However, judging from the tone of the parent post it seems he has some sort of axe to grind.
*no country in the world has a monopoly on great ideas or of brilliant people. Many major scientific advances have occurred overseas but what America excels is in the conversion of those ideas into industries. Look at silicon valley and biotech as the two most prominent examples.
... just SOARED (pun not intended but accepted anyway).
It seems that just because they used a few wrong bolts, that nonetheless looked very similar to the correct ones, that the windshield blew out! I didn't realize an aircraft was built to such safety critical tolerances and that such a simple mistake could lead to a very near fatal accident. To the engineer's credit, this problem seems to be have anticipated, the manual specifically states procedures to prevent this kind of problem.
Makes me realize that maintenance manuals are not just there for show.
While much (most?) of American tech was great (A-bomb, radar, penicillin, cryptography/computers) to say that German tech "sucked" is a pretty uninformed view of history. Consider that while Robert Goddard was playing with his (relatively) puny liquid fueled rockets (which looked like flying pieces of plumbing!) Werner Von Braun developed ballistic missiles capable of reliably delivering 1 ton "payloads" (ok warheads) hundreds of miles away on an industrial scale. (Just ask any Londoner of the time). This was without digital computers let alone GPS! Also consider the Messerschmidt 262, the world's first jet fighter, again produced and used on an industrial scale.
Finally consider German tech would've been much better had Hitler not chased a lot of German Jewish* scientists (like a guy named Einstein) and their friends out thanks to his insane ideas about Aryans (which he wasn't! was he)?
Remember that Werner Von Braun basically took over the American space program after the first disastrous launch (you look it up) with his Vanguard. He followed it through all the way to the Saturn V, an incredible achievement that boggles the mind when you consider most of it was done on paper with slide rules. Too bad he never was able to build the Nova, otherwise the US might've had man on mars in the 70's!
*I once heard a joke(?) as to why the Japanese never followed German orders to kill the Jews who were living in Japanese controlled territory (like Shanghai where 20,000 Jews managed to survive during WWII). Basically they were afraid of doing so because they knew that the three most important (some people may disagree but needless to say they were very important!) people in HISTORY were Jews. Do you know who they are? No I'm not Jewish, nor married to a Jew! (Nor married:( )
Anyway look below for their initials (in chronological order). Still doesn't excuse what they're doing to the Palestinians.
The computer renderings I've seen show a large dome over the cockpit (please hold the bloody seamen jokes).
Considering that the other submersibles have (relatively) tiny portholes that are 6"(?) thick, how is this large dome possible? Is it made out of a different material (I think I heard somewhere it was quartz) whereas the other submersibles were plexiglass? Has there been some major advance in creating large convex transparent structures that allow the pressure to be optiminally distributed? Or are the computer renderings just pretty pictures and the real vehicle will have much smaller ports to look out of?:(
By the way this reminds me of the underwater transport in one of the first Star Wars that Ben Kenobi uses to visit Jar Jar Bink's undersea city. They appear to travel to great depths in their small craft but when they surface, the "dome" turns out to be a forcefield that can be turned off with a switch! Some forcefield; if that kind of technology was readily available for other uses (personal armor, shields) it would seem that it should play a much bigger role in the series. But I digress, who ever expects commercial science fiction to be logically consistent?
I'm amazed that the foundation of life on earth is so inefficient (one tenth of 5.5% is only.55%!). Is this right? If it is then I'm glad our solar devices may not have to cover up too much of our planet to generate the energy we need (but if we ever develop solar powered self-replicating nano-bots, they will totally out-compete the natural biosphere).
Also, if this is true, then isn't this a major reason against using biofuels? I mean in addition to this inefficiency of photosynthesis, you've still got to convert it into some sort of fuel (but I guess the same is true of this artificial leaf; hydrogen is not the most practical of fuels). I guess maybe biofuels are still in the running because they can be "manufactured" very cheaply (farming and fermentation) with thousands of years of technology developed. (Or maybe it is the politics of the farming lobby).
(I'm also amazed that they used water from the Charles river in Boston and that it still worked. I remember a time when an accidental dunking in the none-too-clean river meant a quick trip to the doctor's office for shots!)
Any Kepler scientists/engineers/technicians out there?
As some of us lay people know, Kepler "works" by "staring" at a single, small region of the sky for a very long (years!) period of time. If there is any dimming of the 100,000+ stars in the monitored region during this time, this is considered a possible transit by an extra-solar planet. If there are two of these transits around the same star, some rough orbital characteristics can be mapped out. A third, evenly spaced transit around the same star is considered confirmation of a new extra-solar planet! (The magnitude and other characteristics of the transits can provide other useful information such as size, possible moons etc.)
So what happens if Kepler has a 144 hour "gap" in its observations because it wasn't looking at this region for that duration? (Going into safe mode requires re-orienting the spacecraft so that the solar cells get maximum power, also there may have been some issues with the reaction wheels which point the spacecraft). I'm sure their are some very smart people programming some very powerful computers to try to minimize that impact of the loss of data but I'm curious, how will this show up? Will it mean that there is a range of orbits that won't be confirmed without a fourth transit? Will this range be large? Will it be in the "habitable zone" around G type (our sun) stars?
Also, I'm assuming that because the spacecraft does periodic "quarter turns" that it is designed to re-align itself (perfectly?) with the target region. In that case (I hope) I'm curious; does it matter what pixels in the imager are receiving a particular star? Are they all calibrated the same or, if the star-light falls upon more than one or on a pixel boundary, can the software make adjustments so that the measurements will provide consistent data? (Then again maybe consistency isn't needed, all they're looking for are short term changes on the scale of hours right?)
Please (God? NASA?) let this problem not cause any big problems. Kepler is the closest thing we've got to an "earth finder"! (And in quantity!).
Is it easier to jailbreak an iPhone (or iDevice) than this? I thought Android devices were "open"; if so shouldn't one be able to change their OS more easily?
Or does the openness of the Android platform refer to the fact that there is no restriction on the Apps you can install? Or is there something else I am missing?
*about this issue. I'm quite knowledgeable about a host of others though!
It's funny, just a few minutes ago I wrote a long post saying why I was Proud of the USA. (See below)
Now I feel like I have to eat my words, or at least some of them. Salt please!
