If any other single entity was capable of making a robot as polished as ASIMO we'd be seeing it. And we're not.
You mean like Sony's QRIO? It's a significantly smaller robot, but I can't think of a single thing ASIMO does which it doesn't do, and several things ASIMO can't do that QRIO can.
There's a Christian university someplace called Furman University. Supposedly one of their sports teams used to be called the Christian Knights, but now it's just the Paladins.
It's not much, but the Moon has 100 ppm nitrogen and 50 ppm hydrogen. I think whether or not water ice is available on the Moon is also an open question.
Anyways, it's quite possible that not -everything- would be available in situ. However, having available oxygen helps quite a bit in terms of required mass. Heck, about 90% of water's molecular weight is oxygen. For other things you can just import and recycle them.
Morphing Marilyn into Maggie dissociates physical and identity face representations in the brain Pia Rotshtein, Richard N A Henson, Alessandro Treves, Jon Driver, & Raymond J Dolan
How the brain represents different aspects of faces remains controversial. Here we presented subjects with stimuli drawn from morph continua between pairs of famous faces. In the paired presentations, a second face could be identical to the first, could share perceived identity but differ physically (30% along the morph continuum), or could differ physically by the same distance along the continuum (30%) but in the other direction. We show that, behaviorally, subjects are more likely to classify face pairs in the third paired presentation as different and that this effect is more pronounced for subjects who are more familiar with the faces. In functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), inferior occipital gyrus (IOG) shows sensitivity to physical rather than to identity changes, whereas right fusiform gyrus (FFG) shows sensitivity to identity rather than to physical changes. Bilateral anterior temporal regions show sensitivity to identity change that varies with the subjects' pre-experimental familiarity with the faces. These findings provide neurobiological support for a hierarchical model of face perception.
Pardon, but how does that make the research a crock? These areas are associated with expert-level visual analysis of stimuli, of which face recognition is the most prominent example.
Thanks for the response. Could you give me a link to the explanation on your site?
With regards to the engine, I agree that it's somewhat unlikely that an engine as simple as the hybrid rocket used in SpaceShipOne would be an effective means to attain orbital velocities. However, even with SpaceShipOne, Scaled didn't build the engine themselves but acquired it from SpaceDev. Companies like SpaceX and XCOR build engines with higher ISPs -- couldn't they acquire engines from them?
A. Yeah, I actually thought the same way you did until a couple of months ago, when I did some reading up on it. Pouring massive amounts of resources into a vehicle which would be useful -only- as a space station rescue vehicle is silly.
B. Yup, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
C. Quite possible.
Also, I think the fact that it was billed as a rescue vehicle rather than an eventual shuttle replacement was a major factor.
As of now, they have a number of different companies working on creating plans for the overall space architecture and designs for individual vehicles. Some of these companies will be chosen to further pursue these plans, and in 2008 they will have a fly-off competition. As part of this competition, the competitors will launch unmanned versions of their proposed vehicles to indicate their capabilities and spaceworthiness. After this, a prime contractor will be selected to continue on.
in reality, scaling up an SS1-style design to orbit is all but impossible
An honest question: What do you think the show-stoppers are? Is it mounting a more powerful rocket (or just having the reentry vehicle as "cargo")? Is it reinforcing the design to deal with the greater mechanical stresses of orbital reentry? Is it improving the thermal protection system (perhaps to something like Buran's)?
Yeah, he was probably referring to the CEV instead of the CRV. However, you're somewhat mistaken about the Scaled Composites X-38 CRV as being insane. The CRV was a project to create a simple, low-cost vehicle capable of returning crew from orbit. The vehicle was designed using already-existing technology and off-the-shelf equipment. Although the most immediate use of it was to serve as an ISS rescue vehicle, it could have been modified later on to serve as a general-purpose means of ferrying crew to and from orbit. Scaled Composites did an excellent job of producing the airframe,
As for the CEV(Crew Exploration Vehicle) it is a better idea than CRV but I am willing to predict Boeing or Lockheed will win the contract, they will spend billions and billions of dollars, on one design after another(like ISS and space planes), the schedule will drag on for ever and the program will be cancelled around the time they have to start bending metal or launch something.
