> too much privatization, and not enough oversight
Are you suggesting that the U.S. should produce all of its rockets in-house? That hasn't been the case since, like, the 1950s.
Also, what do you think should have been done differently? He apparently had "Secret" level security clearance, which according to Wikipedia involves the following:
A Secret clearance, also known as Ordinary Secret, requires a few months to a year to fully investigate depending on the individual's activities. Some instances where individuals would take longer than normal to be investigated are many past residences, having residences in foreign countries, or have relatives outside the United States. Bankruptcy and unpaid bills as well as criminal charges will more than likely disqualify an applicant for approval. Poor financial history is the number one cause of rejection, and foreign activities and criminal record are also common causes for disqualification. A Secret clearance requires a National Agency Check, A Local Agency Check, Credit investigation and must be reinvestigated every 10 years.
So, how much would it cost to make a permanent hotel in space? If we don't allow ourselves the luxury of appending it to the ISS, it's going to cost tens of billions of dollars.
Not sure where they get this figure from... Bigelow Aerospace is spending far less than $1 billion dollars total on his private space station, and it isn't going to be attached to the ISS. For those of you unfamiliar with the company, they already have a couple of prototype habitats up in orbit now (launched in 2006 and 2007) sending back data, and will be launching the modules for their commercial space station in the next few years.
Of course, a "hotel" is only one of the marketed uses for it; the impression I get is that Bigelow is much more interested in renting modules for research purposes to interested nations and companies.
You lost me at POTUS and OJT. If you want to say something just say it, please. Don't assume everyone knows your wacky abbreviations. No, I won't google it.
POTUS: President of the United States
OJT: On-the-job training (I actually didn't know this one myself)
Obama has certainly taken the crown in the Democratic campaign as "the candidate making best use of the internet."
Actually, what's interesting is that the video was entirely supporter-created, not created by the campaign. In an interview they mentioned that they didn't even know if Obama had seen the video himself.
Take, for example, this clip I saw yesterday. Not sure exactly who is behind it, but the message is inspiring and - frankly - can melt through the icy cynicism of the Grinchiest Clintonite.
It's not just Clintonites that were impressed by the video. Via Daily Kos, some quoted comments from Conservative forum site redstate.com about the video:
I don't care if you are the biggest Obama hater out there -- you WILL think this video is cool. Obama's "Yes we can" speech in New Hampshire was historically memorable. This video cements the inspiration found in his words. He may be full of hopeful air but if you take the speech in a more personal way, it can certainly rustle something good in your heart....
Give credit where due with Obama. I dont agree with him on much of anything, but I must admit I like the guy. I dont feel the gut-wrenching, sickness and dread at the words "President Obama" that the words "President Clinton" invoke.
I have often said when talking at work and school with friends that an Obama Presidency would be tolerable because of one thing; the progression of race dialog in the nation. He would do a lot of healing.
Obama is not without his weaknesses, but he's a good speaker, rallies the crowd, and actually comes across as a nice guy. As to the electability issue, I think either McCain or Romney could beat Clinton (though McCain has an edge), but Obama would likely beat either, and possibly by a significant margin.
The more I watch Obama, the more I like him. If only he weren't a Democrat.
I see him as cultural leader. The world needs people like Obama - who represent a genuine spirit of optimism. Optimism, however wonderful and necessary, can be unrealistic. (I'm not a pessimist - just a realist!) He is refreshing - what people want to hear after these years of war and terrorism. But that is why an Obama presidency would be a decision based on instant gratification. We want peace and change and hope NOW.
2008 is going to be tough for the GOP. Obama will defeat us and will help elect Democrats up and down the ticket all over the country.
NASA wants two separate companies to develop two separate vehicles capable of unmanned resupply of the ISS in a very short time frame. Now, this is an agency that has access to literally DOZENS of off the shelf rockets. None of them will do.
Actually, two of the four finalists are proposing to use those already-existing off-the-shelf rockets you mention. If I understand correctly, both Spacehab and PlanetSpace have partnered with Lockheed Martin in order to use their currently-existing rockets.
For future reference, since it wasn't mentioned in the original submission, here are the four finalists (info from rlvnews.com:
Basically, they were started up back in the late 90s, but went into bankruptcy when the economy tanked. Rocketplane bought them and attempted to resuscitate them for COTS, but they were unable to get the sufficient private funds that NASA's milestone required. They attempted to sue NASA to get more money despite not meeting the milestone, but weren't successful.
Until then though, let's let the governments "waste" their money by developing them themselves, ok?
Erm, that's actually what NASA is doing: They're spending several billion dollars on cost-plus contracts to have the Ares rockets developed according to their specifications. COTS is basically a side-bet, with them spending a total of $500 million (which will only get paid if the companies meet pre-specified milestones) on the chance that private industry will be able to develop their own rockets which can meet NASA's needs.
