Will NVidia sue them, buy them out, or just ignore them?
He could be whacked with the DMCA on this too. I don't forsee NVidia being that stupid, but it isn't like this will increase market share for NVidia a lot either -- although it does boost their reputation a bit, I think.
I have been wondering when this kind of thing would happen. The thought of all those cycles going to waste while running optimizations code (Linear models) has made me so sad in the past:~( Kudos to BionicFX for making it happen. Don't even want to imagine how hard it was:~)
Here's hoping NVidia will embrace and encourage this technology
5.) Good point. 6.) BAH!;~) 7.) It should be digital *anyway* 8.) True. But neither does anything else. Its all in the sheathing.
"A great handheld GPS costs about 400 dollars. A less capable aircraft GPS costs about 8000. Let's not make avionics even more expensive."
Yes, but that is because the FAA has idiotic design requirements (actually, it is the testing requirements) that hurt more than they help in many cases. Case and point is the turn coordinator -- that little curved tube that has a bubble inside that shows the pilot if he is slipping in a banking turn: story from class about a homebuilt A/C... To buy an FAA approved turn coordinator is a couple hundred bucks... So this guy went to an RV shop and picked up two trailer levels -- the little bubble levels that show when the trailer is, well, level. The were curved. Just like the turn coordinator. And the pack of two was about 5 bucks. Worked wonderfully. More robust even than the A/C version, as they were made to take abuse from the type of people who drive RVs into the middle of nowhere (e.g. 'not the delicate types').
So, yes, I agree, but the cost for Boeing et. al. is minor; I want to see commercial A/C with fiber communications systems. Anything less than 15 or so passengers should be exempt.
in the year 2030, we would fly on plane from the year 2000 because the company couldn't afford to build a new plane that met regulations, even if the new planes were a lot better in other ways.
The Boeing 747 was introduced on September 30, 1968.
And by future aircraft, I meant signficantly new -- e.g. new *designs*, or significantly new designs (such as the 747ER). No re-tooling of existing production lines.
How do you know that it was in that length of wire that the interference occured and not in your PC's sound card?
Logic. Long wires act as antenna/inductors. Short ones not-so-much. I admit I *could* be wrong about that, but I don't thinks so. The wire lengths on the sound card aren't long enough to 'absorb' much power, and they weren't exactly tuned the the freq of the phone. Never mind the fact that it was sitting inside a nice metal cage.
I doubt it would solve the problem. The long lengths of wire could be replaced with fibre, sure, but aren't those signals fairly strong? Usually interference occurs when the signal level is the lowest.
The long runs of wire in the aircraft would act as an antenna, picking up the cell freqs. The modified signal would get to the rear of the aircraft and, say, tell the rudder to go all the way LEFT! instead of nowwhere. If the system is setup the way most control systems are, no signal* means no input means 'don't move the rudder (etc)'. So, (and this is flying blind, so to speak) if there is no input than all you have is a carrier signal, at best. Easily modified by any input, such as a phone call. My guess is that the effect would normally be minor -- maybe a shaky shaky on the rudder (or other control surface) every 1000 phone calls.
*No signal means no modification of the carrier, not 'no voltage'. For digital systems it *could* mean no voltage, but that would be scary on an airplane (think lightning).
Anything in the cockpit or any end junction at the control surface etc could be wrapped in a faraday cage. No biggy, really.
My concern is *NOT* phone calls, but more 'if phone calls can cause an issue at ALL, then someone who intentionally *makes* a device could certainly cause a massive problem'. Pulling a rudder too far in one direction at speed will rip it off. Airbus over FL showed us this, although its been known for ever.
I would love to know the details of the wiring/communication system between the cockpit and the controls. I'll look for more info after work, but hey, if anyone wants to help me be lazy, I'm game;~)
I used to set my phone on my desk -- a Nokia 5860. I would always know that my phone was going to ring a few seconds before it actually did. Why? The handshake is broadcast at higher power (I presume) than the rest of the call -- and it would broadcast enough power into the speaker wire going between my PC and my amplifier that it was *very* audible in the music. *THUMP**THUMP*BzzzzzZzz* ring!