************** From the previous post: ************* I know the US has done a lot of bad things and made some pretty bad mistakes but I just wanted to celebrate one of its (many) good achievements. Only the US has sent (or is sending) a probe to every major object in the solar system (yes that includes you Pluto). Only the US has launched four "Great Observatories" (Hubble, Chandra, Compton, Spitzer). Only the US has... well the list goes on and on even in just the field of unmanned space exploration.
Of course the Cosmos is not solely an American prerogative. So here's a question; why haven't other wealthy federations/countries (EU, Japan) been hitting in their weight class? Is it because only the US (and to a lesser extent) the USSR had the close linkage between the military development of ballistic missile technology and space exploration as a means of bolstering national pride? Or, is it because the US is a nation full of dreamers and visionaries who pursue ideals (and ideologies) that may not appeal as much to the pragmatic and efficient Europeans (I'm mostly thinking of Germany) and Japanese? Is the reason why 70% Americans profess to strongly believe in God the same reason why they are (relatively) so willing to spend billions on space exploration? Do the same impulses that drive many (stupid) Americans TO DENY EVOLUTION (emphasis added) and Global Warming paradoxically cause them to fund the most productive scientific community on earth?
And maybe that will answer this follow up question: will rising China follow (and perhaps surpass) the US in space exploration? If it is a matter of military development and national pride then perhaps yes. If it is something more cultural though...?
On a related note: there was a recent article in (I think) the NYTimes about how, the Chinese Central Committe (the assemblage that runs China) got together recently. Since many of the members of this elite group were laden with the latest iPad and iPhones, a major topic of discussion was; why hadn't China produced anyone like Steve Jobs and would it ever? Say what you will about Mr. jobs, he has created and revolutionized several industries from scratch (personal computing, "windows" based computing, computer animated movies (Pixar), digital distribution of media, portable digital media devices, cellphones, tablet computers). Basically the article concluded that unless China were to become more democratic, less authoritarian and less hierarchal, they would have little chance of allowing a (paraphrased) Beatles fanatic, fruitarian, hippy dropout who spent a year in India before returning to start a self-proclaimed revolution, from becoming a success.
Or is there another reason why the US has been blessed (cursed*?) by people like Jobs? (Education? Drugs? Fluorine in the water supply?)
*"cursed" might be what some of his employees would say. He, like others whom I would call visionary (like James Cameron), have not been known to provide the most caring and supportive of work environments.
Ok, so even if Seccession is prohibited under the Constitution or one of its amendments (don't ask me, I'm not a legal scholar), is there anything that prohibits the Union from KICKING THEM OUT?
Look, I know there are a lot of good things in Texas, IBM has some good research facilities there (and my mom lives there!) but for the sake of the Union shouldn't we consider ejecting them? (Sorry mom!)
I mean isn't it like a gangrenous foot that must be amputated (boy, my mom really is not going to like being compared to a foot, gangreous or not!), maybe if we turn it over to Mexico that'll also solve our illegal immigration problem.
Didn't Mexico "win" Texas anyway in the battle of the Alamo? *ducks*
Because I'm lazy I'll repost part of previous reply:
(In answer to a question, "Why did it take MESSENGER 6 years to get to Mercury?")
Because it did a lot of gravity assist maneuvers. It is (energy wise) very difficult to get to put a probe in mercury's orbit, first you have to do a lot of braking to put it into an elliptical orbit to reach mercury's orbit then another lot of braking to make it match mercury's orbit then more braking to put it into (some sort) of elliptical orbit AROUND mercury then (optional) more braking to "circularize" your orbit around mercury!
I think energetically speaking it's about as difficult to send a probe to Mercury as it is to Jupiter even though Jupiter is much farther away. So in order to not have to use a huge (expensive booster), the probe does a bunch of gravity assists by sling-shotting near Venus, Mercury and maybe even the earth. This saves a LOT of fuel but adds a LOT of time (otherwise as you probably guessed it would've gotten there years earlier).
I know the US has done a lot of bad things and made some pretty bad mistakes but I just wanted to celebrate one of its (many) good achievements. Only the US has sent (or is sending) a probe to every major object in the solar system (yes that includes you Pluto). Only the US has launched four "Great Observatories" (Hubble, Chandra, Compton, Spitzer). Only the US has... well the list goes on and on even in just the field of unmanned space exploration.
Of course the Cosmos is not solely an American prerogative. So here's a question; why haven't other wealthy federations/countries (EU, Japan) been hitting in their weight class? Is it because only the US (and to a lesser extent) the USSR had the close linkage between the military development of ballistic missile technology and space exploration as a means of bolstering national pride? Or, is it because the US is a nation full of dreamers and visionaries who pursue ideals (and ideologies) that may not appeal as much to the pragmatic and efficient Europeans (I'm mostly thinking of Germany) and Japanese? Is the reason why 70% Americans profess to strongly believe in God the same reason why they are (relatively) so willing to spend billions on space exploration? Do the same impulses that drive many (stupid) Americans to deny Evolution and Global Warming paradoxically cause them to fund the most productive scientific community on earth?
And maybe that will answer this follow up question: will rising China follow (and perhaps surpass) the US in space exploration? If it is a matter of military development and national pride then perhaps yes. If it is something more cultural though...?
On a related note: there was a recent article in (I think) the NYTimes about how, the Chinese Central Committe (the assemblage that runs China) got together recently. Since many of the members of this elite group were laden with the latest iPad and iPhones, a major topic of discussion was; why hadn't China produced anyone like Steve Jobs and would it ever? Say what you will about Mr. jobs, he has created and revolutionized several industries from scratch (personal computing, "windows" based computing, computer animated movies (Pixar), digital distribution of media, portable digital media devices, cellphones, tablet computers). Basically the article concluded that unless China were to become more democratic, less authoritarian and less hierarchal, they would have little chance of allowing a (paraphrased) Beatles fanatic, fruitarian, hippy dropout who spent a year in India before returning to start a self-proclaimed revolution, from becoming a success.
Or is there another reason why the US has been blessed (cursed*?) by people like Jobs? (Education? Drugs? Fluorine in the water supply?)
*"cursed" might be what some of his employees would say. He, like others whom I would call visionary (like James Cameron), have not been known to provide the most caring and supportive of work environments.
