unfortunately I'm not using the systems in a nice comfy post house, they are on location and the amount of gear that I have to lug around is a major consideration for me. It would be nice if I didn't have to bring more than a couple of hundred pounds of hardware with me to every shoot! (I'm replacing my HD monitors with flat panels and using the new Blackmagic SDI->DVI converter to drive them.)
the internal RAID solutions I was hoping for are (like WiebeTech's G5 Jam) using a 4-port SATA RAID card. Like I mention above, I've got some external kingston arrays but they are bulky, heavy and loud. Not the kind of things you want to bring on location.
thanks but I need internal drives because I take my machines on set. I've already got some Kingston 8-drive bay SCSI arrays, they are large, extremely heavy and very loud.
and that the new machines have more than two drive bays!
I do (very) high end post production for a living and I wanted to replace my G5s with the new machines because I needed internal RAID arrays of more than 2 drives. Two drives will not give you the bandwidth you need for HD or digital cinema formats. I can't use solutions like WiebeTech's G5 Jam because my full length PCI cards take up the space.
I looked on the web site and it looks like the new machines didn't put in new drive bays in front of the CPUs (as was mentioned on some rumor sites). Am I wrong? Is there a way to add more drives?
Bandwidth in my work is more important than CPU speed.
If you post your code so we can tinker with it and run it on our machines maybe we'll leave your server alone (after we finish downloading it a million times).
If you read the article the negative first normal stress difference says that sliding plates across "-- created forces that tugged the plates together. "
Well, when you twist the lid, isn't that what you're doing? (Sliding it relative to the rest of the jar?)
sig. for today If you're conservative when you're young you have no heart... If you're conservative when you're old you have no brain (with apologies to Winston Churchill; but he didn't know Bush!)
For those who don't speak Russian, Ekranoplans are surface effect craft or "Wing In Ground". Basically they are aircraft (with specially designed "wings") that utilize the pressure buildup from flying very low over flat surfaces (water). This gives them most of the speed of an aircraft with the carrying capacity of a ship. They are also remarkably fuel efficient.
The soviets took this technology to a great extent, building huge transports for use on their "landlocked" seas (like the Caspian).
sig. for today If you're conservative when you're young you have no heart... If you're conservative when you're old you have no brain (with apologies to Winston Churchill but he didn't know Bush!)
thanks, I'm probably even (much) further from being a physicist but I just wanted to know. I guess though if it is a problem with modeling instabilities then it would be a computational issue then because otherwise you could just crank up the grid size? Oh well, just curious.
I'm not to sure about the need for population controls. The most recent predictions is that the global population will peak out at about 9.x billion people around 2050 and then begin a long (slow?) decline. What has changed is that even in underdeveloped countries the rate of population growth has been declining (reason?).
Of course in the developed countries (which hopefully the whole world will become) population growth has been dropping like a stone. While everyone knows about how fast Japan is becoming a nation of elders I believe Italy has the lowest growth rate (1.4 per couple?). Predictions are for 3 Italians left in 500 years, let's hope they're not all the same sex!. What's ironic is that this is the Pope's country with abortion illegal and contraception mandatory. The U.S. would be at a negative growth rate if it weren't for immigration.
I don't have any kids but just watching my friends try to raise theirs gives me some idea of why this is happening. On the other hand if our use of resources continues to rise (2 SUV's in every garage) we WILL need another planet! (Did you know that the size of the average american home has like doubled in one lifetime?).
I'm glad that progress is being made but I have to ask:
How good are (computer) simulations at modeling this? I mean the NIF and presumably you are going to spend billions to essentially run experiments. I assume this means that simulations of the physics are not good enough to predict what is the best design. So, what's the problem? Is there a fundamental lack of knowledge (quantum/relativistic effects/high energy densities) at these regimes or are your equations good but you just don't have the computing power to solve them? Because we might see PetaFLOP computers before we see PetaWATT lasers!
Also do you know if Magnetic confinement schemes also have simulation problems?
