To save costs, China, Russia and the ESA should also be involved in the missions.
This announcement basically guarantees that'll never happen. 'Abandon the iss' is the tone of the announcement, and sets the tone for all other organizations on what to expect when co-operating with NASA.
This whole announcement is a wonderful example of pork barrel politics, with a wonderful spin for the media. There's a billion dollars in pork there, and it's all gonna get spent on beaurcracy within the program, the majority of it in the Houston area. By the time that billion dollars is spent, NASA will have a lot more managers, a few more engineers, and they _might_ be halfway thru feasability studies. That billion dollars is gonna have to increase annually, just to keep the beaurocracy running.
If Bush was serious about going to the moon, and not about pork barrel politics, he woulda handed that billion dollars to Rutan and his crowd, the folks now creeping up on claiming the X-Prize. Give them 5 years and a billion dollars, they'll bring you back the steering wheel of a lunar rover. NASA wont even get past 'studies' with that kind of funding.
Thanks to Slashdot, downloading Maestro also provides a vividly real simulation of the long months of space travel between Earth and Mars.
Actually, the site is now a semi-accurate representation of data rates between mars orbital/lander hardware and earth. Depending on which transmitter/antenna combinations are in use at any given time, the data rates vary from 3500 baud to 128kb, with occaisional data void periods of 8 to 16 hours due to lack of signal.
But, like any well thought out mission, the website had a backup plan, and now they have a minimal plain text home page showing, with just links to the download files. Dunno if they had this already mapped out as a contingency for/., or if they adapted on the fly, either way, shows they are on top of the situation...
This has been done already, saw it with my own eyes today. Was in a shopping mall, and there it was, side by side, 2 santas, each with kids on thier lap.
They have some digital pictures from mars. Read the articles carefully, there's no mention of camera calibrations, and they do not rule out the possibility of 'camera noise', which is indicative of non availability of camera calibration data. There is no mention of the possibility of transmission noise on the long haul back to earth from there, altho it's possible the digital system in use is error free.
Look carefully at the data presented. At site 3 they have one bright pixel. This they have extrapolated to be a high speed impact, complete with ground scarring. Sounds like a pretty powerful computer model they are using if it can deduce all of that from a single data point of one bright pixel. It sure seems to be able to fill in a lot of blanks from absolutely zero supporting data.
Site 2 has 2 bright pixels. From this they have deduced that the lander is sitting intact on it's 3 little legs. That's quite an astounding conclusion for such a minimal amount of data. Again, it begs the question, just how much 'filling in the gaps' is that computer model doing ?
This really makes me wonder, after all, these are the folks doing image analysis for intelligence purposes. 3 pixels on a 1.5 meter resolution is enough to conclude there is a lander sitting upright, and a high speed impact 3 miles away, yet they cannot seem to locate the 6 meter diameter parachute that should still be attached to the much smaller unit they have 'identified'. Gotta wonder, if they can find a lander that's 2 meters, based on 1.5 meter pixel data, why cant they locate a 6 meter object that's not possibly any farther away than the length of the cords attaching it? this should be childs play, because it's going to occupy no less than 8 pixels, and likely it should occupy 12 of them. The location of the parachute should provide more supporting data than all the rest of the data they have combined, yet they cant find it.
This is a very interesting insight to the methodology in use by this agency, begs a few questions about the rest of thier work. Are these folks normally in the habit of drawing conclusions based on extrapolated data obtained from uncalibrated visual systems ? Do they normally draw conclusions from incomplete data, even tho there is strong evidence to suggest the conclusion is not correct, based on the missing correlation data that should be present (missing parachute).
These are interesting academic questions, until you put the final perspective on it. The conclusions this intelligence agency draws, become part of the basis for starting wars.
Lots of commentators on the news and slashdot have been linking spacecraft and aircraft. Why?
Actually, if you look at the development process, you'll see why the link. Early spacecraft were totally unrelated to aircraft. Capsules designed specifically to support life in the vaccuum of space. The only aerodymanics involved were those required for re-entry. A 3 dimensional shape profile was developed that met 2 requirements. The vehicle would have high drag on re-entry, required for deceleration, and the vehicle would fly stable, thru a stable trajectory, required to make the whole process surviveable.
As technology develped (and is still developing) it was determined, that transition thru the atmosphere is actually a major phase of flight for any spacegoing vehicle, so, the process of merging spacecraft and aircraft began. The space shuttle was the first such hybrid. A space mission profile was developed, and a craft for that profile was designed. The whole craft was then wrapped inside an aerodymanic package that turned it into a flyable aircraft. Finally, a boost system was strapped on that could actually boost the whole package into orbit. This was basically an engineering approach of 'take a spacecraft and wrap it up to be an airplane'.
The Spaceship one project took the other tack on the problem. Start with an airplane, and harden it up enough to withstand exposure to space. That brought along some interesting aerodymanic problems on the re-entry phase, where the fluids are so thin, that 'normal' aerodymanics dont really apply till it gets considerably lower. Propulsion is also different in this case, the aircraft propulsion system cannot rely on parasitic oxidizers enroute, since it's not in the part of the atmosphere where O2 is a readily available commodity in the quantities required. Typical engines (piston and jet) rely on being able to use oxidizers parasitically from local atmosphere where they are travelling.
There was a time we had an aeronautical industry, and we had a space industry. There is convergence happening, and thats why today, it's referred to as simply the aerospace industry. Aerodymanics is all about efficiency, and there is no more efficient medium for an 'airplane' to operate in than the zero drag realms of inner space. The problem so far is, the cost of propulsion to reach that realm is prohibitive, so building jets that fly in the 35 to 50 thousand foot altitude range is the best compromise economically. The drag is reduced, thereby reducing the cost of propulsion, yet there's still enough O2 available to run those jets, so the vehicle doesn't have to carry oxidizer, just fuel.
Everyone seems to think the race is about 'get to space', and the X-prize is the goal. Its not. X-prize sets a performance point that is an arbitrary milestone on the development path, and is some inspiration, but not a lot, to this type of development. The cost of achieving the altitude in question twice, in two weeks, far exceeds the value of the prize. This is why the Rutan project is going to win, and there is no way it can be stopped. Even if they dont win the X-Prize itself, they are on the right track, and here's the math as to why.
Transportation costs are measured in terms of fixed cost, and consumeables cost. To buy an airplane costs xx dollars, and it's amortized over the life of the plane. Using a medium sized commercial jet, you further amortize that over the cost per seat, per trip, and that number really does become insignificant. The other major cost (ignoring for the moment things like infrastructure for ticketing etc, cuz that'll be in the equation in all cases) is the per mile operating cost of the vehicle, divided by the number of seats, to achieve the cost per seat mile. Therein becomes the ticket price. The single largest factor in cost per seat mile on a commercial jet is fuel. A typical aircraft in commercial service today burns more than it's own value in fuel annually.
Why pretend it's correct, when it's NOT? That's called 'manufacturing the news', and it happens all the time. The latest craze in news manufacturing is the online poll by sites such as cnn etc. They run an online poll with some stupid question like 'do you think xxx is guilty?'. Then, they tally up the results, and report it as fact.
Public opinion is easily molded, especially when the public is a clueless public. This story and it's commentary here on/. just goes to show, joe average gets his 'information' from the headlines, and the headlines are often just blatantly WRONG./. is supposedly a home for intelligent geeks. Amazes me how many of those supposed geeks are totally clueless about simple things like mac addresses and networking, goes to show just how uninformed the masses really are.
Pretending that a misrepresented news item is correct accomplishes nothing but the sale of more tin foil hats to the clueless. The world would be a much better place if that energy was instead spent on doling out clues, rather than preying on the lack thereof. The cluestick is a powerful beast, but sad to say, society today seems to be driven totally by the fact that the masses have never reached into the cluebox and actually grabbed one, and those that have a few to spare seem to be hell bent on keeping them, rather than pass a few around and make the world a better place.
In my experience, there are 2 categories of folks 'working from home'.
a) Lost the job or got downsized, cant find another job, living on whatever scraps they can find as an 'independant'.
b) Made a conscious decision to leave the corporate world, and strike out independantly.
