From my understanding, Orion is basically a somewhat pared down version of Constellation which was a gigantic pork project for Congressmen (and Senators) to funnel money to their districts. While I wish Obama had raised more of an objection to it, I don't think (as another poster said) it was his baby. While I wish he spent more time on the space program, I think he had other things on his mind (like rescuing the nation from the greatest financial panic since the 1920's and getting tens of millions of Americans health insurance).
But seriously, do we NEED a government funded booster that, to my non-professional eyes, looks like a somewhat rehashed (but much more expensive) version of the Saturn V? Why don't we just pay literally about 1/10 the money to Elon Musk (no I don't own a Tesla or any stock in his companies unfortunately), and get a REUSABLE version of the booster part? If the Congressional Republicans had been serious about cutting down the deficit (and cutting out their own pork projects) this would be a no-brainer (actually, it's probably not just due to their lack of brains but their lack of spines). Of course now, under Trumpism, what was black is now white and they merrily supported his $1 Trillion infrastructure proposal (which of course, as one of many many reversals, he seems to have abandoned).
So, are there any TECHNICAL reasons why the SLS booster is better than the booster for the Interplanetary Colonial Transport? While, it has been under development for (far) longer and cost much more, as the delays keep piling up it might not get finished before the ICT. Like, is it safer? (though I doubt it with the use of solid rockets in its heavy version). While the ICT booster doesn't go all the way to orbit, the fact that it will be REUSABLE (there I said it again), makes me think the the overall system will be far cheaper than the SLS.
His Interplanetary (Mars) Colonial Transport is so much more economical than the other proposed alternatives ($500,000 for a first ticket dropping to 140K later) that even if he's off by an order of magnitude it'll still be (much) cheaper.
Will he be able to pull it off? Frankly I have no idea but if you had asked me 10 years ago if he could get a 10 story booster to fly back to its launch pad and land, or build an electric car company worth more than GM or become one of the biggest solar providers in the U.S. I wouldn't have stopped laughing.
Give him a chance, it's almost assuredly better than you or I or certainly those idiots in Washington (maybe not the scientists but certainly their politician masters) could do
I've probably owned almost every model of Macintosh that ever existed including the "pre-Mac"; a Lisa (1MB RAM, 5MB hd). A long(!) time ago I owned a computer graphics/media company and while it grew to include a lot of Windows (at first NT!) boxes and SGI machines, it was founded around Macs (and Quark Xpress, Cosa (Adobe) After Effects and Electric Image. Still love Macs (for the fit and finish and polish if not performance:).
However, my experience in using a "Hackintosh" is: don't do it unless you have no other option. I needed (okay wanted) my VR system (HTC Vive) to be portable but the new MBP didn't have nearly enough graphics power:(. So I got a Razer Blade Pro with 4K display, 32GB RAM and 2TB SSD and made a VirtualBox partition with MacOS. I realize it's not a "Hackintosh" but since I can use the native Windows environment to run my graphics heavy apps, I figured that the performance hit from running the OS in virtual mode would be acceptable. I also didn't want to spend (days? weeks?) trying to make the drivers and such working for a dual boot system. Basically I would just run my MS Office apps (ironic isn't it?) and mail on the Mac virtual machine and everything else under Windows. This would allow me to not have to move from my comfy Mac environment when I needed to go on the road with my VR setup (I got battery packs to power all the other components of the Vive like the headset and trackers).
It works but the experience is so clumsy that I only use it because I don't want to lug BOTH my Razer Blade Pro and MBP around. The user interface is okay but because it's in a window, you can't zip the cursor to the edge of the screen to hit the pull down menu (or Dock), you'll overshoot and end up in the native Windows environment. The software rendered graphics is slow (duh) in some cases to be annoying (forget video). What's worst is the fear that with every update you'll break something; this isn't helped by the fact that when the "App Store" app tries to update stuff, sometimes it says "Macintosh model not recognized" (duh) and doesn't update some of the Apple apps (I think FCP or Garage Band or iMovie, iForget).
Anyway, the only reasons why I still use it at all is because of First: iCloud now keeps all of your data on all of your Mac systems synchronized (if you purchased enough space). So if I create a document on my Mac Pro, it'll appear (relatively quickly) on my MBP and my Hackintosh. (You'll need a decent internet connection). So I can still (painfully) use my Hackintosh while on the road with my Razer Blade Pro and have access to all of my documents exactly as if I were using my Mac Pro or MBP. Secondly, because my Hackintosh is really just a virtual machine running in it's own little partition, a complete backup of the state of the machine is easy. I just shut it down and copy the virtualBox file.
This is the only way I've been able to figure out how to have a state-of-the-art machine while not completely abandoning the mac environment. Even then, I only use my Mac environment on the Windows machine when I don't have my other, "true" Macs around. So for almost all cases, it isn't worth it.
I believe that in some of his stories, the lack of human contact went to extreme lengths. The wealthy and powerful outer systems had 20,000 robots per person. One story I recall had a woman, removing her gloves and, for the first time in her life, touching another human. I forgot how they managed to reproduce! However maybe they utilized technology for that (see below comment).
To echo a previous poster who says people are a pain, wasn't it Satre who said "Hell is other people"?
Although it seems obvious that there will be an evolutionary disadvantage to avoid socialization, it need not be that way if we can decouple reproduction from human contact completely. With IVF and soon artificial wombs, the government could harvest eggs and sperm (willingly?) to counter low birth rates.
You seem to know a lot more about aero-dynamics and flight than me (not saying much).
But aren't you comparing this vehicle to a plane when perhaps it should be compared to a helicopter? In that case, would the lift from the airframe moving forward would be much more than an equivalent helicopter and thus the range would be much better?
True, if the engines die you can't "glide" it back to a landing. However the massive redundancy (36 fans) would prevent that from being the point of failure (but the battery, power electronics might be). That's where the parachutes come in I guess.
Since I'd rather have a (safe, easy to fly) helicopter than a plane, I think I'd buy this to go (short) island hopping in the South Pacific.:) (If you plastered it with solar cells, how long would do you think it take to charge?)
So I did a very quick search on the internet looking for Light induced RAM and Light induced magnetoresistance and only found one article that predates the slashdot article and the one it links to. (Ok, I'm procrastinating from doing other stuff).
This university published article is just as short on details and has no links to any published research. It's also a bit laughable: "new material allows computer chips to exist at a molecular level" which means what exactly? Computer chips currently don't exist at the molecular level? Anyway, don't mean to give their communications department a hard time, I just want more solid info.
It's clear that some of the claims from the hyped article that slashdot cites are ridiculous (at least the university release doesn't make those claims). The journalists, lacking any background in science probably called up some "experts" and said (out of context) "if you had a material that could do such and such" what would be the advantages. So, these experts, whether or not they actually know anything, just started making things up like it'll cut down on energy consumption (true but not a huge amount) and that it would prevent fires like the Samsung smart phone (probably not because the modest power savings from this RAM would not allow the battery to be designed differently which was the cause of the fires).
Unfortunately, the heat (and power) problems are not in the RAM but in the processor (amongst other things) which this technology does not address. In the university article they say that it is part of an effort to reduce the power and heat of processors but does not say this technology does this. Apparently, from the article, it is only suitable for RAM; hence the name LI-RAM. So while it may be faster (good) and not give off much heat (also good) it doesn't live up to the hype in the distorted media interpretations of the university article (which the slashdot submitter then chopped up and republished). This all assumes that they can get this to work at the fantastic performance and density levels of modern RAM all while not introducing new sources of heat and power to make it work (it requires "green light' presumably from a laser).