Yeah, I'm personally also worried about one of those companies winning the contract. My hopes are on t/Space, but I'm not sure if they'll be able to compete head-to-head yet with the aerospace dinosaurs. Hopefully t/Space will at least be able to compete for the 2008 fly-off.
I just want to clarify something: Before this bill was passed, it was essentially illegal for private spaceflight companies to carry paying passengers. The passage of this bill allows for companies to do so, so long as they make sure that innocents on the ground won't be endangered, and that passengers are adequately warned.
Granted, I'm a little worried about some of the compromises which had to be thrown in, but the bill is better than nothing.
The only reason that the costs of launch insurance are so high is because of the extremely limited number of launches which have been done so far. In the absence of solid data, insurance companies estimate risks on the high side to be safe.
In any case, Rutan, Elon Musk, and others are working on designing spacecraft to reach orbit and eventually the moon. They're currently under contract from NASA to develop the plans, but even if they don't get the final VSE contract, I don't see any showstoppers preventing them from being privately funded.
An "out-of-the-box" plan to put a new space habitat in orbit could be a leading contender for saving the Hubble Space Telescope, private-sector analysts say in a proposal being prepared for NASA. The habitat could be used as an emergency safe haven during the Hubble servicing mission, and then could serve as a base for wider commercial and exploratory space travel.
The full proposal is being handed over to the space agency this week, sources told MSNBC.com on condition of anonymity. Independently, the National Academy of Sciences is due on Wednesday to release its own recommendations for repairing Hubble.... In its study, the Aerospace Corp. developed a proposal aimed at keeping astronauts involved in the mission while addressing the space agency's post-Columbia concerns about safety, by adding the provision for the safe-haven module.... The Aerospace Corp. study doesn't confine itself to criticizing NASA's robotic plan, however. It suggest that the shuttle repair option could be restarted with one modification: To accommodate the safety concerns caused by lack of a "safe haven" at the telescope, a special supply module should be launched into space near the telescope "just in case."... As a space haven, the Aerospace Corp. proposes to use a carbon copy of the space station's first Russian-built module, known as the FGB. The FGB-1 was launched into orbit in November 1998 and is now known as the Zarya cargo module. A backup flightworthy spare, FGB-2, is still in storage. For years, the Russians have tried to market it as a commercial module for the space station, and their current plan is to use it as a future space research lab.
But the Aerospace Corp. study suggests that the FGB-2 could be shipped from Russia for blastoff from a more southerly launch site -- perhaps Cape Canaveral in Florida or the European space base in Kourou, French Guyana.
Once in space, small thrusters could keep the module in a trailing orbit, a few hundred miles behind Hubble. At that range, the shuttle could fly between the Hubble and the space module in about a day, with minimal fuel cost.
In this scenario, the shuttle would head for the Hubble as originally planned, inspecting its heat-shielding tiles and panels on the way. If fatal damage is discovered, it would dock with the safe haven instead, and the crew would use the supplies on board to wait out the time it would take to launch a rescue shuttle.
If the shuttle mission proceeds smoothly, the safe haven would be left in orbit.
The open-ended scenario has sparked speculation about further opportunities for orbital space travel. Even if the FGB-2 turns out to be unavailable, some observers say it might be profitable to build the space haven from scratch, then use it for other purposes if NASA doesn't need it.
