Beats me. It was meant to be tongue in cheek humor. They are submarines and there is no way to see port and starboard lights while submerged, much less know the other guy has them reversed.
Sorry if this is becoming boring, but you phrased things as questions.
Whether you call design just the pencil and paper part, or the process through testing and validation, you do save money by mass producing. A probe doesn't cost $100 million before launch because it was made from platinum. It's the design, tooling, testing, validation, etc etc etc divided by 1. A car is more complex and is tested more than any probe, but only costs thousands to build.
I believe some people call it "not reinventing the wheel"
Under the current system, instruments are very costly. Because you have to meet a higher quality level. Four nines of reliability is going to cost more than two nines paid for four times. Yet it will be less reliable. It will require more babying from ground control, and so on.
You keep making the false assumption that the mass would be the same for custom vs mass produced. Again, custom, you can't cut corners. You have to build redundancy into one unit. Power has to be bigger (just in case), comm has to be more powerful (just in case), onboard electronics need more redundancy (just in case), you need to send more sensors (just in case and to justify the cost). You have to use the most reliable (and expensive) launch system because you can't afford failure.
Instead, make each probe "good enough." Dump as much redundancy as possible. Cut corners. There is absolutely no reason you need to seed the same loadout on each probe. And there's no reason to send 4 on one launch (cram them here or there on someone elses commercial launch) or to have all 4 depart for the same target (let some orbit the Earth a while and wait for different launch windows).
Comm may be standard between JPL and scientists, but how about each probe having the same comm hardware? Protocol? Bandwidth? Data structure? Command and control routines? Time to make that boring and routine, the kind of work that a computer takes care of automatically.
A dozen isn't mass production. That prototype stage. I'm not sure why you feel that mass production, which seems to work for every other human endeavor, would fail when it comes to probes? And no, why would Lockheed or any other big company want to upset the status quo?
And as someone who's livelyhood depends on making 1 of a kind mechanical devices, and runs of a dozen, runs of hundreds, and runs of 10's of thousands, there is a lot to be saved per unit as volumes go up. You can even use technologies that are too expensive to be used only once.
Will mass production solve every problem? Of course not. But by sticking with the narrow mindset of sending billion dollar probes every few years, we'll be stuck with rare and expensive gambles forever.
Our family has always trained our pet cats. Strays or kittens, they learn to sit, fetch, jump, come when called, stay off furniture, and so on. And usually for nothing more than praise and being pet. Not sure what the secret is or we'd try to bottle it.
Not as big a problems as you might think.
A big chunk of any probe is power, communications/control, and thrust. 3 technologies that could be standardized. Because of the time it takes to do custom probes, it's often 5-10 years between design on paper and launch. Not to mention that if you are spending hundreds of millions, you're less likely to use un-tested cutting edge technology. Compare that to a platform you can pop the latest sensor into because not all your eggs are in one basket (and you don't have to over engineer and test the crap out of it either).
You arguing for optimization, I'm arguing that optimization (perfection) is the enemy of good enough. And no, not every probe is identical. Just as similar as possible. Why send a mission to view in infrared and visible perfectly when you can send 4 probes for less money, each with a different pretty good sensors. A sensor package just has to play nice with the power and data buses. A single probe means you have to pick and chose which systems go. Mass production means you can take more risks, bolt on odd sensor packages that wouldn't make it on a one time mission, gather more data and more varied data from more places.
I already addressed launch cost assuming it won't scale. Spacecraft operation will scale with mass-production. Standardization of comm and thrust mean you can have a common control room. Those tasks become routine and low key. Data just gets forwarded to the scientists.
Thinking about Voyager I and II and the Mariner series, maybe it's time to create a standard probe platform (orbiter and lander halves if you insist) and build them in large quantities. Make them rugged and try to minimize expensive customization. Keep them relatively small so several can be launched at once. Then start tossing them everywhere. Use whatever orbital mechanics work (Hohmann, interplanetary transport network, whatever). But send 2, 3, or more to each destination.