Anyway, if you want to waste some time, take a look at the Slashdot link and then look at the university article and you'll see how information can be mangled and hyped up by people who don't have a background in the subject. Of course, since we all like "free" (or ad supported) news, we aren't exactly encouraging accurate journalism:(
In the video it was just shown holding some pistols and shooting them at some targets. Very little body movement, didn't walk anywhere. Looked like a locked down animatronic (hydraulic powered robot) from a theme park (I should know, I used to design them - theme parks).
While the reality of it might be much more impressive, I didn't see it on (this) video. However, there was a link on the page which led me to some official footage (after there was a leak) of Boston Dynamics' fantastic (and scary!) wheeled/legged robot. You've really got to see it:
Since Boston Dynamic's robot can apparently easily handle a 100lb. object, it wouldn't be too hard for it to wield a really serious gun. When A.I. becomes sentient we'd better hope that they're friendly. Anyway, if they could adapt this robot for zero-gee (replace the wheels with grappling hands? A tail? Like Doc Oc?) I would imagine it would be much more useful (and terrifying) on the ISS.
Uh, I think Korea's history with Japan precludes any possibility that Japanese would be the first (or second or even third) language available. After Korean, English and then probably Chinese they might work on Japanese but that would only be if it was a major market for their phones. I'm not sure but the same history might make Samsung products relatively unpopular in Japan.
So while TFA says the full size version will go 300 knots (345mph) and be able to carry 40% of its 12,000 lb. weight as payload, it doesn't mention the range.
If it's at all decent, the implications of these VTOL aircraft (with better batteries) should be obvious to all. Coupled with a always on autopilot (with the only user control being redirection or emergency landing) it could transform commuting (assuming a really good air traffic control system).
The world is really looking like a blade runner future complete with constant precipitation from climate change, genetically modified humanimals from CRISPR-cas9, off world colonies from Space X and now VTOLs. We're even (especially) headed for the tremendous inequalities in wealth (also in Elysium and Avatar).
Let's just hope this isn't a prelude towards a Terminator or even a Matrix future because I doubt there will be any reason for the machines to keep us around (no bio-catalyzed cold fusion I'm afraid).
So, why do RADIO telescopes need to be concerned about the weather? I mean they look in the radio part of the spectrum and I would assume at the frequencies that aren't that affected by water vapor (or atmospheric gasses). So turbulence in the atmosphere wouldn't affect their performance (other than perhaps shaking the dish).
Is it because they are referring to electrical storms (lightning)? Or perhaps they are referring to "space" weather like solar flares and the ionosphere? (But I've never heard of those being an impediment to radio astronomy).
(Disclaimer, not an AI or machine learning expert but interested in learning!)
So will this chip (or board) be available outside of google? I've heard they've released (some of) their AI/Machine learning code, would be good if once you made a working application you could buy one of these things and speed it up. Would be especially useful for applications where access to the cloud was unavailable or intermittent at best (think self driving cars, drones, spacecraft).
I guess a PCI card that would go in a server would be best but maybe a dedicated peripheral could work
Any other companies working on similar hardware? Are there any standards, like Open GL for AI?
Based on the fact that they allow certain (small) electronics, as another posted noted it may be some sort of physical attack.
Maybe someone has figured out to (expertly) disguise small explosives as batteries? I don't know how current X-ray technologies (in the airport) work but maybe they can't easily distinguish between a lithium ion battery and an explosive? So if you were able to package them in the same volume and then wire them so that they "look" on the scanner like batteries then they would pass that review.
While it might be possible to detect this alteration by asking the passenger to prove that they are, indeed, unaltered electronic devices by turning them on, I can image a decent electronics guy could leave in one small battery so it could be powered on briefly (it would probably have to be wired differently to provide the necessary voltage). In addition this would cause the (already long?) delays to become longer as passengers would have to open them and boot up the devices (and afterwards shut them down and repack them). I think there may be neutron(?) based scanners that can detect the nitrogen compounds in explosives but I believe they are large and very expensive and would again add delays.
What's interesting is that (so far) this is not a worldwide prohibition but thankfully (at least for people not planning on traveling to and from the middle east/africa) restricted to just that area. So the ability to do this possible physical "hack" is only for now in the middle east and they only think people heading to the U.S. (and not say Europe) will use it. It must by some pretty specific intel to generate this kind of warning. Maybe the security measures/machines in that part of the world are not capable of reliably discriminating these attacks. Then again some restrictions, as other posters have mentioned, only apply to travel to the U.S., for example at Taipei's airport you must go through an additional screening step when on flights bound to the U.S. so perhaps it's just due to more heightened security awareness/paranoia on the American end.
Whoops! Yes stupid mistake that I made in my (parent) post. Mars is most definitely 1/3 G and the moon is 1/6 G. While humans are (probably) not going to be able to develop normally on the Moon (then again, I'm just guessing), I'm hoping that Mars might just provide enough gravity so that they would develop "normally".
Maybe they'll end up to be REALLY tall, super basketball players (just from development in 1/3 G, not counting evolutionary changes). Unfortunately, they'll probably never be able to stand (comfortably) on Earth.
Like others who posted here, I'm very disappointed that the "CubeSat" is, in fact, not a "Sat" (Satellite) but just a dummy test environment here on plain old Earth. I guess it would have been nice to think that they had launched the thing into orbit (like on that 100+ satellite carrying Indian rocket) but I guess the cost and difficulty of making it space worthy (let alone human-spaceflight worthy to be sent to the ISS) was far greater than the budget of this marketing stunt. (And it was a stunt, as other posters have mentioned they eliminated so many of the bio-hazardous ingredients known to be on Mars, the soil was hardly an analog of Martian soil.)
However, this stupid marketing stunt did remind me of one thing that really needs to be examined, how does GRAVITY and the (partial) lack thereof affect our LONG-TERM prospects in space and throughout the solar system? Because except for maybe the clouds of Venus (and Saturn!) there will not be anywhere else in the solar system where we can find a remotely habitable environment that shares 1G. Will humans be able to become pregnant, bring babies to term, give birth and have them develop normally in a non-1G environment? If not in zero G what about on the moon (1/3 G) or Mars (1/6 G)? That is a huge question for which there has been no definitive research because it is very hard (impossible?) to mimic a less than 1G environment (even if you float an animal its internal organs are still subjected to 1G).
So what to do? Well I heard there WAS a plan to put a large centrifuge on the space station which could simulate various G levels for long periods of time. If so, while I'm sure it wouldn't have been large enough for humans to use (without massive disorientation due to the short radius), it would've been fine for mice and other small animal studies. This would've given us CRITICAL information on whether mammals at least would be able to reproduce on the moon or mars.
Without this data, the first colonists to go to the Moon and Mars are taking a tremendous risk with their most precious of possessions, their descendants. Unfortunately, their experiment (using their own families as subjects) and pioneering this new biological frontier could end in a terrible tragedy not just for them but for mankind.
For those of you reading, these are some follow up thoughts to my previous comments "China is reaping what it sowed".
