One more thing: You could say they're looking down and laughing at our paltry efforts so far below them, but one day, very soon, we will be looking down on the ISS and laughing. Won't be very funny then, will it?
How about some predictions for the next 10, 25, and 50 years?
10 years: Private enterprises are making regular orbital flights, including docking at the ISS and doing crew transfers for various governments. Medium lift (~10 ton to LEO) launch vehicles in test phases. Private probes to Moon, Mars to search for raw materials for harvest or colony support; Cost for suborbital flight: $15K; to LEO: $1 million
25 years: First private space station, specializing in $20,000/night hotel rooms and microgravity research. ISS abandoned, parts sold to private industry. NASA has a probe orbiting Pluto; Lunar colonies in planning stations, private rovers on Mars. Deliveries using suborbital craft are now regular (for when it absolutely, postively has to be there yesterday). Many people confused about time zones.
50 years: I move off the mudball to Mars for retirement. Private citizens now moving into Lunar and Mars colonies. Private industry exploring asteroid belt. Suborbital flight as common as airline flight; Cost to LEO: $15K. Space tether under construction at several points around the globe; Nairobi is a major spaceport.
NASA does have a future, just as a regulatory/exploration agency. I doubt highly that commercial systems would spend millions on sending a probe to Saturn to look for anything other than resources, so NASA has a future there, at least in designing the probes and manning the ground stations.
And someone will have to regulate space flight so we don't have unsafe craft zipping around. Perhaps NASA could use some of their expertise to help the FAA, or maybe split a bit of NASA off and fold it into the FAA, and keep the JSC running for exploration. Somebody's gotta be there when Voyager decides to call home again.
But now that we're not relying on a cost-plus government agency for space flight, we should see a lot of movement really, really soon.
Last night on "Best Week Ever" they decided that last week was the best week ever for Some Dude: Some dudes won the NBA championship, Some Dude is dating Christina Aguiwhatever, and now Some Dude is going to fly a spaceship.
If there was demand for long-lasting cars, some manufacturers would produce them and conquer the market.
Let me rephrase a little bit:
If there was demand for long-lasting cars, manufacturers would be sure to spend lots of money convincing people that long-lasting cars are worse than newer models because there is no profit in a car that lasts thirty years.
When does this fucker's term expire? And why do the Utahans keep voting for him?
First, he's a senator, and they have no term limits. He may well serve into his 100s. Scary, huh?
Second, there's a sort of "he's our idiot" mentality. It's not his fault things are getting screwed up (even though he wrote the bill), it's the other idiots who are doing the bad things. That's why most people vote for the incumbent without caring. Name recognition helps, too.
Everything you said makes a lot of sense. However, why are the administrators bad? Maybe because the good ones are able to find jobs in affluent schools, leaving the worst to work in inner city and rural schools.
Maybe we don't need more teachers, maybe we need fewer administrators.
That's something that's easy to fix, though. Just go to 5 legs instead of 4. Or Six. Or a system where a hydraulic failure would cause the legs to extend instead of remain retracted.
And at least Lockheed had made a working prototype!
Remove excess weight from the trunk. Avoid carrying unneeded items, especially heavy ones. An extra 100 pounds in the trunk reduces a typical car's fuel economy by one to two percent.
So let's assume he gets 25mpg. At minimum he's losing 200lbs * 1% per 100 pounds * 25mpg = 0.5mpg and the maximum is 200lbs * 2% per 100 pounds * 25mpg = 1mpg.
This is a useless application. No one (except for gadget-freak surfers, and there's only about 3 who could afford it) will buy this.
There are millions of people in wheelchairs who need a small, waterproof, integrated communication system. My fiance's little brother will soon be one of them. Luckily, I'm smart enough to hack one together. A lot of people aren't so lucky.
So while this does help in development, it wastes time with gimickry at the cost of resources devoted to an actual need.
This isn't technology news. It's a marketing gimmick.
The DCX was awesome. I have no idea why NASA didn't pick it. Instead they picked the one that *hadn't* made a test flight and required *more* development.
I have half a mind to get the designs from Lockheed and start my own company!
Of the two, I prefer Armadillo. Rutan's is a great X-Prize winner; it can go to 100km. Armadillo's will scale much better, and with an actual capsule (instead of crushing the nose), we'll actually have a way to get into orbit, not just billionaire joyrides. And once you're in orbit, you're halfway to anywhere.
Yes. Why not focus on miniaturizing this equipment so it can be more easily integrated into wheelchairs for the disabled?
Marketing, that's why. Nobody wants to think about being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their life, but everyone loves surfing.