(BTW I met the exec. dir. of the Max Planck inst. in Plasma phys. while on the TGV last year, he seemed quite optimistic that magnetic confinement was going to be producing results "real soon now";)
Re:CNN should take a look at the history books...
on
X-43A Hits Mach 7
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· Score: 2, Funny
Yeah but they are going the long way around.
THE PROGRAM IS BEING HALTED!
on
X-43A Hits Mach 7
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· Score: 5, Interesting
There's an old Airforce saying: A new plane doesn't make a new engine possible: A new engine makes a new plane possible.
That's why when NASA went for the moon a critical development was the F-1 first stage rocket engine. Capable of 1.5M lbs. of thrust it allowed the Saturn V first stage to be built with only 5 engines. Compare this with the Russian failed manned lunar rocket the N-1 which had 20 engines. They never were able to work all together (vibrational problems) and abandoned it after several launch disasters.
So why is NASA stopping development? (The successor the X-43C will not be flown). Why are we freezing this enabling technology? Are we (under Bush's program) sacrificing everything to plant a flag on Mars and not making space flight practical? It might be worth it if we ever got to Mars but it looks highly doubtful that his proposal is a serious attempt at anything but votes!
Sorry for the (mostly) repost but I really wish we would move "faster" towards developing the technologies towards practical* spaceflight.
*As noted in previous posts, by not carrying the oxygen on board you save a LOT of weight. Remember the reaction is H2 + O = H2O (and energy) and since the atomic weight of oxygen is 16 compared to hydrogen for every kilo of hydrogen you carry you carry EIGHT of oxygen. The weight savings (could be in the millions of pounds) makes up for the turbo-fans/rocket engines you must carry for the takeoff/orbital transition parts of the flight.
Re:AirForce saying: new engine makes possible new
on
NASA Tests X-43A
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· Score: 1
couldn't have said this better myself! (could you confirm that since the atomic weight of hydrogen is 1 whereas the atomic weight of oxygen is 16, the ratio BY WEIGHT of hydrogen fuel to oxygen is 1:8 on a spacecraft since the reaction is H2+O -> H2O. Doesn't this mean that there will be a HUGE savings of weight or increase in payload since the scramjet gets the oxygen "for free"?)
Re:AirForce saying: new engine makes possible new
on
NASA Tests X-43A
·
· Score: 1
I stand corrected, thank you I counldn't remember the name!
AirForce saying: new engine makes possible new ...
on
NASA Tests X-43A
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
There's an old Airforce saying:
A new plane doesn't make a new engine possible,
A new engine makes a new plane possible.
That's why when NASA went for the moon a critical development was the F-1 first stage rocket engine. Capable of 1.5M lbs. of thrust it allowed the Saturn V first stage to be built with only 5 engines. Compare this with the Russian failed manned lunar rocket the Energia (I think) which had 20 engines. They never were able to work all together (vibrational problems) and abandoned it after several launch disasters.
So why is NASA cancelling this program in particular? Are we (under Bush's program) sacrificing everything to plant a flag on Mars and not making space flight practical? It might be worth it if we ever got to Mars but it looks highly doubtful that his proposal is a serious attempt at anything but votes!
Although I am a very committed space/astronomy nut after long thought I have to say "the stars (planets really) are not for Man" at least not yet. Let's say we get to mars with a few missions of exploration and planting the flag. What then? What would it take to make Mars a self sustaining colony capable of reseeding the home world if disaster strikes? To create the industrial infrastructure necessary to get to that point would take ten's of thousands of people living there decades; the cost of getting them there would even with nuclear powered rockets would be literally astronomical. ($50billion for six astronauts, think about it). What about terraforming so that supporting life is much easier? That technology (gigantic mirrors in orbit, super-greenhouse gasses, cometary seeding of the atmosphere) is far beyond us and would take centuries to complete. Until some major breakthrough (space elevators, fusion, nanotech assemblers) it is simply too expensive.
No, the only reasons (now) for going to mars for temporary stays are scientific and political. For science to look for (past) life, but we aren't in any real hurry are we? Incremental robotic programs are fine. As for politics, after we spend $50B to plant the flag for a stunt, what will the public say? Remember the drop off in public opinion after Apollo!
