*Never* trusting a simulation is not only rather silly, but a terrible stance for most everyone in engineering these days. The major car companies are actually working toward keeping their design to fully in the computer. Of course, they are still required to crash test a real car before production, but the need for a prototype during the design phase is supposed to be disappearing in the next decade.
Yes, vehicle crashes are complex (an understatement), but when built intelligently car crashes models are not impossible to create.
Does this mean we just trust the simulation? Of course not! Every model needs some sort of validation to prove it is even close to real life. Computational methods a great tool, and when used correctly they are very effective.
The statistics I've heard say that women are more likely to cause car accidents if you exclude the alcohol related ones. If you look at only alcohol related accidents then males are more likely to cause one. I don't know what that means altogether (I don't know the proportion of alcohol to non-alcohol related accidents, regardless of gender).
The "street corner" example is a poor choice. I saw a story on here a while back (no idea exactly how long ago) about a visual search engine, but this one was for finding things that have already been designed. If an engineer needs a special kind of widgit he can search for the general shape of it and the engine could bring up known (and probably patented) examples that fit the description. This would decrease time spent designing something in house if you could more cheaply buy the design off some other company. Also, it could make it easier to determine what designs are already protected by patents.
It isn't that the resources weren't committed, it is that Columbia blew up and NASA's other shuttles were grounded. Does that sound at all familiar? If the shuttle were flying, not only would supplies (and trash removal) not be a problem, but they would have 3 or 4 crew members up there, and the solar arrays would be mostly finished. The Columbia crash put the ISS in "maintain" mode.
Just comparing the two segments of the station can give a good idea of the difference between US and Russian engineering. The Americans tend to over-engineer things, but that's generally a good thing on-orbit. The problem comes in when that over-engineering makes everything more complicated. It's more likely to break down due to this complication, and the simpler Russian design stands out. Another good example is the pen Nasa spent a log of money to create so astronauts could write in space...and the Russians use pencils.
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*Never* trusting a simulation is not only rather silly, but a terrible stance for most everyone in engineering these days. The major car companies are actually working toward keeping their design to fully in the computer. Of course, they are still required to crash test a real car before production, but the need for a prototype during the design phase is supposed to be disappearing in the next decade.
Yes, vehicle crashes are complex (an understatement), but when built intelligently car crashes models are not impossible to create.
Does this mean we just trust the simulation? Of course not! Every model needs some sort of validation to prove it is even close to real life. Computational methods a great tool, and when used correctly they are very effective.
The statistics I've heard say that women are more likely to cause car accidents if you exclude the alcohol related ones. If you look at only alcohol related accidents then males are more likely to cause one. I don't know what that means altogether (I don't know the proportion of alcohol to non-alcohol related accidents, regardless of gender).
The "street corner" example is a poor choice. I saw a story on here a while back (no idea exactly how long ago) about a visual search engine, but this one was for finding things that have already been designed. If an engineer needs a special kind of widgit he can search for the general shape of it and the engine could bring up known (and probably patented) examples that fit the description. This would decrease time spent designing something in house if you could more cheaply buy the design off some other company. Also, it could make it easier to determine what designs are already protected by patents.
It isn't that the resources weren't committed, it is that Columbia blew up and NASA's other shuttles were grounded. Does that sound at all familiar? If the shuttle were flying, not only would supplies (and trash removal) not be a problem, but they would have 3 or 4 crew members up there, and the solar arrays would be mostly finished. The Columbia crash put the ISS in "maintain" mode.
Who modded that "Insightful"?!
...punching a hole in its outer shell about three inches (13 cm) across. 3 in * 2.54 cm/in = 7.62 cm. 13 cm??
Just comparing the two segments of the station can give a good idea of the difference between US and Russian engineering. The Americans tend to over-engineer things, but that's generally a good thing on-orbit. The problem comes in when that over-engineering makes everything more complicated. It's more likely to break down due to this complication, and the simpler Russian design stands out. Another good example is the pen Nasa spent a log of money to create so astronauts could write in space...and the Russians use pencils.