The U.S. is facing a decision of historic proportions. I'm sure the Pentagon has told the Donald that within a year or two, maybe less, North Korea will have an ICBM with a nuclear warhead capable of reaching much of the United States. Not since the Cuban missile crisis has the U.S. faced such a dangerous AND unpredictable threat (the Cuban missile crisis, while not as unpredictable because the Soviets were apparently a lot more "sane", was more dangerous because the weapons were located much closer with presumably much more powerful warheads).
So there is a really big INCENTIVE for the U.S. to take out the ability for North Korea to take the final steps to this capability BEFORE they get this capability. I'm sure they would also more or less permanently reduce North Korea's nuclear infrastructure to rubble (it took many decades of deprivation to get to where they are, presumably with heightened awareness the Chinese won't be quite so accommodating to their attempts to rebuild the bomb). Perhaps the U.S. will also try to take out the top of the North Korean government, it would be easy enough to say a bomb went astray (as if any justification was necessary).
Unfortunately there may also be a really big COST if the U.S. does not completely wipe out all the bombs (and other weapons of mass destruction, as NK has shown, they have produced at least minute quantities of the deadliest chemical weapon known to the public, VX). There's a chance that, the Dear Leader will see he will have a very limited lifetime left surrounded by those around him who want him dead (because he killed off so many of his "enemies") that is if he isn't dead already from the strike against the nukes. The only thing that protects him now is his aura of power from threatening the U.S. and S. Korea with his nukes; without them he's just another dictator.
So, if he knows he's going to die, he might just try to take as many with him as possible, not from the U.S., but from its capitalist lackeys. S. Korea and Japan. If he's got any nukes left there's (I think) a much better chance he'd be able get them through the defenses surrounding Seoul than across the Pacific to L.A. As I mentioned, it's less than 50km to Seoul from the North Korean border, that's only 1-2 minutes ballistic missile flight time. Or he could use a low flying drone/fighter/helicopter to evade radar. Or he could put it on one of the mini-subs that every now and then are found prowling around S. Korean waters. Or maybe send it via diplomatic carrier (I don't know if this'll work in S. Korea, maybe Japan). Or maybe just explode one at the border along with a few tons of radioactive waste left over from processing; the fallout would be a great radiological weapon (think Fukushima but if it happened near Tokyo).
The problem here for the U.S. and South Korea is that while the incentives are all for the U.S. to conduct a pre-emptive strike, the costs are (almost) all borne by South Korea (and maybe Japan). This would be the time when the U.S. and South Korea really need to stand together as one and present a united front to their opponent so that IF a strike was made, preparations ranging from an immediate paratrooper assault on Pyongyang to prevent a counter-strike to getting people into shelters. Unfortunately as I mentioned before, South Korea is leaderless and would likely follow any such dramatic decision with great hesitation if at all.
This is what North Korea is counting on, that's why they're pushing now. The real wild card is what will the mercurial President of the United States; who said to the campaign that "he would make South Korea (and Japan) be responsible for their own defense" to some more recent comments he made (I think so far only to the Japanese) that the alliance was rock solid. Unfortunately the orange haired one may have the reputation of being somewhat of a paper tiger after he challenged the Chin
By supporting this despotic regime for more than half a century, the Chinese will have to accept the deployment of a (more advanced) missile defense system (THAAD). While I'm sure they're going to retaliate against the South Koreans (and America?) possibly through a boycott and diplomatic sanctions, the South Koreans may have no choice but to try to improve their defenses. If you were faced with a nuclear attack wouldn't you be willing to suffer a bit economically in order to get a better defense?
Of course if the Chinese push too far or the North Koreans convince the South that their defenses are useless then we may see the worst possible outcome for the Chinese (and probably everyone); South Korea will build the bomb. This is different from the U.S. having some tactical nukes place in South Korea but presumably under control of the U.S.; a S. Korean nuke will make it very clear to North Korea that if they bomb Seoul that North Korea will be completely and utterly wiped out. It won't matter to the South if the North can strike the U.S., they won't care. Of course there's a very good chance that once both Koreas have the bomb that Japan will quickly follow suit, 2000 years of animosity isn't forgotten that easily. This will greatly complicate China's domination of Asia because they'll always have to worry about a catastrophic (even if suicidal) conflict with their formerly vassal states. For example, if China and Japan then got into a serious dispute over the Sendoku islands the whole world would hold its breath.
One of the reasons why this is coming to a head now is that North Korea realizes that South Korea is without an effective government. The president has been impeached and is awaiting a ruling from the high court to make it official. In the meantime, the interim leader doesn't have the political capital to make big decisions without the mandate of an election. So North Korea is pushing and pushing and is trying to see what it can get. Unfortunately for them (and everyone) the only person they could negotiate with is someone who's grasp of the truth is tenuous and he is erratic to put it mildly (especially at 3am, twitter time). So there's a giant game of chicken being played blindfolded.
If the American missile defenses were reliable then perhaps this could all be avoided; the North Koreans could threaten all they want but a nuclear warhead couldn't make it to American soil. This was the essence of the American position; the Americans realized it's much harder to intercept short range missile/cruise missile attacks traveling the 50km from North Korea to downtown Seoul (2 min. flight time). So despite the nice visuals of Patriot missiles hitting Scuds, the U.S. told the South that when (not if) North Korea could nuke Seoul, we'd retaliate for you with our nukes. That capability kept the North from having a real threat. Now however, the thought that the U.S. would retaliate for South Korea becomes less credible when North Korea can then (in theory) take out Los Angeles or Washington D.C. Everyone realizes this, so if the North gains a credible ICBM capability and if the U.S. lacks a credible defense, the American guarantee is gone and South Korea is left to the wolves (North Korea). Hence the panic over the inadequacies of the American missile defense/desire for better local defense.
Returning the subject of this article, the reason why the American defenses don't work (reliably) comes down to simple physics. My physics professor at Harvard was one of the ten(?) members of the scientific commission evaluating Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense system. (Having been given top secret clearance he told me about a trip he had to the Groton, Connecticut sub base into the bowels of one of the "boomers" (SLBM subs) where he was led into a giant space with huge tubes running from floor to ceiling. The admiral escorting him turned to him and said, "Professor Horowitz, you're in the same room as a 200 H-bombs". He told me that basically the problem of hitting a bullet
Ok, even if this only becomes partially successful, you could imagine it being used for an attempt by desperate individuals (or a desperate world) to send people to another star.
If only 25% of the individuals frozen, revived successfully after a centuries long trip, would it be worth it? And this is assuming the nanoparticles infected into them were non-toxic. I guess if the literal survival of the human race depended on it (I believe a third of the colonists at Plymouth didn't make it through the first winter).
Would be kinda creepy going into crysosleep knowing only a few would wake up (undamaged).
Ok, so what happens if you put this on something really HOT like a car engine running at 500C or maybe a jet engine at 1000C or a rocket engine at 2000C? (Of course, you'd replace the plastic "film" with something else or perhaps just apply the nano-beads directly.)
Would they REALLY benefit from the "huge temperature difference... to outer space", so much so that they didn't require complex cooling systems but could instead just radiate their heat directly? (I presume that this would mean the hot parts would need to be directly exposed to the environment; we'll need IR transparent car hoods!). Would power plants be able to forgo the use of condensers used to cool down the working fluid? So no more cooling towers? (Another poster may have implied this by saying the cooling could be much more efficient).