While news of the death and devastation begins to filter in, I wanted to ask knowledgeable slashdotters if they knew of any undersea cable outages due to the tsunami (this IS a news for nerds site).
I am not familiar with how the main fiber optic trunk cables are strung out along the pacific ocean seabed. I wonder if there was a desire to keep them close to land (so they can make landfall more easily). If so, wouldn't they be right on top of "the ring of fire" and thus more vulnerable to events like this? Or perhaps the designers deliberately laid them out away from major faults? (Or perhaps they are relatively invulnerable to events like this, though the energy released in a mag. 8.9 earthquake makes it hard for me to believe anything could be so designed).
In any case, I'm in Vietnam and I'm reading this and posting this to slashdot which is presumably a U.S. site so our Internet connectivity does not seem to be majorly impacted.
So if the Keck telescope is sensitive enough to detect a (star? large planet?) sized object that is radiating at only at 100c, could it pick up Dyson Spheres? Ringworlds? (But perhaps ringworlds would be more easily detected using transit studies! And, yes I know that they are dynamically unstable!)
I hope that the Kepler observing team is not automatically discarding observations that don't fit expected profiles.
For example: if a (slighty more) advanced civilization wanted to be detectable by something like Kepler, all they would have to do is put up some (very) large but (presumably) low mass "screens" in orbit around the star. By putting up several of these with the proper spacing; a coded "signal" code could be seen, just like morse code (I'd time it so the intervals would correspond to some prime numbers).
Of course if they are even a little bit more advanced and don't have to make these things ultra-lightweight, these screens could perform a useful function like solar panels or, if cabled together and spun, living area. (Hence the reference to the term "Ringworld" from Larry Niven's books).
Anyway, even if the Kepler team inadvertently ignores this data, perhaps after a period of time it'll become publically available? Here's to stellar data-mining! (If you found the first evidence of an E.T. civilization this way, would you be eligible for a Nobel Prize?)
Whatever happened to VR? (Virtual Reality) A decade or two ago, it seemed to be (short of direct neural interfaces) where user interfaces were heading. I even remember going to a Disney mini-theme park where they had some true VR rides (you wore a tracking headset) so that you could ride Aladdin's carpet.
Back then it seemed as if the main thing keeping this technology back was the room-sized SGI supercomputer required to render a reasonable scene in real time. I remember a presentation by the CEO of SGI saying that all they needed to get to was 60M triangles/sec, then VR would be achieve mass appeal. (Then again, he also dismissed delivering video from computers by saying computers wouldn't become video "jukeboxes" so maybe he wasn't so good at predicting the future.) Anyway, I don't know the latest spec's but I'm sure a modern video card could blow away one of those old SGI "Reality Engines".
So why aren't we all wearing goggles (and wearing spandex) and looking like the characters in "The Lawnmower Man"? Is it because micro-displays never got good enough? Or something else?
Look, these orbiters and probes (yes to Uranus) are projected to cost in multiple billions EACH. As much as I love space exploration and think NASA's done a bang-up job (in their unmanned program at least), these planetary bodies aren't going anywhere and do not directly address any pressing problems (climate change is the one exception but for that we should be looking at the rocky terrestrial like inner planets like Venus and Mars and not the gas giants).
So why not put these programs on the slow track for a little while and spend a Billion developing some really good deep space propulsion systems? Finish VASIMIR, improve ion engines, develop high power nuclear reactors (not just wimpy RTGs), try laser beaming, solar sails or even magnetic bubbles! Anyway, if you can get a propulsion system that's 10x more efficient than our current chemical rockets you could send much more massive payloads quicker! This would substantially reduce the launch cost since it would "only" cost 10s of thousands of dollars to send a kg instead of 100s of thousands to the outer planets. This in turn would allow designers much more flexibilty to reduce cost/increase perfornance since they wouldn't be under such pressure to reduce weight. And by reducing or eliminating the need for time-consuming gravitational assists (6 years to Mercury!), it would likewise reduce support costs as well as increase science return (instruments won't be decades obsolete on arrival).
- The distance to the outer planets is great enough that it makes me think of some science fiction stories (like Arthur C. Clarke's "The Songs of Distant Earth"), where newly developed technology could allow spacecraft launched later to overtake the earlier more primitive ships. While the travel times here will be measured in years or decades not centuries or millennia it still gives me pause. Unless there is some extremely fortuituous occurrence like the planetary alignment that made the Grand Tour possible (Pioneer, Voyager) it is better to wait AS LONG AS you spend the time (and money) making things stronger, faster, better, cheaper.
(For some of these reasons, I support Obama's focus on developing new technologies before trying for the Moon (again) or Mars. We know we can do it, the question is can we do it affordably enough to SUSTAIN a manned presence?)
The reason why Science (yes with a capital "S") always eventually finds the (objective because I'm not a hare-brained relativist) Truth (yes with a capital "T") is because NATURE (all caps) has the final say. Don't agree with my theory of nuclear physics? We'll see who's nuclear bomb works! Think I'm barking up the wrong tree in my semi-conductor theory? Well my new chip should work (or not). Don't agree on Global Warming? Well we'll know (unfortunately) well within most of our lifetimes.
Science, like any human endeavor has always had it's share of conspiracies, rivalries, petty feuds and whatnot. Just look at the bitterness between Newton and Liebnitz or the amount of skepticism (and personal attacks) the first people who proposed continental drift or black holes went through. Yet now they are very well accepted foundations of their disciplines because ultimately overwhelming amounts of colloborating observations proved them correct. The same thing will happen with global warming because (again) it will happen quickly enough for us to see. (Evolution is harder because speciation typically happens over many generations, however it has been widely observed (and repeated in labs) on a "small" scale which is why evolution denialists have given up on denying "micro"-evolution).
I wish that every critic of Global Warming would be forced to clearly state their true identity in a public manner for a permanent record. That way, in just 20-50 years, as the shit really hits the fan (and we lose Florida) their grandchildren can look at them and hold them up to contempt.
Let me guess, you're a Republican Right? And you're too embarrassed to admit that by and large your party has become the anti-science party (unless it fits your religious world view).
