The Booster that flew was a Titan 4B (and is not the last Titan-4B to fly, just the last at the Cape--One more will fly from Vandenberg)
The Titan 4B first flew in 1997 and was an upgraded verson of the Titan 4 that first flew in the mid 80s. The Titan 4 was primarly used as a replacement for Mil Payloads after Challenger.
The Titan 3 was a workhorse of launchers during the 70s (Including Voyager and Viking).
The Titan 2 serverd as the bases of the following lines and was an ICBM and booster for Gemini.
The Titan Rocket that flew is not old tech wise, its old in the same sense as the cars we drive today being based on improved designs of the past.
Please google before you post something without knowing all the facts.
Re:Symbolic, Of Course (Found It!)
on
Hope for Hubble
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Found it!
Its called the Hubble Origins Probe
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/hop/
The Hubble Origins Probe (HOP) is a proposed 2.4 meter free flying space telescope.The HOP concept is to replicate the design of the Hubble Space Telescope with a much lighter unaberrated mirror and optical telescope assembly, enabling a rapid path to launch, significant cost savings and risk mitigation. HOP will fly the instruments originally planned for the 4th HST servicing mission as well as a new very wide field imager, enhancing the original science mission of Hubble.
Symbolic, Of Course
on
Hope for Hubble
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
There was a proposal floated a little while ago to build a replacement for HST from spare parts that already exist and launch it on top of an expendable rocket. The kicker is that it would not cost much more than the servicing mission! I guess it has more to do with the name 'Hubble' than anything else.
In a related story, why do they keep calling them gyroscope when they really are reaction-wheels?
I would suggest shopping around for cell phone plans. Some appear to offer unlimited data service for a around $15-$20/mo extra. I am not 100% on the details but it is worth a look.
Have you looked to see if a open Wifi AP exists around you?
PS: How can you be a Slashdot users and only use the Internet a little?
If range is an issue you might want to look into this
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/homepna/
Basically HPNA over coax seems to be able to go for over a mile.
A evil madman has an astrorid in earth orbit holding the world ransom for $10 Trillion dollars or else he deorbits it over Washington DC and wipe out the entire US and Europe.
Even evil madmen need to test the technology and raise venture capitial...
I think the US should pay to take care of this little problem. It may cost a trillion dollars, but it is well worth another 50 years of being able to rub the rest of the world in the fact that we saved their asses. (again)
I remember Dell running a special for a $500 Laptop, not sure of the specs--but atleast it came with Windows. On the other hand I have a Laptop that I got at a garage sale--Its a 233Mhz, 4 Gig HD, and Runs Windows 2000 like a car running on fumes. That said I paid $20 so I am more than happy with it. I run it as a experimental web server and it runs like a champ!.
I thought a lot about building one actually. There is a section of diyaudio.com dedicated to DIY projectors. I started out with taking my old pocket LCD TV and taking it apart and putting the panel into a slide projector--It actually worked rather well! The only problem was that the screen-door effect was massive, the pixels where the size of golf-balls. I kept planning on building my own projectors, until I got a few good deals on projectors. I started out with a 640x480 Telex P170v that I got on ebay for $170, then upgraded to a $600 Davis DL-450 DLP and spent a good amount of time and money modding it for a better picture. Finally, I got the offer I could not refuse. A Sony 1271q CRT projector with 650 hours for $500. It blows away any LCD or DLP out there and was a bargain.
After a lot of talk on Diyaudio.com a general consensuses emerged, which was that buying a used CRT projector was often a better choice then building your own (many people have broken there LCD panels In the process of making there projectors)
Quick note about lumens: The 3500 Lumens is the overhead rating, an LCD panel often reduces brightness by as much as 95%.
I actually watched an economics professor yesterday on C-Span talking about all the stupid reasons why college costs are going up....I think he had this sort of stuff in mind.
Okay, lets start the easy question: What is your budget? You can drop $100,000 on a Sony HDCAM setup, but in all odds you'll be staying in the good 'ol NTSC realm. Again it depends on how much money you have in your pocket. Visit DV.com for some camera ideas. I would try and get a 3-CCD Camera.
Visit http://www.saferseas.com/ for some package ideas, also DV.com is a good site.