The folks in category a are rarely working on projects they deem 'fun and rewarding', tend to be scraping to pay the bills, and tend to be miserable about the whole situation. The folks in category b tend to be sub classified into those 'just starting that way' and those that have been at it for many years. Many that are just starting soon decide they dont really like it, and go back to a 'real job'. A few stick with it, and will never go back. This is the category I belong to, been working from a home office for 15 years, and will NEVER go back to the commute grind.
The whole key to the situation seems to be missed by most posters in this thread, likely because they have never worked from home, or have not been at it long enough to realize what is and is not important. The whole key to a successful home situation is very simple, it's the work itself. You've got to be working on projects that are fun, interesting, and mentally satisfying to see completed. If you dont enjoy the work, then, where you do it will not change that, and doing it at home tends to 'pollute' the home environment. People that want a solid separation between home and office tend to want it for a reason, they dont like the office, and dont want it 'polluting' the home life.
When I first started from home, I carefully designated a bedroom to become an office, and kept home/office separated. End result, claustriphobia in that small bedroom, and an entire home going to waste. Now, I have computer desks set up all around the living room, and the hall closet is a 'server closet'. The spare bedroom is once again a 'spare bedroom' and I actually use it for guests.
Working from home is a lifestyle choice, so, dont forget to make the rest of the choice besides 'just the work'. Once you've crossed the line and make the decision to work from home, the location of that home is EVERYTHING. Make a conscious decision to find a place where you LIKE to live, and move there. I'm on the waterfront with a view over the ocean. It's a short walk (less than 5 minutes) to a fabulous little market with a great deli, great fresh vegetables, 2 bakeries, etc etc.
BUT, the most important item still is the work itself. If you are gonna get up in the morning, and not be looking forward to the next challenge the work presents, its not going to get done, especially if you dont have a 'boss' breathing down your neck for a deadline. The reality of the situation is, I dont work at all, i play. I get up in the morning, make the coffee, then sit down at the computer to solve the next detail that's part of an overall large project. I'm creating stuff that's technically challenging, and fun to work with. When we reach milestones, and projects move from the lab to the production servers, I dont just abandon it and look for the next, i keep an active role in specifying and developing improvements, not because I have to, because I want to, it's fun. If the work is not fun and interesting, then doing it from home is not going to change that.
Another really important part of being on your own and working from home, is the workstation itself. I pay for it with my own money, so, I buy the kind of computer equipment I want. My main workstation has 4 monitors attached, all are 19 inch high resolution with high refresh rates. My eyes are important, and, spending a few bucks on those monitors a few years ago was an investment in my eyes. Since I did that, I've never had a headache from computer monitors, used to get them all the time from the cheap crap corps would put on my desk when I worked there. For christmas this year I'm probably going to treat myself to 4 lcd panels, another investment in my health, in particular the eyes. My notebook h
no, but they do if it's up to the French to fix it.
Actually, if you read the article, you would know. The first fault occurred weeks ago, on the american side. The second fault on Tuesday, on the European side. If the first fault had been fixed when it happened, then this new one would not have brought the system down, so, it appears the facts disagree with your statement.
The statement should correctly read:
no, but they do if it's up to the americans to fix it.
If you look at Google's Zeitgeist page, you'll see that only 1% of Google queries come from Linux boxes. I consider that a fairly good indicator of the popularity of Linux.
A google query consists of 2 components, first comes the request, and then comes the reply. The reply contains within it, links to a bunch of websites. Your metric is only measureing one half of the equation, the source. The reality is, network transactions require a source (the place generating the query), and a destination (the place generating the response).
The get a proper measurement of how linux participates in the net overall, you need to measure both sides. If a query originates on a windows box, and is answered by a windows box, it's 100% windows. If that query originates on a windows box, and is responded to by a linux box, the transaction is 50/50. The reality of the situation is, just because the response is being rendered by a windows based browser, on a windows based computer, does NOT mean linux is not participating in the user's overall web experience, if the site in question is being hosted on a linux box. Same arguement goes for all host environments, they DO play a role in the end user web experience, even if not directly installed on the end user computer.
To get a proper metric of how popular linux is with 'the unwashed masses', a far better measurement would be such. We would exclude the google queries themselves, because, google is a special case, a traffic director. Take the case of searches that originate from 'the net', arrive at google, and generate a response. The requestor will click on a link within that response, that will direct them to an external website.
Considering the initial click thru on google searches to be a representative sample of the net in general, then the proper measure is as such. Count up what os the requests originated from, and what os is hosting the server that the intial click thru targets. Each qualify as equal value, as they are each 50% of the equation of the 'transaction'.
The elegance of this measurement is very strait forward, it's taking a representative sample at what is unarguably the primary crossroads of the internet today, the google home page. By measuring the source and target of tho initial click thrus from the first page of results on google, the sample becomes representative of internet traffic, and popular sites become accordingly weighted.
I'd love to see the stats on this, and I'm pretty confident the results will be surprising to everybody. This becomes a measurement now not in terms of how many machines are deployed on any given os, but rather, a measurement of how much that os is contributing to the network we all love. The only bias introduced in this measurement is that it's skewed 100% to browser behaviour, not overall internet traffic in general. It'll be pretty tough to do a more generalized sample that includes all protocols, but, a sampling of http is pretty good, and the google click thru rate on content searches, represents the best crossroads I can see to grab a representative sample of the net overall.
Anyway, it's too bad the site's slashdotted, they could have broken all their sales records. Most companies would kill for PR like this, but it looks like the site admin took it down, he didn't realize what was happening.
There is a lesson in 'building your infrastructure' here. This company sells model rockets. Something like a 'great' Saturn V model appeals very strongly to a large chunk of the/. crowd. To have this crowd arrive on that website, the sales folks should be saying 'its not haloween, its christmas a couple months early'.
If the server had stood up, I think it's a pretty good bet, they woulda sold 500 of the models tonite, and, a few thousand more folks would have dropped the site into the 'place to get christmas presents' folder in bookmarks. Alas, the reality of it is, tomorrow morning there will be an internal memo saying 'web server crashed last nite' at apogee rockets, and, the largest sales opportunity of the year just disappeared.
There is a lesson here on how to build your online infrastructure, and whoever is doing it for this company, just failed. It's to bad nobody at the company will ever realize how big an opportunity they missed here today...
Australian police have tracked about 1.5 million dollars.
"Hopefully this means my inbox will be seeing less of these e-mails."
After reading that figure the number of people entering this racket has probably increased.
There are many many folks that have been 'quasi' tempted by constant barrage of spam that says 'use our bulk mailer and make a million on the internet'. This story gives that claim legitimacy, and, you can bet your last dollar, it's gonna be good for sales by those who are constantly trying to sell bulk mailers, address lists, and proxy lists.
The story is somewhat misleading, in that it doesn't specify that the $1.5 million is in those tiny little Australian kind of dollars. Joe that has been tempted by the offer of 'buy my bulk mailer for $250 and make a million on the internet' isn't bright enough to realize that. He sees the big number, and in a few minutes another spam arrives in the inbox, trying to sell a bulk mailer. Guess what, now he's more than a little interested.
Stories like this are only going to increase the volume of spam the net has to deal with. It basically confirms, there's a lot of money there for the taking, and email spamming is a very low cost way of promoting scams. If Joe scam artist had any doubts about the effectiveness of the concept yesterday, he's scouring/. for unemployed and unscrupulous software folks today.
On the bright side, this story does confirm some general trends in the IT industry. Even the spammers are outsourcing to offshore.
Most launches are to an orbit that is not a polar orbit, so, they tend to launch eastbound, to gain the extra little push in that direction from the rotation of the earth.
When choosing a launch location, a very significant factor is the downrange property damage considerations. Since modern rockets tend to be devices that explode on a fairly regular basis, and they do so when travelling at very high speed, there is a very high likelihood of high velocity 'junk' impacting downrange of the launch point.
With that in mind, the ideal launch location is atop a 60,000 foot mountain located on the equator, with little/no population base for a couple thousand miles eastbound of the launch location. There is no such location on earth, so, most launches happen from a 'compromise' location. The us government long ago deemed the safety factor of launching over the ocean was worth more than the cost savings of a high altitude launch location.
