Try it with any production car. Mash the throttle and hold it back with the brakes. The brakes will win. Period, end of story.
Brake fade can be one of two reasons. Boiling the brake fluid which typically doesn't happen right away. Besides, you are flushing the brake fluid every year right???? and "Pad Fade" where the brake pads themselves overheat to the point they no longer grip the steel rotors or drums.
Try another experiment. On a road, at 50mph, mash the same pedal (in whatever gear) then floor the brakes. You again will stop the car.
Brakes can (at least for a short period of time) absorb about 5x the horsepower that the engine can put out. As long as you ultimately bring the car to a complete stop you will be O.K.
Drive by wire is necessary for things like traction control (or you could have an extra canister and all kinds of levers to disconnect the gasoline). I believe actual throttle position is also modified when the engines use some of the gas mileage techniques like cylinder deactivation. Then there is also cruise control. Having a single actuator on the throttle blade, vs. 3 or more solenoids does simplify things.
Remember, diesel doesn't even have throttle blades.
So, the computer is necessary for the engine to run - the computer must decide how much gas to squirt in and when. If it squirts the gas at the wrong time, or the wrong amount, it could literally destroy your engine (or clog the catalytic converter). So it does that all O.K. but its not to be trusted to monitor the gas pedal position?
Again, as a I posted earlier. The brakes will over power the engine (and you always have neutral).
What gets missed in all these articles is that the brakes on a car can always over power the motor. Take a car like Porsche twin turbo. It decelerates from 100 mph to zero in about 3 seconds. Takes 10+ seconds to get there.
So when you hit the brakes you will slow down. Unless you drive like an idiot, dragging the brakes and overheating to the point they are outgassing so much there is no pad to rotor (or shoe to drum) contact.
So... unless there is indication of a brake failure, PEBAAC is right
Since you found the wikipedia article, do a bit more and look at "Christian Science Monitor". Just because the religion sponsors the paper, doesn't mean the papers articles are influence by the religion. I have found at least the political reporting to very very balance. Never thought to get my 'science' from it though.
N2O, aka laughing gas, is used as an oxidizer on some racing engines (curiously, AFAIK, mostly allowed only by amateur level drag). When it enters a hot combustion chamber, the N separates from the O and the O is then available to support the burning of more fuel. N2O is typically injected as a high pressure liquid - almost immediately turning to gas when it his warm engine parts. This is Nitrous Oxide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide
NOx is a smog forming emission from internal combustion engines (among other sources). High heat, availability of oxygen - perhaps some pressure (from engine compression) cause it to form. NOx emissions were first controlled in the late 60s by managing ignition timing and adding exhaust gas recirculation and/or lowering compression ratio (efficiencies) of engines. This is Nitric Oxide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitric_oxide
The EPA articles seem to use the terms interchangeably - moving back and forth. Not sure how much I can trust their analysis.
Yes, if you need to grow your business and all you can hire are dumb@$$3$ then yes, stick with Java (or C#).
Then you'll have all the wonderful efficiency of Eclipse (42 threads just to start up!!!!!!!!!!!). (Thank god I have 4 cores and two memory buses!)
And how much of a hit in performance are you taking when garbage collector turns on? How many times a minute does it fire and what happens to all those threads that are blocking? How big is the communication port buffer?
There was a time when people expected computers to be fast. But I guess in the world of web applications that dream will end.
On the flip side, if all you use your computer for is checking e-mail and surfing the web, I guess you can handle the slowness. Buy a portable.
At least when converted to youtube the red and blue image wasn't even in-sync.
Perhaps a whole new compression algorithm.
The problem is the human senses are very sensitive to subtle changes - everything from phase changes in audio to things like frame sync. The original full motion simulator guys figured it out when they missed the motion tracking to video image by a frame or two - everyone got sick. Instant sea sickness.
Microsoft has more or less contributed to the ultimate demise of the PC in the work place. Because of all the features, and the lack of reliability stemming from the complexity of all these features, MS has created a maintenance nightmare. Business critical applications are now all web based (at least at my company, everything from HR to shipping to version control etc.). Can't remember the last time I fired up MS Word (I have used Excel).
So why upgrade? What is the one feature that Windows 7 has that I _NEED_?