We have an ocean of space to cross but unlike the pioneers who came to America, the new world is a deadly world with unbreathable air, radiation, toxic dust and cold. Let's develop the technology to make this problems insignificant. Until then, SAVE HUBBLE!
isn't the moon (250,000 miles) and even LEO pretty much a "far distance" when compared to a laser with a beam width measured in meters? At this point doesn't the cross section of the beam still drops with the inverse of the distance? (and the intensity light/area drops with the inverse square?)
A laser pointer with a beam with of a few millimeters illuminating a target a few tens of meters away has a beam width that is still relatively large in proportion to the overall distance. That is I can shine my laser pointer at a wall 1 meters away and it covers a spot 10mm across. At 10 meters the beam may only have expanded to say 30mm across (not 100) because the output at the beam's source was 10mm to begin with. On the other hand this same beam shining on an object 1km away might produce a spot 1m across. Now if it illuminated an object 10km away the beam would be 10m across (and 100th the intensity).
What I'm trying to say is that at far enough distances, everything is a point source.
Check out my post in the tumbleweeds in Mars article!
I respectfully disagree with some of your "implications"
So unreliable communications is one notable problem.
Why does the fact that their tumbleweed used the Iridium network on earth means that the non-androsynchronous system on Mars could not be used. I'm sure this test was done as cheaply as possible and the satellite comm. part was not their main concern. As we have seen with the store and forward system used by the MERs huge amounts of data can be transmitted (10Gbits/day). Also I believe the MERs use their omnidirectional UHF antennae (they would not be able to track the satellites using the directional antennae fast enough). This would work for a rolling (radio) transparent ball as well.
Even so, the rest of those parameters can be deduced from current orbiters, especially "humidity".
These parameters AT THE GROUND cannot be deduced from orbiters as they are at the top of the atmosphere looking down. That's why the rover's atmospheric infrared profiles complemented the orbiters, the orbiters were able to give data down to the bottom 5km and the rover's were able to give data up to (about) 5kms. Your point about humidity is correct but again the instruments on the Mars Balls will not be looking for humidity but rather methane concentrations (life) and volcanic outgassing (warm areas). Pressure readings would probably be extremely valuable (note the parachutes deployed a full mile lower than expected because of inaccuracies from orbital projections). Finally although the lack of a Martian GPS system would preclude any instantaneous determining of position, after a few days of rolling (and taking pictures) they could probably get an exact fix on where they were. After that inertial guidance could tell where them where they've gone. Finally NASA was in the process of putting a miniature Martian Geosync comm./GPS system, was cancelled after Martian Polar Lander but may be revived.
The nature of the object means that those are pretty much all the sensor readings you're going to get, too... add pretty pictures to the mix, of course.
Even if no fancy "tricks" like deflating the bag and reflating it were used there is a tremendous amount of information you can get from some pretty pictures. In addition to the incredible advantage of being on the same level as what you're observing and only a few feet away (as opposed to hundreds of miles up looking down) look at the non-visible light information that's been pouring into JPL. The mini-TES allows them to remotely determine mineral composition and the infrared imagers have (I've already mentioned) given a wealth of atmospheric data. It is amazing what modern science can discern with the smallest amounts of information, truly a picture is worth a thousand words. (Some of the most profound conclusions from our explorations are based on just a few points on a graph!) On the other hand just because it rolls doesn't mean it can't touch. Previous Mars Landers have considered such ideas as "sticky threads" where sticky threads are shot out (no jokes please) and then reeled back in for analysis. Even if not looking for life, they could tell us what's in the dust!
But I'd suggest launching another Beagle (with airbags) first, if we're wanting best bang for the buck.
How bought landing the Beagle, then after a little investigation reinflating the airbags and letting it roll somewhere else? Finally this whole method of landing (re-entry, parachute, retros, airbags, bounce) is so rube golderish in the words of the NASA guys because they readily admit they don't know the best way to land let explore Mars. Let's think of more ideas (like blimps, gliders, flappers, crawlers, hoppers etc.)!