I'd prefer to call a spade a spade and IF THE FACTS SAY (as is appears to be the case) that Republicans have become the party of ignorance then that's what they say. I had no trouble railing against the radical left's relativism so why should I give the conservatives a pass?
As much as I'd hate to live under an authoritarian police state with few individual rights maybe the Chinese DESERVE to win. They certainly don't have a problem with pushing science and technology as the keys to a powerful and wealthy nation.
Since I'm hoping that this topic will be read by someone who actually knows something about aerogels, I'm wondering if they could comment on some crackpot ideas (mine not the researchers!;)
First, what is the "compression strength" of aerogels? (I'm not a material scientist so I don't know what is the proper term). If it is sufficiently high maybe it could withstand 1 atmosphere of pressure. In that case and if the aerogel structure was sufficiently light, imagine the following application: take a block of aerogel structure and wrap it in something like plastic wrap (non-gas permeable). Pump all the air out. Voila! It floats being lighter than air without using helium (costly) or hydrogen (flammable).
The reason I said "aerogel structure" is because even if a SOLID block of aerogel is still too heavy (heavier than air), a "hollowed out" block or a block like the bones of a bird's wing could be significantly lighter. In a more extreme example, perhaps aerogel struts and girders could be used to make an ultra-ultra light structure that would be enclosed by the non-gas permeable film (how about using a 1-atom thick film of graphene? It has been shown capable of resisting an atmosphere's worth of pressure!).
Secondly, how is this new (carbon nanotube based) aerogel made? Does it still require a super-critical fluid? If this (or any other aerogel) can be made in a vacuum (or if all the other materials needed for production can be recycled) perhaps it could be made IN ORBIT. Since aerogel is so light, just a "relatively" small amount of starting material (by mass) could make a large amount of aerogel (by volume). If 10 grams could make 1 cubic meter of the stuff, then 10 metric tons could make a piece 1 meter thick a kilometer square. Voila! The perfect "space garbage" collector.
As demonstrated by the NASA space probe "Stardust", aerogels are very well suited for capturing hypervelocity particles; while the Stardust probe only collected microscopic particles its aerogel was very thin, a 1 meter thick aerogel would hopefully be capable of getting much larger (paint flecks? loose screws?) sized objects. While still capable of serious damage (in the right spot anything moving at 7km/sec can hurt) these small objects are not only much more numerous than the large ones but are the hardest (impossible?) to track and are economically infeasible to track down with a "space tug". Even if didn't completely stop them dead in their tracks, hopefully they would lose so much kinetic energy as to drop out of orbit quickly.
Of course, these occasional impacts would gradually slow down the collector so it would need to be reboosted. A small but very efficient ion engine should do the trick which would also be used to go to a new orbit once it has "cleaned up" the one it is working on. Perhaps the best method would be just apply a very thin silvered film to one side and, by careful adjustments of its orientation, allow the sun's light pressure to blow it anywhere you want. (In fact if you apply crackpot idea number one, of aerogel "struts and girders" with crackpot idea numbet two, of the ability to manufacture this stuff in space and a very thin silvered film, you have the ability to make extremely large, low mass solar sails!)
Of course both schemes also require the ability to make industrial sized quantities of the stuff, affordably!
There is an interesting short story by Greg Egan called "Crystal Nights" (no connection to the Nazi attack on the Jewish ghettos).
Partial SPOILER ALERT.
Basically someone (using a super-fast crystal based computer) tries to evolve, in software, lifeforms that will surpass humanity and solve our problems. What he doesn't realize is that evolution, to the individual (if not the species) means DEATH and the newly created godlings may not be happy with the sacrifices they have had to endure...
Anyway, Greg Egan (an extremely thought provoking author and, I think, physicist) has written some books that will blow your mind. Second only to the late Stanislaw Lem, he is one of my favorite S.F. writers. Go buy some of his books! Recommended: Permutation City (also about artificial life), Quaranitine and Incandescence. I think he may have released Crystal Nights as a free download.
Oh, and to add to my nit-picking, when the thermally unshielded crew members are exposed to the vacuum of space (now in shadow) they shouldn't instantly freeze solid. They would, of course, eventually do so (if they were kept in shadow) but the thermal conductivity of a vacuum is so low it would take awhile (think Thermos bottles). And evaporative cooling wouldn't be that much faster (even Bedouins in the driest deserts don't get cold from sweating). Still the writer's needed a contrast between fire and ice I guess so whatever.
I think they would however lose consciousness quickly (15 sec.?) though because the dissolved oxygen in their blood would come out of solution (maybe causing the bends) quickly.
Thinking of Mercury also makes me think of the very good horror/sci-fi movie "Sunshine". (Partial SPOILER ALERT).
I really liked it except the intensity of the Sun, even at those distances, was dialed up a bit too high. I mean, when the captain gets "blown" by the very brief exposure to the (dying) sun, it was a little too much considering he was in a very heavily heat shielded suit. And the ship wasn't even yet at Mercury's orbit! I guess just slowly being cooked to death was not dramatic enough for the script writers.
Otherwise, I really liked the movie, the other details were mostly spot on (except there wasn't "zero-G" in a few places in the spacecraft where it should've been) and the fact that they were out of communications with earth even before reaching mercury seemed suspect (I know there could've been crazy radio interference with a wacky sun but a good laser/maser could punch through almost anything). Obviously these were points that the director chose not to deal with because of cost (zero-G) or plot (kept the crew in scary isolation). Anyway, loved some other touches like the room with the fissile material "bomb" which was evidently so dense it had it's own significant and varying gravitational field! And a believable scary "monster!"
Another excellent sun-oriented sic-fi piece is Arthur C. Clarke's story about a trip to the asteroid Icarus (I think it's called "Summertime on Icarus"). I always thought it would be a good way of protecting future long-term travellers to asteroids/comets from solar flares, just temporarily park them in the shadow!
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You're right of course, I should've said allies rather than just america. I hope you'll agree though that America was at least partly responsible for making these technologies more than just laboratory curiosities*. (Also, as you pointed out America was responsible for a whole host of other significant inventions).
In any case, my point was that Germany was no slouch when it came to basic science/industrial application of technology either. However, judging from the tone of the parent post it seems he has some sort of axe to grind.