Re:Cool!
on
GPS on Mars?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Basically from what I can tell the story is just a recycled news bit. Nasa only has 1 telecommunication orbiter scheduled for Mars in 2009, and that it is. There simply is not enough volume with mars landers to warrant a GPS system (why put up 6 satellites that would only support 2-3 landers that have a limited lifespan?)
In a related matter, Amsat (the ham radio satellite people) also have planned a Mars communications relay satellite called P5-A which would launch about the same time as the Nasa one (and probably cost significantly less) IMHO a Mars GPS/Communications system would be a great test case for those cash prizes they have talked about giving out.
Same story with Viking. The RTGs where ment to power them though the 1990's, however one had to be terned off when an orbiter it communicated through ran out of fuel, and the second one was acidiently turned off in 1982
Well that depends on if we get off our asses and move! The Sun is getting hotter every day, and in about 100 million years will start to get to where it make life on earth a bit unconfortable.
The only problem is that Titan is quire far away from Saturn and its weaker gravity would exert only a fraction of the tidal forces as compared to Io or Europa.
It seems as thought the question is how well the planet has been able to keep the heat that is generated by radioactive decay.
Not really. Titan is stuck in way out in the cold of space. Everyone believes that Titan is WAY to cold for life to ever exist. This however changes in about 5 billion years when the sun goes red giant and Titan might possibly enter a period of a few 100 million years where it gets earth-like tempatures. The question of course is if titan will survive for another 5 billion years.
One little problem for a human to ride the space elevator--the slow speed of assent means that people would pass though the Van Allen belt for a rather long time--exposing them to possibly deadly radiation.
Not only is it NOT a new product to market, it is a flat out RIP OFF!!!
Fusion HDTV can do what it does for less.
I have a MyHD card that also cost $200, In addition to acting as a simple capture card, mine features both RGBHV and Component HDTV output for both HDTV AND DVD Playback at a ton of different resolutions.
Well in reality DVDs really are already in the native 24p. Mpeg simply marks the the third field of the video as a repeat of the first field. Remove this tag and you get 24p, and stright interlaced players don't have to got though much trouble convering things.
Slashdot Mirror
Thats easy: about $480 Million Per Launch. The entire EELV program was basically to half the cost of the the Titan IV
The Booster that flew was a Titan 4B (and is not the last Titan-4B to fly, just the last at the Cape--One more will fly from Vandenberg) The Titan 4B first flew in 1997 and was an upgraded verson of the Titan 4 that first flew in the mid 80s. The Titan 4 was primarly used as a replacement for Mil Payloads after Challenger. The Titan 3 was a workhorse of launchers during the 70s (Including Voyager and Viking). The Titan 2 serverd as the bases of the following lines and was an ICBM and booster for Gemini. The Titan Rocket that flew is not old tech wise, its old in the same sense as the cars we drive today being based on improved designs of the past. Please google before you post something without knowing all the facts.
Found it! Its called the Hubble Origins Probe http://www.pha.jhu.edu/hop/ The Hubble Origins Probe (HOP) is a proposed 2.4 meter free flying space telescope.The HOP concept is to replicate the design of the Hubble Space Telescope with a much lighter unaberrated mirror and optical telescope assembly, enabling a rapid path to launch, significant cost savings and risk mitigation. HOP will fly the instruments originally planned for the 4th HST servicing mission as well as a new very wide field imager, enhancing the original science mission of Hubble.
There was a proposal floated a little while ago to build a replacement for HST from spare parts that already exist and launch it on top of an expendable rocket. The kicker is that it would not cost much more than the servicing mission! I guess it has more to do with the name 'Hubble' than anything else. In a related story, why do they keep calling them gyroscope when they really are reaction-wheels?
Of course if he is not looking to do a ton of downloading, he might not hit that unlimited limit.
I would suggest shopping around for cell phone plans. Some appear to offer unlimited data service for a around $15-$20/mo extra. I am not 100% on the details but it is worth a look. Have you looked to see if a open Wifi AP exists around you? PS: How can you be a Slashdot users and only use the Internet a little?
If range is an issue you might want to look into this http://www.digit-life.com/articles/homepna/ Basically HPNA over coax seems to be able to go for over a mile.
A evil madman has an astrorid in earth orbit holding the world ransom for $10 Trillion dollars or else he deorbits it over Washington DC and wipe out the entire US and Europe. Even evil madmen need to test the technology and raise venture capitial...