More secure? What is 'more'? How about rock solid secure to the point I can deploy without special virus protection? Right now XP seems good enough.
Better manageability? Management at this time seems to be locking out users from doing things that are stupid/dangerous and forcing upgrades to cover vulnerabilities. Please see 1st question.
Yes, I know, its good to make fun of NASA and its shuttle program.
I guess it doesn't take long for the public to remember that the space shuttle carries humans and thus is subject to a completely different set of requirements. Loose a Malaysian satellite - who cares, they are insured (BTW the insurance rate is of course based in part on the success/failure rate).
Not to mention the shuttle is in a completely different payload class, and more importantly, it is used with hundreds of thousands of miles on the air frame.
From the bottom of the article "Now 0-for-3, SpaceXâ(TM)s Elon Musk Vows to Make Orbit". While the shuttle has had its failures, its record is slightly better.
Or this for an alternative [Jalopnik] 0-210mph in 7 seconds. That works out to 0-60 in about 1 second. That being on a car that can (as claimed in the article) get 11 mpg and runs on normal 'pump' gasoline and utilizes DOT approved tires.
That Corvette is at least the _quickest_ street legal car. I wonder where the top speed would be. At some point the aerodynamics has to make it flat out dangerous to travel at that speed.
Since it is a '63 corvette. That predates many (all?) of the DOT safety requirements so he can, for example, legally replace his seat belts with a 5-point harness. (Yes removing or altering safety equipment is illegal - you need to keep those stock, DOT approved, seat belts). It also pre-dates any emission control regulations.
At one point Maryland (my home state) had a requirement for window defroster. I wonder if the vette needed/has that?
The MAC OS would throw up a message that said something to the effect you were running out of memory (we had 2meg installed instead of max 4). I believe the message said please close some applications (Multi-finder).
Anyway, the natural step was for the user to start deleting icons (ie programs) from the desktop.
Then they would reboot. Then they would notice that some documents couldn't be opened and perhaps notice the icon has changed.
The trouble ticket would be "Can't open a document that I could open yesterday".
Why did they remove MS Word? Because they created all their documents with Word Perfect and only used MS Word to read docs from others (so they never clicked on the icon itself).
This happened so often that we had a server with an 'image' of the standard licensed software that we could drag over at moments notice. At the speed of Appletalk. Probably should have just turned off multi-finder... Oh well.
1) Make sure the deal is truly worth it. For a big corporation the math is something like this - we can buy this startup for 10x and be guaranteed to have working product or we can throw x dollars at it and maybe get something that works - if we find the right people with the right vision etc. They would rather pay the 10x for the sure thing! So lets say 4 guys, 1 man year probably worth a few million easy - with the right sales guy (The CEO of a startup company IS the sales guy) closer to $10 million (assuming you have a product and some IP around it and maybe a few existing customers that will vouch for you). 2) Negotiate your future with the company. They will demand that you stay on-board for at least a year or two, probably 2 if you are technically significant. You salary and position should reflect that (get a contract with very clear termination clauses). You aren't Sr. Software Engineer (for example) you will be "Fellow" etc. Pretty much unfirable - not sure what salary you had in mind, but I suspect 2x is more appropriate. When the company I was with go purchased the CTO got a position for $250K/yr. 3) Bonus structure - You are there for a product/product line. Bonus structure to reflect hitting milestones.
So... Pros - funding to do more of what you like. Yes the company will have some control (they probably want things that can help generate revenue - but that just means they want you to create things other people will want - they will find a way to make money off of it). If you tell them you want to run your group like a startup (work 70hr weeks with no overtime pay) they will agree - just remind them of the bonus structure. Pros - got make that big meeting up in NY with the President/board of directors? Ask them to send the company jet for you....
Cons- control. You will have an idea and you will effectively have to beg for funding. If the company thinks you are too far off in left field, you may not even have enough funding to buy new laptops - let alone money to buy R&D equipment. New CEO and company priorities can change. Cons - IT department. Big mega companies want all their computers under control. Long boot-up times, pesky anti-virus, firewalls that don't let you go to certain web sites (be it hacking, porn, politics, guns etc.) Stick with Linux if you can, most IT departments can't even spell it. Cons - Meetings. There will be 3 layers of management above you. They will all want to know what you are doing and you have to couch it in terms they understand. Each layer will be progressively less technically savvy.
