I will be more impressed when someone starts making a decent number of gates using a manufacturing technique that is scaleable and comparable in price to silicon. Every now and then someone demonstrates a fantastic new molecular/quantum/optical gate, which of course is fantastic, but its going to be hard to compete against good old silicon, for a very long time, I think..
"The coronal mass ejection is one in a series sent out by two huge sunspots, the largest pair to grace the Sun at one time in recent memory. Sunspot 486 was responsible for this blast."
I knew those 486 machines we have been binning would have their revenge one day..
Is this is a general purpose CPU with a full range of instructions, or just an analog light processor that can do some very specialised tasks very quickly?
There is one critical point you miss - Zubrin plans to "refuel" those chemical rockets in-situ on mars - using available CO2 in the Martian atmosphere. Otherwise I would agree - chemical rockets are not a very good bet for a Mars mission. Yes, a powerful, safe, reliable, tested nuclear ion drive would be desirable, but we are a long way from having such a system, particularly something safe for craft with humans on. Even if you did, you would still need big chemical rockets too - we have to use chemical either way - to get to LEO, to land on mars, to take off again.. Either way, you are looking at months in space, and radiation has to be dealt with. The advantage of Zubrins plan is that we have the rockets to do it already - Saturn-V class rockets (ie the Delta 3-core heavy lift) could probably do it..
I dont think you are right to be so dismissive of the X-Prize - it has yielded so very promising designs for a very low cost, in space terms. To get true CATS, a "747" for space, I believe a range of government funded X-prize type incentives could be a way to go. Let entreprenuers take the risks - financial + literal - like the early aircraft pioneers - then we end up with a range of feasable designs, one or two of which become the LEO vehicle. With CATS, you can have LEO space stations or a moon base that could pay for themselves, in real financial terms.
Or we could stick with the Shuttle. $3+ billion/year for zero launches, until its sorted (2005?), then we are back to 3-4 missions a year to LEO. Whoopee. Maybe we get an OSP escape pod for a few billion - of course its below the US's pride to just buy a few Soyuz at under $100 million each..
So what should NASA do? I was initially sceptical of Zubrins plan, but the more I see of it, the more I like it. A first test of the hardware, or most of it, could be directed at the moon, a long (6 month?) mission with a relatively easy escape route. If that works then head for Mars. Big incentive & a big drive, will attract young engineers back to the agency - and enthusiasm means getting the job done. If you can get ESA/RKA to join in, so much the better. In the meantime, also keep on with the various robot probes and other astronomical science, something NASA still does well.
We already have loads of LEO experience that can provide enough data for the effects of long voyages, especially if the first phase consists of a prolonged moon mission to test the hardware out..
Apparently Robert Zubrin, manned Mars mission advocate, is going to testify as part of this review. At the moment the US is spending $3 billion/year on the shuttle, and an unknown amount on the new OSP (Orbital Space Plane), all without any clear objective in mind. It is very hard not to feel, at least as far as manned exporation goes, NASA is floundering at the moment.
It is me worth re-posting this related extract from a piece posted on www.space.com, by Robert Zubrin - an advocate of reform in the US space program - interesting reading...
In the recent Columbia hearings, numerous members of congress continually decried the fact that the US space program is "stuck in Low Earth Orbit." This is certainly a serious problem. If it is to be addressed adequately, however, America's political leadership needs to reexamine NASA's fundamental mode of operation.
Over the course of its history, NASA has employed two distinct modes of operation. The first, prevailed during the period from 1961-1973, and may therefore be called the Apollo Mode. The second, prevailing since 1974, may usefully be called the Shuttle Era Mode, or Shuttle Mode, for short.
In the Apollo Mode, business is conducted as follows. First, a destination for human spaceflight is chosen. Then a plan is developed to achieve this objective. Following this, technologies and designs are developed to implement that plan. These designs are then built, after which the mission is flown.
The Shuttle Mode operates entirely differently. In this mode, technologies and hardware elements are developed in accord with the wishes of various technical communities. These projects are then justified by arguments that they might prove useful at some time in the future when grand flight projects are initiated.