What about OTHER applications of heat re-radiation technologies? If you change the size of the nano-beads you change the emission frequency of the IR, right? How about coating this on surfaces to make aircraft and missiles invisible to the wavelengths used by IR detectors? (Maybe because they track the exhaust plume, still might work to disguise warheads/satellites free falling in space). How about putting this on clothing so that their body heat doesn't show up on IR cameras? (Maybe too broadband to be able to disguise). Of course, if the nano-beads could absorb ALL light and dump it into their narrow emission frequencies, you could get a very good (against a black background) cloak.
If you can make the nano-beads just a bit smaller, you could do the same tricks but with VISIBLE LIGHT. Think paints that would really glow at specific frequencies. Shine a blue light on it and it would glow red! Even if expensive, it could be used for specialized inks (think anti-counterfeiting). Then again, maybe this is the principle behind quantum dots so maybe nothing new.
I'm wondering, can these beads up-convert the frequencies? That is can they take a large amount of long wavelength IR and make it into a lesser amount of short wavelength IR? (It would have to be a "lesser" amount otherwise there would be a violation of the conservation of energy). Would this violate some basic quantum principle? Isn't this what Einstein got his Nobel prize for (the photo-electric effect)?
Many questions, if only I'd studied thermodynamics and quantum mechanics!
So I'm very familiar with two countries, Vietnam and Thailand.
Vietnam, as you all know, went through a difficult occupation by the French, then the Americans, before having their country divided in two and then suffering a devastating civil war which killed millions of people (4 million?) before unification. The result? Everyone, more or less, started out very poor (during the late 70s and early 80s starvation was a real fear). So everyone was equal. Now though, inequality is climbing (fast) as the winners have "capitalized" (ironic comment intended on the supposedly communist country) on their ability to extract a greater and greater portion of the country's rising wealth. Still, for a time, society was remarkably fluid and anyone could be anyone (for example the ex-prime minister came from humble beginnings).
Thailand has not been conquered by a foreign power (ever?), certainly not by the westerners who did so to every other country in S.E. Asia. (That was due to the astuteness of their past king(s) who played the foreigners off against each other). So the power structures in Thailand have remained static for hundreds of years. In the last century, because of the great increase in wealth coming from modernization and technology, much of it was captured by the ruling class. Thus you have an urban elite that was (until recently) running the show from Bangkok (the "Hi So" or High Society) and getting richer and richer in the process. A populist (yet corrupt) billionaire politician used this great divide to sweep himself into power (sound familiar) only to be ultimately blocked by the military (acting on behest of the existing power structures).
So if they aren't going to be using the main engine for a major trajectory shift, does this mean that more fuel is available for the thrusters?
In my long (non) professional career of following of various space programs, it always seems that the limiting factors to a mission is 1) the availability of fuel for the thrusters (for minor course corrections, attitude control/dumping of momentum) and 2) how many reaction wheels are still working (although there have been creative solutions such as using sunlight pressure for attitude control). If Juno's thrusters same the same fuel (and fuel tank!) as the main engine then perhaps it now has access to a much larger supply and can conceivably last a long long time.:)
Of course, Juno's limiting factor WAS the intense radiation it was going to have to have faced but perhaps the new orbit has reduced that substantially. In fact, if there IS a lot more fuel available, perhaps it can use the fuel (once the primary mission is over) to get it out of the high radiation regions (perhaps by some creative gravity assists from the Galilean moons) and perform a multi-year "tour" of the Jovian system. This would possibly make up for the scientific tragedy that befell the Galileo probe when its high gain antennae didn't open and the data rate dropped by (three? more?) orders of magnitude. It'd be fantastic to get some really good pictures of Europa (life!) and Io (volcanoes!).
Or just put it in a relatively distant parking orbit around Jupiter and (because it's solar powered) let it monitor the Jovian system for (hopefully) decades
I once, a long time ago in a place far far away, went to the JPL monthly lecture in Pasadena California. This one was about the Cassini probe then completing its first few months around Saturn.
After the lecture, under the imposing model of one of the Voyager spacecraft, I met with the Project Scientist (I'm not sure if she is the same one as the current one) and asked her if they could do a "risky" maneuver at the end of Cassini's lifetime. Have Cassini go to the rings (in a synchronized fashion as you say) but stay "just" above them using a continual very low thrust from its main engine(s) or thrusters.
I had seen the pictures taken edge on of the rings and seen how "razor" thin they were (at least on a cosmic scale). It appeared to (my very unprofessional, untrained eye) that there was no debris or particles immediately above or below the rings. There seems to be some mechanism which causes particles to stay exactly within the rings (collisions and redistribution of momentum?). So, maybe Cassini could just apply a very small amount of thrust, perpendicular to the ring plane, to counteract its orbital trajectory that would normally take it up and down through the ring. It could then hover a few (tens? hundreds?) kilometers above the rings and could get unbelievable closeups of them without getting ground to pieces.
I think she just laughed and probably knew of a dozen reasons why this wouldn't work (the thrust would be too low, the propellant use too high, there was still probably way too much debris around, they wouldn't be able to navigate that accurately, etc.). Still your comment made me think about this, and that someday maybe with a probe with an (low) thrust long duration ion drive, it would be able to float just above the rings (as close as would be safe), synchronized with them, and be able to take spectacular long duration exposures of the tumbling pebbles, boulders, mountains that make up this spectacle.
The TECH GUYS involved were given immunity and yet still pleaded the fifth. The INVESTIGATION never recorded any interviews with her and never put her under oath. I'M not saying she did anything that was technically illegal, but she definitely shouldn't be given more power.
"whisper whisper hint hint" (note, please show me HILLARY in this)
So, you're willing to judge based on hearsay and unproven allegations? (Why don't you do this to Trump, there's nothing hearsay out of what comes out of HIS orifice!). This is despite (as is well documented) the enormous effort by the right to trash her (and both houses of Congress spending what, $47 million of OUR taxpayer money for nothing!). Why didn't the investigation put her under oath? I'm sure the Right would say because they were in her pocket (as if investigators, even if they weren't hired by the Republican congress, didn't have even an inkling of moral courage. If you think that they were so easily corrupted, you are either not a professional or don't know what it means to have ethics). Don't you think that it's because they didn't think the charges (of which there were none filed) were worth pursuing? Maybe they had the ethics not to pursue baseless charges. Don't you think that just maybe that the tech guys, facing prison, possibly invoked their right to SELF (not Hillary) incrimination? Or are you amongst the (almost) majority of Americans who've been guzzling the kool aid?
I'm afraid Lincoln was wrong when he said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time or all of the people some of the time but...". Well at least Lincoln was wrong when it came to getting enough votes to win an electoral college victory. (Please don't tell me you drank the kool aid about Trump winning the popular vote, or that millions of illegal votes were cast or that the inauguration was the largest in history or all the other nonsense he REGULARLY farts. It would be funny if these were the only things he was (self) deluded on, unfortunately when it comes to climate change, immigrant threats to American jobs, international relations with our allies and other, critical issues that will affect Americans for generations to come; it crosses the line from comedy to tragedy. Hope you don't have kids!
You know, Lincoln spoke at a time when people chose their leader through debate and reasoning (remember the Lincoln Douglas debates?). People cared about facts and certainly any serious contender for most powerful office in the land didn't make things up to stroke his own ego. Now, however, America has elected its leader on a process much closer to Reality Television; one not based on character and competence. No wonder Trump won
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, thanks, never thought of that.