Other things - big companies have big reach (global). A plus or a minus you may be asked to physically go around to different places in the world. Training sessions, product demos etc. Interesting for a while, but can get old.
Resources - big companies have all kinds of resources. From tech writers that will write user manuals for you, to testers that will verify everything is correct. The bad news for production is that they will not lift one finger until you specify, exactly, to ISO9000x standards, how high that finger is to be lifted and what calibrated tools should be used to verify the lift height. Its not that they are too stupid to figure out what needs to be done, they just believe all the people on the shop floor and warehouse are too stupid.
True true. I don't work for Orbital (and haven't for about 10 years) but Orbital was trying to make cheap Communication satellites and bought what was left of Fairchild Space and Defense to help them fix things. It was the Fairchild arm that was supporting NASA not the Orbital side and it was quite the culture clash. The Orbital guys refered to Fairchild as "Jurasic Park" and the Fairchild guys alternatively used "nursery school" or "kindergarten" when talking about Orbital. The difference between dotting every i and cross every t in the NASA world and the bean counters trying to figure out the cheapest way of doing things in the commercial world (Orbital). Hopefully they will find a good balance. When I was at Fairchild I had to order some standoffs that would allow us to rapidly replace EPROMS. I made the mistake of mentioning that they were gold plated pins on the standoffs. This triggered a quality control issue which turned my $1 standoffs into effectively space flight hardware and dropped them into bonded storage. I couldn't get them out of bonded storage without senior VP permission that essentially relegated them to scrap and O.K. to use on my prototype board - so long as everyone up and down the chain of command swore the parts would never come near an actual space flight (or any other) program. I'm guessing it burned a couple of man-days on that one. Most people would call that 'anal'. Fairchild called that SOP (I'm guessing NASA expected that of them). It is the same Fairchild based team (or at least the foundations) that worked (and AFAIK still working on) the Hubble repair missions. See the picture at http://www.robotics-research.com/SATBaysmall.jpg for a image of the arm that Fairchild built for the mission. That picture is taken inside the massive clean room at Goddard Space Flight Center. That particular arm has boosted servo motors so that it can work in 1G (at least with light/simulated loads).
NASA had a big robotics research going on in the mid to early 1990s. The big issue was cost. NASA was down sizing the space station and actively seeking other countries to help fund it. For a brief moment, Orbital Sciences won the contract to develop the arm for the space station. It was based on an underseas robot technology - just with much weaker motors and other environmental considerations (zero-g, zero pressure, grease tends to evaporate under zero pressure). Canada piped in and said they would build the arm if NASA pays. NASA essentially said 'nuts' and awarded the contract [eventually] to Orbital, only to pull it back when Canada said, "just kidding we'll pay for it." So my opportunity to work on a really cool project evaporated. Few months later Canada came to Orbital trying to figure out how we were going to do it so cheaply. "nuts" to them. Anyway: http://www.robotics-research.com/ and ultimately: http://www.robotics-research.com/SATBaysmall.jpg
If I carry gasoline in the car and burn it for energy, at say 20mpg, I would burn 2 gallons of gas getting to and from work. Cost $4.00
If I charge up a battery pack and drive to and from work, the cost is more like.2kWh per mile or 4kWh. Since the energy is most likely produced by coal or oil (in my area) it would give a pretty good indication on efficiencies.
BTW, KWH is about 15 cents right now with all taxes added.
So something like $.60 (60 cents for those that don't see the decimal point).
Of course the battery powered car probably will not do the satisfying burn out.
Sorry, I took your response to be the typical "government wasting money by buying $700 hammers" (which is a myth anyway).
In NASA, with ever tightening budgets, there is no room for a fat-cat middleman to make huge sums of money.
And yes, I think a good way to spend the stimulus is to invest in NASA. I bet 99% of the money will be spent in the USA paying middle class workers (those that will buy things like new cars). The only question I have is: "Is there something that gives us the same financial return - but gives us better social return?" Like investing in medical equipment research. You get the same middle class income distribution channel - and maybe more relevant benefits to citizens.
Well for now its military 1st, social programs 2nd, Science/NASA a distant whatever (4th? 5th?)