[
One thing repeated over and over in this topic is using the moon as some sort of Uber military space station. Please stop and really think about it. What kind of attacks do you think you'd be launching from the moon? Precision tactical attacks that would knock out targets like the size of buildings? The U.S. already has excellent essentially unstoppable relatively CHEAP weapons for doing that including B-2s, cruise missiles, F-117s, and hypersonic cruise missiles soon that will do the job in under an hour. Even the most powerful railgun on the moon would take much longer to cross the quarter million miles to attack and that's if the moon is visible from that hemisphere at that time! Lasers? You still have to hope the part of the earth is viewable and radiation based weapons are subject to the inverse square law. (Laser on moon would have to be 1 million times more powerful than one in LEO). How about using the moon for a strategic attack? (Dropping big rocks?). Well the strategic supremacy of the U.S. is so far from being challenged (submarines, ICBMS, bombers) by any other power that I question the need. We already have extremely formidable weapons that can reach anywhere on the planet in half an hour, they are called H-bombs. Won't it be cheaper to launch these weapons from the moon? Only if you build them there (otherwise you'll be dragging them from here to there and back again). The costs of building an infrastructure of the sort to build any of these weapons (rail guns, lasers, bombs) is so huge it defies comprehension. (Ten's of thousands of people, industrial scale operations in vacuum and hard radiation). Remember that the moon is still a very hostile place. Just one problem: unless they can find ice at the pole (which is now in doubt) there is NO WATER. (If there was concrete on the moon, astronauts would mine it for water!). Also all this talk of Helium 3 is just talk. Seen any nuclear fusion reactors working in your neighborhood? How much effort would it take to refine this He, on the moon, found in mere parts per million (billion) in the lunar dust?
The moon may be a great (good?) place for astronomy but not for the military.
I believe the idea of storing and transmitting information via DNA was proposed by Jaron Lanier in the Y2K issue of the NYT magazine. The NYT was running a contest to come up with a "time capsule" that would last till Y3K and asked various prominent scientists, achitects etc. how they would make something that would last and would be easily found by future generations. Lanier proposed encoding a message in the DNA of cockroachs and then letting them reproduce naturally in the wild. In a thousand years they'd be everywhere! (His idea didn't win, a more conventional capsule with physical records was selected). Also in various science fiction books (Greg Bear) messages were encoded in people's DNA.
Slashdot Mirror
good idea but not enough PCI slots
unfortunately I'm not using the systems in a nice comfy post house, they are on location and the amount of gear that I have to lug around is a major consideration for me. It would be nice if I didn't have to bring more than a couple of hundred pounds of hardware with me to every shoot! (I'm replacing my HD monitors with flat panels and using the new Blackmagic SDI->DVI converter to drive them.)
the internal RAID solutions I was hoping for are (like WiebeTech's G5 Jam) using a 4-port SATA RAID card. Like I mention above, I've got some external kingston arrays but they are bulky, heavy and loud. Not the kind of things you want to bring on location.
thanks but I need internal drives because I take my machines on set. I've already got some Kingston 8-drive bay SCSI arrays, they are large, extremely heavy and very loud.
and that the new machines have more than two drive bays!
I do (very) high end post production for a living and I wanted to replace my G5s with the new machines because I needed internal RAID arrays of more than 2 drives. Two drives will not give you the bandwidth you need for HD or digital cinema formats. I can't use solutions like WiebeTech's G5 Jam because my full length PCI cards take up the space.
I looked on the web site and it looks like the new machines didn't put in new drive bays in front of the CPUs (as was mentioned on some rumor sites). Am I wrong? Is there a way to add more drives?
Bandwidth in my work is more important than CPU speed.
Hey!
If you post your code so we can tinker with it and run it on our machines maybe we'll leave your server alone (after we finish downloading it a million times).
wannabe astro-physicist
No really!
If you read the article the negative first normal stress difference says that sliding plates across "-- created forces that tugged the plates together. "
Well, when you twist the lid, isn't that what you're doing? (Sliding it relative to the rest of the jar?)
sig. for today
If you're conservative when you're young you have no heart... If you're conservative when you're old you have no brain (with apologies to Winston Churchill; but he didn't know Bush!)
