Personally, I am very doubtful about the existance of "something better than the SR-71". I _think_ (but have no certain knowledge) that there was a program, but the program was not successful. At least, not successful in producing a "production" aircraft/spacecraft. I think they wound up canceling the program without a usable vehical to show for it.
I don't think it matters too much, as the gap is being filled by a combination of satellites (for fixed targets) and smaller more expendible RC aircraft for transient targets.
Of course, you could interpret "better than the SR-71" to be exactly what the Predator/Global Hawk/Dark Star, et. al. are.
I really think moving to the RC systems makes a lot of sense, as in the long run, they should be able to outperform manned aircraft. In the short run, they are certainly better on the "what if one gets shot down?" front. The RC vehicals seem to be easier to adapt to be part of a real-time intelligence system for ground troops as well. That's always been a huge problem for the U-2/SR-71/TR-1 - getting data to the people who need to actually kill the target.
The one thing the RCs really lack is coolness. The RC planes just don't have the cache of the SR-71. Then again, very, very few planes do!
Huh? The U-2 dates to the 50's. The USSR shot one down in the 60's. It wasn't all that secret for all that long.
Perhaps you are confusing this with "Aurora", which doesn't exist (yet)(maybe).
FYI, the basic U-2 airframe is still in use, now designated the TR-1. The airplane part isn't particuarly secret, it's the payload (cameras, radar, ECM, etc) that is secret.
When I was in the California Department of Forestry (and Fire Protection!) we had to watch films of Boiling Liquid Exanding Vapor Explosions. (BLEVE, pronounced blev-ee)
The science behind the firefighting is interesting. You're goal (should you choose not to simply back away and watch the fireworks) is to keep the pressure in the tank down and eliminate hotspots on the tank. The theory here is that you're ok as long as you've got liquid in the tank - the liquid keeps hot spots from forming on the tank by redistributing/equalizing the temperture thoughout the tank area exposed to the liquid.
Pressure is limited because the tank has a pressure relief valve on top. Well, hopefully it's still on top - in train wreck sitations, this isn't guarenteed and is a real problem. The pressure relief value will have gas/fuel streaming from it. This is "ok" - it can't ignite till the fuel-air mix is right, which is a bit away from the tank (assuming we're upright still...) In this case, you'll have a flare buring off the top of the tank, and the tank gradually emptying. If you can get the temperature down enough (and eliminate other fires) you can walk right up and turn off the relief valve, cool down the tank, and go home. Or so we were told.
But an emptying tank exposed to flame is a problem! As the tank empties, there is less and less liquid inside (duh!) which means - less even distribution of heat. A "hot spot" can form above the liquid level. The nature of metal is to lose structural strength as it's heated, so this hot spot, combined with the high temperature/pressure of the tank, can lead to a tear in the tank. At that point, gas/fuel streams out, O2 streams in, and chemistry takes over.
In those household propane tanks (we were told) this usually results in a tear at the weld on one end of the tank. The big section of the tank takes off like a rocket, the end cap is blown the other direction.
Google "Kingman" and "BLEVE" for more info. Kingman was the biggie that got the Feds looking into changing LPG storage rules.
Hydrogen is not really zero emission either. Virtually all hydrogen burning schemes involve using atmospheric oxegen. Unfortunately, this is mixed in with nitrogen. When you mix oxegen and nitrogen at high tempertures, you get NO - the imfamous NOX measured by the EPA.
NOX is nasty because you get it as long as you're buring using plain old air.:-(
I _think_ fuel cells may solve this, but there is nothing like that immediately available.
Whaaa!! I have to pay for things!! Nobody will work for me for free!! Why do things *cost*?!? Everything should be free!!
Cripes! Welcome the the real world, where you have to work for a living. Most of us would like to go back to high school, not for the social life, but for the lack of being required to really work.
You may one day be employed by (or even OWN a piece of) the cable company. Oh yeah, that's right, not YOU - you're ideologically above such concerns as earning a living. That's for the common people. You're too intelligent to be required to WORK.