Launch a dozen at Jupiter with arrivals spaced apart and you can wait to see if the first one arrives safely. If it does, send the second to another moon or to the same one for redundancy. You now have mission flexibility on a whole new level.
Send 2 to our moon. Then if you want to try a software upgrade, you can try it on those first.
And so on.
The whole point is to get the cost per craft down to the 10's of millions. If you can average 4 for $50 million and buy a rocket to launch the 4 for $50 million, you can now send 40 for the price of one. And now you have a series of missions such that if one fails, it's not a disaster. Will the data be as good as a custom probe? No way. But with so many probes you can take risks you never could before and maybe see things custom probes never could. Risks such as sending them odd places or putting some cheap funky instruments from some university.
Almost the "Faster Better Cheaper" concept, but based on mass production instead of 1 of a kind probes.
Thanks. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, and likely closer to the article you linked. I was doubtful about the large numbers of cars being abandoned. If for no reason than the owners would at least sell them very cheap to friends who were staying. But I had just finished reading the article I linked to and the combination seemed amusing.
I doubt it has been bred out. But your point that China does have some cultural issues may be relevant. Oversimplifying and stereotyping, America did well by cultivating a culture of challenging the status quo (i.e. we're a bit wacky, and have made good use of it). Germany and Japan have done well by building on a culture of craftsmanship / perfectionism (e.g. beer purity laws and the tea ceremony). China still has a Confucian bent which instills deference to authority and tradition. Good in some situations, but poor at fostering innovation.
CRJ's are fast too. Just shy of being as fast as a 747. Plus they don't spend as much time climbing and descending from altitude. So hops are pretty quick.
Not all energy is heat. Got a lightbulb? Strangely, the filament is hotter than the wire leading to it, oh, and hotter than the coal burning at the power plant to power it. In simplest terms, the sun's corona is electrically conductive and is heated by electromagnetism. No violation going on.
As far as gravity not being able to overcome the other forces, I'd like to see a citation. One that knows what quantum mechanics is.
Also "On June 18, 2001 at 12:15 PM (eastern daylight time) a collaboration of Canadian, American, and British scientists made a dramatic announcement: they had solved the solar neutrino mystery." http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/articles/bahcall/
Radar evidence? BS. Radar can't penetrate that much electrically conductive material. It can't even image the bottom of the Earth's oceans, much less thousands of miles of plasma.
Count yourself lucky. My graduate work involved a very loud (105 db) and messy process that required me to wear earplugs and a helmet respirator. My work space was in the basement of a CS research building. 3 times in a row I had a firefighter tap me on the shoulder. The CS guys were not as forgiving of evacuations (wondering if your research was about to be destroyed by sprinklers didn't help). After the third time, I was told by the fire department that if it happened again, I'd go to jail. Eventually we worked out a deal where the fire department would remotely disable the sensor after calling them, but only after 6pm. And if I didn't call them to reactivate it, I get to go to jail again. So for a year I did my work every night 6 to 2 AM. And if I forgot to make my phone calls, I would go to jail.
You can also do it yourself. Our county has photos online that can be overlaid in GE. More up to date and much higher resolution. So I use that imagery in GE (plus you can get property line data).
Similarly, if you know someone with a plane that is willing to let you take some photos, you can have your own up to date system. 8000 sq mi might be a bit much though. But if there are particularly rugged areas, or places you have to search frequently, it might be worth it to get those photos.
Additionally, you could also overlay some of the USGS maps onto GE (with transparancy) to create a hybrid system. I've overlaid topo line maps over my property in GE to add another layer of detail and information.
Plus once you are done, you can share the kml files with other volunteers.
1) They would not be creating new dollars, so it would not directly create inflation (They can't directly increase the pool of dollars).