The funny thing is, it's looking like the side-bet is doing better than the house's bet right now. SpaceX already has a few test flights under their belt; they didn't make it to orbit, but they have a good idea of what the problems were and fixed them. They also had a multi-engine test firing in preparation for their medium/heavy-lift Falcon 9 rocket earlier this week. Meanwhile, it's looking like Ares is running into some fundamental design problems; there are of course possible fixes, but they may very well end up having such a large weight penalty that the usefulness of Ares will be largely impacted.
So yeah, it looks like (as you desire) the government is wasting more than enough money to develop a solution themselves, but it's looking quite fortunate that they also took a small chance on private industry.
Heh, this reminds me quite a bit of the "Bone Wars" back in the 1800s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Wars
The Bone Wars were an infamous period in the history of paleontology when the two pre-eminent paleontologists of the time, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, competed to see who could find the most, and more sensational, new species of dinosaur. This competition was marred by bribery, politics, violations of American Indian territories and virulent personal attacks....
But their discoveries were accompanied by sensational accusations of spying, stealing workers, stealing fossils, and bribery. Among other things Cope repeatedly accused Marsh of stealing fossils, and was so angry that he stole a train full of Marsh's fossils, and had it sent to Philadelphia. Marsh, in turn, was so determined that he stole skulls from American Indian burial platforms and violated treaties by trespassing on their land. He was also so protective of his fossil sites that he even used dynamite on one to prevent it from falling into Cope's hands.
Clement Hamani, MD, PhD 1, Mary Pat McAndrews, PhD 2, Melanie Cohn, PhD 2, Michael Oh, MD 1, Dominik Zumsteg, MD 3, Colin M. Shapiro, MD, PhD, FRCPC 4, Richard A. Wennberg, MD, FRCPC 3, Andres M. Lozano, MD, PhD, FRCSC
Bilateral hypothalamic deep brain stimulation was performed to treat a patient with morbid obesity. We observed, quite unexpectedly, that stimulation evoked detailed autobiographical memories. Associative memory tasks conducted in a double-blinded on versus off manner demonstrated that stimulation increased recollection but not familiarity-based recognition, indicating a functional engagement of the hippocampus. Electroencephalographic source localization showed that hypothalamic deep brain stimulation drove activity in mesial temporal lobe structures. This shows that hypothalamic stimulation in this patient modulates limbic activity and improves certain memory functions. Ann Neurol 2008;63:119-123 Received: 5 July 2007; Revised: 31 August 2007; Accepted: 4 October 2007
The nazi's had your approach, they believed that killing people if it might save others was a good idea, especially if the people were being killed were less worthy anyway.
I'm sorry, but WTF are you talking about? The person you're responded to said nothing about wanting to test drugs on his father against his will. As it is now, terminally ill patients can't even get access to drugs that haven't gone through the lengthy process of federal approval yet, even if they explicitly want to take the risk (since they're dying anyways).
Even if the medicine your father would get would really work, the only way to be certain is dissection, your father would have to be killed after the experimental drugs were administred to be certain it was the drugs that cured him and not something else.
Wow, all participants in clinical trials are dissected afterwards? That's news to me.
I guess I'm just a cynical bastard now, but having weasel words in a story like this whispers, "snake oil" or, "wishful thinking" to me.
Uh, they're scientists engaging in very preliminary research, and you're criticizing them because they're being honest about how experimental it is? They aren't making any medical claims whatsoever. They're just basically saying "we found this interesting result in rats, let's see if it also applies to humans."
Call me when it's actually curing Alzheimers in a no-shit, double-blind, randomized study with more than a handful of participants.
Well yes, I'm sure if their next stage of research confirms their findings, that's the eventual plan. We'll be sure to call you when their research is complete.
Does infrared light have the ability to pass through the skull ?... sounds like snake oil to me... I'll stick with my pyramid hat.
Yes, infrared light can pass through the skull. In fact, there's a technique called fNIR (functional near-infrared spectroscopy) which uses a system of IR emitters and detectors to measure brain activity. Some links:
I have been saying *all along* that Bush's Space proposal is *pure* vapor. He mentioned it once to leave a scant legacy, he never mentioned it again, and he very trivially increased NASA's budget.
The problem is that Bush is so unpopular that having him publicly support it would damage the effort, if anything. Also, the whole point isn't to do it with an increased budget, but rather pursue it using the funds diverted from retiring the space shuttle.
That said, even though I think the initial idea was good, Michael Griffin's implementation (e.g. Ares I) has been pretty disastrous.
Mm... not exactly. Perhaps you're thinking of PLoS Biology? Articles submitted to PLoS ONE undergo some very cursory peer review, but in a sense it's undergoing it's primary peer review -now-, with the article out in the open and readers commenting on it. From a news item in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7123/full/445009a.html
Every paper submitted to the journal is reviewed by at least one member of PLoS One's editorial board of over 200 researchers, but only to check for serious flaws in the way the experiment was conducted and analysed. In contrast to almost all other journals, referees ignore the significance of the result. Notable papers will instead be highlighted by the attention they attract after publication.