So, knowing what I know about aircraft electronics, which isn't a huge amount (I *do* have a degree in aerospace engineering, though that was NOT a focus area of mine), I would be VERY hesitant to allow the use of cell phones in aircraft.
Even neglecting the entire cell phone issue, I don't understand WHY the FAA has not issued a requirement that ALL future aircraft use optical systems. They are more difficult to engineer, but the advantages are pretty significant.
1.) Can't light the fuel on fire 2.) Unaffected by EMF (*big one*) 3.) Aging issues are insignificant, compared to wire (no heat/flexure). 4.) others that I don't know about because it isn't my field.
Who has a nice list of reasons NOT to use fibre? Mechanically I don't believe it is as flexible, and you shouldn't really splice it over such a short run. I know that it requires more hardware at each end of the system, but the hardware is fairly robust.
thanks:~) I was always searching for the actual adobe product, since for some reason I thought that PDF was proprietary.... isn't it? nm, google shall answer that one.
Anyone know if there is a DLL/print driver available for enabling the Print to PDF in windows? One that *doesn't* require the purchase of PageMaker (which is how I picked it up way back when).
I think anyone who lived through it agrees: MSIE 4 was BETTER than Netscape 4. It was a sad day, with much introspection when I ditched my Netscape 3 for MSIE 4.
My sister can't figure out SSH*, but she still put it best: why would anyone use Nutscrape?
Ahhhh. I love my family.
(* But she used Pine while at Uni, so she is forgiven.)
I honestly don't know; I was under the impression that you had to enable multiple desktops, and install the debugger. I know 'windbg' doesn't run on my pc.
Regardless I would contend that if you are correct in the aforementioned methods of hiding the connections -- or for that matter *any way* to hoax an outbound connection -- then any and all of those methods should be considered critical security flaws.
I'm sure that any business with propietary data (ha! all of them), or any government agency would agree.
Yup. And a browser window appears. I've done this from within Java. And nope, my firewall didn't try to block it.
I don't disagree with the statement that the message WILL get out... however, I WILL know about it. Hell, a better example would be use the command line FTP program to do something; that WOULDN'T raise any flags, provided the user has used FTP in the past. And if they had, the firewall prog would say 'hey, MS FTP is tying to access the internet. Allow/disallow?'. And most peeps would of course accept; its a MS prog after all!
Because nobody will notice the random browser window popping up? Sorry, its a lot more than a random illusion of security. That is what you get when you use hardware firewalls that don't pay attention to both *program* AND *port*. Just because I let opera use port 80 doesn't mean I let IE use it. Hardware firewalls don't differentiate, and neither does Windows firewall. ZoneAlarm does, as to the better ones.
Is it better than nothing? Yes. Is it easy to see why they did it? Yes. Would I want to deal with all the requests for help had they 'done it right'? HELL NO.
Does that justify having a firewall that would have been worthless against 99% of all the malware that has been released in the past 2-4 years? Not really. After all, how many cracked machines were a result of a direct attact, vs getting the user to run an executable, or open a particular malPage? Most of the bugs have been installed 'locally' then dialed out to get instructions to do whatever -- DDOS microsoft.com, for instance.
So, I say 'whats the point?' It does squat to keep my parents' PC from getting hacked, or used as a drone. Won't even make 'em click 'OK' before begining a DDOS.
If this is their idea of a firewall, I can't wait to see the integrated AntiVirus solution.
They realized long long ago that the space shuttle was way too expensive...but they had one of their own that flew and landed within feet of its intended target on the runway
Uhm, that *happened* to be a virtually exact copy of the US space shuttle, down to the scorching and melting on the tail which one would expect to see if you under-predicted the amount of heat that the tail would see.... or designed your space shuttle using data from the NASA data which was intentionally falsified because it was known that someone was selling it to the Russians.
However, that in-and-of itself doesn't discount your point. The Russian rocket scientists are easily the equal of the American versions in many ways, better in some and worse in some. I speak as an American 'rocket scientist' (not active, and my field is actually orbital mechanics), so I can argue that 1.) I certainly have little to gain by such statements and 2.) I'm fairly qualified to judge.