BAH! Pay your damn cable bill or terminate the service. And just shut up about it.
The feature I most want on my next car is a "Cite-O-Matic" - a device where I can press a button and issue some idiot on the road a traffic ticket, or equivilent thereof.
Technically, the system would need a camera, some memory to continously roll the last minute or so of footage around in (so that you have a video record of the idiot), and a wireless communication ability, so as to automatically forward the vidio with a brief audio clip of me complaining to the local courthouse. If you want to have an officer reviewing complaints there, that's fine with me - I just want the ability to effectively complain about idiots.
For all the 15-y.o. out there who are offended that I find their driving offensive - TOO BAD!! Go to jail! Get a job and spend all your money on insurance you worthless road hazard!! And you are NOT a good driver! AND... your overly loud rice burner isn't all that fast
Ok, so I'm thinking, "I remember Spirograph from when I was a kid. And, my nephew's birthdays is somewhere areound this time of year... hey...!"
A quick check of Amazon reveals that the new "Deluxe Spirograph" from Hasboro has the most atrocious ratings possible. Every recommendation is bad!! Nobody thinks you should buy this!
So, what I want to know, is where are the Hasboro homers? Why hasn't someone from Hasboro posted a review along the lines of "This thing rox dude! I got it for my 10th birthday, and I haven't played with anything else since then"?
The basic problem here is that people don't understand that channels aren't equally expensive (or cheap). Bundling is a way of reducing the perceived cost of expensive channels (such as ESPN, et.al.).
A lot of people seem to be assuming that if you are paying $30/month for 30 channels, then in an ala carte system, each channel will cost $1/month. Not so!!
Channels like ESPN might wind up being as high as $5 each. History, Discover, et. al. - the stuff you'd expect Geeks to watch, probably average over $1 a month a piece.
Right now, your favorite channels are in effect subsidized by the Home Shopping Channel. You wouldn't pay for it, but they are willing to give you, say, $.50 credit toward any other channels if you accept Home Shopping as well. This is how those channels make it into your bundle.
The cable company knows very well that they can't sell as many $5/month ESPN singletons as $3/month ESPN + 4 or 5 trashy worthless channel packages... They are simply optimizing their sales.
I 100% agree. PCs are headed for the junkheap, as far as gaming is concerned.
Stability has been getting steadily WORSE over the years. I've been computer gaming since 1988. At that time, you still had to "install" games yourself (remember c:\copy a:*.* c:\newgame anyone?) But, stuff mostly worked. Over the years, installation has gotten more complex, and less reliable. We've got more drivers, dll, ocx, ini (still!!), and supporting services to get correctly installed and working together. And too often, it just doesn't happen. I too had trouble with Neverwinter Nights (on two seperate computers, one an unmodified Dell). In fact, I've had to get patches for almost every piece of PC software I've obtained in the last 3-5 years.
Not so with console games. The only one I've had problems with is Morrowind (and even it was at least less buggy than the PC version.) They just work.
I used to think that consoles couldn't compete with the richness the PC's varied interfaces (keyboard, mouse, joystick, et. al.) - but I have actually purchased and tried a console now, and I have to admit I was wrong. There is nothing a PC can do that a console can't - you can make your own custom input devices for your content, if the money equations work.
The computer-literati are a bit elitist about this. You (and I) may get a thrill from working with a really superior file system. But... Joe Six-Pack is still hunting and pecking. He doesn't want a better instant messanger. He wants voice-activation. Clap-lights. Monster Trucks! He absolutely doesn't want to work with a computer - that's WORK. Working with computers is only play for a tiny faction of humanity.
Try to remember, when you project a winner in the console-PC war that/. represents maybe.1% of the population. And a very unrepresentative slice it is...
The problem with this is that it doesn't penalize the poor white trash who are most likely to be drinking in driving in the first place.
Sure, we all get angry and upset when some rich debutante gets drunk and runs over a 6-year old...but frankly, this is the minority of cases.
