I can have Boeing build a satellite to commercial specs, launch it from the middle of the Pacific Ocean using a Russian booster, care of Sea Launch, and run it from my own control center in my garage workshop. All I need is a few hundred million dollars. NASA need never be involved (well, since I'm operating as an entity in the US, I have to get their approval on some paperwork... but I can work around that by putting the operation center in another country -- maybe Grandma's house).
Unfortunately, the Ronald McDonald House is like just down the street. The PETA people have a tendancy to take it out on the kids. Really classy of them, I might add.
you do realize that those are commercial satellites launched using commercial launch vehicles operated by commercial companies. Yes, the US government does have some say in the matter since they're often (but not always) launched from government owned launch facilities and the data is sensitive in nature; but, these are commercial entities, not owned by NASA or DOD.
Well I found the weather prediction for today; and, today's average temp is a lot colder than I implied. certainly cold enough to improve the CCD performance; assuming they don't have heaters in there to keep the electronics from freezing.
It's not all that cold. The daytime peak temperature in the summer may be in the 50 F range. At night it gets cold but it may not be cold enough to significantly improve the ccd's performance. I couldn't find the rover raw data to verify this... In the winter its plenty cold; but, they wouldn't have all this extra power to try a little Martian amateur astronomy then. In the winter all of the power is dedicated to just keeping the rover from freezing and a periodic status update to Earth.
I've already got the "Sunrise as seen from the Mars Rover" desktop image. All you need to do is roam through the public archives of the images, then when you find one you like download it at full resolution and convert it to a jpg. For what it's worth, you've already paid for them (taxes).
That's true; but, I can tell you from experience that driver support for DOS, or the lack thereof, is increasingly becoming a problem. Most of these embedded applications don't really care about performance. So, I suspect that's one of the primary reasons companies are moving to linux. (ex.: I have one box that clearly boots to DOS, and another box by the same vendor, in the same family of product but made a decade later, that boots to linux...)
I like to tinker... For some of this, FreeDOS is a ideal solution: I recently bought a box of old thin clients. They're all VIA x86 based with flash drive on CF cards. They all have serial ports, legacy parallel ports, USB and ethernet. They are small, don't draw much power, and are only like $15 each when you're willing to buy more than 5 at a time. That's cheaper than any dev kit based on any embedded processor that I know of, and certainly cheaper than using a dedicated PC.
Free-DOS is perfect for these... with an old DOS C compiler you can quickly whip up small programs that can do all kinds of things (Think parallel port = 8 bit DIO with dedicated control channels). If the job gets too big for FreeDOS to handle, I punt and install linux; but, for most simple things, DOS is really all you need.
I could write code to run on a microcontroller like a PIC or ARM, or anything in between. I could also write the code in LabView or a Microsoft.NET language to run on a PC. Why go to all the trouble and expense?
Sounds like one of those cases where you'd get higher bandwidth via DVD's sent in the mail. Modern version of an old saying that goes something like, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a grad student with a station wagon full of tapes..." Or maybe you should be strapping thumb drives to carrier pidgeons. (re.: RFC 1149) In any case, I agree, we need to run fiber everywhere -- there's not much excuse not to do it.
friction creates heat, which would tend to drive them apart. Unless you're talking about air; and, they found the same effect occurs in a vacuum. As to gravity... Force due to electric charge is like 36 orders of magnitude stronger than gravity. So, if there's any chance it's electric charge, then that's the most likely reason.
You didn't go to the pharmacy and buy them over the counter though, did you? You went to the hospital for them. A doctor had to write an order for the aspirin. A pharmacist had to pull the order for a single dispensary package of aspirin. A nurse had to get the aspirin for you. The nurse had to take time to double check the order against the chart and patient ID (that wrist band she was wearing). The lowest paid of those people make north of $30k/year. It has nothing to do with bulk cost. You paid for aspirin and the professional medical services, and all the support staff, that go with prescribing it and hand delivering the single dosage to you.
You're not serious, are you? You know the booster is going to be vaporized when it strikes the surface, right? Vaporized, as in, turned into gaseous material. You know that impacting a satellite on the surface of a barren rock with no atmosphere, subject to all that solar radiation, isn't going to "pollute" the surface, right?
Actually, I was arguing with the grand-parent poster, who was saying it was fiscally irresponsible to spend any money. My point is you have to spend R&D money now in order to save money later; and, that the return will far exceed what you spent.
Slashdot Mirror
You just need a group of trained sharks, with frikin'' lazers on on their heads. problem solved.
That again comes back to energy. In the extreme case, put them on the Moon, Mars, and every inhabitable rock within reach.
I can have Boeing build a satellite to commercial specs, launch it from the middle of the Pacific Ocean using a Russian booster, care of Sea Launch, and run it from my own control center in my garage workshop. All I need is a few hundred million dollars. NASA need never be involved (well, since I'm operating as an entity in the US, I have to get their approval on some paperwork... but I can work around that by putting the operation center in another country -- maybe Grandma's house).