For those who don't speak Russian, Ekranoplans are surface effect craft or "Wing In Ground". Basically they are aircraft (with specially designed "wings") that utilize the pressure buildup from flying very low over flat surfaces (water). This gives them most of the speed of an aircraft with the carrying capacity of a ship. They are also remarkably fuel efficient.
The soviets took this technology to a great extent, building huge transports for use on their "landlocked" seas (like the Caspian).
sig. for today
If you're conservative when you're young you have no heart... If you're conservative when you're old you have no brain (with apologies to Winston Churchill but he didn't know Bush!)
thanks, I'm probably even (much) further from being a physicist but I just wanted to know. I guess though if it is a problem with modeling instabilities then it would be a computational issue then because otherwise you could just crank up the grid size? Oh well, just curious.
I'm not to sure about the need for population controls. The most recent predictions is that the global population will peak out at about 9.x billion people around 2050 and then begin a long (slow?) decline. What has changed is that even in underdeveloped countries the rate of population growth has been declining (reason?).
Of course in the developed countries (which hopefully the whole world will become) population growth has been dropping like a stone. While everyone knows about how fast Japan is becoming a nation of elders I believe Italy has the lowest growth rate (1.4 per couple?). Predictions are for 3 Italians left in 500 years, let's hope they're not all the same sex!. What's ironic is that this is the Pope's country with abortion illegal and contraception mandatory. The U.S. would be at a negative growth rate if it weren't for immigration.
I don't have any kids but just watching my friends try to raise theirs gives me some idea of why this is happening. On the other hand if our use of resources continues to rise (2 SUV's in every garage) we WILL need another planet! (Did you know that the size of the average american home has like doubled in one lifetime?).
I'm glad that progress is being made but I have to ask:
How good are (computer) simulations at modeling this? I mean the NIF and presumably you are going to spend billions to essentially run experiments. I assume this means that simulations of the physics are not good enough to predict what is the best design. So, what's the problem? Is there a fundamental lack of knowledge (quantum/relativistic effects/high energy densities) at these regimes or are your equations good but you just don't have the computing power to solve them? Because we might see PetaFLOP computers before we see PetaWATT lasers!
Also do you know if Magnetic confinement schemes also have simulation problems?
(BTW I met the exec. dir. of the Max Planck inst. in Plasma phys. while on the TGV last year, he seemed quite optimistic that magnetic confinement was going to be producing results "real soon now";)
Yeah but they are going the long way around.
There's an old Airforce saying:
A new plane doesn't make a new engine possible: A new engine makes a new plane possible.
That's why when NASA went for the moon a critical development was the F-1 first stage rocket engine. Capable of 1.5M lbs. of thrust it allowed the Saturn V first stage to be built with only 5 engines. Compare this with the Russian failed manned lunar rocket the N-1 which had 20 engines. They never were able to work all together (vibrational problems) and abandoned it after several launch disasters.
So why is NASA stopping development? (The successor the X-43C will not be flown). Why are we freezing this enabling technology? Are we (under Bush's program) sacrificing everything to plant a flag on Mars and not making space flight practical? It might be worth it if we ever got to Mars but it looks highly doubtful that his proposal is a serious attempt at anything but votes!
Sorry for the (mostly) repost but I really wish we would move "faster" towards developing the technologies towards practical* spaceflight.
*As noted in previous posts, by not carrying the oxygen on board you save a LOT of weight. Remember the reaction is H2 + O = H2O (and energy) and since the atomic weight of oxygen is 16 compared to hydrogen for every kilo of hydrogen you carry you carry EIGHT of oxygen. The weight savings (could be in the millions of pounds) makes up for the turbo-fans/rocket engines you must carry for the takeoff/orbital transition parts of the flight.
couldn't have said this better myself! (could you confirm that since the atomic weight of hydrogen is 1 whereas the atomic weight of oxygen is 16, the ratio BY WEIGHT of hydrogen fuel to oxygen is 1:8 on a spacecraft since the reaction is H2+O -> H2O. Doesn't this mean that there will be a HUGE savings of weight or increase in payload since the scramjet gets the oxygen "for free"?)