Visitors to the PLoS One website can, for example, attach comments to specific parts of a paper and rate the paper as a whole. Data from those systems, as well as download and citation statistics, will then allow PLoS One's editors to identify and promote the papers that researchers are talking about. "We're trying to make a journal where papers are not the end point, they are the start of a discussion," says PLoS One managing editor Chris Surridge, based in Cambridge, UK.
What exactly is the issue? The problem is that any structure has a resonant frequency at which it naturally vibrates. If you excite the structure at that frequency, you can develop a positive-feedback system that will literally shake it apart (the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is the classic example).
Solid rocket motors don't run particularly smoothly (compared to well-designed or even poorly designed liquids) and large solid motors provide a very rough ride. Everyone who has ever ridden the Shuttle to orbit has commented on how much smoother the ride gets after staging the SRBs.
Now, one way to mitigate this is to damp it out with a large mass. The Shuttle does this by its nature, because even though it has two of the things, they are not directly attached to the orbiter--they are attached to a large external tank with one and a half million pounds of liquid propellants in it, and it can absorb a lot of the vibration. Moreover, the large mass has a frequency that doesn't resonate with the vibration.
As I understand it (and I could be wrong, and I'm not working Ares, but this is based on discussions, many off the record and all on background with insiders on the program), there is a very real concern that the upper stage on top of the SRB in "the Stick" will be excited at a resonant frequency, but that even if not, the stage will be too small to damp the vibrations of the huge SRB below.
If this is the case, there is no simple solution. You can't arbitrarily change the mass of the upper stage--that is determined by the mission requirement. Any solution is going to involve damping systems independent of the basic structure that are sure to add weight to a launch vehicle that is already, according to most reports, underperforming. Or it will involve beefing up the structure of the upper stage and the Orion itself so that they can sustain the acoustic vibration loads. In the case of the latter, it is already overweight, with low margins.
So this constitutes a major program risk, that could result in either cancellation, or a complete redesign (that no longer represents the original concept, because the problem is fundamentally intrinsic to it).
Now, let's take apart the response a little:
Thrust oscillation is...a risk. It is being reviewed, and a mitigation plan is being developed. NASA is committed to resolve this issue prior to the Ares I Project's preliminary design review, currently scheduled for late 2008.
The problem is that NASA can "commit" to resolve it until the cows come home, but if it's not resolvable, it's not resolvable. They can't rescind the laws of physics, and we're approaching a couple of anniversaries of times when they attempted to do that, with tragic results.
Now this next part is (to put it mildly) annoying:
NASA has given careful consideration to many different launch concepts (shuttle-derived, evolved expendable launch vehicle, etc.) over several years. This activity culminated with release of the Exploration Systems Architecture Study in 2005. Since then, the baseline architecture has been improved to decrease life cycle costs significantly.
NASA's analysis backs up the fact that the Ares family enables the safest, least expensive launch architecture to meet requirements for missions to the International Space Station, the moon and Mars. NASA is not contemplating alternatives to the current approach.
The problem is that NASA didn't give "careful consideration" to the previous analyses after Mike Griffin came in. As far as can be determined, all of the analysis performed under Admiral Steidle's multiple CE&R contracts, performe
Is an automated drilling/mining/processing plant. There are mineral deposits up there. If we could go up there and have the materials made on site, so we only needed to set up the base, a long term moon base would be fairly cheap.
NASA's Centennial Challenges is actually funding a competition to extract oxygen from mock-regolith later this year:
http://centennialchallenges.nasa.gov/cc_challenges.htm#moonrox
The MoonROx Challenge is designed to promote the development of processes to extract oxygen from lunar regolith on the scale of a pilot plant. These processes have the potential to contribute significantly to the Vision for Space Exploration and space exploration operations.
The MoonROx Challenge is a "first to demonstrate" competition. The team whose hardware can quickly extract breathable oxygen from a supply of lunar regolith simulant using a steady-state process will win the competition.
The first I can recall is when I was 6-7 years old playing Robot Odyssey on my family's Tandy 1000. It was a really awesome game where you'd program robots via logic gates to accomplish tasks and go through mazes and such. I don't think I ever got past the 2nd level, though.
It turns out that somebody's gone about creating an open-source clone of the game in java, called DroidQuest. It's worth checking out.
I have a very close family member who has been into alternative medicine for some time, but in recent years has become more fervently anti-vaccination/anti-medication. She refuses to take vaccines, and told me that she "couldn't sleep" after she heard that I had taken a flu vaccine this past year. Last time I saw her, she gave me some rubbish literature she had gotten from her chiropractor about how vaccines are full of evil nasty chemicals that will cause various diseases. She refuses to take most medications; recently a doctor diagnosed a potassium deficiency as the cause of heart problems she's suffered for years, but she's refused to take the potassium supplement prescribed to her. The family member also refused to have a diagnostic cardiac catherization performed, saying that she would rather die than go through the procedure. She's also an advocate and seller of products by Mannatech, a multi-level marketing company that sells (literally) sugar pills which its proponents claim cure cancer, Down syndrome, HIV/AIDS, etc.