Unfortunately, the Ronald McDonald House is like just down the street. The PETA people have a tendancy to take it out on the kids. Really classy of them, I might add.
you do realize that those are commercial satellites launched using commercial launch vehicles operated by commercial companies. Yes, the US government does have some say in the matter since they're often (but not always) launched from government owned launch facilities and the data is sensitive in nature; but, these are commercial entities, not owned by NASA or DOD.
Well I found the weather prediction for today; and, today's average temp is a lot colder than I implied. certainly cold enough to improve the CCD performance; assuming they don't have heaters in there to keep the electronics from freezing.
It's not all that cold. The daytime peak temperature in the summer may be in the 50 F range. At night it gets cold but it may not be cold enough to significantly improve the ccd's performance. I couldn't find the rover raw data to verify this... In the winter its plenty cold; but, they wouldn't have all this extra power to try a little Martian amateur astronomy then. In the winter all of the power is dedicated to just keeping the rover from freezing and a periodic status update to Earth.
I've already got the "Sunrise as seen from the Mars Rover" desktop image. All you need to do is roam through the public archives of the images, then when you find one you like download it at full resolution and convert it to a jpg. For what it's worth, you've already paid for them (taxes).
That's true; but, I can tell you from experience that driver support for DOS, or the lack thereof, is increasingly becoming a problem. Most of these embedded applications don't really care about performance. So, I suspect that's one of the primary reasons companies are moving to linux. (ex.: I have one box that clearly boots to DOS, and another box by the same vendor, in the same family of product but made a decade later, that boots to linux...)
You're just a bit ahead of the curve here... There is a 32-bit version in development though: http://freedos-32.sourceforge.net/
I like to tinker... For some of this, FreeDOS is a ideal solution: I recently bought a box of old thin clients. They're all VIA x86 based with flash drive on CF cards. They all have serial ports, legacy parallel ports, USB and ethernet. They are small, don't draw much power, and are only like $15 each when you're willing to buy more than 5 at a time. That's cheaper than any dev kit based on any embedded processor that I know of, and certainly cheaper than using a dedicated PC.
Free-DOS is perfect for these... with an old DOS C compiler you can quickly whip up small programs that can do all kinds of things (Think parallel port = 8 bit DIO with dedicated control channels). If the job gets too big for FreeDOS to handle, I punt and install linux; but, for most simple things, DOS is really all you need.
I could write code to run on a microcontroller like a PIC or ARM, or anything in between. I could also write the code in LabView or a Microsoft .NET language to run on a PC. Why go to all the trouble and expense?
Yes, Windows 3.1 has been verified to work on FreeDOS
I'm paying $29 for 1.5Mb. I think that's more typical in the US, if broadband is available.
Sounds like one of those cases where you'd get higher bandwidth via DVD's sent in the mail. Modern version of an old saying that goes something like, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a grad student with a station wagon full of tapes..." Or maybe you should be strapping thumb drives to carrier pidgeons. (re.: RFC 1149) In any case, I agree, we need to run fiber everywhere -- there's not much excuse not to do it.
friction creates heat, which would tend to drive them apart. Unless you're talking about air; and, they found the same effect occurs in a vacuum. As to gravity... Force due to electric charge is like 36 orders of magnitude stronger than gravity. So, if there's any chance it's electric charge, then that's the most likely reason.
since microprocessors are made of silicon... it already does.
They did and the results were the same.
Welcome to America. My wife's meds cost me over $650/mo, with insurance.
But, once they use up all the wind, how will I fly my kite?
You didn't go to the pharmacy and buy them over the counter though, did you? You went to the hospital for them. A doctor had to write an order for the aspirin. A pharmacist had to pull the order for a single dispensary package of aspirin. A nurse had to get the aspirin for you. The nurse had to take time to double check the order against the chart and patient ID (that wrist band she was wearing). The lowest paid of those people make north of $30k/year. It has nothing to do with bulk cost. You paid for aspirin and the professional medical services, and all the support staff, that go with prescribing it and hand delivering the single dosage to you.
Nah, he predates even that. Think all the way back to the do-it-yourself Apple I and the designed by a hacker, for hackers, Apple ][.
http://arrl.org/
You're not serious, are you? You know the booster is going to be vaporized when it strikes the surface, right? Vaporized, as in, turned into gaseous material. You know that impacting a satellite on the surface of a barren rock with no atmosphere, subject to all that solar radiation, isn't going to "pollute" the surface, right?
Actually, I was arguing with the grand-parent poster, who was saying it was fiscally irresponsible to spend any money. My point is you have to spend R&D money now in order to save money later; and, that the return will far exceed what you spent.
not quite, since you're forgetting the atmosphere's effects.