I stand corrected, thank you I counldn't remember the name!
There's an old Airforce saying: A new plane doesn't make a new engine possible, A new engine makes a new plane possible. That's why when NASA went for the moon a critical development was the F-1 first stage rocket engine. Capable of 1.5M lbs. of thrust it allowed the Saturn V first stage to be built with only 5 engines. Compare this with the Russian failed manned lunar rocket the Energia (I think) which had 20 engines. They never were able to work all together (vibrational problems) and abandoned it after several launch disasters. So why is NASA cancelling this program in particular? Are we (under Bush's program) sacrificing everything to plant a flag on Mars and not making space flight practical? It might be worth it if we ever got to Mars but it looks highly doubtful that his proposal is a serious attempt at anything but votes!
Although I am a very committed space/astronomy nut after long thought I have to say "the stars (planets really) are not for Man" at least not yet. Let's say we get to mars with a few missions of exploration and planting the flag. What then? What would it take to make Mars a self sustaining colony capable of reseeding the home world if disaster strikes? To create the industrial infrastructure necessary to get to that point would take ten's of thousands of people living there decades; the cost of getting them there would even with nuclear powered rockets would be literally astronomical. ($50billion for six astronauts, think about it). What about terraforming so that supporting life is much easier? That technology (gigantic mirrors in orbit, super-greenhouse gasses, cometary seeding of the atmosphere) is far beyond us and would take centuries to complete. Until some major breakthrough (space elevators, fusion, nanotech assemblers) it is simply too expensive.
No, the only reasons (now) for going to mars for temporary stays are scientific and political. For science to look for (past) life, but we aren't in any real hurry are we? Incremental robotic programs are fine. As for politics, after we spend $50B to plant the flag for a stunt, what will the public say? Remember the drop off in public opinion after Apollo!
We have an ocean of space to cross but unlike the pioneers who came to America, the new world is a deadly world with unbreathable air, radiation, toxic dust and cold. Let's develop the technology to make this problems insignificant. Until then, SAVE HUBBLE!
isn't the moon (250,000 miles) and even LEO pretty much a "far distance" when compared to a laser with a beam width measured in meters? At this point doesn't the cross section of the beam still drops with the inverse of the distance? (and the intensity light/area drops with the inverse square?) A laser pointer with a beam with of a few millimeters illuminating a target a few tens of meters away has a beam width that is still relatively large in proportion to the overall distance. That is I can shine my laser pointer at a wall 1 meters away and it covers a spot 10mm across. At 10 meters the beam may only have expanded to say 30mm across (not 100) because the output at the beam's source was 10mm to begin with. On the other hand this same beam shining on an object 1km away might produce a spot 1m across. Now if it illuminated an object 10km away the beam would be 10m across (and 100th the intensity). What I'm trying to say is that at far enough distances, everything is a point source. Check out my post in the tumbleweeds in Mars article!
