The Falcon-9 is about to get 50% more expensive. Musk has just proposed to NASA that Space-X will fly only two demonstration flights of Falcon-9, instead of three... but he still wants to be paid for all three.
However, with all the "debris" (like micro or larger meteorites) in the solar system (not to mention the outside of our solar system), is this hope for long distance space travel actually practical? Solar sails seem really fragile.
Turns out debris and micrometeoroid hits are almost irrelevant to sails-- they basically poke small holes in the sail, but the area removed is not enough to make a difference.
I'm thinking "High Altitude Airship" would also be a good term, but it's actually descriptive and not at all clever like inventing a nonsense word composed of the amalgam of two perfectly good words, neither of which even accurately describe the subject.
"High altitude airship" is usually a term for airships that go up to the stratosphere or higher. With a ceiling of 6km, this is at best a middling-altitude airship.
Feats like the Mars Rovers show us that our space-engineering prowess is not only continuing to mature, but indeed getting quite robust.
I don't doubt we are getting better at building equipment that can stand the rigors of space or Mars (better alloys, better lubricants, better electronics, simple design) but this also says something about our ability (or lack thereof) to estimate the durability of the things we build. Lasting twice as long as we expect is a great thing, lasting 25x as long means they were afraid to give a real estimate.
The rovers were engineered to survive 90 sols (Martian solar days) under worst-case conditions.
Turns out that the conditions they actually experience were not as bad as worst case.
Most notably, they were designed to operate in the (solar-energy-positive conditions) of Martian summer. They were definitely not designed to survive Martian winter. The fact that they were able to survive Martian winter is a tribute to, yes, the fact that the engineers overdesigned (partly, the fact that they overdesigned to withstand worst-case summer condidtions that didn't actually occur), partly that components used actually do continue to perform despite being well outside the design envelope (nobody had ever subjected the rechangable lithium batteries to these extreme cycles, until we did it on Mars), and partly by great work on the part of the operations crew. And then, after that, it was due to the fact that Mars cooperated by cleaning our solar arrays.
Kind of like how Scotty says "It will take 8 hours to get it fixed, Captain!", to which Kirk says "You have 2 hours", and yet it still gets fixed. The engineers are likely underestimating the "average" time to cover their own butts.
No, it's not a "cover your butt"-- it's the fact that if you are given a spec of, say 900 Martian days, the review board is going to require that the engineers show test results before launch proving that they will meet that spec-- on most of the components, this means testing to three times the design life. For an environment for which a lot of the conditions are not completely known, and so you'll have to test for worst case conditions. This would balloon the cost up unreasonably.
This actually makes it *harder* to get some science done, as you are scrambling to create new tasks with the extra time you weren't expecting, never knowing when it will give up the ghost.
In some ways this is true-- it would be nice to know how long the mission was going to last, if for no other reason than to know for how long I needed to rent an apartment in Pasadena. For MER, however, the team has had no problems coming up with new things to do with the extra time.
The same group of deluded elites that knew the Duke Lacrosse team was guilty of rape, now wants to sell you on carbon taxes.
I have to say, this is the weirdest non-sequitur argument I've seen so far. Exactly which of the people on the National Academy of Sciences made any statement about the Duke Lacrosse team whatsoever?
To my knowledge, the number of National Academy of Sciences reports on the subject of Duke Lacrosse is exactly zero.
"Will the military need to be called in to blow up the rogue Intelsat satellite meandering through Earth's orbit? Or maybe a NASA Space Shuttle could swing by and grab it?
What? The answer is no, and no.
First, this satellite is at geosynchronous orbit altitude. That is a hundred times higher than the altitude of the satellite that was downed by the ground-based missile. You can't reach it with that weapon, and you absolutely, certainly can't "grab it" with the space shuttle. No. Not even close. Not even close to close.
Also, note that the satellite that was downed was in very low orbit. The significance of that was that all the pieces of it were in very low orbit, and hence they decayed in the atmosphere within a very short time of its destruction. The very worst, stupidest possible thing ever to do would be to "blow up the rogue satellite," because debris from a blown-up satellite in geosynchronous orbit would not decay, but would stay in the geosynchronous orbit pretty much forever. This would be a very bad thing.
The gravitational effect of the moon is indeed very significant here, but it is periodic. (The net result is that the lunar perturbation makes a periodic change to the inclination of the orbit). The drift in longitude is due to the Earth's non-sphericity, not the moon.