*no country in the world has a monopoly on great ideas or of brilliant people. Many major scientific advances have occurred overseas but what America excels is in the conversion of those ideas into industries. Look at silicon valley and biotech as the two most prominent examples.
... just SOARED (pun not intended but accepted anyway).
It seems that just because they used a few wrong bolts, that nonetheless looked very similar to the correct ones, that the windshield blew out! I didn't realize an aircraft was built to such safety critical tolerances and that such a simple mistake could lead to a very near fatal accident. To the engineer's credit, this problem seems to be have anticipated, the manual specifically states procedures to prevent this kind of problem.
Makes me realize that maintenance manuals are not just there for show.
While much (most?) of American tech was great (A-bomb, radar, penicillin, cryptography/computers) to say that German tech "sucked" is a pretty uninformed view of history. Consider that while Robert Goddard was playing with his (relatively) puny liquid fueled rockets (which looked like flying pieces of plumbing!) Werner Von Braun developed ballistic missiles capable of reliably delivering 1 ton "payloads" (ok warheads) hundreds of miles away on an industrial scale. (Just ask any Londoner of the time). This was without digital computers let alone GPS! Also consider the Messerschmidt 262, the world's first jet fighter, again produced and used on an industrial scale.
Finally consider German tech would've been much better had Hitler not chased a lot of German Jewish* scientists (like a guy named Einstein) and their friends out thanks to his insane ideas about Aryans (which he wasn't! was he)?
Remember that Werner Von Braun basically took over the American space program after the first disastrous launch (you look it up) with his Vanguard. He followed it through all the way to the Saturn V, an incredible achievement that boggles the mind when you consider most of it was done on paper with slide rules. Too bad he never was able to build the Nova, otherwise the US might've had man on mars in the 70's!
*I once heard a joke(?) as to why the Japanese never followed German orders to kill the Jews who were living in Japanese controlled territory (like Shanghai where 20,000 Jews managed to survive during WWII). Basically they were afraid of doing so because they knew that the three most important (some people may disagree but needless to say they were very important!) people in HISTORY were Jews. Do you know who they are? No I'm not Jewish, nor married to a Jew! (Nor married :( )
Anyway look below for their initials (in chronological order). Still doesn't excuse what they're doing to the Palestinians.
(J.C., K. M., A.E.)
The computer renderings I've seen show a large dome over the cockpit (please hold the bloody seamen jokes).
Considering that the other submersibles have (relatively) tiny portholes that are 6"(?) thick, how is this large dome possible? Is it made out of a different material (I think I heard somewhere it was quartz) whereas the other submersibles were plexiglass? Has there been some major advance in creating large convex transparent structures that allow the pressure to be optiminally distributed? Or are the computer renderings just pretty pictures and the real vehicle will have much smaller ports to look out of? :(
By the way this reminds me of the underwater transport in one of the first Star Wars that Ben Kenobi uses to visit Jar Jar Bink's undersea city. They appear to travel to great depths in their small craft but when they surface, the "dome" turns out to be a forcefield that can be turned off with a switch! Some forcefield; if that kind of technology was readily available for other uses (personal armor, shields) it would seem that it should play a much bigger role in the series. But I digress, who ever expects commercial science fiction to be logically consistent?
If there's a story that is crying out for some audio-visual documentation, this had got to be it!
I mean electricity and fire (and maybe they use a laser to create an ionized channel for the electricity to go through).
According to a similar article in science daily http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110327191042.htm it is 10x more efficient than (natural) photosynthesis.
I'm amazed that the foundation of life on earth is so inefficient (one tenth of 5.5% is only .55%!). Is this right? If it is then I'm glad our solar devices may not have to cover up too much of our planet to generate the energy we need (but if we ever develop solar powered self-replicating nano-bots, they will totally out-compete the natural biosphere).
Also, if this is true, then isn't this a major reason against using biofuels? I mean in addition to this inefficiency of photosynthesis, you've still got to convert it into some sort of fuel (but I guess the same is true of this artificial leaf; hydrogen is not the most practical of fuels). I guess maybe biofuels are still in the running because they can be "manufactured" very cheaply (farming and fermentation) with thousands of years of technology developed. (Or maybe it is the politics of the farming lobby).
(I'm also amazed that they used water from the Charles river in Boston and that it still worked. I remember a time when an accidental dunking in the none-too-clean river meant a quick trip to the doctor's office for shots!)
Any Kepler scientists/engineers/technicians out there?
As some of us lay people know, Kepler "works" by "staring" at a single, small region of the sky for a very long (years!) period of time. If there is any dimming of the 100,000+ stars in the monitored region during this time, this is considered a possible transit by an extra-solar planet. If there are two of these transits around the same star, some rough orbital characteristics can be mapped out. A third, evenly spaced transit around the same star is considered confirmation of a new extra-solar planet! (The magnitude and other characteristics of the transits can provide other useful information such as size, possible moons etc.)
So what happens if Kepler has a 144 hour "gap" in its observations because it wasn't looking at this region for that duration? (Going into safe mode requires re-orienting the spacecraft so that the solar cells get maximum power, also there may have been some issues with the reaction wheels which point the spacecraft). I'm sure their are some very smart people programming some very powerful computers to try to minimize that impact of the loss of data but I'm curious, how will this show up? Will it mean that there is a range of orbits that won't be confirmed without a fourth transit? Will this range be large? Will it be in the "habitable zone" around G type (our sun) stars?
Also, I'm assuming that because the spacecraft does periodic "quarter turns" that it is designed to re-align itself (perfectly?) with the target region. In that case (I hope) I'm curious; does it matter what pixels in the imager are receiving a particular star? Are they all calibrated the same or, if the star-light falls upon more than one or on a pixel boundary, can the software make adjustments so that the measurements will provide consistent data? (Then again maybe consistency isn't needed, all they're looking for are short term changes on the scale of hours right?)
Please (God? NASA?) let this problem not cause any big problems. Kepler is the closest thing we've got to an "earth finder"! (And in quantity!).
... It is stranger than we CAN imagine."
You know you're lazy when you don't even bother Googling a quote to find out who said it.
... so maybe this is a stupid question.
Is it easier to jailbreak an iPhone (or iDevice) than this? I thought Android devices were "open"; if so shouldn't one be able to change their OS more easily?