Payloads headed to a polar orbit tend to have slightly different dynamics associated, and the initial launch vector is actually somewhat westbound, to offset the rotation of the earth. An ideal location would be a high peak located exactly 'on the pole', where there is no velocity penalty from the earths rotation. Altho the southern polar region does have such locations, the logistics of launching from there turn out to be more expensive than spending a little more on the launch vehicle, and launching it from home. US military payloads destined for a polar orbit tend to depart terra firma from Vandenberg, where the initial westbound vector will indeed take em out over the water again.
In both cases, the potential for downrange impact damage outweighs the cost savings achievable from a high altitude launch location. Conscious decisions were made in selecting launch locations where politics and impact potential outweighed launch efficiencies. Politics said it had to be within the lower 48, impact potential said it had to have a downrange pointed out over the water.
From an engineering perspective, high up in the mountains of Hawaii would be a much more efficient launch location. It has the benefit of altitude, the downrange ocean, and provides every major airport on the west coast as a 'launch abort alternate landing location'. In the real world though, the logistics of transporting all launch hardware out to that location will cost more than the savings incurred, so the point becomes academic. Still, remembering the issues of weight control during the construction of the initial apollo moon landing hardware, cant help but wonder how much more could have been done if the Saturn 5 was launched high atop the mountains of Hawaii. I'm sure that would have increased the available moon orbit throw weight by a few thousand pounds.
A few months ago, i had one of my clients nattering about how he wants one of them new fancy phones that has everything built in. On our way back from lunch, we stopped at the phone store. I had him pick up the phone, and emulate a phone conversation (phone held up to ear). Now the next step of the exercise, look up an address in it's address book, while maintaining the conversation with the client.
He still carries a phone in the left pocket, and a palm pilot in the right pocket, and fully understands why he does NOT want to merge them into a single unit. Most folks that really NEED the dayplanner and address book functions of a pda, need to access it while talking on the phone, and that's real hard to do if the screen is pasted to your ear in a phone conversation.
The hardware on which it runs is part of the Total Cost of Ownership. Assuming the same baseline underlying hardware, there is a cost of ownership bar on which both solutions begin. The hardware itself is a fixed cost, before any software is considered.
Requirements: Source code must be open so all can review it.
Paper trail must follow each vote so the voter can review it and place in the ballot box.
I think most folks are missing a serious point here. Audit trail does not necessarily mean paper, it means a process of validation that cannot be altered after the fact. The benefit of paper, it's a 'write once' device, and it's clear if the paper has been altered after it's been 'written once'.
There are many many forms of write once media available. There is no reason a voting system cannot be built electronically that uses a write once media to record the results, in addition to any electronic form of real time tally. Then you have a system that works for all involved. You get the real time results with minimal human intervention, which can be fed live to the media circus, and there is an indelible record that can be referred to after the fact in the event of problems with the real time data collection.
People in general like the idea of a 'paper trail' because it's something they can look at, and do the 'touchy feely' thing with should the need arise. It's also somewhat cumbersome, and if you are going to be generating a hundred million or more (ballots), it can be overly cumbersome. All of the ballots collected at any given polling station can easily be recorded onto a single CD-R as an example. CD-R has some technical problems dealing with sessions etc that may make it not an ideal medium, but, that's just a technical detail, surely there's a few engineers even here on/. that could figure out the ways and means to utilize such a media to create an accountable tally in an indellible manner onto such a media during the polling process. Then, in the event of external problems etc, it's simply a case of 'extract the data from the backup' thats made in real time onto write once media.
It seems to me, it's all a matter of perspective, and 'value'. If indeed the voting process is that important, it's worth a little investment in technology to reduce the 'paperwork'. But, since there's so much on the line in terms of integrity etc, this is one area of technology that SHOULD be outsourced to a neutral third party. Electronics created for the automation of the election process need to be above reproach. This is especially true if they are to be used by folks that cannot read a ballot, and cannot tell if a punch card has been punched or not.
we have now proven we can put an object in space, change its trajectory, then put it anywhere in the world
The harp gun project in the 60's was capable of launching projectiles into space, the highest launch achieved on an atmospheric test package was 170KM. The project ran from a Canadian University on the guise of doing high altitude research, but, the real research, was to attempt to build a payload package that included guidance and propellant sufficient to achieve orbit. The project was funded by the US military. The project was never viewed as a serious 'space threat' by other countries because the technical difficulties of creating a guidance package that could withstand the 2300 g launch were pretty big obstacles, and to create a nuke that could survive that was unthinkable.
Missle programs were another story, it was techically feasable to use a missle to launch a nuke and in theory drop it anywhere in the world. Besides the issue of launch vehicle reliability, there were a whole mess of other issues to demonstrate that such a program would indeed work. Compared to a bullet, a nuke is a rather fragile and complex piece of equipment, so you cant subject it to the types of forces you subject a standard conventional payload to during the delivery phase.
To really demonstrate to the 'other guys' that the ordinance delivery system is truely capable of providing an environment capable of supporting a nuke from liftoff to arrival at target, its really simple, stick a man inside it. If the human body can withstand the rigors of the launch forces, and the vehicle can be dropped back to earth on a precise target, with the human intact, a lot of things have been demonstrated. The most important one though is this, if the human can survive the trip, the forces/temperatures involved are such, a nuclear payload can survive, and be operational when it arrives on target.
The same way that Russia and subsequently the USA demonstrated to the world that they had a launch system capable of providing a ride gentle enough for a nuclear device, yet capable of arriving anywhere in the world, China has just provided the same proof. The on orbit maneuver is a critical component of this demonstration.
Not only have they demonstrated they can put an object into orbit, maneuver it, and then land it on/near a target, they have concisely demonstrated that the vehicle provides an environment to deliver a very fragile package, probably the most fragile of all weapons, a human body. That's pretty much de-facto proof that a nuclear device can survive the same trip.
It's one thing to design something yourself, and quite another to take a complete design that already works and tweak it.
Well at least give credit where credit is due. It would be absolutely silly to start a program, and NOT learn from the mistakes others have already made. They chose to follow the design concepts of a spaceship that works. They could have taken the other example available, but they chose the route of the one that works.
An the shuttle? Wasn't that designed by a lot of people that came from a company called Avro? And wasn't Avro Canadian? And didn't Avro build a better fighter jet than America?
They may have stuck around for the shuttle program, but the Avro engineers that went south, went long before the shuttle was even a scribble on a napkin, they went to the mercury/gemini/apollo programs.
Yes it's true, the Arrow was way ahead of it's time. Consider a mach 2 fly by wire fighter that could operate 2000 mile missions un-refueled, capable of operating in both fighter and bomber modes. Actually, come to think about it, look around, still not much flying today that can do that. But, doesn't matter, it's ancient history, and was scrapped for really stupid political reasons. So be it.
The real interesting part is looking where the Avro engineers really went. McDonnel Douglas was 'first on scene' offering lucrative positions, but, the overall leader in early hiring turned out to be a fledgling government operation called NASA. They had a need for engineers to deal with supersonic and hypersonic aerodynamic problems on thier launch vehicles, Avro had engineers that had solved a lot of these already. Nasa was there offering lucrative salaries with relocation and 'instant citizenship' to bypass some of the red tape problems of having foreigners working on those projects. To aggressive young engineers that had just seen thier life work destroyed, the opportunity to go put a man on the moon was irresistable. For some more details, check this out here , an article on the reunion.
While you are there, check out the Jetliner, and note, it was flying in the 40's already. Then look at the arrow facts. An example 'On its third flight, the aircraft was flown supersonically at Mach 1.1. On its seventh flight, it exceeded 1,000 mph while climbing. '. Approaching mach 2 in a climb at a time when american fighter companies could barely make thier machines go supersonic in a vertical dive.
It's really interesting to look at the positions these engineers attained with Nasa, here's just a couple snaps from the above link, there's a bunch more there.
Jim Chamberlin
The former designer of the Arrow who went on to design the Gemini spacecraft and help NASA decide how to go to the Moon.
Project Manager
Mercury,
Designer and Project Manager Gemini
Technical Advisor and Troubleshooter for Bob Gilruth, MSC Director (Apollo).
Shuttle concepts
Owen Maynard Owen Maynard, the engineer from Sarnia, Ont., who quickly rose through the ranks to give life to the Apollo Lunar Module and later oversee the engineering effort on Apollo.