2) They have dollar denominated assets. If they try to quickly dump them, it depresses the value of those assets, creating a bargain for the buyers. An unless it's the Fed buying up the assets, it temporarily sucks up a ton of cash from the economy. Together, that creates deflation. Arguably worse than inflation.
2a) However, there is now a glut of US debt instruments, making running a deficit a bit harder without "printing money." But that would only increase US debt by a fraction. Only modest inflationary pressure.
3) They have to convert those dollars to another currency. That devalues the dollar and inflates the other currency. Import to the US slow down (there is finally an inflation effect).
Overall, it's a net negative to the US, but not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
Sorry for the delay answering. Was away for a bit.
Actually, it's theory that says embryonic could be more useful. The ability to create any cell type without immune markers and create them before someone is sick (mass production). Getting them to differentiate into just the tissue you want does take a bit of work. Ethical / moral reasons have slowed this research. So there are still some unanswered questions.
For biological and hospital red tape reasons, autologous adult stem cells are the easier to try. Find what you need in the patient, amplify, reinsert. Allogenic adult is the next easiest to get through red tape. Hospitals have been doing organ transplants for decades, so it's no big deal. So both of those are more advanced because they've been tried more.
To put it simply, not all stem cells are created equal. It comes down to potency. By the time a baby is born, stem cells have done a lot of differentiating. They can only create a limited number of tissues. Still useful, but not as useful as early embryonic stem cells. For a quick description of the varying utility of stem cells, try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell#Potency_definitions
I believe that human life begins with human consciousness and thought.
I've met people with driver's licenses that don't meet that definition (before and after drinking). On the other hand, should I even need a kidney, it's a definition I might just like.
Slashdot Mirror
Beats me. It was meant to be tongue in cheek humor. They are submarines and there is no way to see port and starboard lights while submerged, much less know the other guy has them reversed.
Sorry if this is becoming boring, but you phrased things as questions.
Whether you call design just the pencil and paper part, or the process through testing and validation, you do save money by mass producing. A probe doesn't cost $100 million before launch because it was made from platinum. It's the design, tooling, testing, validation, etc etc etc divided by 1. A car is more complex and is tested more than any probe, but only costs thousands to build.
I believe some people call it "not reinventing the wheel"
Under the current system, instruments are very costly. Because you have to meet a higher quality level. Four nines of reliability is going to cost more than two nines paid for four times. Yet it will be less reliable. It will require more babying from ground control, and so on.
You keep making the false assumption that the mass would be the same for custom vs mass produced. Again, custom, you can't cut corners. You have to build redundancy into one unit. Power has to be bigger (just in case), comm has to be more powerful (just in case), onboard electronics need more redundancy (just in case), you need to send more sensors (just in case and to justify the cost). You have to use the most reliable (and expensive) launch system because you can't afford failure.
Instead, make each probe "good enough." Dump as much redundancy as possible. Cut corners. There is absolutely no reason you need to seed the same loadout on each probe. And there's no reason to send 4 on one launch (cram them here or there on someone elses commercial launch) or to have all 4 depart for the same target (let some orbit the Earth a while and wait for different launch windows).
Comm may be standard between JPL and scientists, but how about each probe having the same comm hardware? Protocol? Bandwidth? Data structure? Command and control routines? Time to make that boring and routine, the kind of work that a computer takes care of automatically.
A dozen isn't mass production. That prototype stage. I'm not sure why you feel that mass production, which seems to work for every other human endeavor, would fail when it comes to probes? And no, why would Lockheed or any other big company want to upset the status quo?
And as someone who's livelyhood depends on making 1 of a kind mechanical devices, and runs of a dozen, runs of hundreds, and runs of 10's of thousands, there is a lot to be saved per unit as volumes go up. You can even use technologies that are too expensive to be used only once.
Will mass production solve every problem? Of course not. But by sticking with the narrow mindset of sending billion dollar probes every few years, we'll be stuck with rare and expensive gambles forever.
A head on collision was bound to happen even if they knew the other sub was there. The French drive on the right, the British on the left.