Does anybody have advice for dealing with people with such a set of beliefs? Of course, one might suggest just ignoring the situation, but I care deeply about this person and very much wish for her to stay alive and well. My attempts so far at discussing things with her have largely just led to her telling me that I'm just repeating what the pharmaceutical companies want me to believe.
It's also worth noting that my family member is a practicing nurse, so her refusal to take vaccines isn't just risking her own health, but that of her patients. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
For a contrary view, here's a quoted critique by Sam Dinkin over at Transterrestrial Musings:
http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/010275.html
It's an ambitious plan that could sharply decelerate CO2 emissions and increase the US output of "green" power. Heroic plans require heroic proof. A critical analysis follows.
Some high level critiques are the following:
* Shifting peak load from day-time to night-time would not occur until solar displaced all natural gas plants and other swing units--i.e., all of excess air-conditioner demand over night-time demand, and all of the additional day-time usage that would occur as the price between day-time and night-time power usage equilibrated. This obviates the need for any wind-storage of solar power until well later.
* Compressed-air energy storage will become less useful as the price gap between day and night power diminishes. This undermines the case for near-term night to day storatge and will only be economical under this plan for day-to-night storage after day-time power is sufficiently cheaper to support the capital outlay. (Ironically since the solar installation is of the hockey-stick variety, compressed air storage may become viable for night-to-day energy storage well before solar becomes a relevant portion of energy supply.)
* Current photovoltaic production is about 2 GW of which US installation is about 8%. The plan calls for 84 GW of US installation by 2020 which would require 45% increases in solar installation every year for 13 years. Capping the installation at 10 GW/year installed, the ramp up becomes 70% per year 2006-2014.
* These growth rates are implausible without a $2.80/watt subsidy taking the installed price of $4/w to $1.20/w which is equivalent to $0.05/kwh. That would mean $234 billion in subsidies just to get to 3% of needed installed capacity by 2050.
* Polysilicon shortages are holding back photovoltaic growth so in 2007 and 2008 a growth rate of 20% is more plausible. That would require doubling production every year from 2009-2014 to hit the installed base of 84 GW by 2020.
* 84 GW by 2020 would be just 16% of average load and with a peak watt of electricity generating only 6 or 7 hours per day in the Southwest, it would be about 5% of total electric power generated.
* For this 5% of energy generated, we would be subsidizing it over 200% of the value of the energy generated--that is for $0.06 of electricity, it would require $0.14 in subsidies.
* At the end of the period, there is no guarantee that prices will be low enough to compete with coal, natural gas, nuclear or wind.
* If solar becomes viable and can compete with other energy types and begins to displace other types of power, prices for those types of power will drop. The total cost of solar will have to beat the marginal cost of coal or nuclear to dismantle an existing plant.
Consider investing in terrestrial solar power for security reasons or as a contingency, but it's a lot of faith to get the case to work for half of daily electricity demand.
I'd personally add Pearls Before Swine and FoxTrot to that list of good newspaper comics. Of course, I actually read those comics almost entirely online.;)
...how the populations (including the military) in some of the more... nervous areas of the globe would react to a suddden blinding light in the sky followed by an enormous blast wave.
A similar scenario actually came relatively close to being reality a few years ago during the India-Pakistan crisis. From a speech Gen. Simon Worden (now head of NASA Ames) gave in 2002:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=8834
A few weeks ago the world almost saw a nuclear war. Pakistan and India were at full alert and poised for a large-scale war - which both sides appeared ready to escalate into nuclear war. The situation was defused - for now! Most of the world knew about this situation and watched and worried. But few know of an event over the Mediterranean in early June of this year that could have had a serious bearing on that outcome. U.S. early warning satellites detected a flash that indicated an energy release comparable to the Hiroshima burst. We see about 30 such bursts per year, but this one was one of the largest we've ever seen. The event was caused by the impact of a small asteroid - probably about 5-10 meters in diameter on the earth's atmosphere. Had you been situated on a vessel directly underneath the intensely bright flash would have been followed by a shock wave that would have rattled the entire ship and possibly caused minor damage.
The event of this June caused little or no notice as far as we can tell. But had it occurred at the same latitude, but a few hours earlier, the result on human affairs might have been much worse. Imagine that the bright flash accompanied by a damaging shock wave had occurred over Delhi, India or Islamabad, Pakistan? Neither of those nations have the sophisticated sensors we do that can determine the difference between a natural NEO impact and a nuclear detonation. The resulting panic in the nuclear-armed and hair-trigger militaries there could have been the spark that would have ignited the nuclear horror we'd avoided for over a half-century. This situation alone should be sufficient to get the world to take notice of the threat of asteroid impact.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you suggesting that the U.S. should produce all of its rockets in-house? That hasn't been the case since, like, the 1950s.