NASA Space Task Force, Chief Engineering Designer of the Lunar Landing Module.
Rod Rose The British engineer who helped plan the Apollo missions and picked out the first prayer to be broadcast from space.
Rockets,
Mission Operations assistant to Chris Kraft.
Apollo and Shuttle
mission planning
Love how the/. folks want to holler about communist filtering of the propoganda, especially in a case like this. If you haven't seen replays of the launch, maybe, just maybe, you should switch to non american news sources. I've seen two replays already tonite on the tv.
Tune in the CBC if you want to see it, altho, they have run it a few times already, not sure it'll run to many more times.
This does make me wonder tho, are the american networks really not running the tapes of the launch ? If not, why not ?
Gonna try submit this one more time, and then give up. Seems/. is suffering the/. effect yet again...
To really understand the future of automation as it applies to cars, you really need to understand the driving factors behind it. Necessity is the mother of invention, and Economics are it's father. You need both to spawn the end product.
To truely understand the process of moving from 'fully mechanical' to 'fully automated', just take a look at another industry that's much farther along that curve, and understand the reasons it is, and how it got where it is. Look at aviation, in particular, the large transport aircraft.
Early transport jet aircraft were huge and complex mechanical beasts. They had inefficient engines, that spewed a lot of smoke out the back, made a lot of noise, and produced thrust. They had only one re-deeming feature, they could operate at speeds much higher than propeller driven aircraft. If you stuck enough of them on a big plane, you could achieve reliability thru redundancy. This marked the beginning of the process. The 'necessity' originated in military mission specifications. Economics didn't play a big part, the money available to throw at development was virtually unlimited thanks to the military requirements.
When the engineering reached the point that the economics were within reach of the average airline, then the comet and subsequently the boeing 707/dc-8 era aircraft came to light. Completely mechanical, no automation, very inefficient (by todays standards), but they worked, and did the job.
At this point in the development curve, economics became the driving factor of development. the obvious area of development was fuel efficiency. For an aircraft this is MUCH more important than a car. Every pound of fuel you dont have to carry, is a pound of revenue payload you can carry. The engines, and aircraft systems went thru a large phase of refinement, until they reached physical limits of the mechanics, and, the next step was an obvious jump to electronic and automation. Again, early developments in this area were mostly driven by military mission requirements, where cost was no object. Only after military funding developed the concepts to a useable form, did the process of refinement begin to bring the economics down to a practical level for commercial application.
Fly by wire came in aviation for 2 reasons. In the military application, it allows for an aircraft to perform in a manner that true mechanical control cannot achieve, its physically impossible. Again, necessity mothered the invention, but before it came to the commercial world, it needed more necessity, and the economics. The move of large aircraft to fly by wire was driven by 2 factors, with weight savings being a huge driving factor. Replace a mile of cables and pulleys all operating under tension, with very high maintenance requirements, with a mile of wire, that's not moving all the time. Every pound saved, is another revenue producing pound of payload. on the engines side, electronic controls allowed for more fuel efficiency, which results in either more payload, or greater range, for the same airframe. Again, the economics in aviation are substantially different than in the automotive world. With items that sell in the hundreds of millions of dollars per each, and consume fuel in the hundreds of thousands of pounds per day, the incentive to reduce fuel consumption, and increase payload is huge. A few million dollars 'per each' is small cost comparatively.
Embedded control electronics with decent capability are commonplace cheap items today. Development costs have long been amortized, and they are just commodity items now. So, it's reached the point where, adding electronics for small gains on an automobile are cost effective. just put it in perspective. The microcontroller managing the engine in a modern automobile weighs in at a couple ounces, and has more capability than the navigation systems on an apollo spacecraft weighing in at 30+ pounds. That nav system got them to the moon and back. In the early 60's it was worth millions, today, it's worth
It sounds callous, but life is a bit cheaper to the Chinese govt than it is to the US govt
Actually, this is a very bad misconception. To governments, life is a propoganda tool, that is used to massage the 'will' of the masses. Reference recent history.
The loss of 7 lives in a re-entry accident is used by the government to achieve a huge (and very subtle) shift if expenditures. This is being used very effectively behind the scenes to promote the concept of scrapping the shuttle program, in the meantime, no launches, so, no money being spent on launches.
The daily loss of life overseas is being promoted as 'the cost' and a 'justifiable cost' of enforcing a foreign policy on a region that wants no part of it.
It's all how you spin it, and how the press regurgitates the spin. If you can make the masses believe that losing 7 astronauts is 'to much', then you can gain political support for an objective that doesn't include a shuttle program. If you can make the masses believe hundreds of lives are 'worth the price' to support an overseas invasion, then you can gain support for huge expenditures on that program.
Body count is just a propoganda tool, to be used when convenient, and to be swept under the rug when inconvenient. That applies to ALL governments, including the american government.
but that fact that China's doing something that was done over 30 years ago? Big deal. Or maybe I'm missing the significance?
You are missing the significance. If you really want to put it in a perspective that hilights the state of 3 space programs, consider these facts.
a) The Chinese space program is planning to launch a person into orbit within the month, on chinese hardware.
b) The Russian space program has a big 'for rent' sign hanging on the launch vehicle on the pad, waiting for a taker.
c) The american space program is planning to use a rented Russian launch vehicle to do crew rotation on the space station in the near future.
This is very good for the american taxpayer, extremely good. What it really means, in the near future, there will be choices when it comes to choosing contractors for outsourcing the american space travel requirements. Nasa will be able to offer up a contract for bid, with 2 viable bidders. This can only result in a significant long term cost reduction for nasa. It costs billions to operate space shuttles, and billions more to oversee the beaurocracy that has been built around them. The whole of Nasa can soon be replaced with a small procurement department that manages the bidding process. This will sit much better with the american public too, because, in the inevitable event that people are lost due to launch / re-entry accidents, there will be a contractor to sue after the fact.
I can see it already. Computer hardware made in korea and taiwan, driven by software written in inda, mounted in launch hardware built in china. A couple of americans tossed in as passengers, with the whole process overseen by american beaurocrats taking advice from a team of american lawyers.
Mind my cynicism on the subject, but America has slipped from the leader to second place in the race to space. Russia is firmly in the lead right now. It'll be interesting to see if the chinese entry can attain second place before the american team gets out of the pits and back into the race.
Maybe this is that eight-year old Trekkie in me, but I really believe we need another space race.
There's 2 factors that come into play, economics, and political will. Political will is generated by 'the masses', and the economics are generated by political will. The 60's were a wonderful time to grow up as a young boy interested in science and exploration. As a pre-teen i watched the first landing on the moon live, on a black and white tv. Even then, I knew, I was watching one of those historical moments that happens but once in a century.
The environment of the space race in the 60's was brought on by a political will to make it happen. The entire country was focussed on the space program as a point of national pride. It wasn't there to be efficient, it wasn't there to be 'cost justified', it was there so folks could watch with pride, wave the flag, and say 'we are the best'. It worked, and worked well, the focus of the entire country was on research, development, and 'do the impossible'. Nasa was the fledgling young organization tasked with 'do the impossible', and they did it with tremendous pride.
The political will does not exist today. The politics of today are focussed on military expenditures, and doing whatever it takes to contue justifying the existence of the military industrial complex. During the cold war, this wasn't to difficult, the percieved threat was real enough that everybody 'bought in', and life went on happily. Nasa got shovelled aside to play with shuttles, while the real expenditures went into the military.
Today, the achievements of Nasa are viewed by most as 'just a money pit' for tax dollars. National pride is focussed on the military invasions overseas. It will take time, but that tide will shift once again. Folks are already tired of hearing about body counts, and little things like 'we need another 87 billion dollars to keep this up'. it would have been easy to keep the momentum in this area, but, the politicians are finding, they have been called up on statements, and, cant back them with enough facts to convince folks anymore. The population is rapidly losing the political will to continue feeding the military industrial complex now that the price is measured in bodies as well as dollars.
Achievements in space have always been a big point of national pride in the USA, but it's something that is kind of taken for granted today, most americans believe that the USA is still the leader in space development and exploration, and this is something that goes without question, is taken for granted. But, one has to look at a few facts, to check this out carefully, the assumption is no longer valid.