I respectfully disagree with some of your "implications" So unreliable communications is one notable problem. Why does the fact that their tumbleweed used the Iridium network on earth means that the non-androsynchronous system on Mars could not be used. I'm sure this test was done as cheaply as possible and the satellite comm. part was not their main concern. As we have seen with the store and forward system used by the MERs huge amounts of data can be transmitted (10Gbits/day). Also I believe the MERs use their omnidirectional UHF antennae (they would not be able to track the satellites using the directional antennae fast enough). This would work for a rolling (radio) transparent ball as well. Even so, the rest of those parameters can be deduced from current orbiters, especially "humidity". These parameters AT THE GROUND cannot be deduced from orbiters as they are at the top of the atmosphere looking down. That's why the rover's atmospheric infrared profiles complemented the orbiters, the orbiters were able to give data down to the bottom 5km and the rover's were able to give data up to (about) 5kms. Your point about humidity is correct but again the instruments on the Mars Balls will not be looking for humidity but rather methane concentrations (life) and volcanic outgassing (warm areas). Pressure readings would probably be extremely valuable (note the parachutes deployed a full mile lower than expected because of inaccuracies from orbital projections). Finally although the lack of a Martian GPS system would preclude any instantaneous determining of position, after a few days of rolling (and taking pictures) they could probably get an exact fix on where they were. After that inertial guidance could tell where them where they've gone. Finally NASA was in the process of putting a miniature Martian Geosync comm./GPS system, was cancelled after Martian Polar Lander but may be revived. The nature of the object means that those are pretty much all the sensor readings you're going to get, too... add pretty pictures to the mix, of course. Even if no fancy "tricks" like deflating the bag and reflating it were used there is a tremendous amount of information you can get from some pretty pictures. In addition to the incredible advantage of being on the same level as what you're observing and only a few feet away (as opposed to hundreds of miles up looking down) look at the non-visible light information that's been pouring into JPL. The mini-TES allows them to remotely determine mineral composition and the infrared imagers have (I've already mentioned) given a wealth of atmospheric data. It is amazing what modern science can discern with the smallest amounts of information, truly a picture is worth a thousand words. (Some of the most profound conclusions from our explorations are based on just a few points on a graph!) On the other hand just because it rolls doesn't mean it can't touch. Previous Mars Landers have considered such ideas as "sticky threads" where sticky threads are shot out (no jokes please) and then reeled back in for analysis. Even if not looking for life, they could tell us what's in the dust! But I'd suggest launching another Beagle (with airbags) first, if we're wanting best bang for the buck. How bought landing the Beagle, then after a little investigation reinflating the airbags and letting it roll somewhere else? Finally this whole method of landing (re-entry, parachute, retros, airbags, bounce) is so rube golderish in the words of the NASA guys because they readily admit they don't know the best way to land let explore Mars. Let's think of more ideas (like blimps, gliders, flappers, crawlers, hoppers etc.)! [
One thing repeated over and over in this topic is using the moon as some sort of Uber military space station. Please stop and really think about it. What kind of attacks do you think you'd be launching from the moon? Precision tactical attacks that would knock out targets like the size of buildings? The U.S. already has excellent essentially unstoppable relatively CHEAP weapons for doing that including B-2s, cruise missiles, F-117s, and hypersonic cruise missiles soon that will do the job in under an hour. Even the most powerful railgun on the moon would take much longer to cross the quarter million miles to attack and that's if the moon is visible from that hemisphere at that time! Lasers? You still have to hope the part of the earth is viewable and radiation based weapons are subject to the inverse square law. (Laser on moon would have to be 1 million times more powerful than one in LEO). How about using the moon for a strategic attack? (Dropping big rocks?). Well the strategic supremacy of the U.S. is so far from being challenged (submarines, ICBMS, bombers) by any other power that I question the need. We already have extremely formidable weapons that can reach anywhere on the planet in half an hour, they are called H-bombs. Won't it be cheaper to launch these weapons from the moon? Only if you build them there (otherwise you'll be dragging them from here to there and back again). The costs of building an infrastructure of the sort to build any of these weapons (rail guns, lasers, bombs) is so huge it defies comprehension. (Ten's of thousands of people, industrial scale operations in vacuum and hard radiation). Remember that the moon is still a very hostile place. Just one problem: unless they can find ice at the pole (which is now in doubt) there is NO WATER. (If there was concrete on the moon, astronauts would mine it for water!). Also all this talk of Helium 3 is just talk. Seen any nuclear fusion reactors working in your neighborhood? How much effort would it take to refine this He, on the moon, found in mere parts per million (billion) in the lunar dust? The moon may be a great (good?) place for astronomy but not for the military.
I believe the idea of storing and transmitting information via DNA was proposed by Jaron Lanier in the Y2K issue of the NYT magazine. The NYT was running a contest to come up with a "time capsule" that would last till Y3K and asked various prominent scientists, achitects etc. how they would make something that would last and would be easily found by future generations. Lanier proposed encoding a message in the DNA of cockroachs and then letting them reproduce naturally in the wild. In a thousand years they'd be everywhere! (His idea didn't win, a more conventional capsule with physical records was selected). Also in various science fiction books (Greg Bear) messages were encoded in people's DNA.