Also, what do you think should have been done differently? He apparently had "Secret" level security clearance, which according to Wikipedia involves the following: A Secret clearance, also known as Ordinary Secret, requires a few months to a year to fully investigate depending on the individual's activities. Some instances where individuals would take longer than normal to be investigated are many past residences, having residences in foreign countries, or have relatives outside the United States. Bankruptcy and unpaid bills as well as criminal charges will more than likely disqualify an applicant for approval. Poor financial history is the number one cause of rejection, and foreign activities and criminal record are also common causes for disqualification. A Secret clearance requires a National Agency Check, A Local Agency Check, Credit investigation and must be reinvestigated every 10 years.
So, how much would it cost to make a permanent hotel in space? If we don't allow ourselves the luxury of appending it to the ISS, it's going to cost tens of billions of dollars.
Not sure where they get this figure from... Bigelow Aerospace is spending far less than $1 billion dollars total on his private space station, and it isn't going to be attached to the ISS. For those of you unfamiliar with the company, they already have a couple of prototype habitats up in orbit now (launched in 2006 and 2007) sending back data, and will be launching the modules for their commercial space station in the next few years.
Of course, a "hotel" is only one of the marketed uses for it; the impression I get is that Bigelow is much more interested in renting modules for research purposes to interested nations and companies.
You lost me at POTUS and OJT. If you want to say something just say it, please. Don't assume everyone knows your wacky abbreviations. No, I won't google it.
POTUS: President of the United States
OJT: On-the-job training (I actually didn't know this one myself)
Actually, what's interesting is that the video was entirely supporter-created, not created by the campaign. In an interview they mentioned that they didn't even know if Obama had seen the video himself.
Take, for example, this clip I saw yesterday. Not sure exactly who is behind it, but the message is inspiring and - frankly - can melt through the icy cynicism of the Grinchiest Clintonite.
It's not just Clintonites that were impressed by the video. Via Daily Kos, some quoted comments from Conservative forum site redstate.com about the video: I don't care if you are the biggest Obama hater out there -- you WILL think this video is cool. Obama's "Yes we can" speech in New Hampshire was historically memorable. This video cements the inspiration found in his words. He may be full of hopeful air but if you take the speech in a more personal way, it can certainly rustle something good in your heart.
Give credit where due with Obama. I dont agree with him on much of anything, but I must admit I like the guy. I dont feel the gut-wrenching, sickness and dread at the words "President Obama" that the words "President Clinton" invoke.
I have often said when talking at work and school with friends that an Obama Presidency would be tolerable because of one thing; the progression of race dialog in the nation. He would do a lot of healing.
Obama is not without his weaknesses, but he's a good speaker, rallies the crowd, and actually comes across as a nice guy. As to the electability issue, I think either McCain or Romney could beat Clinton (though McCain has an edge), but Obama would likely beat either, and possibly by a significant margin.
The more I watch Obama, the more I like him. If only he weren't a Democrat.
I see him as cultural leader. The world needs people like Obama - who represent a genuine spirit of optimism. Optimism, however wonderful and necessary, can be unrealistic. (I'm not a pessimist - just a realist!) He is refreshing - what people want to hear after these years of war and terrorism. But that is why an Obama presidency would be a decision based on instant gratification. We want peace and change and hope NOW.
2008 is going to be tough for the GOP. Obama will defeat us and will help elect Democrats up and down the ticket all over the country.
NASA wants two separate companies to develop two separate vehicles capable of unmanned resupply of the ISS in a very short time frame. Now, this is an agency that has access to literally DOZENS of off the shelf rockets. None of them will do.
Actually, two of the four finalists are proposing to use those already-existing off-the-shelf rockets you mention. If I understand correctly, both Spacehab and PlanetSpace have partnered with Lockheed Martin in order to use their currently-existing rockets.
For future reference, since it wasn't mentioned in the original submission, here are the four finalists (info from rlvnews.com:
- Spacehab
- Andrews Space
- Orbital Sciences
- PlanetSpace
What did Rocketplane Kistler come up with before this breakup?
Here's Kistler's design:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/kislerk1.htm
Basically, they were started up back in the late 90s, but went into bankruptcy when the economy tanked. Rocketplane bought them and attempted to resuscitate them for COTS, but they were unable to get the sufficient private funds that NASA's milestone required. They attempted to sue NASA to get more money despite not meeting the milestone, but weren't successful.
Until then though, let's let the governments "waste" their money by developing them themselves, ok?
Erm, that's actually what NASA is doing: They're spending several billion dollars on cost-plus contracts to have the Ares rockets developed according to their specifications. COTS is basically a side-bet, with them spending a total of $500 million (which will only get paid if the companies meet pre-specified milestones) on the chance that private industry will be able to develop their own rockets which can meet NASA's needs.
The funny thing is, it's looking like the side-bet is doing better than the house's bet right now. SpaceX already has a few test flights under their belt; they didn't make it to orbit, but they have a good idea of what the problems were and fixed them. They also had a multi-engine test firing in preparation for their medium/heavy-lift Falcon 9 rocket earlier this week. Meanwhile, it's looking like Ares is running into some fundamental design problems; there are of course possible fixes, but they may very well end up having such a large weight penalty that the usefulness of Ares will be largely impacted.