Or does the openness of the Android platform refer to the fact that there is no restriction on the Apps you can install? Or is there something else I am missing?
*about this issue. I'm quite knowledgeable about a host of others though!
It's funny, just a few minutes ago I wrote a long post saying why I was Proud of the USA. (See below)
Now I feel like I have to eat my words, or at least some of them. Salt please!
************** From the previous post: *************
I know the US has done a lot of bad things and made some pretty bad mistakes but I just wanted to celebrate one of its (many) good achievements. Only the US has sent (or is sending) a probe to every major object in the solar system (yes that includes you Pluto). Only the US has launched four "Great Observatories" (Hubble, Chandra, Compton, Spitzer). Only the US has... well the list goes on and on even in just the field of unmanned space exploration.
Of course the Cosmos is not solely an American prerogative. So here's a question; why haven't other wealthy federations/countries (EU, Japan) been hitting in their weight class? Is it because only the US (and to a lesser extent) the USSR had the close linkage between the military development of ballistic missile technology and space exploration as a means of bolstering national pride? Or, is it because the US is a nation full of dreamers and visionaries who pursue ideals (and ideologies) that may not appeal as much to the pragmatic and efficient Europeans (I'm mostly thinking of Germany) and Japanese? Is the reason why 70% Americans profess to strongly believe in God the same reason why they are (relatively) so willing to spend billions on space exploration? Do the same impulses that drive many (stupid) Americans TO DENY EVOLUTION (emphasis added) and Global Warming paradoxically cause them to fund the most productive scientific community on earth?
And maybe that will answer this follow up question: will rising China follow (and perhaps surpass) the US in space exploration? If it is a matter of military development and national pride then perhaps yes. If it is something more cultural though...?
On a related note: there was a recent article in (I think) the NYTimes about how, the Chinese Central Committe (the assemblage that runs China) got together recently. Since many of the members of this elite group were laden with the latest iPad and iPhones, a major topic of discussion was; why hadn't China produced anyone like Steve Jobs and would it ever? Say what you will about Mr. jobs, he has created and revolutionized several industries from scratch (personal computing, "windows" based computing, computer animated movies (Pixar), digital distribution of media, portable digital media devices, cellphones, tablet computers). Basically the article concluded that unless China were to become more democratic, less authoritarian and less hierarchal, they would have little chance of allowing a (paraphrased) Beatles fanatic, fruitarian, hippy dropout who spent a year in India before returning to start a self-proclaimed revolution, from becoming a success.
Or is there another reason why the US has been blessed (cursed*?) by people like Jobs? (Education? Drugs? Fluorine in the water supply?)
*"cursed" might be what some of his employees would say. He, like others whom I would call visionary (like James Cameron), have not been known to provide the most caring and supportive of work environments.
Ok, so even if Seccession is prohibited under the Constitution or one of its amendments (don't ask me, I'm not a legal scholar), is there anything that prohibits the Union from KICKING THEM OUT?
Look, I know there are a lot of good things in Texas, IBM has some good research facilities there (and my mom lives there!) but for the sake of the Union shouldn't we consider ejecting them? (Sorry mom!)
I mean isn't it like a gangrenous foot that must be amputated (boy, my mom really is not going to like being compared to a foot, gangreous or not!), maybe if we turn it over to Mexico that'll also solve our illegal immigration problem.
Didn't Mexico "win" Texas anyway in the battle of the Alamo? *ducks*
Because I'm lazy I'll repost part of previous reply:
(In answer to a question, "Why did it take MESSENGER 6 years to get to Mercury?")
Because it did a lot of gravity assist maneuvers. It is (energy wise) very difficult to get to put a probe in mercury's orbit, first you have to do a lot of braking to put it into an elliptical orbit to reach mercury's orbit then another lot of braking to make it match mercury's orbit then more braking to put it into (some sort) of elliptical orbit AROUND mercury then (optional) more braking to "circularize" your orbit around mercury!
I think energetically speaking it's about as difficult to send a probe to Mercury as it is to Jupiter even though Jupiter is much farther away. So in order to not have to use a huge (expensive booster), the probe does a bunch of gravity assists by sling-shotting near Venus, Mercury and maybe even the earth. This saves a LOT of fuel but adds a LOT of time (otherwise as you probably guessed it would've gotten there years earlier).
I know the US has done a lot of bad things and made some pretty bad mistakes but I just wanted to celebrate one of its (many) good achievements. Only the US has sent (or is sending) a probe to every major object in the solar system (yes that includes you Pluto). Only the US has launched four "Great Observatories" (Hubble, Chandra, Compton, Spitzer). Only the US has... well the list goes on and on even in just the field of unmanned space exploration.
Of course the Cosmos is not solely an American prerogative. So here's a question; why haven't other wealthy federations/countries (EU, Japan) been hitting in their weight class? Is it because only the US (and to a lesser extent) the USSR had the close linkage between the military development of ballistic missile technology and space exploration as a means of bolstering national pride? Or, is it because the US is a nation full of dreamers and visionaries who pursue ideals (and ideologies) that may not appeal as much to the pragmatic and efficient Europeans (I'm mostly thinking of Germany) and Japanese? Is the reason why 70% Americans profess to strongly believe in God the same reason why they are (relatively) so willing to spend billions on space exploration? Do the same impulses that drive many (stupid) Americans to deny Evolution and Global Warming paradoxically cause them to fund the most productive scientific community on earth?
And maybe that will answer this follow up question: will rising China follow (and perhaps surpass) the US in space exploration? If it is a matter of military development and national pride then perhaps yes. If it is something more cultural though...?
On a related note: there was a recent article in (I think) the NYTimes about how, the Chinese Central Committe (the assemblage that runs China) got together recently. Since many of the members of this elite group were laden with the latest iPad and iPhones, a major topic of discussion was; why hadn't China produced anyone like Steve Jobs and would it ever? Say what you will about Mr. jobs, he has created and revolutionized several industries from scratch (personal computing, "windows" based computing, computer animated movies (Pixar), digital distribution of media, portable digital media devices, cellphones, tablet computers). Basically the article concluded that unless China were to become more democratic, less authoritarian and less hierarchal, they would have little chance of allowing a (paraphrased) Beatles fanatic, fruitarian, hippy dropout who spent a year in India before returning to start a self-proclaimed revolution, from becoming a success.
