Hubble was originally designed in the 1970s and launched in 1990. Thanks to on-orbit service calls by the Space Shuttle astronauts, Hubble continues to be a state-of-the-art space telescope.
I agree that launching a new one is probably the best option. Although a new telescope is probably much more expensive than repairing the hubble, it was designed in the 70's for god's sake and you can only upgrade something so far before you start hitting some pretty hard limits.
Considering how far computers and precision instuments have come in the last 8 years, let alone 30, its time for a new telescope that can fully utilize the technology we have available today.
Iceland's electricity is not primarily geothermal
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Hydrogen Buses In Iceland
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· Score: 2, Informative
Geothermal energy supplies only 16% of Iceland's electricity. The primary source of electricity in Iceland is Hydro at 84%. Geothermal is only the major player when looking at total energy consumption, such as heating homes.
It is electricity that is used to crack water into hydrogen, so to say that they are using something unavailable to the US is wrong. The US has tremendous Hydro potential, if you can get the damn tree-huggers out of the way...
It should be noted that FUD can be used incorrectly, when applied as a label to offhandedly dismiss criticism or legitimate debate. One example is if Microsoft issues a statement arguing the superiority of Windows over Linux, and a Linux supporter or group automatically denounces the statement as FUD regardless of its merit. Such an incorrect usage would be a general type of logical fallacy known as Ad hominem circumstantial.
Or maybe Al Gore can improve upon his space shuttle and go out and stop it while Kerry is protesting that we should wait for the U.N. to give us permission...
Why would Microsoft fix their bugs? It doesnt matter how many holes Windows/IE have, people will still buy it. You can see that every day as new windows exploits come out and yet we dont have a mass migration to Linux and/or Unix.
Microsoft makes money based on upgrades. New versions of Windows, new versions of Office, new versions of whatever. People blindly upgrade in the hopes that the new version will fix the bugs of the old one. But all these new versions are just as buggy as the first. Not the same bugs, but all new ones...
Now if Microsoft were to make a product that performed wonderfully the first time around, why would you have any incentive to upgrade? They can tout new features and bells and whistles, but if the product you have is working fine for you, then why spend the money?
As long as they hold a monopoly, they can continue to create buggy software with no real risk of losing customers.
Now what if they could sweeten the deal even more. What if they "forced" people to buy software that had a giant problem, and they also sold the cure. Then they get to charge you twice. They could fix the problem, but then they would lose money. That doesn't make much sense. As long as there are no real alternatives to the average user, Microsoft has free reign to run their stratagy.
Microsoft isn't dumb. There's a reason they are where they are today. They've found a damn good buisness stratagy that works.
Don't forget that they had to toe the line between being a non-profit advocate and selling a product. Had they taken a more aggresive stand, they wouldn't have gotten the non-profit rate.
This is the same mentality as pre-September 11. We cannot wait until after the fact to defend ourselves. A country can develop and deploy missles much faster than we can develop and deploy a defense system simply because missles are "old" technology. Look at how quickly and cheaply China was able to put a man in space. They did it at a fraction of the cost and much quicker due to the fact that other people had already done the R&D. The same is true of offensive missles; ballistics is a tried and true science. With the computers of today, developing medium range missles is small potatoes compared to the massive amount of research required for a defense sytem. Waiting for a potential threat to emerge before starting to work on a shield is a bad gamble.
To those who say this is a waste of money: How so? The money spent on this system goes to pay American workers who then go and spend it at local shops. Money spent on defense projects doesnt just dissappear, it goes to the American contractors building arms, who then go buy their personal stuff in American stores. The money goes right back into the American public's pockets.
Slashdot Mirror
Hubble was originally designed in the 1970s and launched in 1990. Thanks to on-orbit service calls by the Space Shuttle astronauts, Hubble continues to be a state-of-the-art space telescope.
I agree that launching a new one is probably the best option. Although a new telescope is probably much more expensive than repairing the hubble, it was designed in the 70's for god's sake and you can only upgrade something so far before you start hitting some pretty hard limits.
Considering how far computers and precision instuments have come in the last 8 years, let alone 30, its time for a new telescope that can fully utilize the technology we have available today.
You misspelled Al Franken.
It is electricity that is used to crack water into hydrogen, so to say that they are using something unavailable to the US is wrong. The US has tremendous Hydro potential, if you can get the damn tree-huggers out of the way...
Reference: http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/edc/countries
In the same way cars and trucks in the northern US and Canada have heaters on their fuel tanks.
It should be noted that FUD can be used incorrectly, when applied as a label to offhandedly dismiss criticism or legitimate debate. One example is if Microsoft issues a statement arguing the superiority of Windows over Linux, and a Linux supporter or group automatically denounces the statement as FUD regardless of its merit. Such an incorrect usage would be a general type of logical fallacy known as Ad hominem circumstantial.
Or maybe Al Gore can improve upon his space shuttle and go out and stop it while Kerry is protesting that we should wait for the U.N. to give us permission...
Microsoft makes money based on upgrades. New versions of Windows, new versions of Office, new versions of whatever. People blindly upgrade in the hopes that the new version will fix the bugs of the old one. But all these new versions are just as buggy as the first. Not the same bugs, but all new ones...
Now if Microsoft were to make a product that performed wonderfully the first time around, why would you have any incentive to upgrade? They can tout new features and bells and whistles, but if the product you have is working fine for you, then why spend the money?
As long as they hold a monopoly, they can continue to create buggy software with no real risk of losing customers.
Now what if they could sweeten the deal even more. What if they "forced" people to buy software that had a giant problem, and they also sold the cure. Then they get to charge you twice. They could fix the problem, but then they would lose money. That doesn't make much sense. As long as there are no real alternatives to the average user, Microsoft has free reign to run their stratagy.
Microsoft isn't dumb. There's a reason they are where they are today. They've found a damn good buisness stratagy that works.
Don't forget that they had to toe the line between being a non-profit advocate and selling a product. Had they taken a more aggresive stand, they wouldn't have gotten the non-profit rate.
Anybody else find it amusing that a car company is the world leader in huminoid robotics?
Anybody else here think that it probably isn't a good idea to open up your professor to the ridicule of Slashdot???
when it takes Slashdotters 5 minutes and other people's help to activate it...
This is the same mentality as pre-September 11. We cannot wait until after the fact to defend ourselves. A country can develop and deploy missles much faster than we can develop and deploy a defense system simply because missles are "old" technology. Look at how quickly and cheaply China was able to put a man in space. They did it at a fraction of the cost and much quicker due to the fact that other people had already done the R&D. The same is true of offensive missles; ballistics is a tried and true science. With the computers of today, developing medium range missles is small potatoes compared to the massive amount of research required for a defense sytem. Waiting for a potential threat to emerge before starting to work on a shield is a bad gamble.
To those who say this is a waste of money: How so? The money spent on this system goes to pay American workers who then go and spend it at local shops. Money spent on defense projects doesnt just dissappear, it goes to the American contractors building arms, who then go buy their personal stuff in American stores. The money goes right back into the American public's pockets.