Most reports I have heard say that most people from countries outside of the US view many US products (McDonalds, Microsoft, Nike, others) as international producs and don't really associate them with the US. Is that BS?
Yes that is entirely BS, ofcourse we associate those products with the US, Globilisation is the spread of americanisms, well virtually.
Hang on. If European engineering can produce something that will survive 150 years in Essex, landing a buggy on Mars should be peanuts in comparison. What went wrong?
Oh, and if you're going to bring up the old "too much radiation" argument
Its not the issue of radiation while ON MARS, but travelling there. Currently on earth we have the protection of the VABs, but once outside these one would need thick protection which isn't available without adding too much weight to the hull of the craft. As the journey is so much longer than travelling to the moon (e.g.) the astronauts would have to weather so many more Solar flares (by probability) and put themselves at risk.
The Amiga was indeed far ahead of its time, they were fully multimedia systems which in equivalent would have cost 10x more to implement on PC. I only owned an Amiga 500+ which was aimed more at home entertainment in the form of games but the graphics and sound systems were still very advanced. The AGA systems on the A1200 and 4000 were excellent for graphical design + gaming ofc.
Or maybe Mars is a long way away and it's really hard to build a machine that can be expected to work for months on end whilst being baked and simultaneously frozen after being placed in a vacuum and bombarded with radiation. Then to put this complicated device on top of hundreds of tonnes of high explosive so that you can get it moving fifteen times faster than a rifle bullet with the objective of placing it somewhere near a body only slightly larger than the Moon?
The alternative is to use ion based propulsion (as on the Beagle 2), but there are still hundreds of other factors to be controlled.
With our current technology the prospect of getting humans to mars and back (in good health) is laughable, the main obstacle being the immense radiation levels which will have to be endured for months each way. Lead isnt practical as it adds too much weight to the hull. Current sheilding methods on the ISS (which remains within the Van Allen Belts) are mainly polythene based with water storage around sleeping quarters.
Mining the moon would have to be almost entirely mechanised as humans can barely survive in space for prolonged periods of time (stating the obvious here). The permanent base would have to be at least 15m underground to protect the humans from GCRs. Bearing in mind no humans have actually travelled outside the VABs since Apollo and that was practically suicidal anyway -> in the event of a strong solar flare the astronauts would have been rendered seriously ill.
The amount of trips through the VABs needed to transport the equipment and the product would need highly advanced craft with extreme protection (no lead is not practial here).
Not to mention the problems with electronics, hubble spews junk data after a solar flares, and the laptops on mir used to crash on average 3 times a day due to the radiation effects (mir was within VABs).
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm slightly convienient, just like the Valve - HL2 delays.
Most reports I have heard say that most people from countries outside of the US view many US products (McDonalds, Microsoft, Nike, others) as international producs and don't really associate them with the US. Is that BS?
Yes that is entirely BS, ofcourse we associate those products with the US, Globilisation is the spread of americanisms, well virtually.
Hang on. If European engineering can produce something that will survive 150 years in Essex, landing a buggy on Mars should be peanuts in comparison. What went wrong?
Both were British made.
Oh, and if you're going to bring up the old "too much radiation" argument
Its not the issue of radiation while ON MARS, but travelling there. Currently on earth we have the protection of the VABs, but once outside these one would need thick protection which isn't available without adding too much weight to the hull of the craft. As the journey is so much longer than travelling to the moon (e.g.) the astronauts would have to weather so many more Solar flares (by probability) and put themselves at risk.
The review in the article is slightly hampered by their choice in motherboard.
The Amiga was indeed far ahead of its time, they were fully multimedia systems which in equivalent would have cost 10x more to implement on PC.
/me returns to Deluxe Paint III
I only owned an Amiga 500+ which was aimed more at home entertainment in the form of games but the graphics and sound systems were still very advanced. The AGA systems on the A1200 and 4000 were excellent for graphical design + gaming ofc.
Or maybe Mars is a long way away and it's really hard to build a machine that can be expected to work for months on end whilst being baked and simultaneously frozen after being placed in a vacuum and bombarded with radiation. Then to put this complicated device on top of hundreds of tonnes of high explosive so that you can get it moving fifteen times faster than a rifle bullet with the objective of placing it somewhere near a body only slightly larger than the Moon?
The alternative is to use ion based propulsion (as on the Beagle 2), but there are still hundreds of other factors to be controlled.
With our current technology the prospect of getting humans to mars and back (in good health) is laughable, the main obstacle being the immense radiation levels which will have to be endured for months each way.
Lead isnt practical as it adds too much weight to the hull. Current sheilding methods on the ISS (which remains within the Van Allen Belts) are mainly polythene based with water storage around sleeping quarters.
Mining the moon would have to be almost entirely mechanised as humans can barely survive in space for prolonged periods of time (stating the obvious here). The permanent base would have to be at least 15m underground to protect the humans from GCRs. Bearing in mind no humans have actually travelled outside the VABs since Apollo and that was practically suicidal anyway -> in the event of a strong solar flare the astronauts would have been rendered seriously ill. The amount of trips through the VABs needed to transport the equipment and the product would need highly advanced craft with extreme protection (no lead is not practial here). Not to mention the problems with electronics, hubble spews junk data after a solar flares, and the laptops on mir used to crash on average 3 times a day due to the radiation effects (mir was within VABs).