So one of the reasons to park the James Webb Telescope at L2 is that it's 'in the shadow' since Earth will be between the JWST and the sun. Has anyone worked out just how big the shadow spot (and the penumbra) is, and whether or not the periodic passage of the Moon between the Earth and JWST will drag it out of the shadow?
I would expect someone at NASA to have worked this out, but they also forgot to compensate for (the lack of) gravity when designing the HST mirror geometry...
Even if it's a hostile place to be, the cost of boosting a new telescope up into an orbit is huge compared to just getting some replacement parts up there. Also, the gyroscopes that are used in the Hubble telescope are among the most sensitive ever made; but that doesn't mean that their performance won't be eclipsed by new technology in the near future.
I think that an effort by the X-prize contestants to (a) get into space in the first place and (b) collaborate, if possible, to build and orbit a payload booster that can put the Hubble into a higher orbit, would be awesome, and one that would be supported by a lot of folks, probably even by their chequebooks.
If the (eventual) X-prize winner announced a lottery, where the winning contestant (assuming they could pass the physicals and training) were able to accompany the Xtranauts on a Hubble rescue mission, I think they'd sell a LOT of tickets. At any price.
Laplace keeps it up there, that's who. Orbital mechanics (and that nasty wisp of atmosphere that's still up there) dictate how long it's going to be up, and where it's going to go once its orbit starts to decay. But if they can spend $300M on the development of a de-orbiting module, why not use those thrusters to boost it into a higher orbit, or else to drive it around to the ISS orbit? If they want to prove they've got good remote docking capability, then they should use it to preserve the thing, not to turn it into the world's most expensive meteor shower.
Static power might be an increasingly large issue for Pentium-class (0.1 micron, low core voltage) CPUs and graphics cores, but for all other CMOS circuits, the dynamic dissipation will still be the lion's share of the power used.
One technique that I imagine you might be able to use is to tie a small inductor to each gate (making a tiny oscillator), and then you run the system such that you somehow drive all of the oscillators into a synchronous mode of operation. The energy of the system is continuously being changed from electric to magnetic. While it's in the magnetic state, you could update the electric connections (again, "somehow") and then your computational results would be propagated by energy redistribution as opposed to continuously pulling more charge from the supply rails and using it to charge and discharge caps.
Unless that arithmetic scheme was implementable using significantly less computer hardware, there would be zero benefit in doing so, other than out of theoretical interest, and unless I've misread the X-prize intent, they're not going for "the space vehicle that uses the most obscure mathematical concepts for flight control".
In reference to his first attempt, I think his view of 'the important thing' was that by releasing it, he was exposed to a group of developers and a software development paradigm, of which he previously wasn't aware. The software subsequently improved due to users' contributions and suggestions, but the important thing was that the public release opened his eyes and thinking to the open source community.
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So one of the reasons to park the James Webb Telescope at L2 is that it's 'in the shadow' since Earth will be between the JWST and the sun. Has anyone worked out just how big the shadow spot (and the penumbra) is, and whether or not the periodic passage of the Moon between the Earth and JWST will drag it out of the shadow? I would expect someone at NASA to have worked this out, but they also forgot to compensate for (the lack of) gravity when designing the HST mirror geometry...
Even if it's a hostile place to be, the cost of boosting a new telescope up into an orbit is huge compared to just getting some replacement parts up there. Also, the gyroscopes that are used in the Hubble telescope are among the most sensitive ever made; but that doesn't mean that their performance won't be eclipsed by new technology in the near future.
I think that an effort by the X-prize contestants to (a) get into space in the first place and (b) collaborate, if possible, to build and orbit a payload booster that can put the Hubble into a higher orbit, would be awesome, and one that would be supported by a lot of folks, probably even by their chequebooks.
If the (eventual) X-prize winner announced a lottery, where the winning contestant (assuming they could pass the physicals and training) were able to accompany the Xtranauts on a Hubble rescue mission, I think they'd sell a LOT of tickets. At any price.
Nah... you just need that new Pentagram 6.66 GHz CPU that's in beta testing...
Laplace keeps it up there, that's who. Orbital mechanics (and that nasty wisp of atmosphere that's still up there) dictate how long it's going to be up, and where it's going to go once its orbit starts to decay. But if they can spend $300M on the development of a de-orbiting module, why not use those thrusters to boost it into a higher orbit, or else to drive it around to the ISS orbit? If they want to prove they've got good remote docking capability, then they should use it to preserve the thing, not to turn it into the world's most expensive meteor shower.
Static power might be an increasingly large issue for Pentium-class (0.1 micron, low core voltage) CPUs and graphics cores, but for all other CMOS circuits, the dynamic dissipation will still be the lion's share of the power used.
One technique that I imagine you might be able to use is to tie a small inductor to each gate (making a tiny oscillator), and then you run the system such that you somehow drive all of the oscillators into a synchronous mode of operation. The energy of the system is continuously being changed from electric to magnetic. While it's in the magnetic state, you could update the electric connections (again, "somehow") and then your computational results would be propagated by energy redistribution as opposed to continuously pulling more charge from the supply rails and using it to charge and discharge caps.
Unless that arithmetic scheme was implementable using significantly less computer hardware, there would be zero benefit in doing so, other than out of theoretical interest, and unless I've misread the X-prize intent, they're not going for "the space vehicle that uses the most obscure mathematical concepts for flight control".
In reference to his first attempt, I think his view of 'the important thing' was that by releasing it, he was exposed to a group of developers and a software development paradigm, of which he previously wasn't aware. The software subsequently improved due to users' contributions and suggestions, but the important thing was that the public release opened his eyes and thinking to the open source community.