So yeah, it looks like (as you desire) the government is wasting more than enough money to develop a solution themselves, but it's looking quite fortunate that they also took a small chance on private industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Wars The Bone Wars were an infamous period in the history of paleontology when the two pre-eminent paleontologists of the time, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, competed to see who could find the most, and more sensational, new species of dinosaur. This competition was marred by bribery, politics, violations of American Indian territories and virulent personal attacks.
But their discoveries were accompanied by sensational accusations of spying, stealing workers, stealing fossils, and bribery. Among other things Cope repeatedly accused Marsh of stealing fossils, and was so angry that he stole a train full of Marsh's fossils, and had it sent to Philadelphia. Marsh, in turn, was so determined that he stole skulls from American Indian burial platforms and violated treaties by trespassing on their land. He was also so protective of his fossil sites that he even used dynamite on one to prevent it from falling into Cope's hands.
Here's a link to the actual report:
http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1158340980371.shtm
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/prep_cyberstormreport_sep06.pdf
From the report, it looks like everything was simulated.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/117902419/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 Memory enhancement induced by hypothalamic/fornix deep brain stimulation
Clement Hamani, MD, PhD 1, Mary Pat McAndrews, PhD 2, Melanie Cohn, PhD 2, Michael Oh, MD 1, Dominik Zumsteg, MD 3, Colin M. Shapiro, MD, PhD, FRCPC 4, Richard A. Wennberg, MD, FRCPC 3, Andres M. Lozano, MD, PhD, FRCSC
Bilateral hypothalamic deep brain stimulation was performed to treat a patient with morbid obesity. We observed, quite unexpectedly, that stimulation evoked detailed autobiographical memories. Associative memory tasks conducted in a double-blinded on versus off manner demonstrated that stimulation increased recollection but not familiarity-based recognition, indicating a functional engagement of the hippocampus. Electroencephalographic source localization showed that hypothalamic deep brain stimulation drove activity in mesial temporal lobe structures. This shows that hypothalamic stimulation in this patient modulates limbic activity and improves certain memory functions. Ann Neurol 2008;63:119-123
Received: 5 July 2007; Revised: 31 August 2007; Accepted: 4 October 2007
"Please do not shine flashlight into remaining face"
I wonder how useful it would be for self-defense. It's tricky trying to assault somebody if you can't even look in their direction.
The nazi's had your approach, they believed that killing people if it might save others was a good idea, especially if the people were being killed were less worthy anyway.
I'm sorry, but WTF are you talking about? The person you're responded to said nothing about wanting to test drugs on his father against his will. As it is now, terminally ill patients can't even get access to drugs that haven't gone through the lengthy process of federal approval yet, even if they explicitly want to take the risk (since they're dying anyways).
Even if the medicine your father would get would really work, the only way to be certain is dissection, your father would have to be killed after the experimental drugs were administred to be certain it was the drugs that cured him and not something else.
Wow, all participants in clinical trials are dissected afterwards? That's news to me.
I guess I'm just a cynical bastard now, but having weasel words in a story like this whispers, "snake oil" or, "wishful thinking" to me.
Uh, they're scientists engaging in very preliminary research, and you're criticizing them because they're being honest about how experimental it is? They aren't making any medical claims whatsoever. They're just basically saying "we found this interesting result in rats, let's see if it also applies to humans."
Call me when it's actually curing Alzheimers in a no-shit, double-blind, randomized study with more than a handful of participants.
Well yes, I'm sure if their next stage of research confirms their findings, that's the eventual plan. We'll be sure to call you when their research is complete.
Does infrared light have the ability to pass through the skull ?... sounds like snake oil to me... I'll stick with my pyramid hat.
Yes, infrared light can pass through the skull. In fact, there's a technique called fNIR (functional near-infrared spectroscopy) which uses a system of IR emitters and detectors to measure brain activity. Some links:
http://www.lab-times.org/methods/m_07_03.html
http://www.biomed.drexel.edu/fnir/Contents/brain_imaging/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FNIR
I have been saying *all along* that Bush's Space proposal is *pure* vapor. He mentioned it once to leave a scant legacy, he never mentioned it again, and he very trivially increased NASA's budget.
The problem is that Bush is so unpopular that having him publicly support it would damage the effort, if anything. Also, the whole point isn't to do it with an increased budget, but rather pursue it using the funds diverted from retiring the space shuttle.
That said, even though I think the initial idea was good, Michael Griffin's implementation (e.g. Ares I) has been pretty disastrous.
Mm... not exactly. Perhaps you're thinking of PLoS Biology? Articles submitted to PLoS ONE undergo some very cursory peer review, but in a sense it's undergoing it's primary peer review -now-, with the article out in the open and readers commenting on it. From a news item in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7123/full/445009a.html Every paper submitted to the journal is reviewed by at least one member of PLoS One's editorial board of over 200 researchers, but only to check for serious flaws in the way the experiment was conducted and analysed. In contrast to almost all other journals, referees ignore the significance of the result. Notable papers will instead be highlighted by the attention they attract after publication.