I think the US should pay to take care of this little problem. It may cost a trillion dollars, but it is well worth another 50 years of being able to rub the rest of the world in the fact that we saved their asses. (again)
Apparently the space.com folks don't talk to the astronomy folks.
Space.com says it will take a few months, unless they use Arecibo's radar--which would really help norrow the orbit.
I would start to worried if astronomers suddenly started to buy a lot of Boeing and Lockheed stock.
I remember Dell running a special for a $500 Laptop, not sure of the specs--but atleast it came with Windows. On the other hand I have a Laptop that I got at a garage sale--Its a 233Mhz, 4 Gig HD, and Runs Windows 2000 like a car running on fumes. That said I paid $20 so I am more than happy with it. I run it as a experimental web server and it runs like a champ!.
I thought a lot about building one actually. There is a section of diyaudio.com dedicated to DIY projectors. I started out with taking my old pocket LCD TV and taking it apart and putting the panel into a slide projector--It actually worked rather well! The only problem was that the screen-door effect was massive, the pixels where the size of golf-balls. I kept planning on building my own projectors, until I got a few good deals on projectors. I started out with a 640x480 Telex P170v that I got on ebay for $170, then upgraded to a $600 Davis DL-450 DLP and spent a good amount of time and money modding it for a better picture. Finally, I got the offer I could not refuse. A Sony 1271q CRT projector with 650 hours for $500. It blows away any LCD or DLP out there and was a bargain. After a lot of talk on Diyaudio.com a general consensuses emerged, which was that buying a used CRT projector was often a better choice then building your own (many people have broken there LCD panels In the process of making there projectors) Quick note about lumens: The 3500 Lumens is the overhead rating, an LCD panel often reduces brightness by as much as 95%.
I actually watched an economics professor yesterday on C-Span talking about all the stupid reasons why college costs are going up....I think he had this sort of stuff in mind.
Okay, lets start the easy question: What is your budget? You can drop $100,000 on a Sony HDCAM setup, but in all odds you'll be staying in the good 'ol NTSC realm. Again it depends on how much money you have in your pocket. Visit DV.com for some camera ideas. I would try and get a 3-CCD Camera. Visit http://www.saferseas.com/ for some package ideas, also DV.com is a good site.
Basically from what I can tell the story is just a recycled news bit. Nasa only has 1 telecommunication orbiter scheduled for Mars in 2009, and that it is. There simply is not enough volume with mars landers to warrant a GPS system (why put up 6 satellites that would only support 2-3 landers that have a limited lifespan?) In a related matter, Amsat (the ham radio satellite people) also have planned a Mars communications relay satellite called P5-A which would launch about the same time as the Nasa one (and probably cost significantly less) IMHO a Mars GPS/Communications system would be a great test case for those cash prizes they have talked about giving out.
Same story with Viking. The RTGs where ment to power them though the 1990's, however one had to be terned off when an orbiter it communicated through ran out of fuel, and the second one was acidiently turned off in 1982
Well that depends on if we get off our asses and move! The Sun is getting hotter every day, and in about 100 million years will start to get to where it make life on earth a bit unconfortable.
The only problem is that Titan is quire far away from Saturn and its weaker gravity would exert only a fraction of the tidal forces as compared to Io or Europa. It seems as thought the question is how well the planet has been able to keep the heat that is generated by radioactive decay.
Not really. Titan is stuck in way out in the cold of space. Everyone believes that Titan is WAY to cold for life to ever exist. This however changes in about 5 billion years when the sun goes red giant and Titan might possibly enter a period of a few 100 million years where it gets earth-like tempatures. The question of course is if titan will survive for another 5 billion years.
One little problem for a human to ride the space elevator--the slow speed of assent means that people would pass though the Van Allen belt for a rather long time--exposing them to possibly deadly radiation.
Not only is it NOT a new product to market, it is a flat out RIP OFF!!! Fusion HDTV can do what it does for less. I have a MyHD card that also cost $200, In addition to acting as a simple capture card, mine features both RGBHV and Component HDTV output for both HDTV AND DVD Playback at a ton of different resolutions.
Here is the result of someone who DID go on the show about gun-control. http://www.equalccw.com/mancusthreatletter.gif
Well in reality DVDs really are already in the native 24p. Mpeg simply marks the the third field of the video as a repeat of the first field. Remove this tag and you get 24p, and stright interlaced players don't have to got though much trouble convering things.