In fact, one rumor claimed that Robert Bigelow, the Las Vegas hotel magnate who is developing plans for orbital tourism, would build the haven for free, with the caveat that it would revert to his ownership if not needed. Michael Gold, corporate counsel for Bigelow Aerospace in Washington, told MSNBC.com this was untrue.... European and Russian space concerns are among other parties who might make use of an extra orbital module. France and Russia already have made a deal to build a Soyuz launch pad at Kourou, where the European launch consortium Arianespace puts satellites into orbit. Although the deal does not currently extend to human spaceflight, this remains a possibility, Philippe Berterottière, a senior vice president at Arianespace, recently told a White House space commission.
Commercial space companies could conceivably turn such a module into a destination for high-paying, high-flying orbital tourists.
Hey, I'm the guy who submitted the story. I should've made this more explicit in my submission, but this bill is mostly a good thing, as it was required to open the door to launching paying passengers.
That said, I'm somewhat uncertain about the provisions for unrestrained FAA regulation after 8 years, and the regulation of certain aspects after they prove to be dangerous. That could potentially be misused to unfairly restrict the budding industry, but so far the FAA has been quite supportive of private spaceflight.
Anyways, I'd like to give kudos to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif) for proposing this bill (which was originally much less restrictive on private spaceflight) and keeping pressure on it. Frownie faces go to Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn) and a few other House Democrats for trying to kill off the bill, referring to it as having a "tombstone mentality" because it didn't have enough provisions for regulation, and being largely responsible for the 8-year compromise and the provision for regulation after an accident has occurred.
If I understand correctly, the researchers have developed a new adaptive algorithm to use to process brain waves, which has much better performance. In fact, this is the first time that non-invasive techniques have been able to perform at the same level as invasive techniques, actually outperforming in some cases.
Slashdot Mirror
If any other single entity was capable of making a robot as polished as ASIMO we'd be seeing it. And we're not.
You mean like Sony's QRIO? It's a significantly smaller robot, but I can't think of a single thing ASIMO does which it doesn't do, and several things ASIMO can't do that QRIO can.
It's possible to lift a significant payload and launch vehicle over a 100,000 feet using a powered airship technology.
I'm not sure if you already know about them, but JP Aerospace is working on airships which go to orbit.
Here's some related research papers:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=asimo
There's a Christian university someplace called Furman University. Supposedly one of their sports teams used to be called the Christian Knights, but now it's just the Paladins.
It's not much, but the Moon has 100 ppm nitrogen and 50 ppm hydrogen. I think whether or not water ice is available on the Moon is also an open question.
Anyways, it's quite possible that not -everything- would be available in situ. However, having available oxygen helps quite a bit in terms of required mass. Heck, about 90% of water's molecular weight is oxygen. For other things you can just import and recycle them.
But isn't Capgras' Syndrome also responsible in the case where a woman insisted that her poodle was an imposter?
Copied from here
Morphing Marilyn into Maggie dissociates physical and identity face representations in the brain
Pia Rotshtein, Richard N A Henson, Alessandro Treves, Jon Driver, & Raymond J Dolan
How the brain represents different aspects of faces remains controversial. Here we presented subjects with stimuli drawn from morph continua between pairs of famous faces. In the paired presentations, a second face could be identical to the first, could share perceived identity but differ physically (30% along the morph continuum), or could differ physically by the same distance along the continuum (30%) but in the other direction. We show that, behaviorally, subjects are more likely to classify face pairs in the third paired presentation as different and that this effect is more pronounced for subjects who are more familiar with the faces. In functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), inferior occipital gyrus (IOG) shows sensitivity to physical rather than to identity changes, whereas right fusiform gyrus (FFG) shows sensitivity to identity rather than to physical changes. Bilateral anterior temporal regions show sensitivity to identity change that varies with the subjects' pre-experimental familiarity with the faces. These findings provide neurobiological support for a hierarchical model of face perception.
Pardon, but how does that make the research a crock? These areas are associated with expert-level visual analysis of stimuli, of which face recognition is the most prominent example.
Thanks for the response. Could you give me a link to the explanation on your site?