Saturn V was a 'multi-gear' rocket. To lift off the pad, all 5 main rockets fired. As altitude increased, the center rocket turned off to minimize stress on the rocket (stay subsonic???)
Space shuttle also has multiple speeds. If you remember the Challenger disaster - the last message from ground was "Go with throttle up" Apparently the shuttle was high enough to go full throttle (again) and not worry about aerodynamic stresses.
One of the issues with the shuttles solid rocket boosters - they are steerable - allowing insertion into a very precise orbit.
Compare that with the typical home built - solid rocket, that basically goes were you point it...usually...give or take a bit.
I worked at NASA 10 years ago and can tell you I have never seen or worked with such a hardworking, under paid (compared to the commercial world) bunch of engineers. Buildings built in the 60s, linoleum tile not matching (patched so many times) - to the point that my wife (a teacher) commented that she used to think schools were in bad shape. All the money goes into the projects.
"It is worth noting the standard the court was using allowed for the petitioners (the parents of the children with autism) to demonstrate âoebiologic plausibilityâ as opposed to direct cause and effect. Scientifically, biological plausibility is an easier standard to meet."
So the courts ruled that it is not even plausible that the vaccines caused autism.
Of course one day there might be a theory and some evidence that changes this ruling.
Take DNA for example. The courts have generally accepted that DNA is a unique identifier and that there are equipment out there that can determine if one sample of DNA matches another. Furthermore, the courts have accepted statistical data on the uniqueness of the DNA sample.
The question on whether the DNA evidence was collected and analyzed properly is typically a case by case issue.
Supreme court said the state determines how electors are picked - and cannot change its mind once the votes are cast (after election day). The only federal issue is that the vote needs to be fair (voters right act etc.) and the election on a given day.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if you can't decrypt the signal, just knowing its there could tell you that a drone is nearby....
Bull.
Try it with any production car. Mash the throttle and hold it back with the brakes. The brakes will win. Period, end of story.
Brake fade can be one of two reasons. Boiling the brake fluid which typically doesn't happen right away. Besides, you are flushing the brake fluid every year right???? and "Pad Fade" where the brake pads themselves overheat to the point they no longer grip the steel rotors or drums.
Try another experiment. On a road, at 50mph, mash the same pedal (in whatever gear) then floor the brakes. You again will stop the car.
Brakes can (at least for a short period of time) absorb about 5x the horsepower that the engine can put out. As long as you ultimately bring the car to a complete stop you will be O.K.
Drive by wire is necessary for things like traction control (or you could have an extra canister and all kinds of levers to disconnect the gasoline). I believe actual throttle position is also modified when the engines use some of the gas mileage techniques like cylinder deactivation. Then there is also cruise control. Having a single actuator on the throttle blade, vs. 3 or more solenoids does simplify things.
Remember, diesel doesn't even have throttle blades.
So, the computer is necessary for the engine to run - the computer must decide how much gas to squirt in and when. If it squirts the gas at the wrong time, or the wrong amount, it could literally destroy your engine (or clog the catalytic converter). So it does that all O.K. but its not to be trusted to monitor the gas pedal position?
Again, as a I posted earlier. The brakes will over power the engine (and you always have neutral).
What gets missed in all these articles is that the brakes on a car can always over power the motor. Take a car like Porsche twin turbo. It decelerates from 100 mph to zero in about 3 seconds. Takes 10+ seconds to get there.
So when you hit the brakes you will slow down. Unless you drive like an idiot, dragging the brakes and overheating to the point they are outgassing so much there is no pad to rotor (or shoe to drum) contact.
So... unless there is indication of a brake failure, PEBAAC is right
Since you found the wikipedia article, do a bit more and look at "Christian Science Monitor". Just because the religion sponsors the paper, doesn't mean the papers articles are influence by the religion. I have found at least the political reporting to very very balance. Never thought to get my 'science' from it though.
I'm not sure what Perp is refering to... but
N2O, aka laughing gas, is used as an oxidizer on some racing engines (curiously, AFAIK, mostly allowed only by amateur level drag). When it enters a hot combustion chamber, the N separates from the O and the O is then available to support the burning of more fuel. N2O is typically injected as a high pressure liquid - almost immediately turning to gas when it his warm engine parts. This is Nitrous Oxide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide
NOx is a smog forming emission from internal combustion engines (among other sources). High heat, availability of oxygen - perhaps some pressure (from engine compression) cause it to form. NOx emissions were first controlled in the late 60s by managing ignition timing and adding exhaust gas recirculation and/or lowering compression ratio (efficiencies) of engines. This is Nitric Oxide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitric_oxide
The EPA articles seem to use the terms interchangeably - moving back and forth. Not sure how much I can trust their analysis.