From my understanding, Orion is basically a somewhat pared down version of Constellation which was a gigantic pork project for Congressmen (and Senators) to funnel money to their districts. While I wish Obama had raised more of an objection to it, I don't think (as another poster said) it was his baby. While I wish he spent more time on the space program, I think he had other things on his mind (like rescuing the nation from the greatest financial panic since the 1920's and getting tens of millions of Americans health insurance).
But seriously, do we NEED a government funded booster that, to my non-professional eyes, looks like a somewhat rehashed (but much more expensive) version of the Saturn V? Why don't we just pay literally about 1/10 the money to Elon Musk (no I don't own a Tesla or any stock in his companies unfortunately), and get a REUSABLE version of the booster part? If the Congressional Republicans had been serious about cutting down the deficit (and cutting out their own pork projects) this would be a no-brainer (actually, it's probably not just due to their lack of brains but their lack of spines). Of course now, under Trumpism, what was black is now white and they merrily supported his $1 Trillion infrastructure proposal (which of course, as one of many many reversals, he seems to have abandoned).
So, are there any TECHNICAL reasons why the SLS booster is better than the booster for the Interplanetary Colonial Transport? While, it has been under development for (far) longer and cost much more, as the delays keep piling up it might not get finished before the ICT. Like, is it safer? (though I doubt it with the use of solid rockets in its heavy version). While the ICT booster doesn't go all the way to orbit, the fact that it will be REUSABLE (there I said it again), makes me think the the overall system will be far cheaper than the SLS.
(I wrote a previous comment on this subject here): https://slashdot.org/comments....
His Interplanetary (Mars) Colonial Transport is so much more economical than the other proposed alternatives ($500,000 for a first ticket dropping to 140K later) that even if he's off by an order of magnitude it'll still be (much) cheaper.
Will he be able to pull it off? Frankly I have no idea but if you had asked me 10 years ago if he could get a 10 story booster to fly back to its launch pad and land, or build an electric car company worth more than GM or become one of the biggest solar providers in the U.S. I wouldn't have stopped laughing.
Give him a chance, it's almost assuredly better than you or I or certainly those idiots in Washington (maybe not the scientists but certainly their politician masters) could do
I've probably owned almost every model of Macintosh that ever existed including the "pre-Mac"; a Lisa (1MB RAM, 5MB hd). A long(!) time ago I owned a computer graphics/media company and while it grew to include a lot of Windows (at first NT!) boxes and SGI machines, it was founded around Macs (and Quark Xpress, Cosa (Adobe) After Effects and Electric Image. Still love Macs (for the fit and finish and polish if not performance :).
However, my experience in using a "Hackintosh" is: don't do it unless you have no other option. I needed (okay wanted) my VR system (HTC Vive) to be portable but the new MBP didn't have nearly enough graphics power :(. So I got a Razer Blade Pro with 4K display, 32GB RAM and 2TB SSD and made a VirtualBox partition with MacOS. I realize it's not a "Hackintosh" but since I can use the native Windows environment to run my graphics heavy apps, I figured that the performance hit from running the OS in virtual mode would be acceptable. I also didn't want to spend (days? weeks?) trying to make the drivers and such working for a dual boot system. Basically I would just run my MS Office apps (ironic isn't it?) and mail on the Mac virtual machine and everything else under Windows. This would allow me to not have to move from my comfy Mac environment when I needed to go on the road with my VR setup (I got battery packs to power all the other components of the Vive like the headset and trackers).
It works but the experience is so clumsy that I only use it because I don't want to lug BOTH my Razer Blade Pro and MBP around. The user interface is okay but because it's in a window, you can't zip the cursor to the edge of the screen to hit the pull down menu (or Dock), you'll overshoot and end up in the native Windows environment. The software rendered graphics is slow (duh) in some cases to be annoying (forget video). What's worst is the fear that with every update you'll break something; this isn't helped by the fact that when the "App Store" app tries to update stuff, sometimes it says "Macintosh model not recognized" (duh) and doesn't update some of the Apple apps (I think FCP or Garage Band or iMovie, iForget).
Anyway, the only reasons why I still use it at all is because of First: iCloud now keeps all of your data on all of your Mac systems synchronized (if you purchased enough space). So if I create a document on my Mac Pro, it'll appear (relatively quickly) on my MBP and my Hackintosh. (You'll need a decent internet connection). So I can still (painfully) use my Hackintosh while on the road with my Razer Blade Pro and have access to all of my documents exactly as if I were using my Mac Pro or MBP. Secondly, because my Hackintosh is really just a virtual machine running in it's own little partition, a complete backup of the state of the machine is easy. I just shut it down and copy the virtualBox file.
This is the only way I've been able to figure out how to have a state-of-the-art machine while not completely abandoning the mac environment. Even then, I only use my Mac environment on the Windows machine when I don't have my other, "true" Macs around. So for almost all cases, it isn't worth it.
I believe that in some of his stories, the lack of human contact went to extreme lengths. The wealthy and powerful outer systems had 20,000 robots per person. One story I recall had a woman, removing her gloves and, for the first time in her life, touching another human. I forgot how they managed to reproduce! However maybe they utilized technology for that (see below comment).
To echo a previous poster who says people are a pain, wasn't it Satre who said "Hell is other people"?
Although it seems obvious that there will be an evolutionary disadvantage to avoid socialization, it need not be that way if we can decouple reproduction from human contact completely. With IVF and soon artificial wombs, the government could harvest eggs and sperm (willingly?) to counter low birth rates.
http://www.theverge.com/2017/4...
Not that I'm promoting this, I like my partner very much thank you :)
You seem to know a lot more about aero-dynamics and flight than me (not saying much).
But aren't you comparing this vehicle to a plane when perhaps it should be compared to a helicopter? In that case, would the lift from the airframe moving forward would be much more than an equivalent helicopter and thus the range would be much better?
True, if the engines die you can't "glide" it back to a landing. However the massive redundancy (36 fans) would prevent that from being the point of failure (but the battery, power electronics might be). That's where the parachutes come in I guess.
Since I'd rather have a (safe, easy to fly) helicopter than a plane, I think I'd buy this to go (short) island hopping in the South Pacific. :) (If you plastered it with solar cells, how long would do you think it take to charge?)
So I did a very quick search on the internet looking for Light induced RAM and Light induced magnetoresistance and only found one article that predates the slashdot article and the one it links to. (Ok, I'm procrastinating from doing other stuff).
http://www.uvic.ca/home/about/...
This university published article is just as short on details and has no links to any published research. It's also a bit laughable: "new material allows computer chips to exist at a molecular level" which means what exactly? Computer chips currently don't exist at the molecular level? Anyway, don't mean to give their communications department a hard time, I just want more solid info.
It's clear that some of the claims from the hyped article that slashdot cites are ridiculous (at least the university release doesn't make those claims). The journalists, lacking any background in science probably called up some "experts" and said (out of context) "if you had a material that could do such and such" what would be the advantages. So, these experts, whether or not they actually know anything, just started making things up like it'll cut down on energy consumption (true but not a huge amount) and that it would prevent fires like the Samsung smart phone (probably not because the modest power savings from this RAM would not allow the battery to be designed differently which was the cause of the fires).
Unfortunately, the heat (and power) problems are not in the RAM but in the processor (amongst other things) which this technology does not address. In the university article they say that it is part of an effort to reduce the power and heat of processors but does not say this technology does this. Apparently, from the article, it is only suitable for RAM; hence the name LI-RAM. So while it may be faster (good) and not give off much heat (also good) it doesn't live up to the hype in the distorted media interpretations of the university article (which the slashdot submitter then chopped up and republished). This all assumes that they can get this to work at the fantastic performance and density levels of modern RAM all while not introducing new sources of heat and power to make it work (it requires "green light' presumably from a laser).