There is a 20 year old Russian rocket engine which has been purchased by American companies for use in the Atlas V. Personally I think that it is sad that *any* 20 year old technology is still 'top o' the pile' in the aerospace industry, considering the field has only been around for a few decades. Which is the underlying problem in Aerospace today; NOBODY is innovating. There are a few research projects here and there, but companies are still using oodles of 'original rocket scientists': guys who got their training 30 years ago! The average age of Aerospace engineer today is 54 years old. While a few of them are probably stodgy old men, I am not blaming age on lack of innovation. It is the companies themselves being too risk averse.
Anyway. The shuttle is a POS and needs to be replaced. It was f*ing incredible 20 years ago. Now it is the proverbial yugo. Let it die, dump an assload of money into a new vehicle. And if you say 'SSTO' I will personally hunt you down and bitch slap you for your ignorance of exponential functions.
While it is within the sphere of influence of the sun, will it not also be boosted by the 'solar wind' (all those juicy massive charged particles)?
Would seem pointless to not set up the tiny bit of photovoltaics you would need to make the sail a mag sail in addition to the whole light sail thing. Most of your acceleration would be within the first few dozen light minutes of earth anyway.
Yes, but sadly it is somewhat self-defeating. You get the most benefit from solar particles the closer you are to the sun (the flux is more dense).
Although if you did use an initial boost to push you into a sun-skimming orbit, that would help a lot. Not *TOO* close, obviously, but doing a gravity assist off mercury (yeah, not a big boost) would put you in position to grab ton of extra delta V from both being near the sun, and you can time it for pretty much any other flyby combo you want (mercury is 'fast' WRT setting up for flybys). Dunno if getting much closer to the sun that Mercury is feasible; a dark spot on your mirror would be pretty tragic even that close.
None of this is new; I only regurgitate Scifi books and orbital mechanics classes. Mostly scifi.
Give 'em all the land they want to claim....
on
Lawyers In Space...
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· Score: 1
Have you ever seen a gun that fires bullets at up to 14km per second?:~)
The argument for aluminum is that the hole is small and won't 'unzip' the structure -- which means you can slap a small patch on it if you actually get holed and go about your merry way... unless your suit doesn't work right and you have to borrow your Russian neighbors just to get out the airlock... err, sorry:~)
The inflatable designs are way better than Al... Now. Although foamed aluminum looks damned promising in balistics tests. Heck, even duel layer Al is good. Its just a lot easier to inflate a structure than to assemble one:~)
Also, the tensile strength has little to do with the resistance to puncture. Well, it does and it doesn't. Strain energy is important, which does relate to tensile strength, but not directly. Example being kevlar vs. Carbon: so far as I know nobody makes flexible carbon body armor. Most (if not all?) use kevlar. Kevlar requires more energy to cut than carbon. Just ask someone who works with it how often they need to sharpen the shears:~) It is kindof like saying 'how much energy can each fibre absorb before snapping'?
However, there is an interesting aspect to fibre: If it doesn't stop the projectile launched at it, what doesn't disintegrate continues along at the same velocity that it originally impacted with! The linked PDF below has pretty pictures and descriptions of a.338 hitting a steel plate, vs. same hitting 20mm of Kevlar THEN hitting a steel plate. Pretty interesting. http://www.autodyn.com/autodyn/paper s/paper156.pdf
Reminds me of the ad I saw back in '96/97: "Wanted: Java Swing Developers. 5 Years Minimum Experience".
Employers are smart enough to know better. Its the HR peeps that don't get enough information to do their jobs right.
OTOH, I think that it is about time Java dropped the '1'; more information would have been nice, but lets face it: There are more changes in the Java language in each incremental release (e.g. 1.3 -> 1.4) than in 99.9% of all software out there. Hell, JBuilder gets a new full version number every time they fix a f*ing bug.