While research into this area does benefit further miniaturization, putting it into a surfboard doesn't really help anybody. I mean, we've gotten footage from that point of view without having to build it into the surfboard.
Since it's a 3.4MB PDF that I'll never get to read, maybe someone could answer a question for me:
Is the increase in the average salary for an IT worker, or the average IT worker's salary? In other words, does this count the ones who are unemployed or doing burger duty at Mickie Dees? It's great that salaries are going up, but is employment?
I concur. The reason rural and urban schools are doing poorly is because nobody wants to take jobs there. Where would you want to live, in a suburb within driving distance of everything, or a small rural town two hours from the nearest Wal-Mart, or an inner city where you could be shot?
Pay teachers more to go to these areas, and more good teachers will go there. That $24 million could pay for a couple thousand teachers instead of going to some stupid wireless initiative. If the teachers aren't there, the kids *will not* benefit from technology.
What mass/volume of this plant technology is required to recycle the CO2 for a single person? Also, does this technology have any consumables of its own such as H20? Seriously, do you think an office plant provides you with enough air to sustain your life?
Suprisingly, plant technology can be stored in a very low-mass, low-volume form, known as a "seed." Combined with Martian soil (which has been shown in dirtside simulations to grow plants well) and water that can be evaporated from martian soil, it expands many orders of magnitude, consuming CO2 as it goes and storing it inside itself. And while a single plant is not large enough to support a human, many plants have been shown to be sufficient in dirtside experiments. Indeed, their O2 output increases as human activity increases, always pursuing homeostasis!
Transit times from Mars to Earth and vice versa can be the same, if you schedule it right. If you can sustain yourself on the surface, there's no reason to leave, other than to return samples. Farming can do this, and a nuclear reactor would provide years of power.
And we're not going to be flying the Shuttle to Mars. It will be a specially designed vehicle. And it won't be the one we went there with. It will have landed before the people are launched, so they have their return vehicle in place. Mars has 1/3 the Gravity of earth, which means much less fuel requirements for launch and trans-Earth injection.
If you're really curious (as opposed to being an ass), you should read Zubrin's A Case for Mars.
But we can crack CO2 and make oxygen. All we'd need would be electricity from solar panels or nuclear power. (Nukes would be better because solar panels have a low power density.)
Second, it's not one 12 month trip, it's two six month trips, with replenishment on Mars. Don't bring along enough food and water and fuel for the whole trip, just enough for one way. (Plus emergency.) In situ production saves cost and weight.
70 minutes is fine. Email and photo attachments are great. With a better comm system (a satellite left in mars orbit, for example), you could easily send video. And if not, no biggie. Hell, Lewis and Clark were out of communication for years and though to be dead. Email isn't so bad.
And a 400GB drive holds dozens of movies. And weighs very, very little. Considering the crap movies they're making nowadays, it might be better to bring along the classics instead of relying on Hollywood to send them to you!
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Right. Of course. But for the foreseeable future, Earth is the only place they'd have to worry about.
Mojave spaceport; You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Or space hippies having a big party. :D
One more thing: You could say they're looking down and laughing at our paltry efforts so far below them, but one day, very soon, we will be looking down on the ISS and laughing. Won't be very funny then, will it?
10 years: Private enterprises are making regular orbital flights, including docking at the ISS and doing crew transfers for various governments. Medium lift (~10 ton to LEO) launch vehicles in test phases. Private probes to Moon, Mars to search for raw materials for harvest or colony support; Cost for suborbital flight: $15K; to LEO: $1 million
25 years: First private space station, specializing in $20,000/night hotel rooms and microgravity research. ISS abandoned, parts sold to private industry. NASA has a probe orbiting Pluto; Lunar colonies in planning stations, private rovers on Mars. Deliveries using suborbital craft are now regular (for when it absolutely, postively has to be there yesterday). Many people confused about time zones.
50 years: I move off the mudball to Mars for retirement. Private citizens now moving into Lunar and Mars colonies. Private industry exploring asteroid belt. Suborbital flight as common as airline flight; Cost to LEO: $15K. Space tether under construction at several points around the globe; Nairobi is a major spaceport.
And someone will have to regulate space flight so we don't have unsafe craft zipping around. Perhaps NASA could use some of their expertise to help the FAA, or maybe split a bit of NASA off and fold it into the FAA, and keep the JSC running for exploration. Somebody's gotta be there when Voyager decides to call home again.
But now that we're not relying on a cost-plus government agency for space flight, we should see a lot of movement really, really soon.
Hey! That's my goal too!