Now where have I heard this before? Oh yeah! http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=are-aliens-among-us
Our family has always trained our pet cats. Strays or kittens, they learn to sit, fetch, jump, come when called, stay off furniture, and so on. And usually for nothing more than praise and being pet. Not sure what the secret is or we'd try to bottle it.
Not as big a problems as you might think. A big chunk of any probe is power, communications/control, and thrust. 3 technologies that could be standardized. Because of the time it takes to do custom probes, it's often 5-10 years between design on paper and launch. Not to mention that if you are spending hundreds of millions, you're less likely to use un-tested cutting edge technology. Compare that to a platform you can pop the latest sensor into because not all your eggs are in one basket (and you don't have to over engineer and test the crap out of it either). You arguing for optimization, I'm arguing that optimization (perfection) is the enemy of good enough. And no, not every probe is identical. Just as similar as possible. Why send a mission to view in infrared and visible perfectly when you can send 4 probes for less money, each with a different pretty good sensors. A sensor package just has to play nice with the power and data buses. A single probe means you have to pick and chose which systems go. Mass production means you can take more risks, bolt on odd sensor packages that wouldn't make it on a one time mission, gather more data and more varied data from more places. I already addressed launch cost assuming it won't scale. Spacecraft operation will scale with mass-production. Standardization of comm and thrust mean you can have a common control room. Those tasks become routine and low key. Data just gets forwarded to the scientists.
Thinking about Voyager I and II and the Mariner series, maybe it's time to create a standard probe platform (orbiter and lander halves if you insist) and build them in large quantities. Make them rugged and try to minimize expensive customization. Keep them relatively small so several can be launched at once. Then start tossing them everywhere. Use whatever orbital mechanics work (Hohmann, interplanetary transport network, whatever). But send 2, 3, or more to each destination.
Launch a dozen at Jupiter with arrivals spaced apart and you can wait to see if the first one arrives safely. If it does, send the second to another moon or to the same one for redundancy. You now have mission flexibility on a whole new level.
Send 2 to our moon. Then if you want to try a software upgrade, you can try it on those first.
And so on.
The whole point is to get the cost per craft down to the 10's of millions. If you can average 4 for $50 million and buy a rocket to launch the 4 for $50 million, you can now send 40 for the price of one. And now you have a series of missions such that if one fails, it's not a disaster. Will the data be as good as a custom probe? No way. But with so many probes you can take risks you never could before and maybe see things custom probes never could. Risks such as sending them odd places or putting some cheap funky instruments from some university.
Almost the "Faster Better Cheaper" concept, but based on mass production instead of 1 of a kind probes.
Except they are in opposite directions right now. http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/
And beer is from the Middle East. And both have been elevated to a cultural icon their adopted home.
Thanks. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, and likely closer to the article you linked. I was doubtful about the large numbers of cars being abandoned. If for no reason than the owners would at least sell them very cheap to friends who were staying. But I had just finished reading the article I linked to and the combination seemed amusing.
I doubt it has been bred out. But your point that China does have some cultural issues may be relevant. Oversimplifying and stereotyping, America did well by cultivating a culture of challenging the status quo (i.e. we're a bit wacky, and have made good use of it). Germany and Japan have done well by building on a culture of craftsmanship / perfectionism (e.g. beer purity laws and the tea ceremony). China still has a Confucian bent which instills deference to authority and tradition. Good in some situations, but poor at fostering innovation.
CRJ's are fast too. Just shy of being as fast as a 747. Plus they don't spend as much time climbing and descending from altitude. So hops are pretty quick.
Except it hasn't flown in 61.9 years.
It appears people abandoning their cars to use this new system! http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/09/dubai-airport-clogge.html
Oh. Wait. You were serious? That was the worst use of modus tollens I've ever seen.