Sounds like he's got a good case for sexual harassment in the workplace. Sounds like he was subject to a hostile work environment, a violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as amended.
Which explains why MacOS, Windows, and Linux aren't compatible with each other in the least, but all can infect alien computers with the exact same command:
UPLOAD VIRUS
OH, NO!!! Why did you type that??? My system is craxhinqx*$#^^$&&!--
Explanation 7) All Earth computers actually use technology stolen from crashed UFOs from Roswell. Their operating systems are the same as ours because our operating systems actually are theirs.
3... "As we all know, all zooming into a poor-quality image would do is give a muddled blurry mess on the screen. This technique was recently brilliantly parried in Red Dwarf."
Since Red Dwarf was cancelled in 1999, it makes me wonder how old this article is.
Also makes me wonder if they fired all their copy editors. "recently parried"?
Slashdot Mirror
The Falcon-9 is about to get 50% more expensive.
Musk has just proposed to NASA that Space-X will fly only two demonstration flights of Falcon-9, instead of three... but he still wants to be paid for all three.
However, with all the "debris" (like micro or larger meteorites) in the solar system (not to mention the outside of our solar system), is this hope for long distance space travel actually practical? Solar sails seem really fragile.
Turns out debris and micrometeoroid hits are almost irrelevant to sails-- they basically poke small holes in the sail, but the area removed is not enough to make a difference.
What, nobody's posted the obligatory xkcd reference yet?
Oh, wait--
If he's convicted he gets to go to minimum security federal jail for probably 2-4 years. How is that savage punishment?
I doubt it. First offense, nonviolent crime? A few hundred hours of community service and probation.
Maybe six months jail time, at most, if they want to make a point.
Actually from what I've read most of the charges do seem a bit trumped up. The DoD is claiming millions of dollars in damages related to the "hack"
According to TFA, they are saying that the break-in "incurred costs of $800,000."
That's not "millions," sorry.
And, since he apparently admits to the break-in, I don't see how the charges "seem a bit trumped up."
The problem with an objective test is that it's going to take away a lot of people's excuse for their behavior.
"altering foods at the nanoscale level, changing their tiny molecular structures to enhance certain properties"
Seems there's a word for altering materials at the nanoscale, and changing their molecular structures.
Let me think... molecular properties... hmmm... yes, I've got it! We call it "chemistry".
Scientists propose doing chemistry on food! Stop the presses! --What? Food chemistry has been an applied science since the 1700s? It's not news?
Oh,
Yeah, basically, I think that the reporter has heard about high altitude airships, and just jumped to the conclusion that this is one of 'em.
I'm thinking "High Altitude Airship" would also be a good term, but it's actually descriptive and not at all clever like inventing a nonsense word composed of the amalgam of two perfectly good words, neither of which even accurately describe the subject.
"High altitude airship" is usually a term for airships that go up to the stratosphere or higher. With a ceiling of 6km, this is at best a middling-altitude airship.
Feats like the Mars Rovers show us that our space-engineering prowess is not only continuing to mature, but indeed getting quite robust.
I don't doubt we are getting better at building equipment that can stand the rigors of space or Mars (better alloys, better lubricants, better electronics, simple design) but this also says something about our ability (or lack thereof) to estimate the durability of the things we build. Lasting twice as long as we expect is a great thing, lasting 25x as long means they were afraid to give a real estimate.
The rovers were engineered to survive 90 sols (Martian solar days) under worst-case conditions.
Turns out that the conditions they actually experience were not as bad as worst case.
Most notably, they were designed to operate in the (solar-energy-positive conditions) of Martian summer. They were definitely not designed to survive Martian winter. The fact that they were able to survive Martian winter is a tribute to, yes, the fact that the engineers overdesigned (partly, the fact that they overdesigned to withstand worst-case summer condidtions that didn't actually occur), partly that components used actually do continue to perform despite being well outside the design envelope (nobody had ever subjected the rechangable lithium batteries to these extreme cycles, until we did it on Mars), and partly by great work on the part of the operations crew. And then, after that, it was due to the fact that Mars cooperated by cleaning our solar arrays.
Kind of like how Scotty says "It will take 8 hours to get it fixed, Captain!", to which Kirk says "You have 2 hours", and yet it still gets fixed. The engineers are likely underestimating the "average" time to cover their own butts.