As it sits today, the american space program consists of sending american astronauts to an international space station, riding up and down on soviet hardware. That's not much of a 'leadership' role. Now, look around, the Europeans are flight testing the next generation in space propulsion that is required to do longer range missions. The Chinese are launching rockets on a regular basis, and will have a manned mission in orbit before the year is out. They have a stated goal to reach the moon with a manned mission, while the european flight test hardware is already on it's way to the moon, to validate the new concepts in propulsion.
The ducks are starting to line up for a major shift in the cards of political will. Joe average on the street doesn't even realize that the Chinese are going to be launching people into space imminently. When it happens, it's going to be a wake up call to todays generation, similar to what sputnik was to mine. I dont believe Joe Average is willing to conceed the leadership as a space exploration nation, it's far to big a point of national pride.
It isn't going to happen for 2004, but, the ducks are lining up to create a groundswell of support for a 2008 campaign, one that is prepared to de-emphasize military conquest, and re-emphasize scientific achievement.
Slashdot Mirror
To save costs, China, Russia and the ESA should also be involved in the missions.
This announcement basically guarantees that'll never happen. 'Abandon the iss' is the tone of the announcement, and sets the tone for all other organizations on what to expect when co-operating with NASA.
This whole announcement is a wonderful example of pork barrel politics, with a wonderful spin for the media. There's a billion dollars in pork there, and it's all gonna get spent on beaurcracy within the program, the majority of it in the Houston area. By the time that billion dollars is spent, NASA will have a lot more managers, a few more engineers, and they _might_ be halfway thru feasability studies. That billion dollars is gonna have to increase annually, just to keep the beaurocracy running.
If Bush was serious about going to the moon, and not about pork barrel politics, he woulda handed that billion dollars to Rutan and his crowd, the folks now creeping up on claiming the X-Prize. Give them 5 years and a billion dollars, they'll bring you back the steering wheel of a lunar rover. NASA wont even get past 'studies' with that kind of funding.
Actually, the site is now a semi-accurate representation of data rates between mars orbital/lander hardware and earth. Depending on which transmitter/antenna combinations are in use at any given time, the data rates vary from 3500 baud to 128kb, with occaisional data void periods of 8 to 16 hours due to lack of signal.
But, like any well thought out mission, the website had a backup plan, and now they have a minimal plain text home page showing, with just links to the download files. Dunno if they had this already mapped out as a contingency for /., or if they adapted on the fly, either way, shows they are on top of the situation...
This has been done already, saw it with my own eyes today. Was in a shopping mall, and there it was, side by side, 2 santas, each with kids on thier lap.
Look carefully at the data presented. At site 3 they have one bright pixel. This they have extrapolated to be a high speed impact, complete with ground scarring. Sounds like a pretty powerful computer model they are using if it can deduce all of that from a single data point of one bright pixel. It sure seems to be able to fill in a lot of blanks from absolutely zero supporting data.
Site 2 has 2 bright pixels. From this they have deduced that the lander is sitting intact on it's 3 little legs. That's quite an astounding conclusion for such a minimal amount of data. Again, it begs the question, just how much 'filling in the gaps' is that computer model doing ?
This really makes me wonder, after all, these are the folks doing image analysis for intelligence purposes. 3 pixels on a 1.5 meter resolution is enough to conclude there is a lander sitting upright, and a high speed impact 3 miles away, yet they cannot seem to locate the 6 meter diameter parachute that should still be attached to the much smaller unit they have 'identified'. Gotta wonder, if they can find a lander that's 2 meters, based on 1.5 meter pixel data, why cant they locate a 6 meter object that's not possibly any farther away than the length of the cords attaching it? this should be childs play, because it's going to occupy no less than 8 pixels, and likely it should occupy 12 of them. The location of the parachute should provide more supporting data than all the rest of the data they have combined, yet they cant find it.
This is a very interesting insight to the methodology in use by this agency, begs a few questions about the rest of thier work. Are these folks normally in the habit of drawing conclusions based on extrapolated data obtained from uncalibrated visual systems ? Do they normally draw conclusions from incomplete data, even tho there is strong evidence to suggest the conclusion is not correct, based on the missing correlation data that should be present (missing parachute).
These are interesting academic questions, until you put the final perspective on it. The conclusions this intelligence agency draws, become part of the basis for starting wars.
Actually, if you look at the development process, you'll see why the link. Early spacecraft were totally unrelated to aircraft. Capsules designed specifically to support life in the vaccuum of space. The only aerodymanics involved were those required for re-entry. A 3 dimensional shape profile was developed that met 2 requirements. The vehicle would have high drag on re-entry, required for deceleration, and the vehicle would fly stable, thru a stable trajectory, required to make the whole process surviveable.
As technology develped (and is still developing) it was determined, that transition thru the atmosphere is actually a major phase of flight for any spacegoing vehicle, so, the process of merging spacecraft and aircraft began. The space shuttle was the first such hybrid. A space mission profile was developed, and a craft for that profile was designed. The whole craft was then wrapped inside an aerodymanic package that turned it into a flyable aircraft. Finally, a boost system was strapped on that could actually boost the whole package into orbit. This was basically an engineering approach of 'take a spacecraft and wrap it up to be an airplane'.
The Spaceship one project took the other tack on the problem. Start with an airplane, and harden it up enough to withstand exposure to space. That brought along some interesting aerodymanic problems on the re-entry phase, where the fluids are so thin, that 'normal' aerodymanics dont really apply till it gets considerably lower. Propulsion is also different in this case, the aircraft propulsion system cannot rely on parasitic oxidizers enroute, since it's not in the part of the atmosphere where O2 is a readily available commodity in the quantities required. Typical engines (piston and jet) rely on being able to use oxidizers parasitically from local atmosphere where they are travelling.
There was a time we had an aeronautical industry, and we had a space industry. There is convergence happening, and thats why today, it's referred to as simply the aerospace industry. Aerodymanics is all about efficiency, and there is no more efficient medium for an 'airplane' to operate in than the zero drag realms of inner space. The problem so far is, the cost of propulsion to reach that realm is prohibitive, so building jets that fly in the 35 to 50 thousand foot altitude range is the best compromise economically. The drag is reduced, thereby reducing the cost of propulsion, yet there's still enough O2 available to run those jets, so the vehicle doesn't have to carry oxidizer, just fuel.
Everyone seems to think the race is about 'get to space', and the X-prize is the goal. Its not. X-prize sets a performance point that is an arbitrary milestone on the development path, and is some inspiration, but not a lot, to this type of development. The cost of achieving the altitude in question twice, in two weeks, far exceeds the value of the prize. This is why the Rutan project is going to win, and there is no way it can be stopped. Even if they dont win the X-Prize itself, they are on the right track, and here's the math as to why.
Transportation costs are measured in terms of fixed cost, and consumeables cost. To buy an airplane costs xx dollars, and it's amortized over the life of the plane. Using a medium sized commercial jet, you further amortize that over the cost per seat, per trip, and that number really does become insignificant. The other major cost (ignoring for the moment things like infrastructure for ticketing etc, cuz that'll be in the equation in all cases) is the per mile operating cost of the vehicle, divided by the number of seats, to achieve the cost per seat mile. Therein becomes the ticket price. The single largest factor in cost per seat mile on a commercial jet is fuel. A typical aircraft in commercial service today burns more than it's own value in fuel annually.
Fuel costs break down further into
Why pretend it's correct, when it's NOT? That's called 'manufacturing the news', and it happens all the time. The latest craze in news manufacturing is the online poll by sites such as cnn etc. They run an online poll with some stupid question like 'do you think xxx is guilty?'. Then, they tally up the results, and report it as fact.
Public opinion is easily molded, especially when the public is a clueless public. This story and it's commentary here on /. just goes to show, joe average gets his 'information' from the headlines, and the headlines are often just blatantly WRONG. /. is supposedly a home for intelligent geeks. Amazes me how many of those supposed geeks are totally clueless about simple things like mac addresses and networking, goes to show just how uninformed the masses really are.