Imagine the alternate side: How do you explain to a somewhat sophisticated client that you want to upgrade their code to use 1.5.0, from 1.4.2? To the client it looks like such a minor thing, because she is used to upgrading every full version number, perhaps even two version numbers. Just sophisticated enough to cause trouble...
Your response is well written -- much more so than my semi-drunk, friday night response would be.
I just wanted to add that any orbit BELOW geo-sync, would be fairly easy to attain. At least, much more easily than it currently can be. Here's why:
In order to know your orbit, you need to know a few things. If you know your velcity vector and your position (thats a lot of numbers, btw), you know your orbit. There are dozens of relationships that can be used -- velocity vector, alt-azimuth + vel. vec, etc, etc etc. More along our interests though: if you know your orbital inclination (we do, it is zero) and you know your velocity (we do, it is always tangential to the earth, and it is always (um, that nifty equation that relates pi, R and omega, where pi is, errr, pi, omega is 1/(86400) hz, and R is your current altitude....). Given the 'multi day' trip speed, I have neglected the 'upward' portion of the velocity. If I really cared I'd model it in STK -- so if you were smart enough to catch that, kudos, and leave me be.
ANNNNYYYY WAY. What I am trying to say is that we just 'let go' a little bit higher than our desired orbit, then make a *small* orbital correction. Assuming that we WANT an equatorial orbit. Now, if we don't, the course correction is NOT minor! But it is still a small fraction of what we would have paid to launch from the surface of the planet, unless we want a polar orbit at some very low altitude...... now just WHO might want that?
And if you are wondering, I have a degree in astronautical engineering. Does that mean that the above is right? Not at all! In fact, the bottle of wine I just helped finish says there is a good chance I am full of shit! No math was even attempted in this analysis....
The system steals energy from from the rotation of the earth.
If you don't ever send mass DOWN, then after one billion forty two million seven hundred thousand four hundred and thirty two trips the ride shuts down.
Seriously though: imagine what happens if you spin the proverbial cat-in-the-can around and 'round: if you HAPPEN (oops) to get slack in the line (by, say, 'accidentally' hitting a tree branch), but continue to spin round and 'round at 'X' rpm, the can will SNAP back into its old position, oscilate a bit, then settle out exactly as it was before.
I am curious: how do you calculate the weak point near Earth? Genuine question.
My thought sugguests that the point which is under the most strain is actually at geo-sync -- the 'balance point'.
Also, a minor point: the hard part really _IS_ getting into orbit. It would be _nice_ to come back using the same system (and if done correctly, as you say, very nice indeed) but, for the most part, once an object lets go of the tether, it will NEVER be allowed to get near it again. EVER! Because you would HAVE to attach to the tether at geo-sync orbit -- or at least geo-sync SPEEDS -- which as I would guess you know, but others may not have considered -- are NOT the same thing. I am not justifying poor design; rather I am stating that if simplicity states that the first design be a flat ribben roller design, so be it. Reduce the risk, make the first one a roller, and for the sake of the Gods above, make #2 allow for return trips!
Re: the orbital part...
Well considered, but not quite right:-). There are many (well, nearly infinite, but I digress) orbits where you will hit the sun but have not reduced your orbital velocity by 30km per second. And no one gives a crap how long it takes so we can use solar sails and gravity assists or whatnot to get where we want to go. Which isn't the sun: drop the crap on Mercury. Why throw away forever something that valuable? Hypothetically we will be able to fuse whatever we want into anything else one day, but I imagine there will be a stage where it is assloads cheaper to just go pick up all that heavy crap from Mercury.
Now, while I am all for sending lil' ol probes into the depths of space with a tiny little reactor on board, the thought of the Space Shuttle launching with *any* large amounts of plant waste are a we disconcerting. I don't care *how* you store it! Yes, I know, build a more reliable system etc etc.... I happened to have gone to school (read: "staggered home") with some of the blokes who might be part of that task, so I'm tellin' ya, this shit happens and I'm moving as far upwind as I can get of the launch site!
I'm not well versed in the various distributed projects. Is there some promise that all the folding/medical/etc projects are using the data for open projects? e.g. nobody is going to patent the damned results after we use our processor time to find them?