No, it's not a "cover your butt"-- it's the fact that if you are given a spec of, say 900 Martian days, the review board is going to require that the engineers show test results before launch proving that they will meet that spec-- on most of the components, this means testing to three times the design life. For an environment for which a lot of the conditions are not completely known, and so you'll have to test for worst case conditions. This would balloon the cost up unreasonably.
This actually makes it *harder* to get some science done, as you are scrambling to create new tasks with the extra time you weren't expecting, never knowing when it will give up the ghost.
In some ways this is true-- it would be nice to know how long the mission was going to last, if for no other reason than to know for how long I needed to rent an apartment in Pasadena. For MER, however, the team has had no problems coming up with new things to do with the extra time.
The same group of deluded elites that knew the Duke Lacrosse team was guilty of rape, now wants to sell you on carbon taxes.
I have to say, this is the weirdest non-sequitur argument I've seen so far. Exactly which of the people on the National Academy of Sciences made any statement about the Duke Lacrosse team whatsoever?
To my knowledge, the number of National Academy of Sciences reports on the subject of Duke Lacrosse is exactly zero.
If you think it's causing some great calamity with the environment, why don't you just invent something that provides energy that doesn't use CO2?
You mean, say, solar energy?
Great idea. I'm all for it. Let's do it.
ROFL!
Given a choice between paying attention to television talking heads, or paying attention to scientists, I'd go with the scientists.
Amusingly, the same site notes that corporations are taking global warming seriously-- if you go by the market-theory, I'd say that this is pretty serious.
[who is going] to tax all the volcanos around the world for their CO2 production?
The CO2 out gassed by active volcanoes comes to about one percent of anthropogenic emissions.
Learn to be check the numbers when you hear outrageous claims like this.
"Will the military need to be called in to blow up the rogue Intelsat satellite meandering through Earth's orbit? Or maybe a NASA Space Shuttle could swing by and grab it?
What? The answer is no, and no.
First, this satellite is at geosynchronous orbit altitude. That is a hundred times higher than the altitude of the satellite that was downed by the ground-based missile. You can't reach it with that weapon, and you absolutely, certainly can't "grab it" with the space shuttle. No. Not even close. Not even close to close.
Also, note that the satellite that was downed was in very low orbit. The significance of that was that all the pieces of it were in very low orbit, and hence they decayed in the atmosphere within a very short time of its destruction. The very worst, stupidest possible thing ever to do would be to "blow up the rogue satellite," because debris from a blown-up satellite in geosynchronous orbit would not decay, but would stay in the geosynchronous orbit pretty much forever. This would be a very bad thing.
The gravitational effect of the moon is indeed very significant here, but it is periodic. (The net result is that the lunar perturbation makes a periodic change to the inclination of the orbit).
The drift in longitude is due to the Earth's non-sphericity, not the moon.
Right. This has nothing to do with Lagrange points.
This is related to the fact that the Earth is not perfectly spherical.
Sounds like he's got a good case for sexual harassment in the workplace. Sounds like he was subject to a hostile work environment, a violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as amended.
Something like this? Robots and Humans: Synergy in Planetary Exploration (2003)
Which explains why MacOS, Windows, and Linux aren't compatible with each other in the least, but all can infect alien computers with the exact same command:
UPLOAD VIRUS
OH, NO!!! Why did you type that??? My system is craxhinqx*$#^^$&&!--
Really? Red Dwarf got revived?
Shows what I miss by not having cable. So, television now has a channel called "Dave"?
Explanation 7) All Earth computers actually use technology stolen from crashed UFOs from Roswell. Their operating systems are the same as ours because our operating systems actually are theirs.
Yes, the original article says
3... "As we all know, all zooming into a poor-quality image would do is give a muddled blurry mess on the screen. This technique was recently brilliantly parried in Red Dwarf."
Since Red Dwarf was cancelled in 1999, it makes me wonder how old this article is.
Also makes me wonder if they fired all their copy editors. "recently parried"?
I think it's the right-wingers that are usually on the less-government-involvement side of things.
You're confusing conservatives with libertarians.
They're not the same thing.
Ah, kids.
That "America: love it or leave it" slogan is from the '60s. You youngsters are too green to have heard about it.
By the way: get off my lawn.