With regards to the engine, I agree that it's somewhat unlikely that an engine as simple as the hybrid rocket used in SpaceShipOne would be an effective means to attain orbital velocities. However, even with SpaceShipOne, Scaled didn't build the engine themselves but acquired it from SpaceDev. Companies like SpaceX and XCOR build engines with higher ISPs -- couldn't they acquire engines from them?
A. Yeah, I actually thought the same way you did until a couple of months ago, when I did some reading up on it. Pouring massive amounts of resources into a vehicle which would be useful -only- as a space station rescue vehicle is silly.
B. Yup, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
C. Quite possible.
Also, I think the fact that it was billed as a rescue vehicle rather than an eventual shuttle replacement was a major factor.
As of now, they have a number of different companies working on creating plans for the overall space architecture and designs for individual vehicles. Some of these companies will be chosen to further pursue these plans, and in 2008 they will have a fly-off competition. As part of this competition, the competitors will launch unmanned versions of their proposed vehicles to indicate their capabilities and spaceworthiness. After this, a prime contractor will be selected to continue on.
in reality, scaling up an SS1-style design to orbit is all but impossible
An honest question: What do you think the show-stoppers are? Is it mounting a more powerful rocket (or just having the reentry vehicle as "cargo")? Is it reinforcing the design to deal with the greater mechanical stresses of orbital reentry? Is it improving the thermal protection system (perhaps to something like Buran's)?
How are they going to steal, deliver late, and underperform to win a government-funded prize?
Yeah, he was probably referring to the CEV instead of the CRV. However, you're somewhat mistaken about the Scaled Composites X-38 CRV as being insane. The CRV was a project to create a simple, low-cost vehicle capable of returning crew from orbit. The vehicle was designed using already-existing technology and off-the-shelf equipment. Although the most immediate use of it was to serve as an ISS rescue vehicle, it could have been modified later on to serve as a general-purpose means of ferrying crew to and from orbit. Scaled Composites did an excellent job of producing the airframe,
As for the CEV(Crew Exploration Vehicle) it is a better idea than CRV but I am willing to predict Boeing or Lockheed will win the contract, they will spend billions and billions of dollars, on one design after another(like ISS and space planes), the schedule will drag on for ever and the program will be cancelled around the time they have to start bending metal or launch something.
Yeah, I'm personally also worried about one of those companies winning the contract. My hopes are on t/Space, but I'm not sure if they'll be able to compete head-to-head yet with the aerospace dinosaurs. Hopefully t/Space will at least be able to compete for the 2008 fly-off.
He wasn't referring to Americans, but Christian Scientists.
I just want to clarify something: Before this bill was passed, it was essentially illegal for private spaceflight companies to carry paying passengers. The passage of this bill allows for companies to do so, so long as they make sure that innocents on the ground won't be endangered, and that passengers are adequately warned.
Granted, I'm a little worried about some of the compromises which had to be thrown in, but the bill is better than nothing.
The only reason that the costs of launch insurance are so high is because of the extremely limited number of launches which have been done so far. In the absence of solid data, insurance companies estimate risks on the high side to be safe.
In any case, Rutan, Elon Musk, and others are working on designing spacecraft to reach orbit and eventually the moon. They're currently under contract from NASA to develop the plans, but even if they don't get the final VSE contract, I don't see any showstoppers preventing them from being privately funded.
How a 'safe haven' could help save Hubble: Study suggests launching module to shelter astronauts in emergency
... ... ...
...
Some snippings:
An "out-of-the-box" plan to put a new space habitat in orbit could be a leading contender for saving the Hubble Space Telescope, private-sector analysts say in a proposal being prepared for NASA. The habitat could be used as an emergency safe haven during the Hubble servicing mission, and then could serve as a base for wider commercial and exploratory space travel.
The full proposal is being handed over to the space agency this week, sources told MSNBC.com on condition of anonymity. Independently, the National Academy of Sciences is due on Wednesday to release its own recommendations for repairing Hubble.