Contrasting these two approaches, we see that the Apollo Mode is destination driven, while the Shuttle Mode pretends to be technology driven, but is actually constituency driven. In the Apollo Mode, technology development is done for mission directed reasons. In the Shuttle Mode, projects are undertaken on behalf of various internal and external technical community pressure groups and then defended using rationales. In the Apollo Mode, the space agency's efforts are focused and directed. In the Shuttle Mode, NASA's efforts are random and entropic.
Imagine two couples, each planning to build their own house. The first couple decides what kind of house they want, hires an architect to design it in detail, then acquires the appropriative materials to build it. That is the Apollo Mode. The second couple polls their neighbors each month for different spare house-parts they would like to sell, and buys them all, hoping to eventually accumulate enough stuff to build a house. When their relatives inquire as to why they are accumulating so much junk, they hire an architect to compose a house design that employs all the knick-knacks they have purchased. The house is never built, but an adequate excuse is generated to justify each purchase, thereby avoiding embarrassment. That is the Shuttle Mode.
In today's dollars, NASA average budget from 1961-1973 was about $17 billion per year. This is only 10% more than NASA's current budget. To assess the comparative productivity of the Apollo Mode with the Shuttle Mode, it is therefore useful to compare NASA's accomplishments between 1961-1973 and 1990-2003, as the space agency's total expenditures over these two periods were equal.
Between 1961 and 1973, NASA flew the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Ranger, Surveyor, and Mariner missions, and did all the development for the Pioneer, Viking, and Voyager missions as well. In addition, the space agency developed hydrogen oxygen rocket engines, multi-staged heavy-lift launch vehicles, nuclear rocket engines, space nuclear reactors, radioisotope power generators, spacesuits, in-space life support systems, orbital rendezvous techniques, soft landing rocket technologies, interplanetary navigation technology, deep space data tr
I recieved an email saying "Get rid of annoying pop-ups forever!" - so I sent $19 in used notes to a Post box in Nigeria, and presto! problem sorted! How ever my computer seems to be running a bit slow, and logs on to a porn site by default, I wonder why..;-)
Its an incredibly accurate recreation of some of my install experiences with Win98. I especially like their implementation of Solitaire. I am now going to lay in a dark room with a damp towel on my forehead..
Shhh, Im trying to sell the Americans alternative energy..
Seriously, yes on balance in the future we *should* have homes that need less power to heat, cars that give much better fuel->momentum efficiency (petrol is something like 20%, so there is room for improvement) and so on. Getting people awayin total from personal transport is going to be nearly impossible, although in the big cities its obviously better to encourage people to use Public Transport. If people *really* want to drive more powerful cars, and are prepared to pay, let them, if there is a ta difference between those and smaller vehicles, economics will drive things towards the more efficient cars..
If the wind map for Australia is anything like the UK, ther will be sites all around the country. This is a problem for all energy forms - fossil, etc - you have to move it which involves some losses. If cables are too lossy, and we dont have those magic superconductors, we could turn it into Hydrogen and pipe it like natural gas..
Australia has nicely distributed solar energy too, of course..:-)
Lots of countries have good off-shore wind resources - the UK, USA.. Just needs the will to build the farms, the technology is already tested and mature..
Well, the choice of dates in not arbitrary - it starts with "We will go to the moon", and ends with "bye bye moon". The fact is that NASA did a lot of exploration and development in that period - not just Apollo, but the Mariners, etc - amazing technological steps in a short time. With that later reduced funding they were designing pioneer & voyager - also great achievements. Even if the funding was more evenly spread 90-2003, the fact remains they seem to have achieved less, especially in terms of manned exploration. $3 billion this year on the Shuttle, and no launches..
I did. They brought the space pens (I dunno if they got them for $2.95 like NASA, but I guess they got them cheap) but they didnt bother to develop them before that..
A lot of "liberals" *have* invested in alternatives. Denmark now gets 20% of its power from wind turbines, and it is becoming cheap ($0.03/kw/hr). Yes, tax fossil fuels because they pollute, and dont last, and invest in green alternatives.
Slashdot Mirror
I will be more impressed when someone starts making a decent number of gates using a manufacturing technique that is scaleable and comparable in price to silicon. Every now and then someone demonstrates a fantastic new molecular/quantum/optical gate, which of course is fantastic, but its going to be hard to compete against good old silicon, for a very long time, I think..
From space.com
"The coronal mass ejection is one in a series sent out by two huge sunspots, the largest pair to grace the Sun at one time in recent memory. Sunspot 486 was responsible for this blast."