Anyway, if you want to waste some time, take a look at the Slashdot link and then look at the university article and you'll see how information can be mangled and hyped up by people who don't have a background in the subject. Of course, since we all like "free" (or ad supported) news, we aren't exactly encouraging accurate journalism :(
In the video it was just shown holding some pistols and shooting them at some targets. Very little body movement, didn't walk anywhere. Looked like a locked down animatronic (hydraulic powered robot) from a theme park (I should know, I used to design them - theme parks).
While the reality of it might be much more impressive, I didn't see it on (this) video. However, there was a link on the page which led me to some official footage (after there was a leak) of Boston Dynamics' fantastic (and scary!) wheeled/legged robot. You've really got to see it:
http://mashable.com/2017/02/28...
Since Boston Dynamic's robot can apparently easily handle a 100lb. object, it wouldn't be too hard for it to wield a really serious gun. When A.I. becomes sentient we'd better hope that they're friendly. Anyway, if they could adapt this robot for zero-gee (replace the wheels with grappling hands? A tail? Like Doc Oc?) I would imagine it would be much more useful (and terrifying) on the ISS.
Uh, I think Korea's history with Japan precludes any possibility that Japanese would be the first (or second or even third) language available. After Korean, English and then probably Chinese they might work on Japanese but that would only be if it was a major market for their phones. I'm not sure but the same history might make Samsung products relatively unpopular in Japan.
So while TFA says the full size version will go 300 knots (345mph) and be able to carry 40% of its 12,000 lb. weight as payload, it doesn't mention the range.
If it's at all decent, the implications of these VTOL aircraft (with better batteries) should be obvious to all. Coupled with a always on autopilot (with the only user control being redirection or emergency landing) it could transform commuting (assuming a really good air traffic control system).
The world is really looking like a blade runner future complete with constant precipitation from climate change, genetically modified humanimals from CRISPR-cas9, off world colonies from Space X and now VTOLs. We're even (especially) headed for the tremendous inequalities in wealth (also in Elysium and Avatar).
Let's just hope this isn't a prelude towards a Terminator or even a Matrix future because I doubt there will be any reason for the machines to keep us around (no bio-catalyzed cold fusion I'm afraid).
Thank you, didn't know that
So, why do RADIO telescopes need to be concerned about the weather? I mean they look in the radio part of the spectrum and I would assume at the frequencies that aren't that affected by water vapor (or atmospheric gasses). So turbulence in the atmosphere wouldn't affect their performance (other than perhaps shaking the dish).
Is it because they are referring to electrical storms (lightning)? Or perhaps they are referring to "space" weather like solar flares and the ionosphere? (But I've never heard of those being an impediment to radio astronomy).
Anyway, just asking
So they've open sourced the software? That's good, but no chip will be available?
(Disclaimer, not an AI or machine learning expert but interested in learning!)
So will this chip (or board) be available outside of google? I've heard they've released (some of) their AI/Machine learning code, would be good if once you made a working application you could buy one of these things and speed it up. Would be especially useful for applications where access to the cloud was unavailable or intermittent at best (think self driving cars, drones, spacecraft).
I guess a PCI card that would go in a server would be best but maybe a dedicated peripheral could work
Any other companies working on similar hardware? Are there any standards, like Open GL for AI?
Based on the fact that they allow certain (small) electronics, as another posted noted it may be some sort of physical attack.
Maybe someone has figured out to (expertly) disguise small explosives as batteries? I don't know how current X-ray technologies (in the airport) work but maybe they can't easily distinguish between a lithium ion battery and an explosive? So if you were able to package them in the same volume and then wire them so that they "look" on the scanner like batteries then they would pass that review.
While it might be possible to detect this alteration by asking the passenger to prove that they are, indeed, unaltered electronic devices by turning them on, I can image a decent electronics guy could leave in one small battery so it could be powered on briefly (it would probably have to be wired differently to provide the necessary voltage). In addition this would cause the (already long?) delays to become longer as passengers would have to open them and boot up the devices (and afterwards shut them down and repack them). I think there may be neutron(?) based scanners that can detect the nitrogen compounds in explosives but I believe they are large and very expensive and would again add delays.
What's interesting is that (so far) this is not a worldwide prohibition but thankfully (at least for people not planning on traveling to and from the middle east/africa) restricted to just that area. So the ability to do this possible physical "hack" is only for now in the middle east and they only think people heading to the U.S. (and not say Europe) will use it. It must by some pretty specific intel to generate this kind of warning. Maybe the security measures/machines in that part of the world are not capable of reliably discriminating these attacks. Then again some restrictions, as other posters have mentioned, only apply to travel to the U.S., for example at Taipei's airport you must go through an additional screening step when on flights bound to the U.S. so perhaps it's just due to more heightened security awareness/paranoia on the American end.
Whoops! Yes stupid mistake that I made in my (parent) post. Mars is most definitely 1/3 G and the moon is 1/6 G. While humans are (probably) not going to be able to develop normally on the Moon (then again, I'm just guessing), I'm hoping that Mars might just provide enough gravity so that they would develop "normally".
Maybe they'll end up to be REALLY tall, super basketball players (just from development in 1/3 G, not counting evolutionary changes). Unfortunately, they'll probably never be able to stand (comfortably) on Earth.
Like others who posted here, I'm very disappointed that the "CubeSat" is, in fact, not a "Sat" (Satellite) but just a dummy test environment here on plain old Earth. I guess it would have been nice to think that they had launched the thing into orbit (like on that 100+ satellite carrying Indian rocket) but I guess the cost and difficulty of making it space worthy (let alone human-spaceflight worthy to be sent to the ISS) was far greater than the budget of this marketing stunt. (And it was a stunt, as other posters have mentioned they eliminated so many of the bio-hazardous ingredients known to be on Mars, the soil was hardly an analog of Martian soil.)
However, this stupid marketing stunt did remind me of one thing that really needs to be examined, how does GRAVITY and the (partial) lack thereof affect our LONG-TERM prospects in space and throughout the solar system? Because except for maybe the clouds of Venus (and Saturn!) there will not be anywhere else in the solar system where we can find a remotely habitable environment that shares 1G. Will humans be able to become pregnant, bring babies to term, give birth and have them develop normally in a non-1G environment? If not in zero G what about on the moon (1/3 G) or Mars (1/6 G)? That is a huge question for which there has been no definitive research because it is very hard (impossible?) to mimic a less than 1G environment (even if you float an animal its internal organs are still subjected to 1G).
So what to do? Well I heard there WAS a plan to put a large centrifuge on the space station which could simulate various G levels for long periods of time. If so, while I'm sure it wouldn't have been large enough for humans to use (without massive disorientation due to the short radius), it would've been fine for mice and other small animal studies. This would've given us CRITICAL information on whether mammals at least would be able to reproduce on the moon or mars.
Without this data, the first colonists to go to the Moon and Mars are taking a tremendous risk with their most precious of possessions, their descendants. Unfortunately, their experiment (using their own families as subjects) and pioneering this new biological frontier could end in a terrible tragedy not just for them but for mankind.
For those of you reading, these are some follow up thoughts to my previous comments "China is reaping what it sowed".