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Has he licensed with NVidia?
:~( Kudos to BionicFX for making it happen. Don't even want to imagine how hard it was :~)
And since the answer is probably 'no':
Will NVidia sue them, buy them out, or just ignore them?
He could be whacked with the DMCA on this too. I don't forsee NVidia being that stupid, but it isn't like this will increase market share for NVidia a lot either -- although it does boost their reputation a bit, I think.
I have been wondering when this kind of thing would happen. The thought of all those cycles going to waste while running optimizations code (Linear models) has made me so sad in the past
Here's hoping NVidia will embrace and encourage this technology
>*sigh*....hit "submit" instead of "preview".
;~)
Liar! You're cruising for Karma! We can see through your petty scams!
5.) Good point. ;~)
6.) BAH!
7.) It should be digital *anyway*
8.) True. But neither does anything else. Its all in the sheathing.
"A great handheld GPS costs about 400 dollars. A less capable aircraft GPS costs about 8000. Let's not make avionics even more expensive."
Yes, but that is because the FAA has idiotic design requirements (actually, it is the testing requirements) that hurt more than they help in many cases. Case and point is the turn coordinator -- that little curved tube that has a bubble inside that shows the pilot if he is slipping in a banking turn: story from class about a homebuilt A/C... To buy an FAA approved turn coordinator is a couple hundred bucks... So this guy went to an RV shop and picked up two trailer levels -- the little bubble levels that show when the trailer is, well, level. The were curved. Just like the turn coordinator. And the pack of two was about 5 bucks. Worked wonderfully. More robust even than the A/C version, as they were made to take abuse from the type of people who drive RVs into the middle of nowhere (e.g. 'not the delicate types').
So, yes, I agree, but the cost for Boeing et. al. is minor; I want to see commercial A/C with fiber communications systems. Anything less than 15 or so passengers should be exempt.
The Boeing 747 was introduced on September 30, 1968.
And by future aircraft, I meant signficantly new -- e.g. new *designs*, or significantly new designs (such as the 747ER). No re-tooling of existing production lines.
Logic. Long wires act as antenna/inductors. Short ones not-so-much. I admit I *could* be wrong about that, but I don't thinks so. The wire lengths on the sound card aren't long enough to 'absorb' much power, and they weren't exactly tuned the the freq of the phone. Never mind the fact that it was sitting inside a nice metal cage.
The long runs of wire in the aircraft would act as an antenna, picking up the cell freqs. The modified signal would get to the rear of the aircraft and, say, tell the rudder to go all the way LEFT! instead of nowwhere. If the system is setup the way most control systems are, no signal* means no input means 'don't move the rudder (etc)'. So, (and this is flying blind, so to speak) if there is no input than all you have is a carrier signal, at best. Easily modified by any input, such as a phone call. My guess is that the effect would normally be minor -- maybe a shaky shaky on the rudder (or other control surface) every 1000 phone calls.
*No signal means no modification of the carrier, not 'no voltage'. For digital systems it *could* mean no voltage, but that would be scary on an airplane (think lightning).
Anything in the cockpit or any end junction at the control surface etc could be wrapped in a faraday cage. No biggy, really.
My concern is *NOT* phone calls, but more 'if phone calls can cause an issue at ALL, then someone who intentionally *makes* a device could certainly cause a massive problem'. Pulling a rudder too far in one direction at speed will rip it off. Airbus over FL showed us this, although its been known for ever.
I would love to know the details of the wiring/communication system between the cockpit and the controls. I'll look for more info after work, but hey, if anyone wants to help me be lazy, I'm game
I used to set my phone on my desk -- a Nokia 5860. I would always know that my phone was going to ring a few seconds before it actually did. Why? The handshake is broadcast at higher power (I presume) than the rest of the call -- and it would broadcast enough power into the speaker wire going between my PC and my amplifier that it was *very* audible in the music. *THUMP**THUMP*BzzzzzZzz* ring!
So, knowing what I know about aircraft electronics, which isn't a huge amount (I *do* have a degree in aerospace engineering, though that was NOT a focus area of mine), I would be VERY hesitant to allow the use of cell phones in aircraft.