I knew those 486 machines we have been binning would have their revenge one day..
Is this is a general purpose CPU with a full range of instructions, or just an analog light processor that can do some very specialised tasks very quickly?
There is one critical point you miss - Zubrin plans to "refuel" those chemical rockets in-situ on mars - using available CO2 in the Martian atmosphere. Otherwise I would agree - chemical rockets are not a very good bet for a Mars mission. Yes, a powerful, safe, reliable, tested nuclear ion drive would be desirable, but we are a long way from having such a system, particularly something safe for craft with humans on. Even if you did, you would still need big chemical rockets too - we have to use chemical either way - to get to LEO, to land on mars, to take off again.. Either way, you are looking at months in space, and radiation has to be dealt with. The advantage of Zubrins plan is that we have the rockets to do it already - Saturn-V class rockets (ie the Delta 3-core heavy lift) could probably do it..
I dont think you are right to be so dismissive of the X-Prize - it has yielded so very promising designs for a very low cost, in space terms. To get true CATS, a "747" for space, I believe a range of government funded X-prize type incentives could be a way to go. Let entreprenuers take the risks - financial + literal - like the early aircraft pioneers - then we end up with a range of feasable designs, one or two of which become the LEO vehicle. With CATS, you can have LEO space stations or a moon base that could pay for themselves, in real financial terms.
Or we could stick with the Shuttle. $3+ billion/year for zero launches, until its sorted (2005?), then we are back to 3-4 missions a year to LEO. Whoopee. Maybe we get an OSP escape pod for a few billion - of course its below the US's pride to just buy a few Soyuz at under $100 million each..
So what should NASA do? I was initially sceptical of Zubrins plan, but the more I see of it, the more I like it. A first test of the hardware, or most of it, could be directed at the moon, a long (6 month?) mission with a relatively easy escape route. If that works then head for Mars. Big incentive & a big drive, will attract young engineers back to the agency - and enthusiasm means getting the job done. If you can get ESA/RKA to join in, so much the better. In the meantime, also keep on with the various robot probes and other astronomical science, something NASA still does well.
We already have loads of LEO experience that can provide enough data for the effects of long voyages, especially if the first phase consists of a prolonged moon mission to test the hardware out..
See the Mars direct homepage
Apparently Robert Zubrin, manned Mars mission advocate, is going to testify as part of this review. At the moment the US is spending $3 billion/year on the shuttle, and an unknown amount on the new OSP (Orbital Space Plane), all without any clear objective in mind. It is very hard not to feel, at least as far as manned exporation goes, NASA is floundering at the moment.
It is me worth re-posting this related extract from a piece posted on www.space.com, by Robert Zubrin - an advocate of reform in the US space program - interesting reading...
In the recent Columbia hearings, numerous members of congress continually decried the fact that the US space program is "stuck in Low Earth Orbit." This is certainly a serious problem. If it is to be addressed adequately, however, America's political leadership needs to reexamine NASA's fundamental mode of operation.
Over the course of its history, NASA has employed two distinct modes of operation. The first, prevailed during the period from 1961-1973, and may therefore be called the Apollo Mode. The second, prevailing since 1974, may usefully be called the Shuttle Era Mode, or Shuttle Mode, for short.
In the Apollo Mode, business is conducted as follows. First, a destination for human spaceflight is chosen. Then a plan is developed to achieve this objective. Following this, technologies and designs are developed to implement that plan. These designs are then built, after which the mission is flown.
The Shuttle Mode operates entirely differently. In this mode, technologies and hardware elements are developed in accord with the wishes of various technical communities. These projects are then justified by arguments that they might prove useful at some time in the future when grand flight projects are initiated.
Contrasting these two approaches, we see that the Apollo Mode is destination driven, while the Shuttle Mode pretends to be technology driven, but is actually constituency driven. In the Apollo Mode, technology development is done for mission directed reasons. In the Shuttle Mode, projects are undertaken on behalf of various internal and external technical community pressure groups and then defended using rationales. In the Apollo Mode, the space agency's efforts are focused and directed. In the Shuttle Mode, NASA's efforts are random and entropic.