More typical is the guy has nothing but a beat-up pickup that barely runs and is in hock to the title loan company, with 60% of his income from part-time unskilled construction work tied up in child support and alimony, and the rest owed to various creditors. What do you do when he gets wasted, rams a car and terminates a family?
Base this guy's fine on his income or overall wealth he might wind up owning $2.97... hardly a deterent.
It is guys like this, who will get their license revoked AND KEEP DRIVING ANYWAY that are the real problem. There is no way to stay constitutionally valid (not cruel, not unusual) and administer any effective punishment - he's already done so much worse to himself, nothing you could legally do to him is going to phase him.
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How many people visit the USS Arizona every year?
It's not safe or fair to blindly attribute motives to people.
I guess you missed your Dex throw against the Caltrop of Mighty Hopping.
Wait till you're hopping around on one foot and hit it again!
I don't think it matters too much, as the gap is being filled by a combination of satellites (for fixed targets) and smaller more expendible RC aircraft for transient targets.
Of course, you could interpret "better than the SR-71" to be exactly what the Predator/Global Hawk/Dark Star, et. al. are.
I really think moving to the RC systems makes a lot of sense, as in the long run, they should be able to outperform manned aircraft. In the short run, they are certainly better on the "what if one gets shot down?" front. The RC vehicals seem to be easier to adapt to be part of a real-time intelligence system for ground troops as well. That's always been a huge problem for the U-2/SR-71/TR-1 - getting data to the people who need to actually kill the target.
The one thing the RCs really lack is coolness. The RC planes just don't have the cache of the SR-71. Then again, very, very few planes do!
Perhaps you are confusing this with "Aurora", which doesn't exist (yet)(maybe).
FYI, the basic U-2 airframe is still in use, now designated the TR-1. The airplane part isn't particuarly secret, it's the payload (cameras, radar, ECM, etc) that is secret.
If "Becky" doesn't have a remote control, it must be responding autonomously to it's envirnment - ergo, she's a robot... :-)
The science behind the firefighting is interesting. You're goal (should you choose not to simply back away and watch the fireworks) is to keep the pressure in the tank down and eliminate hotspots on the tank. The theory here is that you're ok as long as you've got liquid in the tank - the liquid keeps hot spots from forming on the tank by redistributing/equalizing the temperture thoughout the tank area exposed to the liquid.
Pressure is limited because the tank has a pressure relief valve on top. Well, hopefully it's still on top - in train wreck sitations, this isn't guarenteed and is a real problem. The pressure relief value will have gas/fuel streaming from it. This is "ok" - it can't ignite till the fuel-air mix is right, which is a bit away from the tank (assuming we're upright still...) In this case, you'll have a flare buring off the top of the tank, and the tank gradually emptying. If you can get the temperature down enough (and eliminate other fires) you can walk right up and turn off the relief valve, cool down the tank, and go home. Or so we were told.
But an emptying tank exposed to flame is a problem! As the tank empties, there is less and less liquid inside (duh!) which means - less even distribution of heat. A "hot spot" can form above the liquid level. The nature of metal is to lose structural strength as it's heated, so this hot spot, combined with the high temperature/pressure of the tank, can lead to a tear in the tank. At that point, gas/fuel streams out, O2 streams in, and chemistry takes over.
In those household propane tanks (we were told) this usually results in a tear at the weld on one end of the tank. The big section of the tank takes off like a rocket, the end cap is blown the other direction.
Google "Kingman" and "BLEVE" for more info. Kingman was the biggie that got the Feds looking into changing LPG storage rules.
NOX is nasty because you get it as long as you're buring using plain old air. :-(
I _think_ fuel cells may solve this, but there is nothing like that immediately available.
Cripes! Welcome the the real world, where you have to work for a living. Most of us would like to go back to high school, not for the social life, but for the lack of being required to really work.
You may one day be employed by (or even OWN a piece of) the cable company. Oh yeah, that's right, not YOU - you're ideologically above such concerns as earning a living. That's for the common people. You're too intelligent to be required to WORK.