Visitors to the PLoS One website can, for example, attach comments to specific parts of a paper and rate the paper as a whole. Data from those systems, as well as download and citation statistics, will then allow PLoS One's editors to identify and promote the papers that researchers are talking about. "We're trying to make a journal where papers are not the end point, they are the start of a discussion," says PLoS One managing editor Chris Surridge, based in Cambridge, UK.
http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/010396.html#010396
What exactly is the issue? The problem is that any structure has a resonant frequency at which it naturally vibrates. If you excite the structure at that frequency, you can develop a positive-feedback system that will literally shake it apart (the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is the classic example).
Solid rocket motors don't run particularly smoothly (compared to well-designed or even poorly designed liquids) and large solid motors provide a very rough ride. Everyone who has ever ridden the Shuttle to orbit has commented on how much smoother the ride gets after staging the SRBs.
Now, one way to mitigate this is to damp it out with a large mass. The Shuttle does this by its nature, because even though it has two of the things, they are not directly attached to the orbiter--they are attached to a large external tank with one and a half million pounds of liquid propellants in it, and it can absorb a lot of the vibration. Moreover, the large mass has a frequency that doesn't resonate with the vibration.
As I understand it (and I could be wrong, and I'm not working Ares, but this is based on discussions, many off the record and all on background with insiders on the program), there is a very real concern that the upper stage on top of the SRB in "the Stick" will be excited at a resonant frequency, but that even if not, the stage will be too small to damp the vibrations of the huge SRB below.
If this is the case, there is no simple solution. You can't arbitrarily change the mass of the upper stage--that is determined by the mission requirement. Any solution is going to involve damping systems independent of the basic structure that are sure to add weight to a launch vehicle that is already, according to most reports, underperforming. Or it will involve beefing up the structure of the upper stage and the Orion itself so that they can sustain the acoustic vibration loads. In the case of the latter, it is already overweight, with low margins.
So this constitutes a major program risk, that could result in either cancellation, or a complete redesign (that no longer represents the original concept, because the problem is fundamentally intrinsic to it).
Now, let's take apart the response a little:
Thrust oscillation is...a risk. It is being reviewed, and a mitigation plan is being developed. NASA is committed to resolve this issue prior to the Ares I Project's preliminary design review, currently scheduled for late 2008.
The problem is that NASA can "commit" to resolve it until the cows come home, but if it's not resolvable, it's not resolvable. They can't rescind the laws of physics, and we're approaching a couple of anniversaries of times when they attempted to do that, with tragic results.
Now this next part is (to put it mildly) annoying:
NASA has given careful consideration to many different launch concepts (shuttle-derived, evolved expendable launch vehicle, etc.) over several years. This activity culminated with release of the Exploration Systems Architecture Study in 2005. Since then, the baseline architecture has been improved to decrease life cycle costs significantly.
NASA's analysis backs up the fact that the Ares family enables the safest, least expensive launch architecture to meet requirements for missions to the International Space Station, the moon and Mars. NASA is not contemplating alternatives to the current approach.
The problem is that NASA didn't give "careful consideration" to the previous analyses after Mike Griffin came in. As far as can be determined, all of the analysis performed under Admiral Steidle's multiple CE&R contracts, performe
NASA's Centennial Challenges is actually funding a competition to extract oxygen from mock-regolith later this year:
http://centennialchallenges.nasa.gov/cc_challenges.htm#moonrox The MoonROx Challenge is designed to promote the development of processes to extract oxygen from lunar regolith on the scale of a pilot plant. These processes have the potential to contribute significantly to the Vision for Space Exploration and space exploration operations.
The MoonROx Challenge is a "first to demonstrate" competition. The team whose hardware can quickly extract breathable oxygen from a supply of lunar regolith simulant using a steady-state process will win the competition.
The first I can recall is when I was 6-7 years old playing Robot Odyssey on my family's Tandy 1000. It was a really awesome game where you'd program robots via logic gates to accomplish tasks and go through mazes and such. I don't think I ever got past the 2nd level, though.
It turns out that somebody's gone about creating an open-source clone of the game in java, called DroidQuest. It's worth checking out.
I have a very close family member who has been into alternative medicine for some time, but in recent years has become more fervently anti-vaccination/anti-medication. She refuses to take vaccines, and told me that she "couldn't sleep" after she heard that I had taken a flu vaccine this past year. Last time I saw her, she gave me some rubbish literature she had gotten from her chiropractor about how vaccines are full of evil nasty chemicals that will cause various diseases. She refuses to take most medications; recently a doctor diagnosed a potassium deficiency as the cause of heart problems she's suffered for years, but she's refused to take the potassium supplement prescribed to her. The family member also refused to have a diagnostic cardiac catherization performed, saying that she would rather die than go through the procedure. She's also an advocate and seller of products by Mannatech, a multi-level marketing company that sells (literally) sugar pills which its proponents claim cure cancer, Down syndrome, HIV/AIDS, etc.