Imagine two couples, each planning to build their own house. The first couple decides what kind of house they want, hires an architect to design it in detail, then acquires the appropriative materials to build it. That is the Apollo Mode. The second couple polls their neighbors each month for different spare house-parts they would like to sell, and buys them all, hoping to eventually accumulate enough stuff to build a house. When their relatives inquire as to why they are accumulating so much junk, they hire an architect to compose a house design that employs all the knick-knacks they have purchased. The house is never built, but an adequate excuse is generated to justify each purchase, thereby avoiding embarrassment. That is the Shuttle Mode.
In today's dollars, NASA average budget from 1961-1973 was about $17 billion per year. This is only 10% more than NASA's current budget. To assess the comparative productivity of the Apollo Mode with the Shuttle Mode, it is therefore useful to compare NASA's accomplishments between 1961-1973 and 1990-2003, as the space agency's total expenditures over these two periods were equal.
Between 1961 and 1973, NASA flew the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Ranger, Surveyor, and Mariner missions, and did all the development for the Pioneer, Viking, and Voyager missions as well. In addition, the space agency developed hydrogen oxygen rocket engines, multi-staged heavy-lift launch vehicles, nuclear rocket engines, space nuclear reactors, radioisotope power generators, spacesuits, in-space life support systems, orbital rendezvous techniques, soft landing rocket technologies, interplanetary navigation technology, deep space data tr
I recieved an email saying "Get rid of annoying pop-ups forever!" - so I sent $19 in used notes to a Post box in Nigeria, and presto! problem sorted! How ever my computer seems to be running a bit slow, and logs on to a porn site by default, I wonder why.. ;-)
I want to know if Gator ever sent Wil Wheaton that nastygram..
" How many times are we going to see this damn Shockwave?"
Until your brain explodes, or MS release a decent version of Windows and make the joke redundant. (yeh, right)
Here is another link where you can see the next version of Windows..
The "look and feel" is spot on, isnt it?
Maybe, in the light of the release of Windows RG edition they should rethink their position on proprietry software..
Its an incredibly accurate recreation of some of my install experiences with Win98. I especially like their implementation of Solitaire. I am now going to lay in a dark room with a damp towel on my forehead..
Ive found a version of Windows that is actually superior to Linux..
Shhh, Im trying to sell the Americans alternative energy..
Seriously, yes on balance in the future we *should* have homes that need less power to heat, cars that give much better fuel->momentum efficiency (petrol is something like 20%, so there is room for improvement) and so on. Getting people awayin total from personal transport is going to be nearly impossible, although in the big cities its obviously better to encourage people to use Public Transport. If people *really* want to drive more powerful cars, and are prepared to pay, let them, if there is a ta difference between those and smaller vehicles, economics will drive things towards the more efficient cars..
People are starving in the world, and they do this..
If the wind map for Australia is anything like the UK, ther will be sites all around the country. This is a problem for all energy forms - fossil, etc - you have to move it which involves some losses. If cables are too lossy, and we dont have those magic superconductors, we could turn it into Hydrogen and pipe it like natural gas..
:-)
Australia has nicely distributed solar energy too, of course..
What a quaint idea, dunno if that would pan out.
Reminds me of what AC Clark said about space elevators - they will be built 10 years after everyone stops laughing..
books, damn it, books. Too much bloody Victory Gin again..
Cow tools - what does it *mean*?
In our school 1984 was one of the main book used in our English course.
Oh the irony.
Good to see the guys at MiniTrue working hard..
Lots of countries have good off-shore wind resources - the UK, USA.. Just needs the will to build the farms, the technology is already tested and mature..
Well, the choice of dates in not arbitrary - it starts with "We will go to the moon", and ends with "bye bye moon". The fact is that NASA did a lot of exploration and development in that period - not just Apollo, but the Mariners, etc - amazing technological steps in a short time. With that later reduced funding they were designing pioneer & voyager - also great achievements. Even if the funding was more evenly spread 90-2003, the fact remains they seem to have achieved less, especially in terms of manned exploration. $3 billion this year on the Shuttle, and no launches..
I did. They brought the space pens (I dunno if they got them for $2.95 like NASA, but I guess they got them cheap) but they didnt bother to develop them before that..
A lot of "liberals" *have* invested in alternatives. Denmark now gets 20% of its power from wind turbines, and it is becoming cheap ($0.03/kw/hr). Yes, tax fossil fuels because they pollute, and dont last, and invest in green alternatives.