Or is there another reason why the US has been blessed (cursed*?) by people like Jobs? (Education? Drugs? Fluorine in the water supply?)
*"cursed" might be what some of his employees would say. He, like others whom I would call visionary (like James Cameron), have not been known to provide the most caring and supportive of work environments.
While news of the death and devastation begins to filter in, I wanted to ask knowledgeable slashdotters if they knew of any undersea cable outages due to the tsunami (this IS a news for nerds site).
I am not familiar with how the main fiber optic trunk cables are strung out along the pacific ocean seabed. I wonder if there was a desire to keep them close to land (so they can make landfall more easily). If so, wouldn't they be right on top of "the ring of fire" and thus more vulnerable to events like this? Or perhaps the designers deliberately laid them out away from major faults? (Or perhaps they are relatively invulnerable to events like this, though the energy released in a mag. 8.9 earthquake makes it hard for me to believe anything could be so designed).
In any case, I'm in Vietnam and I'm reading this and posting this to slashdot which is presumably a U.S. site so our Internet connectivity does not seem to be majorly impacted.
So if the Keck telescope is sensitive enough to detect a (star? large planet?) sized object that is radiating at only at 100c, could it pick up Dyson Spheres? Ringworlds? (But perhaps ringworlds would be more easily detected using transit studies! And, yes I know that they are dynamically unstable!)
I hope that the Kepler observing team is not automatically discarding observations that don't fit expected profiles.
For example: if a (slighty more) advanced civilization wanted to be detectable by something like Kepler, all they would have to do is put up some (very) large but (presumably) low mass "screens" in orbit around the star. By putting up several of these with the proper spacing; a coded "signal" code could be seen, just like morse code (I'd time it so the intervals would correspond to some prime numbers).
Of course if they are even a little bit more advanced and don't have to make these things ultra-lightweight, these screens could perform a useful function like solar panels or, if cabled together and spun, living area. (Hence the reference to the term "Ringworld" from Larry Niven's books).
Anyway, even if the Kepler team inadvertently ignores this data, perhaps after a period of time it'll become publically available? Here's to stellar data-mining! (If you found the first evidence of an E.T. civilization this way, would you be eligible for a Nobel Prize?)
Whatever happened to VR? (Virtual Reality) A decade or two ago, it seemed to be (short of direct neural interfaces) where user interfaces were heading. I even remember going to a Disney mini-theme park where they had some true VR rides (you wore a tracking headset) so that you could ride Aladdin's carpet.
Back then it seemed as if the main thing keeping this technology back was the room-sized SGI supercomputer required to render a reasonable scene in real time. I remember a presentation by the CEO of SGI saying that all they needed to get to was 60M triangles/sec, then VR would be achieve mass appeal. (Then again, he also dismissed delivering video from computers by saying computers wouldn't become video "jukeboxes" so maybe he wasn't so good at predicting the future.) Anyway, I don't know the latest spec's but I'm sure a modern video card could blow away one of those old SGI "Reality Engines".
So why aren't we all wearing goggles (and wearing spandex) and looking like the characters in "The Lawnmower Man"? Is it because micro-displays never got good enough? Or something else?
Look, these orbiters and probes (yes to Uranus) are projected to cost in multiple billions EACH. As much as I love space exploration and think NASA's done a bang-up job (in their unmanned program at least), these planetary bodies aren't going anywhere and do not directly address any pressing problems (climate change is the one exception but for that we should be looking at the rocky terrestrial like inner planets like Venus and Mars and not the gas giants).
So why not put these programs on the slow track for a little while and spend a Billion developing some really good deep space propulsion systems? Finish VASIMIR, improve ion engines, develop high power nuclear reactors (not just wimpy RTGs), try laser beaming, solar sails or even magnetic bubbles! Anyway, if you can get a propulsion system that's 10x more efficient than our current chemical rockets you could send much more massive payloads quicker! This would substantially reduce the launch cost since it would "only" cost 10s of thousands of dollars to send a kg instead of 100s of thousands to the outer planets. This in turn would allow designers much more flexibilty to reduce cost/increase perfornance since they wouldn't be under such pressure to reduce weight. And by reducing or eliminating the need for time-consuming gravitational assists (6 years to Mercury!), it would likewise reduce support costs as well as increase science return (instruments won't be decades obsolete on arrival).
- The distance to the outer planets is great enough that it makes me think of some science fiction stories (like Arthur C. Clarke's "The Songs of Distant Earth"), where newly developed technology could allow spacecraft launched later to overtake the earlier more primitive ships. While the travel times here will be measured in years or decades not centuries or millennia it still gives me pause. Unless there is some extremely fortuituous occurrence like the planetary alignment that made the Grand Tour possible (Pioneer, Voyager) it is better to wait AS LONG AS you spend the time (and money) making things stronger, faster, better, cheaper.
(For some of these reasons, I support Obama's focus on developing new technologies before trying for the Moon (again) or Mars. We know we can do it, the question is can we do it affordably enough to SUSTAIN a manned presence?)
Let's become a spacefaring civilization!
The reason why Science (yes with a capital "S") always eventually finds the (objective because I'm not a hare-brained relativist) Truth (yes with a capital "T") is because NATURE (all caps) has the final say. Don't agree with my theory of nuclear physics? We'll see who's nuclear bomb works! Think I'm barking up the wrong tree in my semi-conductor theory? Well my new chip should work (or not). Don't agree on Global Warming? Well we'll know (unfortunately) well within most of our lifetimes.
Science, like any human endeavor has always had it's share of conspiracies, rivalries, petty feuds and whatnot. Just look at the bitterness between Newton and Liebnitz or the amount of skepticism (and personal attacks) the first people who proposed continental drift or black holes went through. Yet now they are very well accepted foundations of their disciplines because ultimately overwhelming amounts of colloborating observations proved them correct. The same thing will happen with global warming because (again) it will happen quickly enough for us to see. (Evolution is harder because speciation typically happens over many generations, however it has been widely observed (and repeated in labs) on a "small" scale which is why evolution denialists have given up on denying "micro"-evolution).