Does anybody have advice for dealing with people with such a set of beliefs? Of course, one might suggest just ignoring the situation, but I care deeply about this person and very much wish for her to stay alive and well. My attempts so far at discussing things with her have largely just led to her telling me that I'm just repeating what the pharmaceutical companies want me to believe.
It's also worth noting that my family member is a practicing nurse, so her refusal to take vaccines isn't just risking her own health, but that of her patients. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
What does it say about the outcome of the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray battle? I want to buy my player now!
I don't know about Google, but the latest bid on Intrade's real-money market that "Blu-Ray Disc sales will outnumber HD-DVD disc sales in the US in 2008" is 85.0 out of 100. Popular Science's fake-money market is $87 out of $100 for "Will Toshiba stop manufacturing HD-DVD machines by the end of 2009?".
http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/010275.html It's an ambitious plan that could sharply decelerate CO2 emissions and increase the US output of "green" power. Heroic plans require heroic proof. A critical analysis follows.
Some high level critiques are the following:
* Shifting peak load from day-time to night-time would not occur until solar displaced all natural gas plants and other swing units--i.e., all of excess air-conditioner demand over night-time demand, and all of the additional day-time usage that would occur as the price between day-time and night-time power usage equilibrated. This obviates the need for any wind-storage of solar power until well later.
* Compressed-air energy storage will become less useful as the price gap between day and night power diminishes. This undermines the case for near-term night to day storatge and will only be economical under this plan for day-to-night storage after day-time power is sufficiently cheaper to support the capital outlay. (Ironically since the solar installation is of the hockey-stick variety, compressed air storage may become viable for night-to-day energy storage well before solar becomes a relevant portion of energy supply.)
* Current photovoltaic production is about 2 GW of which US installation is about 8%. The plan calls for 84 GW of US installation by 2020 which would require 45% increases in solar installation every year for 13 years. Capping the installation at 10 GW/year installed, the ramp up becomes 70% per year 2006-2014.
* These growth rates are implausible without a $2.80/watt subsidy taking the installed price of $4/w to $1.20/w which is equivalent to $0.05/kwh. That would mean $234 billion in subsidies just to get to 3% of needed installed capacity by 2050.
* Polysilicon shortages are holding back photovoltaic growth so in 2007 and 2008 a growth rate of 20% is more plausible. That would require doubling production every year from 2009-2014 to hit the installed base of 84 GW by 2020.
* 84 GW by 2020 would be just 16% of average load and with a peak watt of electricity generating only 6 or 7 hours per day in the Southwest, it would be about 5% of total electric power generated.
* For this 5% of energy generated, we would be subsidizing it over 200% of the value of the energy generated--that is for $0.06 of electricity, it would require $0.14 in subsidies.
* At the end of the period, there is no guarantee that prices will be low enough to compete with coal, natural gas, nuclear or wind.
* If solar becomes viable and can compete with other energy types and begins to displace other types of power, prices for those types of power will drop. The total cost of solar will have to beat the marginal cost of coal or nuclear to dismantle an existing plant.
Consider investing in terrestrial solar power for security reasons or as a contingency, but it's a lot of faith to get the case to work for half of daily electricity demand.
I'd personally add Pearls Before Swine and FoxTrot to that list of good newspaper comics. Of course, I actually read those comics almost entirely online. ;)
A similar scenario actually came relatively close to being reality a few years ago during the India-Pakistan crisis. From a speech Gen. Simon Worden (now head of NASA Ames) gave in 2002:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=8834 A few weeks ago the world almost saw a nuclear war. Pakistan and India were at full alert and poised for a large-scale war - which both sides appeared ready to escalate into nuclear war. The situation was defused - for now! Most of the world knew about this situation and watched and worried. But few know of an event over the Mediterranean in early June of this year that could have had a serious bearing on that outcome. U.S. early warning satellites detected a flash that indicated an energy release comparable to the Hiroshima burst. We see about 30 such bursts per year, but this one was one of the largest we've ever seen. The event was caused by the impact of a small asteroid - probably about 5-10 meters in diameter on the earth's atmosphere. Had you been situated on a vessel directly underneath the intensely bright flash would have been followed by a shock wave that would have rattled the entire ship and possibly caused minor damage.
The event of this June caused little or no notice as far as we can tell. But had it occurred at the same latitude, but a few hours earlier, the result on human affairs might have been much worse. Imagine that the bright flash accompanied by a damaging shock wave had occurred over Delhi, India or Islamabad, Pakistan? Neither of those nations have the sophisticated sensors we do that can determine the difference between a natural NEO impact and a nuclear detonation. The resulting panic in the nuclear-armed and hair-trigger militaries there could have been the spark that would have ignited the nuclear horror we'd avoided for over a half-century. This situation alone should be sufficient to get the world to take notice of the threat of asteroid impact.