The U.S. is facing a decision of historic proportions. I'm sure the Pentagon has told the Donald that within a year or two, maybe less, North Korea will have an ICBM with a nuclear warhead capable of reaching much of the United States. Not since the Cuban missile crisis has the U.S. faced such a dangerous AND unpredictable threat (the Cuban missile crisis, while not as unpredictable because the Soviets were apparently a lot more "sane", was more dangerous because the weapons were located much closer with presumably much more powerful warheads).
So there is a really big INCENTIVE for the U.S. to take out the ability for North Korea to take the final steps to this capability BEFORE they get this capability. I'm sure they would also more or less permanently reduce North Korea's nuclear infrastructure to rubble (it took many decades of deprivation to get to where they are, presumably with heightened awareness the Chinese won't be quite so accommodating to their attempts to rebuild the bomb). Perhaps the U.S. will also try to take out the top of the North Korean government, it would be easy enough to say a bomb went astray (as if any justification was necessary).
Unfortunately there may also be a really big COST if the U.S. does not completely wipe out all the bombs (and other weapons of mass destruction, as NK has shown, they have produced at least minute quantities of the deadliest chemical weapon known to the public, VX). There's a chance that, the Dear Leader will see he will have a very limited lifetime left surrounded by those around him who want him dead (because he killed off so many of his "enemies") that is if he isn't dead already from the strike against the nukes. The only thing that protects him now is his aura of power from threatening the U.S. and S. Korea with his nukes; without them he's just another dictator.
So, if he knows he's going to die, he might just try to take as many with him as possible, not from the U.S., but from its capitalist lackeys. S. Korea and Japan. If he's got any nukes left there's (I think) a much better chance he'd be able get them through the defenses surrounding Seoul than across the Pacific to L.A. As I mentioned, it's less than 50km to Seoul from the North Korean border, that's only 1-2 minutes ballistic missile flight time. Or he could use a low flying drone/fighter/helicopter to evade radar. Or he could put it on one of the mini-subs that every now and then are found prowling around S. Korean waters. Or maybe send it via diplomatic carrier (I don't know if this'll work in S. Korea, maybe Japan). Or maybe just explode one at the border along with a few tons of radioactive waste left over from processing; the fallout would be a great radiological weapon (think Fukushima but if it happened near Tokyo).
The problem here for the U.S. and South Korea is that while the incentives are all for the U.S. to conduct a pre-emptive strike, the costs are (almost) all borne by South Korea (and maybe Japan). This would be the time when the U.S. and South Korea really need to stand together as one and present a united front to their opponent so that IF a strike was made, preparations ranging from an immediate paratrooper assault on Pyongyang to prevent a counter-strike to getting people into shelters. Unfortunately as I mentioned before, South Korea is leaderless and would likely follow any such dramatic decision with great hesitation if at all.
This is what North Korea is counting on, that's why they're pushing now. The real wild card is what will the mercurial President of the United States; who said to the campaign that "he would make South Korea (and Japan) be responsible for their own defense" to some more recent comments he made (I think so far only to the Japanese) that the alliance was rock solid. Unfortunately the orange haired one may have the reputation of being somewhat of a paper tiger after he challenged the Chin
By supporting this despotic regime for more than half a century, the Chinese will have to accept the deployment of a (more advanced) missile defense system (THAAD). While I'm sure they're going to retaliate against the South Koreans (and America?) possibly through a boycott and diplomatic sanctions, the South Koreans may have no choice but to try to improve their defenses. If you were faced with a nuclear attack wouldn't you be willing to suffer a bit economically in order to get a better defense?
Of course if the Chinese push too far or the North Koreans convince the South that their defenses are useless then we may see the worst possible outcome for the Chinese (and probably everyone); South Korea will build the bomb. This is different from the U.S. having some tactical nukes place in South Korea but presumably under control of the U.S.; a S. Korean nuke will make it very clear to North Korea that if they bomb Seoul that North Korea will be completely and utterly wiped out. It won't matter to the South if the North can strike the U.S., they won't care. Of course there's a very good chance that once both Koreas have the bomb that Japan will quickly follow suit, 2000 years of animosity isn't forgotten that easily. This will greatly complicate China's domination of Asia because they'll always have to worry about a catastrophic (even if suicidal) conflict with their formerly vassal states. For example, if China and Japan then got into a serious dispute over the Sendoku islands the whole world would hold its breath.
One of the reasons why this is coming to a head now is that North Korea realizes that South Korea is without an effective government. The president has been impeached and is awaiting a ruling from the high court to make it official. In the meantime, the interim leader doesn't have the political capital to make big decisions without the mandate of an election. So North Korea is pushing and pushing and is trying to see what it can get. Unfortunately for them (and everyone) the only person they could negotiate with is someone who's grasp of the truth is tenuous and he is erratic to put it mildly (especially at 3am, twitter time). So there's a giant game of chicken being played blindfolded.
If the American missile defenses were reliable then perhaps this could all be avoided; the North Koreans could threaten all they want but a nuclear warhead couldn't make it to American soil. This was the essence of the American position; the Americans realized it's much harder to intercept short range missile/cruise missile attacks traveling the 50km from North Korea to downtown Seoul (2 min. flight time). So despite the nice visuals of Patriot missiles hitting Scuds, the U.S. told the South that when (not if) North Korea could nuke Seoul, we'd retaliate for you with our nukes. That capability kept the North from having a real threat. Now however, the thought that the U.S. would retaliate for South Korea becomes less credible when North Korea can then (in theory) take out Los Angeles or Washington D.C. Everyone realizes this, so if the North gains a credible ICBM capability and if the U.S. lacks a credible defense, the American guarantee is gone and South Korea is left to the wolves (North Korea). Hence the panic over the inadequacies of the American missile defense/desire for better local defense.
Returning the subject of this article, the reason why the American defenses don't work (reliably) comes down to simple physics. My physics professor at Harvard was one of the ten(?) members of the scientific commission evaluating Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense system. (Having been given top secret clearance he told me about a trip he had to the Groton, Connecticut sub base into the bowels of one of the "boomers" (SLBM subs) where he was led into a giant space with huge tubes running from floor to ceiling. The admiral escorting him turned to him and said, "Professor Horowitz, you're in the same room as a 200 H-bombs". He told me that basically the problem of hitting a bullet
Ok, even if this only becomes partially successful, you could imagine it being used for an attempt by desperate individuals (or a desperate world) to send people to another star.
If only 25% of the individuals frozen, revived successfully after a centuries long trip, would it be worth it? And this is assuming the nanoparticles infected into them were non-toxic. I guess if the literal survival of the human race depended on it (I believe a third of the colonists at Plymouth didn't make it through the first winter).
Would be kinda creepy going into crysosleep knowing only a few would wake up (undamaged).
Ok, so what happens if you put this on something really HOT like a car engine running at 500C or maybe a jet engine at 1000C or a rocket engine at 2000C? (Of course, you'd replace the plastic "film" with something else or perhaps just apply the nano-beads directly.)
Would they REALLY benefit from the "huge temperature difference ... to outer space", so much so that they didn't require complex cooling systems but could instead just radiate their heat directly? (I presume that this would mean the hot parts would need to be directly exposed to the environment; we'll need IR transparent car hoods!). Would power plants be able to forgo the use of condensers used to cool down the working fluid? So no more cooling towers? (Another poster may have implied this by saying the cooling could be much more efficient).