Pretending that a misrepresented news item is correct accomplishes nothing but the sale of more tin foil hats to the clueless. The world would be a much better place if that energy was instead spent on doling out clues, rather than preying on the lack thereof. The cluestick is a powerful beast, but sad to say, society today seems to be driven totally by the fact that the masses have never reached into the cluebox and actually grabbed one, and those that have a few to spare seem to be hell bent on keeping them, rather than pass a few around and make the world a better place.
a) Lost the job or got downsized, cant find another job, living on whatever scraps they can find as an 'independant'.
b) Made a conscious decision to leave the corporate world, and strike out independantly.
The folks in category a are rarely working on projects they deem 'fun and rewarding', tend to be scraping to pay the bills, and tend to be miserable about the whole situation. The folks in category b tend to be sub classified into those 'just starting that way' and those that have been at it for many years. Many that are just starting soon decide they dont really like it, and go back to a 'real job'. A few stick with it, and will never go back. This is the category I belong to, been working from a home office for 15 years, and will NEVER go back to the commute grind.
The whole key to the situation seems to be missed by most posters in this thread, likely because they have never worked from home, or have not been at it long enough to realize what is and is not important. The whole key to a successful home situation is very simple, it's the work itself. You've got to be working on projects that are fun, interesting, and mentally satisfying to see completed. If you dont enjoy the work, then, where you do it will not change that, and doing it at home tends to 'pollute' the home environment. People that want a solid separation between home and office tend to want it for a reason, they dont like the office, and dont want it 'polluting' the home life.
When I first started from home, I carefully designated a bedroom to become an office, and kept home/office separated. End result, claustriphobia in that small bedroom, and an entire home going to waste. Now, I have computer desks set up all around the living room, and the hall closet is a 'server closet'. The spare bedroom is once again a 'spare bedroom' and I actually use it for guests.
Working from home is a lifestyle choice, so, dont forget to make the rest of the choice besides 'just the work'. Once you've crossed the line and make the decision to work from home, the location of that home is EVERYTHING. Make a conscious decision to find a place where you LIKE to live, and move there. I'm on the waterfront with a view over the ocean. It's a short walk (less than 5 minutes) to a fabulous little market with a great deli, great fresh vegetables, 2 bakeries, etc etc.
BUT, the most important item still is the work itself. If you are gonna get up in the morning, and not be looking forward to the next challenge the work presents, its not going to get done, especially if you dont have a 'boss' breathing down your neck for a deadline. The reality of the situation is, I dont work at all, i play. I get up in the morning, make the coffee, then sit down at the computer to solve the next detail that's part of an overall large project. I'm creating stuff that's technically challenging, and fun to work with. When we reach milestones, and projects move from the lab to the production servers, I dont just abandon it and look for the next, i keep an active role in specifying and developing improvements, not because I have to, because I want to, it's fun. If the work is not fun and interesting, then doing it from home is not going to change that.
Another really important part of being on your own and working from home, is the workstation itself. I pay for it with my own money, so, I buy the kind of computer equipment I want. My main workstation has 4 monitors attached, all are 19 inch high resolution with high refresh rates. My eyes are important, and, spending a few bucks on those monitors a few years ago was an investment in my eyes. Since I did that, I've never had a headache from computer monitors, used to get them all the time from the cheap crap corps would put on my desk when I worked there. For christmas this year I'm probably going to treat myself to 4 lcd panels, another investment in my health, in particular the eyes. My notebook h
Actually, if you read the article, you would know. The first fault occurred weeks ago, on the american side. The second fault on Tuesday, on the European side. If the first fault had been fixed when it happened, then this new one would not have brought the system down, so, it appears the facts disagree with your statement.
The statement should correctly read:
no, but they do if it's up to the americans to fix it.
A google query consists of 2 components, first comes the request, and then comes the reply. The reply contains within it, links to a bunch of websites. Your metric is only measureing one half of the equation, the source. The reality is, network transactions require a source (the place generating the query), and a destination (the place generating the response).
The get a proper measurement of how linux participates in the net overall, you need to measure both sides. If a query originates on a windows box, and is answered by a windows box, it's 100% windows. If that query originates on a windows box, and is responded to by a linux box, the transaction is 50/50. The reality of the situation is, just because the response is being rendered by a windows based browser, on a windows based computer, does NOT mean linux is not participating in the user's overall web experience, if the site in question is being hosted on a linux box. Same arguement goes for all host environments, they DO play a role in the end user web experience, even if not directly installed on the end user computer.
To get a proper metric of how popular linux is with 'the unwashed masses', a far better measurement would be such. We would exclude the google queries themselves, because, google is a special case, a traffic director. Take the case of searches that originate from 'the net', arrive at google, and generate a response. The requestor will click on a link within that response, that will direct them to an external website.
Considering the initial click thru on google searches to be a representative sample of the net in general, then the proper measure is as such. Count up what os the requests originated from, and what os is hosting the server that the intial click thru targets. Each qualify as equal value, as they are each 50% of the equation of the 'transaction'.
The elegance of this measurement is very strait forward, it's taking a representative sample at what is unarguably the primary crossroads of the internet today, the google home page. By measuring the source and target of tho initial click thrus from the first page of results on google, the sample becomes representative of internet traffic, and popular sites become accordingly weighted.
I'd love to see the stats on this, and I'm pretty confident the results will be surprising to everybody. This becomes a measurement now not in terms of how many machines are deployed on any given os, but rather, a measurement of how much that os is contributing to the network we all love. The only bias introduced in this measurement is that it's skewed 100% to browser behaviour, not overall internet traffic in general. It'll be pretty tough to do a more generalized sample that includes all protocols, but, a sampling of http is pretty good, and the google click thru rate on content searches, represents the best crossroads I can see to grab a representative sample of the net overall.
There is a lesson in 'building your infrastructure' here. This company sells model rockets. Something like a 'great' Saturn V model appeals very strongly to a large chunk of the /. crowd. To have this crowd arrive on that website, the sales folks should be saying 'its not haloween, its christmas a couple months early'.
If the server had stood up, I think it's a pretty good bet, they woulda sold 500 of the models tonite, and, a few thousand more folks would have dropped the site into the 'place to get christmas presents' folder in bookmarks. Alas, the reality of it is, tomorrow morning there will be an internal memo saying 'web server crashed last nite' at apogee rockets, and, the largest sales opportunity of the year just disappeared.
There is a lesson here on how to build your online infrastructure, and whoever is doing it for this company, just failed. It's to bad nobody at the company will ever realize how big an opportunity they missed here today...
"Hopefully this means my inbox will be seeing less of these e-mails."
After reading that figure the number of people entering this racket has probably increased.
There are many many folks that have been 'quasi' tempted by constant barrage of spam that says 'use our bulk mailer and make a million on the internet'. This story gives that claim legitimacy, and, you can bet your last dollar, it's gonna be good for sales by those who are constantly trying to sell bulk mailers, address lists, and proxy lists.
The story is somewhat misleading, in that it doesn't specify that the $1.5 million is in those tiny little Australian kind of dollars. Joe that has been tempted by the offer of 'buy my bulk mailer for $250 and make a million on the internet' isn't bright enough to realize that. He sees the big number, and in a few minutes another spam arrives in the inbox, trying to sell a bulk mailer. Guess what, now he's more than a little interested.
Stories like this are only going to increase the volume of spam the net has to deal with. It basically confirms, there's a lot of money there for the taking, and email spamming is a very low cost way of promoting scams. If Joe scam artist had any doubts about the effectiveness of the concept yesterday, he's scouring /. for unemployed and unscrupulous software folks today.
On the bright side, this story does confirm some general trends in the IT industry. Even the spammers are outsourcing to offshore.
When choosing a launch location, a very significant factor is the downrange property damage considerations. Since modern rockets tend to be devices that explode on a fairly regular basis, and they do so when travelling at very high speed, there is a very high likelihood of high velocity 'junk' impacting downrange of the launch point.
With that in mind, the ideal launch location is atop a 60,000 foot mountain located on the equator, with little/no population base for a couple thousand miles eastbound of the launch location. There is no such location on earth, so, most launches happen from a 'compromise' location. The us government long ago deemed the safety factor of launching over the ocean was worth more than the cost savings of a high altitude launch location.