Even neglecting the entire cell phone issue, I don't understand WHY the FAA has not issued a requirement that ALL future aircraft use optical systems. They are more difficult to engineer, but the advantages are pretty significant.
1.) Can't light the fuel on fire
2.) Unaffected by EMF (*big one*)
3.) Aging issues are insignificant, compared to wire (no heat/flexure).
4.) others that I don't know about because it isn't my field.
Who has a nice list of reasons NOT to use fibre? Mechanically I don't believe it is as flexible, and you shouldn't really splice it over such a short run. I know that it requires more hardware at each end of the system, but the hardware is fairly robust.
thanks :~) I was always searching for the actual adobe product, since for some reason I thought that PDF was proprietary.... isn't it? nm, google shall answer that one.
Anyone know if there is a DLL/print driver available for enabling the Print to PDF in windows? One that *doesn't* require the purchase of PageMaker (which is how I picked it up way back when).
I think anyone who lived through it agrees: MSIE 4 was BETTER than Netscape 4. It was a sad day, with much introspection when I ditched my Netscape 3 for MSIE 4.
My sister can't figure out SSH*, but she still put it best: why would anyone use Nutscrape?
Ahhhh. I love my family.
(* But she used Pine while at Uni, so she is forgiven.)
I honestly don't know; I was under the impression that you had to enable multiple desktops, and install the debugger. I know 'windbg' doesn't run on my pc.
Regardless I would contend that if you are correct in the aforementioned methods of hiding the connections -- or for that matter *any way* to hoax an outbound connection -- then any and all of those methods should be considered critical security flaws.
I'm sure that any business with propietary data (ha! all of them), or any government agency would agree.
Yup. And a browser window appears. I've done this from within Java. And nope, my firewall didn't try to block it.
I don't disagree with the statement that the message WILL get out... however, I WILL know about it. Hell, a better example would be use the command line FTP program to do something; that WOULDN'T raise any flags, provided the user has used FTP in the past. And if they had, the firewall prog would say 'hey, MS FTP is tying to access the internet. Allow/disallow?'. And most peeps would of course accept; its a MS prog after all!
Because nobody will notice the random browser window popping up? Sorry, its a lot more than a random illusion of security. That is what you get when you use hardware firewalls that don't pay attention to both *program* AND *port*. Just because I let opera use port 80 doesn't mean I let IE use it. Hardware firewalls don't differentiate, and neither does Windows firewall. ZoneAlarm does, as to the better ones.
Is it better than nothing? Yes. Is it easy to see why they did it? Yes. Would I want to deal with all the requests for help had they 'done it right'? HELL NO.
Does that justify having a firewall that would have been worthless against 99% of all the malware that has been released in the past 2-4 years? Not really. After all, how many cracked machines were a result of a direct attact, vs getting the user to run an executable, or open a particular malPage? Most of the bugs have been installed 'locally' then dialed out to get instructions to do whatever -- DDOS microsoft.com, for instance.
So, I say 'whats the point?' It does squat to keep my parents' PC from getting hacked, or used as a drone. Won't even make 'em click 'OK' before begining a DDOS.
If this is their idea of a firewall, I can't wait to see the integrated AntiVirus solution.
They realized long long ago that the space shuttle was way too expensive...but they had one of their own that flew and landed within feet of its intended target on the runway
Uhm, that *happened* to be a virtually exact copy of the US space shuttle, down to the scorching and melting on the tail which one would expect to see if you under-predicted the amount of heat that the tail would see.... or designed your space shuttle using data from the NASA data which was intentionally falsified because it was known that someone was selling it to the Russians.
However, that in-and-of itself doesn't discount your point. The Russian rocket scientists are easily the equal of the American versions in many ways, better in some and worse in some. I speak as an American 'rocket scientist' (not active, and my field is actually orbital mechanics), so I can argue that 1.) I certainly have little to gain by such statements and 2.) I'm fairly qualified to judge.