What about OTHER applications of heat re-radiation technologies? If you change the size of the nano-beads you change the emission frequency of the IR, right? How about coating this on surfaces to make aircraft and missiles invisible to the wavelengths used by IR detectors? (Maybe because they track the exhaust plume, still might work to disguise warheads/satellites free falling in space). How about putting this on clothing so that their body heat doesn't show up on IR cameras? (Maybe too broadband to be able to disguise). Of course, if the nano-beads could absorb ALL light and dump it into their narrow emission frequencies, you could get a very good (against a black background) cloak.
If you can make the nano-beads just a bit smaller, you could do the same tricks but with VISIBLE LIGHT. Think paints that would really glow at specific frequencies. Shine a blue light on it and it would glow red! Even if expensive, it could be used for specialized inks (think anti-counterfeiting). Then again, maybe this is the principle behind quantum dots so maybe nothing new.
I'm wondering, can these beads up-convert the frequencies? That is can they take a large amount of long wavelength IR and make it into a lesser amount of short wavelength IR? (It would have to be a "lesser" amount otherwise there would be a violation of the conservation of energy). Would this violate some basic quantum principle? Isn't this what Einstein got his Nobel prize for (the photo-electric effect)?
Many questions, if only I'd studied thermodynamics and quantum mechanics!
So I'm very familiar with two countries, Vietnam and Thailand.
Vietnam, as you all know, went through a difficult occupation by the French, then the Americans, before having their country divided in two and then suffering a devastating civil war which killed millions of people (4 million?) before unification. The result? Everyone, more or less, started out very poor (during the late 70s and early 80s starvation was a real fear). So everyone was equal. Now though, inequality is climbing (fast) as the winners have "capitalized" (ironic comment intended on the supposedly communist country) on their ability to extract a greater and greater portion of the country's rising wealth. Still, for a time, society was remarkably fluid and anyone could be anyone (for example the ex-prime minister came from humble beginnings).
Thailand has not been conquered by a foreign power (ever?), certainly not by the westerners who did so to every other country in S.E. Asia. (That was due to the astuteness of their past king(s) who played the foreigners off against each other). So the power structures in Thailand have remained static for hundreds of years. In the last century, because of the great increase in wealth coming from modernization and technology, much of it was captured by the ruling class. Thus you have an urban elite that was (until recently) running the show from Bangkok (the "Hi So" or High Society) and getting richer and richer in the process. A populist (yet corrupt) billionaire politician used this great divide to sweep himself into power (sound familiar) only to be ultimately blocked by the military (acting on behest of the existing power structures).
So if they aren't going to be using the main engine for a major trajectory shift, does this mean that more fuel is available for the thrusters?
In my long (non) professional career of following of various space programs, it always seems that the limiting factors to a mission is 1) the availability of fuel for the thrusters (for minor course corrections, attitude control/dumping of momentum) and 2) how many reaction wheels are still working (although there have been creative solutions such as using sunlight pressure for attitude control). If Juno's thrusters same the same fuel (and fuel tank!) as the main engine then perhaps it now has access to a much larger supply and can conceivably last a long long time. :)
Of course, Juno's limiting factor WAS the intense radiation it was going to have to have faced but perhaps the new orbit has reduced that substantially. In fact, if there IS a lot more fuel available, perhaps it can use the fuel (once the primary mission is over) to get it out of the high radiation regions (perhaps by some creative gravity assists from the Galilean moons) and perform a multi-year "tour" of the Jovian system. This would possibly make up for the scientific tragedy that befell the Galileo probe when its high gain antennae didn't open and the data rate dropped by (three? more?) orders of magnitude. It'd be fantastic to get some really good pictures of Europa (life!) and Io (volcanoes!).
Or just put it in a relatively distant parking orbit around Jupiter and (because it's solar powered) let it monitor the Jovian system for (hopefully) decades
I once, a long time ago in a place far far away, went to the JPL monthly lecture in Pasadena California. This one was about the Cassini probe then completing its first few months around Saturn.
After the lecture, under the imposing model of one of the Voyager spacecraft, I met with the Project Scientist (I'm not sure if she is the same one as the current one) and asked her if they could do a "risky" maneuver at the end of Cassini's lifetime. Have Cassini go to the rings (in a synchronized fashion as you say) but stay "just" above them using a continual very low thrust from its main engine(s) or thrusters.
I had seen the pictures taken edge on of the rings and seen how "razor" thin they were (at least on a cosmic scale). It appeared to (my very unprofessional, untrained eye) that there was no debris or particles immediately above or below the rings. There seems to be some mechanism which causes particles to stay exactly within the rings (collisions and redistribution of momentum?). So, maybe Cassini could just apply a very small amount of thrust, perpendicular to the ring plane, to counteract its orbital trajectory that would normally take it up and down through the ring. It could then hover a few (tens? hundreds?) kilometers above the rings and could get unbelievable closeups of them without getting ground to pieces.
I think she just laughed and probably knew of a dozen reasons why this wouldn't work (the thrust would be too low, the propellant use too high, there was still probably way too much debris around, they wouldn't be able to navigate that accurately, etc.). Still your comment made me think about this, and that someday maybe with a probe with an (low) thrust long duration ion drive, it would be able to float just above the rings (as close as would be safe), synchronized with them, and be able to take spectacular long duration exposures of the tumbling pebbles, boulders, mountains that make up this spectacle.
The TECH GUYS involved were given immunity and yet still pleaded the fifth. The INVESTIGATION never recorded any interviews with her and never put her under oath. I'M not saying she did anything that was technically illegal, but she definitely shouldn't be given more power.
"whisper whisper hint hint" (note, please show me HILLARY in this)
So, you're willing to judge based on hearsay and unproven allegations? (Why don't you do this to Trump, there's nothing hearsay out of what comes out of HIS orifice!). This is despite (as is well documented) the enormous effort by the right to trash her (and both houses of Congress spending what, $47 million of OUR taxpayer money for nothing!). Why didn't the investigation put her under oath? I'm sure the Right would say because they were in her pocket (as if investigators, even if they weren't hired by the Republican congress, didn't have even an inkling of moral courage. If you think that they were so easily corrupted, you are either not a professional or don't know what it means to have ethics). Don't you think that it's because they didn't think the charges (of which there were none filed) were worth pursuing? Maybe they had the ethics not to pursue baseless charges. Don't you think that just maybe that the tech guys, facing prison, possibly invoked their right to SELF (not Hillary) incrimination? Or are you amongst the (almost) majority of Americans who've been guzzling the kool aid?
I'm afraid Lincoln was wrong when he said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time or all of the people some of the time but...". Well at least Lincoln was wrong when it came to getting enough votes to win an electoral college victory. (Please don't tell me you drank the kool aid about Trump winning the popular vote, or that millions of illegal votes were cast or that the inauguration was the largest in history or all the other nonsense he REGULARLY farts. It would be funny if these were the only things he was (self) deluded on, unfortunately when it comes to climate change, immigrant threats to American jobs, international relations with our allies and other, critical issues that will affect Americans for generations to come; it crosses the line from comedy to tragedy. Hope you don't have kids!
You know, Lincoln spoke at a time when people chose their leader through debate and reasoning (remember the Lincoln Douglas debates?). People cared about facts and certainly any serious contender for most powerful office in the land didn't make things up to stroke his own ego. Now, however, America has elected its leader on a process much closer to Reality Television; one not based on character and competence. No wonder Trump won