Payloads headed to a polar orbit tend to have slightly different dynamics associated, and the initial launch vector is actually somewhat westbound, to offset the rotation of the earth. An ideal location would be a high peak located exactly 'on the pole', where there is no velocity penalty from the earths rotation. Altho the southern polar region does have such locations, the logistics of launching from there turn out to be more expensive than spending a little more on the launch vehicle, and launching it from home. US military payloads destined for a polar orbit tend to depart terra firma from Vandenberg, where the initial westbound vector will indeed take em out over the water again.
In both cases, the potential for downrange impact damage outweighs the cost savings achievable from a high altitude launch location. Conscious decisions were made in selecting launch locations where politics and impact potential outweighed launch efficiencies. Politics said it had to be within the lower 48, impact potential said it had to have a downrange pointed out over the water.
From an engineering perspective, high up in the mountains of Hawaii would be a much more efficient launch location. It has the benefit of altitude, the downrange ocean, and provides every major airport on the west coast as a 'launch abort alternate landing location'. In the real world though, the logistics of transporting all launch hardware out to that location will cost more than the savings incurred, so the point becomes academic. Still, remembering the issues of weight control during the construction of the initial apollo moon landing hardware, cant help but wonder how much more could have been done if the Saturn 5 was launched high atop the mountains of Hawaii. I'm sure that would have increased the available moon orbit throw weight by a few thousand pounds.
the answer to that is simple, SourceForge ....
He still carries a phone in the left pocket, and a palm pilot in the right pocket, and fully understands why he does NOT want to merge them into a single unit. Most folks that really NEED the dayplanner and address book functions of a pda, need to access it while talking on the phone, and that's real hard to do if the screen is pasted to your ear in a phone conversation.
The hardware on which it runs is part of the Total Cost of Ownership. Assuming the same baseline underlying hardware, there is a cost of ownership bar on which both solutions begin. The hardware itself is a fixed cost, before any software is considered.
Paper trail must follow each vote so the voter can review it and place in the ballot box.
I think most folks are missing a serious point here. Audit trail does not necessarily mean paper, it means a process of validation that cannot be altered after the fact. The benefit of paper, it's a 'write once' device, and it's clear if the paper has been altered after it's been 'written once'.
There are many many forms of write once media available. There is no reason a voting system cannot be built electronically that uses a write once media to record the results, in addition to any electronic form of real time tally. Then you have a system that works for all involved. You get the real time results with minimal human intervention, which can be fed live to the media circus, and there is an indelible record that can be referred to after the fact in the event of problems with the real time data collection.
People in general like the idea of a 'paper trail' because it's something they can look at, and do the 'touchy feely' thing with should the need arise. It's also somewhat cumbersome, and if you are going to be generating a hundred million or more (ballots), it can be overly cumbersome. All of the ballots collected at any given polling station can easily be recorded onto a single CD-R as an example. CD-R has some technical problems dealing with sessions etc that may make it not an ideal medium, but, that's just a technical detail, surely there's a few engineers even here on /. that could figure out the ways and means to utilize such a media to create an accountable tally in an indellible manner onto such a media during the polling process. Then, in the event of external problems etc, it's simply a case of 'extract the data from the backup' thats made in real time onto write once media.
It seems to me, it's all a matter of perspective, and 'value'. If indeed the voting process is that important, it's worth a little investment in technology to reduce the 'paperwork'. But, since there's so much on the line in terms of integrity etc, this is one area of technology that SHOULD be outsourced to a neutral third party. Electronics created for the automation of the election process need to be above reproach. This is especially true if they are to be used by folks that cannot read a ballot, and cannot tell if a punch card has been punched or not.
The harp gun project in the 60's was capable of launching projectiles into space, the highest launch achieved on an atmospheric test package was 170KM. The project ran from a Canadian University on the guise of doing high altitude research, but, the real research, was to attempt to build a payload package that included guidance and propellant sufficient to achieve orbit. The project was funded by the US military. The project was never viewed as a serious 'space threat' by other countries because the technical difficulties of creating a guidance package that could withstand the 2300 g launch were pretty big obstacles, and to create a nuke that could survive that was unthinkable.
Missle programs were another story, it was techically feasable to use a missle to launch a nuke and in theory drop it anywhere in the world. Besides the issue of launch vehicle reliability, there were a whole mess of other issues to demonstrate that such a program would indeed work. Compared to a bullet, a nuke is a rather fragile and complex piece of equipment, so you cant subject it to the types of forces you subject a standard conventional payload to during the delivery phase.
To really demonstrate to the 'other guys' that the ordinance delivery system is truely capable of providing an environment capable of supporting a nuke from liftoff to arrival at target, its really simple, stick a man inside it. If the human body can withstand the rigors of the launch forces, and the vehicle can be dropped back to earth on a precise target, with the human intact, a lot of things have been demonstrated. The most important one though is this, if the human can survive the trip, the forces/temperatures involved are such, a nuclear payload can survive, and be operational when it arrives on target.
The same way that Russia and subsequently the USA demonstrated to the world that they had a launch system capable of providing a ride gentle enough for a nuclear device, yet capable of arriving anywhere in the world, China has just provided the same proof. The on orbit maneuver is a critical component of this demonstration.
Not only have they demonstrated they can put an object into orbit, maneuver it, and then land it on/near a target, they have concisely demonstrated that the vehicle provides an environment to deliver a very fragile package, probably the most fragile of all weapons, a human body. That's pretty much de-facto proof that a nuclear device can survive the same trip.
Well at least give credit where credit is due. It would be absolutely silly to start a program, and NOT learn from the mistakes others have already made. They chose to follow the design concepts of a spaceship that works. They could have taken the other example available, but they chose the route of the one that works.
They may have stuck around for the shuttle program, but the Avro engineers that went south, went long before the shuttle was even a scribble on a napkin, they went to the mercury/gemini/apollo programs.
Yes it's true, the Arrow was way ahead of it's time. Consider a mach 2 fly by wire fighter that could operate 2000 mile missions un-refueled, capable of operating in both fighter and bomber modes. Actually, come to think about it, look around, still not much flying today that can do that. But, doesn't matter, it's ancient history, and was scrapped for really stupid political reasons. So be it.
The real interesting part is looking where the Avro engineers really went. McDonnel Douglas was 'first on scene' offering lucrative positions, but, the overall leader in early hiring turned out to be a fledgling government operation called NASA. They had a need for engineers to deal with supersonic and hypersonic aerodynamic problems on thier launch vehicles, Avro had engineers that had solved a lot of these already. Nasa was there offering lucrative salaries with relocation and 'instant citizenship' to bypass some of the red tape problems of having foreigners working on those projects. To aggressive young engineers that had just seen thier life work destroyed, the opportunity to go put a man on the moon was irresistable. For some more details, check this out here , an article on the reunion.
While you are there, check out the Jetliner, and note, it was flying in the 40's already. Then look at the arrow facts. An example 'On its third flight, the aircraft was flown supersonically at Mach 1.1. On its seventh flight, it exceeded 1,000 mph while climbing. '. Approaching mach 2 in a climb at a time when american fighter companies could barely make thier machines go supersonic in a vertical dive.
It's really interesting to look at the positions these engineers attained with Nasa, here's just a couple snaps from the above link, there's a bunch more there.
Jim Chamberlin
The former designer of the Arrow who went on to design the Gemini spacecraft and help NASA decide how to go to the Moon.
Project Manager Mercury, Designer and Project Manager Gemini Technical Advisor and Troubleshooter for Bob Gilruth, MSC Director (Apollo). Shuttle concepts
Owen Maynard Owen Maynard, the engineer from Sarnia, Ont., who quickly rose through the ranks to give life to the Apollo Lunar Module and later oversee the engineering effort on Apollo.
NASA Space Task Force, Chief Engineering Designer of the Lunar Landing Module.
Rod Rose The British engineer who helped plan the Apollo missions and picked out the first prayer to be broadcast from space.
Rockets, Mission Operations assistant to Chris Kraft. Apollo and Shuttle mission planning
Love how the /. folks want to holler about communist filtering of the propoganda, especially in a case like this. If you haven't seen replays of the launch, maybe, just maybe, you should switch to non american news sources. I've seen two replays already tonite on the tv.
Tune in the CBC if you want to see it, altho, they have run it a few times already, not sure it'll run to many more times.