Best part, Rutan has admitted that SS1 is scalable, meaning it could become an orbital launch vehicle. Sweet.
Who knew VH1 could be so prescient?
Let me rephrase a little bit:
First, he's a senator, and they have no term limits. He may well serve into his 100s. Scary, huh?
Second, there's a sort of "he's our idiot" mentality. It's not his fault things are getting screwed up (even though he wrote the bill), it's the other idiots who are doing the bad things. That's why most people vote for the incumbent without caring. Name recognition helps, too.
Maybe we don't need more teachers, maybe we need fewer administrators.
And at least Lockheed had made a working prototype!
Remove excess weight from the trunk. Avoid carrying unneeded items, especially heavy ones. An extra 100 pounds in the trunk reduces a typical car's fuel economy by one to two percent.
So let's assume he gets 25mpg. At minimum he's losing 200lbs * 1% per 100 pounds * 25mpg = 0.5mpg and the maximum is 200lbs * 2% per 100 pounds * 25mpg = 1mpg.
Not much, but it still doesn't make any sense!
There are millions of people in wheelchairs who need a small, waterproof, integrated communication system. My fiance's little brother will soon be one of them. Luckily, I'm smart enough to hack one together. A lot of people aren't so lucky.
So while this does help in development, it wastes time with gimickry at the cost of resources devoted to an actual need.
This isn't technology news. It's a marketing gimmick.
I have half a mind to get the designs from Lockheed and start my own company!
Of the two, I prefer Armadillo. Rutan's is a great X-Prize winner; it can go to 100km. Armadillo's will scale much better, and with an actual capsule (instead of crushing the nose), we'll actually have a way to get into orbit, not just billionaire joyrides. And once you're in orbit, you're halfway to anywhere.
Marketing, that's why. Nobody wants to think about being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their life, but everyone loves surfing.
While research into this area does benefit further miniaturization, putting it into a surfboard doesn't really help anybody. I mean, we've gotten footage from that point of view without having to build it into the surfboard.
Okay, so there are fewer people in the field and money returning to it, so it's no suprise that salaries are going up.
So should we vote for the guy who voted for the DMCA, or the guy who enforces the DMCA?
Since it's a 3.4MB PDF that I'll never get to read, maybe someone could answer a question for me:
Is the increase in the average salary for an IT worker, or the average IT worker's salary? In other words, does this count the ones who are unemployed or doing burger duty at Mickie Dees? It's great that salaries are going up, but is employment?
Pay teachers more to go to these areas, and more good teachers will go there. That $24 million could pay for a couple thousand teachers instead of going to some stupid wireless initiative. If the teachers aren't there, the kids *will not* benefit from technology.
Tried it. Stupid Netzis at work won't let me ssh out. Bastards.
And how much did top 10% pay in 89? 79? 69? 59? 49?
I cited that data because it had points during the Space Race. Could you provide data from that period to back up your claims?
Suprisingly, plant technology can be stored in a very low-mass, low-volume form, known as a "seed." Combined with Martian soil (which has been shown in dirtside simulations to grow plants well) and water that can be evaporated from martian soil, it expands many orders of magnitude, consuming CO2 as it goes and storing it inside itself. And while a single plant is not large enough to support a human, many plants have been shown to be sufficient in dirtside experiments. Indeed, their O2 output increases as human activity increases, always pursuing homeostasis!
Transit times from Mars to Earth and vice versa can be the same, if you schedule it right. If you can sustain yourself on the surface, there's no reason to leave, other than to return samples. Farming can do this, and a nuclear reactor would provide years of power.
And we're not going to be flying the Shuttle to Mars. It will be a specially designed vehicle. And it won't be the one we went there with. It will have landed before the people are launched, so they have their return vehicle in place. Mars has 1/3 the Gravity of earth, which means much less fuel requirements for launch and trans-Earth injection.
If you're really curious (as opposed to being an ass), you should read Zubrin's A Case for Mars.
Second, it's not one 12 month trip, it's two six month trips, with replenishment on Mars. Don't bring along enough food and water and fuel for the whole trip, just enough for one way. (Plus emergency.) In situ production saves cost and weight.
70 minutes is fine. Email and photo attachments are great. With a better comm system (a satellite left in mars orbit, for example), you could easily send video. And if not, no biggie. Hell, Lewis and Clark were out of communication for years and though to be dead. Email isn't so bad.
And a 400GB drive holds dozens of movies. And weighs very, very little. Considering the crap movies they're making nowadays, it might be better to bring along the classics instead of relying on Hollywood to send them to you!