... Or else you will taunt him some more??? The horrors!
Yes, if you need to grow your business and all you can hire are dumb@$$3$ then yes, stick with Java (or C#).
Then you'll have all the wonderful efficiency of Eclipse (42 threads just to start up!!!!!!!!!!!). (Thank god I have 4 cores and two memory buses!)
And how much of a hit in performance are you taking when garbage collector turns on? How many times a minute does it fire and what happens to all those threads that are blocking? How big is the communication port buffer?
There was a time when people expected computers to be fast. But I guess in the world of web applications that dream will end.
On the flip side, if all you use your computer for is checking e-mail and surfing the web, I guess you can handle the slowness. Buy a portable.
At least when converted to youtube the red and blue image wasn't even in-sync.
Perhaps a whole new compression algorithm.
The problem is the human senses are very sensitive to subtle changes - everything from phase changes in audio to things like frame sync. The original full motion simulator guys figured it out when they missed the motion tracking to video image by a frame or two - everyone got sick. Instant sea sickness.
All in all.
Microsoft has more or less contributed to the ultimate demise of the PC in the work place. Because of all the features, and the lack of reliability stemming from the complexity of all these features, MS has created a maintenance nightmare. Business critical applications are now all web based (at least at my company, everything from HR to shipping to version control etc.). Can't remember the last time I fired up MS Word (I have used Excel).
So why upgrade? What is the one feature that Windows 7 has that I _NEED_?
More secure? What is 'more'? How about rock solid secure to the point I can deploy without special virus protection? Right now XP seems good enough.
Better manageability? Management at this time seems to be locking out users from doing things that are stupid/dangerous and forcing upgrades to cover vulnerabilities. Please see 1st question.
Yes, I know, its good to make fun of NASA and its shuttle program.
I guess it doesn't take long for the public to remember that the space shuttle carries humans and thus is subject to a completely different set of requirements. Loose a Malaysian satellite - who cares, they are insured (BTW the insurance rate is of course based in part on the success/failure rate).
Not to mention the shuttle is in a completely different payload class, and more importantly, it is used with hundreds of thousands of miles on the air frame.
From the bottom of the article "Now 0-for-3, SpaceXâ(TM)s Elon Musk Vows to Make Orbit". While the shuttle has had its failures, its record is slightly better.
Yes, Soychemist, you are an ass.
Or this for an alternative [Jalopnik]
0-210mph in 7 seconds. That works out to 0-60 in about 1 second. That being on a car that can (as claimed in the article) get 11 mpg and runs on normal 'pump' gasoline and utilizes DOT approved tires.
That Corvette is at least the _quickest_ street legal car. I wonder where the top speed would be. At some point the aerodynamics has to make it flat out dangerous to travel at that speed.
Since it is a '63 corvette. That predates many (all?) of the DOT safety requirements so he can, for example, legally replace his seat belts with a 5-point harness. (Yes removing or altering safety equipment is illegal - you need to keep those stock, DOT approved, seat belts). It also pre-dates any emission control regulations.
At one point Maryland (my home state) had a requirement for window defroster. I wonder if the vette needed/has that?
Not just Advil, but 400mg Advil. Prescription only! My god, the rest of the world has to take 2 200mg ones....
This just lays the seeds for anarchy!
Then convert.
While you are at it, benchmark.
... you build one!
If you remember those boxes with 8" screens....
The MAC OS would throw up a message that said something to the effect you were running out of memory (we had 2meg installed instead of max 4). I believe the message said please close some applications (Multi-finder).
Anyway, the natural step was for the user to start deleting icons (ie programs) from the desktop.
Then they would reboot. Then they would notice that some documents couldn't be opened and perhaps notice the icon has changed.
The trouble ticket would be "Can't open a document that I could open yesterday".