This does make me wonder tho, are the american networks really not running the tapes of the launch ? If not, why not ?
Gonna try submit this one more time, and then give up. Seems /. is suffering the /. effect yet again...
Governments are specifically excluded.
To truely understand the process of moving from 'fully mechanical' to 'fully automated', just take a look at another industry that's much farther along that curve, and understand the reasons it is, and how it got where it is. Look at aviation, in particular, the large transport aircraft.
Early transport jet aircraft were huge and complex mechanical beasts. They had inefficient engines, that spewed a lot of smoke out the back, made a lot of noise, and produced thrust. They had only one re-deeming feature, they could operate at speeds much higher than propeller driven aircraft. If you stuck enough of them on a big plane, you could achieve reliability thru redundancy. This marked the beginning of the process. The 'necessity' originated in military mission specifications. Economics didn't play a big part, the money available to throw at development was virtually unlimited thanks to the military requirements.
When the engineering reached the point that the economics were within reach of the average airline, then the comet and subsequently the boeing 707/dc-8 era aircraft came to light. Completely mechanical, no automation, very inefficient (by todays standards), but they worked, and did the job.
At this point in the development curve, economics became the driving factor of development. the obvious area of development was fuel efficiency. For an aircraft this is MUCH more important than a car. Every pound of fuel you dont have to carry, is a pound of revenue payload you can carry. The engines, and aircraft systems went thru a large phase of refinement, until they reached physical limits of the mechanics, and, the next step was an obvious jump to electronic and automation. Again, early developments in this area were mostly driven by military mission requirements, where cost was no object. Only after military funding developed the concepts to a useable form, did the process of refinement begin to bring the economics down to a practical level for commercial application.
Fly by wire came in aviation for 2 reasons. In the military application, it allows for an aircraft to perform in a manner that true mechanical control cannot achieve, its physically impossible. Again, necessity mothered the invention, but before it came to the commercial world, it needed more necessity, and the economics. The move of large aircraft to fly by wire was driven by 2 factors, with weight savings being a huge driving factor. Replace a mile of cables and pulleys all operating under tension, with very high maintenance requirements, with a mile of wire, that's not moving all the time. Every pound saved, is another revenue producing pound of payload. on the engines side, electronic controls allowed for more fuel efficiency, which results in either more payload, or greater range, for the same airframe. Again, the economics in aviation are substantially different than in the automotive world. With items that sell in the hundreds of millions of dollars per each, and consume fuel in the hundreds of thousands of pounds per day, the incentive to reduce fuel consumption, and increase payload is huge. A few million dollars 'per each' is small cost comparatively.
Embedded control electronics with decent capability are commonplace cheap items today. Development costs have long been amortized, and they are just commodity items now. So, it's reached the point where, adding electronics for small gains on an automobile are cost effective. just put it in perspective. The microcontroller managing the engine in a modern automobile weighs in at a couple ounces, and has more capability than the navigation systems on an apollo spacecraft weighing in at 30+ pounds. That nav system got them to the moon and back. In the early 60's it was worth millions, today, it's worth
Actually, this is a very bad misconception. To governments, life is a propoganda tool, that is used to massage the 'will' of the masses. Reference recent history.
The loss of 7 lives in a re-entry accident is used by the government to achieve a huge (and very subtle) shift if expenditures. This is being used very effectively behind the scenes to promote the concept of scrapping the shuttle program, in the meantime, no launches, so, no money being spent on launches.
The daily loss of life overseas is being promoted as 'the cost' and a 'justifiable cost' of enforcing a foreign policy on a region that wants no part of it.
It's all how you spin it, and how the press regurgitates the spin. If you can make the masses believe that losing 7 astronauts is 'to much', then you can gain political support for an objective that doesn't include a shuttle program. If you can make the masses believe hundreds of lives are 'worth the price' to support an overseas invasion, then you can gain support for huge expenditures on that program.
Body count is just a propoganda tool, to be used when convenient, and to be swept under the rug when inconvenient. That applies to ALL governments, including the american government.
You are missing the significance. If you really want to put it in a perspective that hilights the state of 3 space programs, consider these facts.
a) The Chinese space program is planning to launch a person into orbit within the month, on chinese hardware.
b) The Russian space program has a big 'for rent' sign hanging on the launch vehicle on the pad, waiting for a taker.
c) The american space program is planning to use a rented Russian launch vehicle to do crew rotation on the space station in the near future.
This is very good for the american taxpayer, extremely good. What it really means, in the near future, there will be choices when it comes to choosing contractors for outsourcing the american space travel requirements. Nasa will be able to offer up a contract for bid, with 2 viable bidders. This can only result in a significant long term cost reduction for nasa. It costs billions to operate space shuttles, and billions more to oversee the beaurocracy that has been built around them. The whole of Nasa can soon be replaced with a small procurement department that manages the bidding process. This will sit much better with the american public too, because, in the inevitable event that people are lost due to launch / re-entry accidents, there will be a contractor to sue after the fact.
I can see it already. Computer hardware made in korea and taiwan, driven by software written in inda, mounted in launch hardware built in china. A couple of americans tossed in as passengers, with the whole process overseen by american beaurocrats taking advice from a team of american lawyers.
Mind my cynicism on the subject, but America has slipped from the leader to second place in the race to space. Russia is firmly in the lead right now. It'll be interesting to see if the chinese entry can attain second place before the american team gets out of the pits and back into the race.
There's 2 factors that come into play, economics, and political will. Political will is generated by 'the masses', and the economics are generated by political will. The 60's were a wonderful time to grow up as a young boy interested in science and exploration. As a pre-teen i watched the first landing on the moon live, on a black and white tv. Even then, I knew, I was watching one of those historical moments that happens but once in a century.
The environment of the space race in the 60's was brought on by a political will to make it happen. The entire country was focussed on the space program as a point of national pride. It wasn't there to be efficient, it wasn't there to be 'cost justified', it was there so folks could watch with pride, wave the flag, and say 'we are the best'. It worked, and worked well, the focus of the entire country was on research, development, and 'do the impossible'. Nasa was the fledgling young organization tasked with 'do the impossible', and they did it with tremendous pride.
The political will does not exist today. The politics of today are focussed on military expenditures, and doing whatever it takes to contue justifying the existence of the military industrial complex. During the cold war, this wasn't to difficult, the percieved threat was real enough that everybody 'bought in', and life went on happily. Nasa got shovelled aside to play with shuttles, while the real expenditures went into the military.
Today, the achievements of Nasa are viewed by most as 'just a money pit' for tax dollars. National pride is focussed on the military invasions overseas. It will take time, but that tide will shift once again. Folks are already tired of hearing about body counts, and little things like 'we need another 87 billion dollars to keep this up'. it would have been easy to keep the momentum in this area, but, the politicians are finding, they have been called up on statements, and, cant back them with enough facts to convince folks anymore. The population is rapidly losing the political will to continue feeding the military industrial complex now that the price is measured in bodies as well as dollars.
Achievements in space have always been a big point of national pride in the USA, but it's something that is kind of taken for granted today, most americans believe that the USA is still the leader in space development and exploration, and this is something that goes without question, is taken for granted. But, one has to look at a few facts, to check this out carefully, the assumption is no longer valid.
As it sits today, the american space program consists of sending american astronauts to an international space station, riding up and down on soviet hardware. That's not much of a 'leadership' role. Now, look around, the Europeans are flight testing the next generation in space propulsion that is required to do longer range missions. The Chinese are launching rockets on a regular basis, and will have a manned mission in orbit before the year is out. They have a stated goal to reach the moon with a manned mission, while the european flight test hardware is already on it's way to the moon, to validate the new concepts in propulsion.
The ducks are starting to line up for a major shift in the cards of political will. Joe average on the street doesn't even realize that the Chinese are going to be launching people into space imminently. When it happens, it's going to be a wake up call to todays generation, similar to what sputnik was to mine. I dont believe Joe Average is willing to conceed the leadership as a space exploration nation, it's far to big a point of national pride.
It isn't going to happen for 2004, but, the ducks are lining up to create a groundswell of support for a 2008 campaign, one that is prepared to de-emphasize military conquest, and re-emphasize scientific achievement.
Then again, I could