I wish that every critic of Global Warming would be forced to clearly state their true identity in a public manner for a permanent record. That way, in just 20-50 years, as the shit really hits the fan (and we lose Florida) their grandchildren can look at them and hold them up to contempt.
Let me guess, you're a Republican Right? And you're too embarrassed to admit that by and large your party has become the anti-science party (unless it fits your religious world view).
I'd prefer to call a spade a spade and IF THE FACTS SAY (as is appears to be the case) that Republicans have become the party of ignorance then that's what they say. I had no trouble railing against the radical left's relativism so why should I give the conservatives a pass?
As much as I'd hate to live under an authoritarian police state with few individual rights maybe the Chinese DESERVE to win. They certainly don't have a problem with pushing science and technology as the keys to a powerful and wealthy nation.
Thanks! I liked the video. - Wisebabo.
Since I'm hoping that this topic will be read by someone who actually knows something about aerogels, I'm wondering if they could comment on some crackpot ideas (mine not the researchers! ;)
First, what is the "compression strength" of aerogels? (I'm not a material scientist so I don't know what is the proper term). If it is sufficiently high maybe it could withstand 1 atmosphere of pressure. In that case and if the aerogel structure was sufficiently light, imagine the following application: take a block of aerogel structure and wrap it in something like plastic wrap (non-gas permeable). Pump all the air out. Voila! It floats being lighter than air without using helium (costly) or hydrogen (flammable).
The reason I said "aerogel structure" is because even if a SOLID block of aerogel is still too heavy (heavier than air), a "hollowed out" block or a block like the bones of a bird's wing could be significantly lighter. In a more extreme example, perhaps aerogel struts and girders could be used to make an ultra-ultra light structure that would be enclosed by the non-gas permeable film (how about using a 1-atom thick film of graphene? It has been shown capable of resisting an atmosphere's worth of pressure!).
Secondly, how is this new (carbon nanotube based) aerogel made? Does it still require a super-critical fluid? If this (or any other aerogel) can be made in a vacuum (or if all the other materials needed for production can be recycled) perhaps it could be made IN ORBIT. Since aerogel is so light, just a "relatively" small amount of starting material (by mass) could make a large amount of aerogel (by volume). If 10 grams could make 1 cubic meter of the stuff, then 10 metric tons could make a piece 1 meter thick a kilometer square. Voila! The perfect "space garbage" collector.
As demonstrated by the NASA space probe "Stardust", aerogels are very well suited for capturing hypervelocity particles; while the Stardust probe only collected microscopic particles its aerogel was very thin, a 1 meter thick aerogel would hopefully be capable of getting much larger (paint flecks? loose screws?) sized objects. While still capable of serious damage (in the right spot anything moving at 7km/sec can hurt) these small objects are not only much more numerous than the large ones but are the hardest (impossible?) to track and are economically infeasible to track down with a "space tug". Even if didn't completely stop them dead in their tracks, hopefully they would lose so much kinetic energy as to drop out of orbit quickly.
Of course, these occasional impacts would gradually slow down the collector so it would need to be reboosted. A small but very efficient ion engine should do the trick which would also be used to go to a new orbit once it has "cleaned up" the one it is working on. Perhaps the best method would be just apply a very thin silvered film to one side and, by careful adjustments of its orientation, allow the sun's light pressure to blow it anywhere you want. (In fact if you apply crackpot idea number one, of aerogel "struts and girders" with crackpot idea numbet two, of the ability to manufacture this stuff in space and a very thin silvered film, you have the ability to make extremely large, low mass solar sails!)
Of course both schemes also require the ability to make industrial sized quantities of the stuff, affordably!
There is an interesting short story by Greg Egan called "Crystal Nights" (no connection to the Nazi attack on the Jewish ghettos).
Partial SPOILER ALERT.
Basically someone (using a super-fast crystal based computer) tries to evolve, in software, lifeforms that will surpass humanity and solve our problems. What he doesn't realize is that evolution, to the individual (if not the species) means DEATH and the newly created godlings may not be happy with the sacrifices they have had to endure...
Anyway, Greg Egan (an extremely thought provoking author and, I think, physicist) has written some books that will blow your mind. Second only to the late Stanislaw Lem, he is one of my favorite S.F. writers. Go buy some of his books! Recommended: Permutation City (also about artificial life), Quaranitine and Incandescence. I think he may have released Crystal Nights as a free download.
Oh, and to add to my nit-picking, when the thermally unshielded crew members are exposed to the vacuum of space (now in shadow) they shouldn't instantly freeze solid. They would, of course, eventually do so (if they were kept in shadow) but the thermal conductivity of a vacuum is so low it would take awhile (think Thermos bottles). And evaporative cooling wouldn't be that much faster (even Bedouins in the driest deserts don't get cold from sweating). Still the writer's needed a contrast between fire and ice I guess so whatever.
I think they would however lose consciousness quickly (15 sec.?) though because the dissolved oxygen in their blood would come out of solution (maybe causing the bends) quickly.
Still great movie.
Thinking of Mercury also makes me think of the very good horror/sci-fi movie "Sunshine". (Partial SPOILER ALERT).
I really liked it except the intensity of the Sun, even at those distances, was dialed up a bit too high. I mean, when the captain gets "blown" by the very brief exposure to the (dying) sun, it was a little too much considering he was in a very heavily heat shielded suit. And the ship wasn't even yet at Mercury's orbit! I guess just slowly being cooked to death was not dramatic enough for the script writers.
Otherwise, I really liked the movie, the other details were mostly spot on (except there wasn't "zero-G" in a few places in the spacecraft where it should've been) and the fact that they were out of communications with earth even before reaching mercury seemed suspect (I know there could've been crazy radio interference with a wacky sun but a good laser/maser could punch through almost anything). Obviously these were points that the director chose not to deal with because of cost (zero-G) or plot (kept the crew in scary isolation). Anyway, loved some other touches like the room with the fissile material "bomb" which was evidently so dense it had it's own significant and varying gravitational field! And a believable scary "monster!"
Another excellent sun-oriented sic-fi piece is Arthur C. Clarke's story about a trip to the asteroid Icarus (I think it's called "Summertime on Icarus"). I always thought it would be a good way of protecting future long-term travellers to asteroids/comets from solar flares, just temporarily park them in the shadow!