There is a 20 year old Russian rocket engine which has been purchased by American companies for use in the Atlas V. Personally I think that it is sad that *any* 20 year old technology is still 'top o' the pile' in the aerospace industry, considering the field has only been around for a few decades. Which is the underlying problem in Aerospace today; NOBODY is innovating. There are a few research projects here and there, but companies are still using oodles of 'original rocket scientists': guys who got their training 30 years ago! The average age of Aerospace engineer today is 54 years old. While a few of them are probably stodgy old men, I am not blaming age on lack of innovation. It is the companies themselves being too risk averse.
Anyway. The shuttle is a POS and needs to be replaced. It was f*ing incredible 20 years ago. Now it is the proverbial yugo. Let it die, dump an assload of money into a new vehicle. And if you say 'SSTO' I will personally hunt you down and bitch slap you for your ignorance of exponential functions.
While it is within the sphere of influence of the sun, will it not also be boosted by the 'solar wind' (all those juicy massive charged particles)?
Would seem pointless to not set up the tiny bit of photovoltaics you would need to make the sail a mag sail in addition to the whole light sail thing. Most of your acceleration would be within the first few dozen light minutes of earth anyway.
Yes, but sadly it is somewhat self-defeating. You get the most benefit from solar particles the closer you are to the sun (the flux is more dense).
Although if you did use an initial boost to push you into a sun-skimming orbit, that would help a lot. Not *TOO* close, obviously, but doing a gravity assist off mercury (yeah, not a big boost) would put you in position to grab ton of extra delta V from both being near the sun, and you can time it for pretty much any other flyby combo you want (mercury is 'fast' WRT setting up for flybys). Dunno if getting much closer to the sun that Mercury is feasible; a dark spot on your mirror would be pretty tragic even that close.
None of this is new; I only regurgitate Scifi books and orbital mechanics classes. Mostly scifi.
...then charge 'em back property taxes.
Its 'i before e except after c, and in foreign words'
Have you ever seen a gun that fires bullets at up to 14km per second? :~)
:~)
:~)
:~) It is kindof like saying 'how much energy can each fibre absorb before snapping'?
.338 hitting a steel plate, vs. same hitting 20mm of Kevlar THEN hitting a steel plate. Pretty interesting.r s/paper156.pdf
The argument for aluminum is that the hole is small and won't 'unzip' the structure -- which means you can slap a small patch on it if you actually get holed and go about your merry way... unless your suit doesn't work right and you have to borrow your Russian neighbors just to get out the airlock... err, sorry
The inflatable designs are way better than Al... Now. Although foamed aluminum looks damned promising in balistics tests. Heck, even duel layer Al is good. Its just a lot easier to inflate a structure than to assemble one
Also, the tensile strength has little to do with the resistance to puncture. Well, it does and it doesn't. Strain energy is important, which does relate to tensile strength, but not directly. Example being kevlar vs. Carbon: so far as I know nobody makes flexible carbon body armor. Most (if not all?) use kevlar. Kevlar requires more energy to cut than carbon. Just ask someone who works with it how often they need to sharpen the shears
However, there is an interesting aspect to fibre: If it doesn't stop the projectile launched at it, what doesn't disintegrate continues along at the same velocity that it originally impacted with!
The linked PDF below has pretty pictures and descriptions of a
http://www.autodyn.com/autodyn/pape
Reminds me of the ad I saw back in '96/97: "Wanted: Java Swing Developers. 5 Years Minimum Experience".
Employers are smart enough to know better. Its the HR peeps that don't get enough information to do their jobs right.
OTOH, I think that it is about time Java dropped the '1'; more information would have been nice, but lets face it: There are more changes in the Java language in each incremental release (e.g. 1.3 -> 1.4) than in 99.9% of all software out there. Hell, JBuilder gets a new full version number every time they fix a f*ing bug.
Imagine the alternate side: How do you explain to a somewhat sophisticated client that you want to upgrade their code to use 1.5.0, from 1.4.2? To the client it looks like such a minor thing, because she is used to upgrading every full version number, perhaps even two version numbers. Just sophisticated enough to cause trouble...