Why did they remove MS Word? Because they created all their documents with Word Perfect and only used MS Word to read docs from others (so they never clicked on the icon itself).
This happened so often that we had a server with an 'image' of the standard licensed software that we could drag over at moments notice. At the speed of Appletalk. Probably should have just turned off multi-finder... Oh well.
1) Make sure the deal is truly worth it. For a big corporation the math is something like this - we can buy this startup for 10x and be guaranteed to have working product or we can throw x dollars at it and maybe get something that works - if we find the right people with the right vision etc. They would rather pay the 10x for the sure thing! So lets say 4 guys, 1 man year probably worth a few million easy - with the right sales guy (The CEO of a startup company IS the sales guy) closer to $10 million (assuming you have a product and some IP around it and maybe a few existing customers that will vouch for you).
2) Negotiate your future with the company. They will demand that you stay on-board for at least a year or two, probably 2 if you are technically significant. You salary and position should reflect that (get a contract with very clear termination clauses). You aren't Sr. Software Engineer (for example) you will be "Fellow" etc. Pretty much unfirable - not sure what salary you had in mind, but I suspect 2x is more appropriate. When the company I was with go purchased the CTO got a position for $250K/yr.
3) Bonus structure - You are there for a product/product line. Bonus structure to reflect hitting milestones.
So...
Pros - funding to do more of what you like. Yes the company will have some control (they probably want things that can help generate revenue - but that just means they want you to create things other people will want - they will find a way to make money off of it).
If you tell them you want to run your group like a startup (work 70hr weeks with no overtime pay) they will agree - just remind them of the bonus structure.
Pros - got make that big meeting up in NY with the President/board of directors? Ask them to send the company jet for you....
Cons- control. You will have an idea and you will effectively have to beg for funding. If the company thinks you are too far off in left field, you may not even have enough funding to buy new laptops - let alone money to buy R&D equipment. New CEO and company priorities can change.
Cons - IT department. Big mega companies want all their computers under control. Long boot-up times, pesky anti-virus, firewalls that don't let you go to certain web sites (be it hacking, porn, politics, guns etc.) Stick with Linux if you can, most IT departments can't even spell it.
Cons - Meetings. There will be 3 layers of management above you. They will all want to know what you are doing and you have to couch it in terms they understand. Each layer will be progressively less technically savvy.
Other things - big companies have big reach (global). A plus or a minus you may be asked to physically go around to different places in the world. Training sessions, product demos etc. Interesting for a while, but can get old.
Resources - big companies have all kinds of resources. From tech writers that will write user manuals for you, to testers that will verify everything is correct. The bad news for production is that they will not lift one finger until you specify, exactly, to ISO9000x standards, how high that finger is to be lifted and what calibrated tools should be used to verify the lift height. Its not that they are too stupid to figure out what needs to be done, they just believe all the people on the shop floor and warehouse are too stupid.
True true. I don't work for Orbital (and haven't for about 10 years) but Orbital was trying to make cheap Communication satellites and bought what was left of Fairchild Space and Defense to help them fix things. It was the Fairchild arm that was supporting NASA not the Orbital side and it was quite the culture clash. The Orbital guys refered to Fairchild as "Jurasic Park" and the Fairchild guys alternatively used "nursery school" or "kindergarten" when talking about Orbital. The difference between dotting every i and cross every t in the NASA world and the bean counters trying to figure out the cheapest way of doing things in the commercial world (Orbital). Hopefully they will find a good balance.
When I was at Fairchild I had to order some standoffs that would allow us to rapidly replace EPROMS. I made the mistake of mentioning that they were gold plated pins on the standoffs. This triggered a quality control issue which turned my $1 standoffs into effectively space flight hardware and dropped them into bonded storage. I couldn't get them out of bonded storage without senior VP permission that essentially relegated them to scrap and O.K. to use on my prototype board - so long as everyone up and down the chain of command swore the parts would never come near an actual space flight (or any other) program. I'm guessing it burned a couple of man-days on that one. Most people would call that 'anal'. Fairchild called that SOP (I'm guessing NASA expected that of them).
It is the same Fairchild based team (or at least the foundations) that worked (and AFAIK still working on) the Hubble repair missions. See the picture at http://www.robotics-research.com/SATBaysmall.jpg for a image of the arm that Fairchild built for the mission. That picture is taken inside the massive clean room at Goddard Space Flight Center. That particular arm has boosted servo motors so that it can work in 1G (at least with light/simulated loads).