BAH! Pay your damn cable bill or terminate the service. And just shut up about it.
due the to /. effect...
Technically, the system would need a camera, some memory to continously roll the last minute or so of footage around in (so that you have a video record of the idiot), and a wireless communication ability, so as to automatically forward the vidio with a brief audio clip of me complaining to the local courthouse. If you want to have an officer reviewing complaints there, that's fine with me - I just want the ability to effectively complain about idiots.
For all the 15-y.o. out there who are offended that I find their driving offensive - TOO BAD!! Go to jail! Get a job and spend all your money on insurance you worthless road hazard!! And you are NOT a good driver! AND... your overly loud rice burner isn't all that fast
A quick check of Amazon reveals that the new "Deluxe Spirograph" from Hasboro has the most atrocious ratings possible. Every recommendation is bad!! Nobody thinks you should buy this!
So, what I want to know, is where are the Hasboro homers? Why hasn't someone from Hasboro posted a review along the lines of "This thing rox dude! I got it for my 10th birthday, and I haven't played with anything else since then"?
A lot of people seem to be assuming that if you are paying $30/month for 30 channels, then in an ala carte system, each channel will cost $1/month. Not so!!
Channels like ESPN might wind up being as high as $5 each. History, Discover, et. al. - the stuff you'd expect Geeks to watch, probably average over $1 a month a piece.
Right now, your favorite channels are in effect subsidized by the Home Shopping Channel. You wouldn't pay for it, but they are willing to give you, say, $.50 credit toward any other channels if you accept Home Shopping as well. This is how those channels make it into your bundle.
The cable company knows very well that they can't sell as many $5/month ESPN singletons as $3/month ESPN + 4 or 5 trashy worthless channel packages... They are simply optimizing their sales.
Stability has been getting steadily WORSE over the years. I've been computer gaming since 1988. At that time, you still had to "install" games yourself (remember c:\copy a:*.* c:\newgame anyone?) But, stuff mostly worked. Over the years, installation has gotten more complex, and less reliable. We've got more drivers, dll, ocx, ini (still!!), and supporting services to get correctly installed and working together. And too often, it just doesn't happen. I too had trouble with Neverwinter Nights (on two seperate computers, one an unmodified Dell). In fact, I've had to get patches for almost every piece of PC software I've obtained in the last 3-5 years.
Not so with console games. The only one I've had problems with is Morrowind (and even it was at least less buggy than the PC version.) They just work.
I used to think that consoles couldn't compete with the richness the PC's varied interfaces (keyboard, mouse, joystick, et. al.) - but I have actually purchased and tried a console now, and I have to admit I was wrong. There is nothing a PC can do that a console can't - you can make your own custom input devices for your content, if the money equations work.
The computer-literati are a bit elitist about this. You (and I) may get a thrill from working with a really superior file system. But... Joe Six-Pack is still hunting and pecking. He doesn't want a better instant messanger. He wants voice-activation. Clap-lights. Monster Trucks! He absolutely doesn't want to work with a computer - that's WORK. Working with computers is only play for a tiny faction of humanity.
Try to remember, when you project a winner in the console-PC war that /. represents maybe .1% of the population. And a very unrepresentative slice it is...
The problem with this is that it doesn't penalize the poor white trash who are most likely to be drinking in driving in the first place. Sure, we all get angry and upset when some rich debutante gets drunk and runs over a 6-year old...but frankly, this is the minority of cases. More typical is the guy has nothing but a beat-up pickup that barely runs and is in hock to the title loan company, with 60% of his income from part-time unskilled construction work tied up in child support and alimony, and the rest owed to various creditors. What do you do when he gets wasted, rams a car and terminates a family? Base this guy's fine on his income or overall wealth he might wind up owning $2.97... hardly a deterent. It is guys like this, who will get their license revoked AND KEEP DRIVING ANYWAY that are the real problem. There is no way to stay constitutionally valid (not cruel, not unusual) and administer any effective punishment - he's already done so much worse to himself, nothing you could legally do to him is going to phase him.