In its study, the Aerospace Corp. developed a proposal aimed at keeping astronauts involved in the mission while addressing the space agency's post-Columbia concerns about safety, by adding the provision for the safe-haven module.
The Aerospace Corp. study doesn't confine itself to criticizing NASA's robotic plan, however. It suggest that the shuttle repair option could be restarted with one modification: To accommodate the safety concerns caused by lack of a "safe haven" at the telescope, a special supply module should be launched into space near the telescope "just in case."
As a space haven, the Aerospace Corp. proposes to use a carbon copy of the space station's first Russian-built module, known as the FGB. The FGB-1 was launched into orbit in November 1998 and is now known as the Zarya cargo module. A backup flightworthy spare, FGB-2, is still in storage. For years, the Russians have tried to market it as a commercial module for the space station, and their current plan is to use it as a future space research lab.
But the Aerospace Corp. study suggests that the FGB-2 could be shipped from Russia for blastoff from a more southerly launch site -- perhaps Cape Canaveral in Florida or the European space base in Kourou, French Guyana.
Once in space, small thrusters could keep the module in a trailing orbit, a few hundred miles behind Hubble. At that range, the shuttle could fly between the Hubble and the space module in about a day, with minimal fuel cost.
In this scenario, the shuttle would head for the Hubble as originally planned, inspecting its heat-shielding tiles and panels on the way. If fatal damage is discovered, it would dock with the safe haven instead, and the crew would use the supplies on board to wait out the time it would take to launch a rescue shuttle.
If the shuttle mission proceeds smoothly, the safe haven would be left in orbit.
The open-ended scenario has sparked speculation about further opportunities for orbital space travel. Even if the FGB-2 turns out to be unavailable, some observers say it might be profitable to build the space haven from scratch, then use it for other purposes if NASA doesn't need it.
In fact, one rumor claimed that Robert Bigelow, the Las Vegas hotel magnate who is developing plans for orbital tourism, would build the haven for free, with the caveat that it would revert to his ownership if not needed. Michael Gold, corporate counsel for Bigelow Aerospace in Washington, told MSNBC.com this was untrue.
European and Russian space concerns are among other parties who might make use of an extra orbital module. France and Russia already have made a deal to build a Soyuz launch pad at Kourou, where the European launch consortium Arianespace puts satellites into orbit. Although the deal does not currently extend to human spaceflight, this remains a possibility, Philippe Berterottière, a senior vice president at Arianespace, recently told a White House space commission.
Commercial space companies could conceivably turn such a module into a destination for high-paying, high-flying orbital tourists.
Looking farth
One potential problem is that they still have to pay to send a mission to deorbit Hubble safely.
Hey, I'm the guy who submitted the story. I should've made this more explicit in my submission, but this bill is mostly a good thing, as it was required to open the door to launching paying passengers.
That said, I'm somewhat uncertain about the provisions for unrestrained FAA regulation after 8 years, and the regulation of certain aspects after they prove to be dangerous. That could potentially be misused to unfairly restrict the budding industry, but so far the FAA has been quite supportive of private spaceflight.
Anyways, I'd like to give kudos to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif) for proposing this bill (which was originally much less restrictive on private spaceflight) and keeping pressure on it. Frownie faces go to Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn) and a few other House Democrats for trying to kill off the bill, referring to it as having a "tombstone mentality" because it didn't have enough provisions for regulation, and being largely responsible for the 8-year compromise and the provision for regulation after an accident has occurred.
http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/
If I understand correctly, the researchers have developed a new adaptive algorithm to use to process brain waves, which has much better performance. In fact, this is the first time that non-invasive techniques have been able to perform at the same level as invasive techniques, actually outperforming in some cases.
But between the article, what I've seen elsewhere online, and the replies I've gotten, there's a whole bunch of conflicting answers.
The point of Network Theory or Physics is not to prove that you can do calculus.
No, but part of the point of it (at least with physics) is to give you additional exercise in your mathematical abilities.