NASA had a big robotics research going on in the mid to early 1990s. The big issue was cost. NASA was down sizing the space station and actively seeking other countries to help fund it. For a brief moment, Orbital Sciences won the contract to develop the arm for the space station. It was based on an underseas robot technology - just with much weaker motors and other environmental considerations (zero-g, zero pressure, grease tends to evaporate under zero pressure). Canada piped in and said they would build the arm if NASA pays. NASA essentially said 'nuts' and awarded the contract [eventually] to Orbital, only to pull it back when Canada said, "just kidding we'll pay for it."
So my opportunity to work on a really cool project evaporated.
Few months later Canada came to Orbital trying to figure out how we were going to do it so cheaply. "nuts" to them.
Anyway: http://www.robotics-research.com/ and ultimately: http://www.robotics-research.com/SATBaysmall.jpg
One way to judge is the cost.
If I carry gasoline in the car and burn it for energy, at say 20mpg, I would burn 2 gallons of gas getting to and from work. Cost $4.00
If I charge up a battery pack and drive to and from work, the cost is more like .2kWh per mile or 4kWh. Since the energy is most likely produced by coal or oil (in my area) it would give a pretty good indication on efficiencies.
BTW, KWH is about 15 cents right now with all taxes added.
So something like $.60 (60 cents for those that don't see the decimal point).
Of course the battery powered car probably will not do the satisfying burn out.
Sorry, I took your response to be the typical "government wasting money by buying $700 hammers" (which is a myth anyway).
In NASA, with ever tightening budgets, there is no room for a fat-cat middleman to make huge sums of money.
And yes, I think a good way to spend the stimulus is to invest in NASA. I bet 99% of the money will be spent in the USA paying middle class workers (those that will buy things like new cars). The only question I have is: "Is there something that gives us the same financial return - but gives us better social return?" Like investing in medical equipment research. You get the same middle class income distribution channel - and maybe more relevant benefits to citizens.
Well for now its military 1st, social programs 2nd, Science/NASA a distant whatever (4th? 5th?)
Saturn V was a 'multi-gear' rocket. To lift off the pad, all 5 main rockets fired. As altitude increased, the center rocket turned off to minimize stress on the rocket (stay subsonic???)
Space shuttle also has multiple speeds. If you remember the Challenger disaster - the last message from ground was "Go with throttle up" Apparently the shuttle was high enough to go full throttle (again) and not worry about aerodynamic stresses.
One of the issues with the shuttles solid rocket boosters - they are steerable - allowing insertion into a very precise orbit.
Compare that with the typical home built - solid rocket, that basically goes were you point it...usually...give or take a bit.
I worked at NASA 10 years ago and can tell you I have never seen or worked with such a hardworking, under paid (compared to the commercial world) bunch of engineers. Buildings built in the 60s, linoleum tile not matching (patched so many times) - to the point that my wife (a teacher) commented that she used to think schools were in bad shape. All the money goes into the projects.
Because many vaccines are mandated by law, there was sort of an inusrance fund setup to cover cases of adverse reaction.
From an article:
http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/02/12/court-rules-vaccines-not-to-blame-for-autism/
"It is worth noting the standard the court was using allowed for the petitioners (the parents of the children with autism) to demonstrate âoebiologic plausibilityâ as opposed to direct cause and effect. Scientifically, biological plausibility is an easier standard to meet."
So the courts ruled that it is not even plausible that the vaccines caused autism.
Of course one day there might be a theory and some evidence that changes this ruling.
Did you think before you typed that?
Take DNA for example. The courts have generally accepted that DNA is a unique identifier and that there are equipment out there that can determine if one sample of DNA matches another. Furthermore, the courts have accepted statistical data on the uniqueness of the DNA sample.
The question on whether the DNA evidence was collected and analyzed properly is typically a case by case issue.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frye_test and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daubert_standard
Are you suggesting the courts don't allow scientific evidence and instead rely on ...?
Supreme court said the state determines how electors are picked - and cannot change its mind once the votes are cast (after election day). The only federal issue is that the vote needs to be fair (voters right act etc.) and the election on a given day.