Your response is well written -- much more so than my semi-drunk, friday night response would be.
I just wanted to add that any orbit BELOW geo-sync, would be fairly easy to attain. At least, much more easily than it currently can be. Here's why:
In order to know your orbit, you need to know a few things. If you know your velcity vector and your position (thats a lot of numbers, btw), you know your orbit. There are dozens of relationships that can be used -- velocity vector, alt-azimuth + vel. vec, etc, etc etc. More along our interests though: if you know your orbital inclination (we do, it is zero) and you know your velocity (we do, it is always tangential to the earth, and it is always (um, that nifty equation that relates pi, R and omega, where pi is, errr, pi, omega is 1/(86400) hz, and R is your current altitude....). Given the 'multi day' trip speed, I have neglected the 'upward' portion of the velocity. If I really cared I'd model it in STK -- so if you were smart enough to catch that, kudos, and leave me be.
ANNNNYYYY WAY. What I am trying to say is that we just 'let go' a little bit higher than our desired orbit, then make a *small* orbital correction. Assuming that we WANT an equatorial orbit. Now, if we don't, the course correction is NOT minor! But it is still a small fraction of what we would have paid to launch from the surface of the planet, unless we want a polar orbit at some very low altitude...... now just WHO might want that?
And if you are wondering, I have a degree in astronautical engineering. Does that mean that the above is right? Not at all! In fact, the bottle of wine I just helped finish says there is a good chance I am full of shit! No math was even attempted in this analysis....
The system steals energy from from the rotation of the earth.
If you don't ever send mass DOWN, then after one billion forty two million seven hundred thousand four hundred and thirty two trips the ride shuts down.
Seriously though: imagine what happens if you spin the proverbial cat-in-the-can around and 'round: if you HAPPEN (oops) to get slack in the line (by, say, 'accidentally' hitting a tree branch), but continue to spin round and 'round at 'X' rpm, the can will SNAP back into its old position, oscilate a bit, then settle out exactly as it was before.
*no cats harmed in the making of this analogy
I am curious: how do you calculate the weak point near Earth? Genuine question.
My thought sugguests that the point which is under the most strain is actually at geo-sync -- the 'balance point'.
Also, a minor point: the hard part really _IS_ getting into orbit. It would be _nice_ to come back using the same system (and if done correctly, as you say, very nice indeed) but, for the most part, once an object lets go of the tether, it will NEVER be allowed to get near it again. EVER! Because you would HAVE to attach to the tether at geo-sync orbit -- or at least geo-sync SPEEDS -- which as I would guess you know, but others may not have considered -- are NOT the same thing. I am not justifying poor design; rather I am stating that if simplicity states that the first design be a flat ribben roller design, so be it. Reduce the risk, make the first one a roller, and for the sake of the Gods above, make #2 allow for return trips!
Not that I would ever want to come back......
Re: the political part...
:-). There are many (well, nearly infinite, but I digress) orbits where you will hit the sun but have not reduced your orbital velocity by 30km per second. And no one gives a crap how long it takes so we can use solar sails and gravity assists or whatnot to get where we want to go. Which isn't the sun: drop the crap on Mercury. Why throw away forever something that valuable? Hypothetically we will be able to fuse whatever we want into anything else one day, but I imagine there will be a stage where it is assloads cheaper to just go pick up all that heavy crap from Mercury.
Hear hear.
Re: the orbital part...
Well considered, but not quite right
Now, while I am all for sending lil' ol probes into the depths of space with a tiny little reactor on board, the thought of the Space Shuttle launching with *any* large amounts of plant waste are a we disconcerting. I don't care *how* you store it! Yes, I know, build a more reliable system etc etc.... I happened to have gone to school (read: "staggered home") with some of the blokes who might be part of that task, so I'm tellin' ya, this shit happens and I'm moving as far upwind as I can get of the launch site!
I'm not well versed in the various distributed projects. Is there some promise that all the folding/medical/etc projects are using the data for open projects? e.g. nobody is going to patent the damned results after we use our processor time to find them?
...but officer, logging activity slows down the router.....