Not all energy is heat. Got a lightbulb? Strangely, the filament is hotter than the wire leading to it, oh, and hotter than the coal burning at the power plant to power it. In simplest terms, the sun's corona is electrically conductive and is heated by electromagnetism. No violation going on.
As far as gravity not being able to overcome the other forces, I'd like to see a citation. One that knows what quantum mechanics is.
Also "On June 18, 2001 at 12:15 PM (eastern daylight time) a collaboration of Canadian, American, and British scientists made a dramatic announcement: they had solved the solar neutrino mystery." http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/articles/bahcall/
Radar evidence? BS. Radar can't penetrate that much electrically conductive material. It can't even image the bottom of the Earth's oceans, much less thousands of miles of plasma.
Count yourself lucky. My graduate work involved a very loud (105 db) and messy process that required me to wear earplugs and a helmet respirator. My work space was in the basement of a CS research building. 3 times in a row I had a firefighter tap me on the shoulder. The CS guys were not as forgiving of evacuations (wondering if your research was about to be destroyed by sprinklers didn't help). After the third time, I was told by the fire department that if it happened again, I'd go to jail. Eventually we worked out a deal where the fire department would remotely disable the sensor after calling them, but only after 6pm. And if I didn't call them to reactivate it, I get to go to jail again. So for a year I did my work every night 6 to 2 AM. And if I forgot to make my phone calls, I would go to jail.
You can also do it yourself. Our county has photos online that can be overlaid in GE. More up to date and much higher resolution. So I use that imagery in GE (plus you can get property line data).
Similarly, if you know someone with a plane that is willing to let you take some photos, you can have your own up to date system. 8000 sq mi might be a bit much though. But if there are particularly rugged areas, or places you have to search frequently, it might be worth it to get those photos.
Additionally, you could also overlay some of the USGS maps onto GE (with transparancy) to create a hybrid system. I've overlaid topo line maps over my property in GE to add another layer of detail and information.
Plus once you are done, you can share the kml files with other volunteers.
1) They would not be creating new dollars, so it would not directly create inflation (They can't directly increase the pool of dollars).
2) They have dollar denominated assets. If they try to quickly dump them, it depresses the value of those assets, creating a bargain for the buyers. An unless it's the Fed buying up the assets, it temporarily sucks up a ton of cash from the economy. Together, that creates deflation. Arguably worse than inflation.
2a) However, there is now a glut of US debt instruments, making running a deficit a bit harder without "printing money." But that would only increase US debt by a fraction. Only modest inflationary pressure.
3) They have to convert those dollars to another currency. That devalues the dollar and inflates the other currency. Import to the US slow down (there is finally an inflation effect).
Overall, it's a net negative to the US, but not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
Heck, I'd expect the total cache to be bigger than 1.6 TB
Good luck finding the Soviet Union!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_sales_to_Iraq_1973-1990
or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq's_armament_and_support_during_the_Iran-Iraq_War
Sorry for the delay answering. Was away for a bit.
Actually, it's theory that says embryonic could be more useful. The ability to create any cell type without immune markers and create them before someone is sick (mass production). Getting them to differentiate into just the tissue you want does take a bit of work. Ethical / moral reasons have slowed this research. So there are still some unanswered questions.
For biological and hospital red tape reasons, autologous adult stem cells are the easier to try. Find what you need in the patient, amplify, reinsert. Allogenic adult is the next easiest to get through red tape. Hospitals have been doing organ transplants for decades, so it's no big deal. So both of those are more advanced because they've been tried more.
To put it simply, not all stem cells are created equal. It comes down to potency. By the time a baby is born, stem cells have done a lot of differentiating. They can only create a limited number of tissues. Still useful, but not as useful as early embryonic stem cells. For a quick description of the varying utility of stem cells, try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell#Potency_definitions
I've met people with driver's licenses that don't meet that definition (before and after drinking). On the other hand, should I even need a kidney, it's a definition I might just like.
Do Hillary's scandals (real or not) only count for Bill, or does she get to be counted again?