Lab work is not always glamorous. Correction: lab work is almost never glamorous. Generating real, publishable results is a long, slow, often boring process. Actually getting those results, though, can be immensely rewarding. As the parent post said, keep an open mind, do a good job at whatever you're asked to do, and keep an eye open for places where you can contribute without being asked.
I realize that the scientists and engineers working on a program like this would be higher paid than the general public. Assuming an average salary of 100k per year, plus benefits at, say, 20k per year, 30 people would run you 3.6M per year.
You're right in thinking that people make up the bulk of the costs (on any space mission), but off a bit on the magnitude. At a large organization like JPL, that $100k engineer (most folks make more like $80k or so) actually costs something like $200-250k: $100k salary + $100k or more in "burden," which pays for things like benefits, office space, electricity, computers, secretarial support, etc. $4m is then only 16-20 people without the additional facility costs of a deep space mission (operations infrastructure and staff, Deep Space Network Time, etc). The money adds up pretty quickly - the $20m total yearly cost is *extremely* lean.
In 2061 (written over 20 years ago now) captain Smith fuels his spacecraft with water from Halley's comet and then flies through a geyser to clean the ship. The 'cosmic car wash manoeuvre' always struck me as crazily risky, but now it looks like someone at NASA thinks it's good clean fun:)
Probably not a coincidence that Clarke also wrote some books with Gentry Lee, one of the chef engineers at JPL, so he certainly had good sources for this stuff (though 2061 was written a few years before Clarke first published a book with Lee).
Is that the same Ball that makes Coke cans? Their logo looks identical. Yep (a wholly-owned subsidiary of same). It also used to be the same company that made jars (like for jam), but the glass business was spun off some years ago.
It's nice to see a telescope with an OBJECTIVE, QUANTIFIABLE name. Then I'm guessing you like the current name of this telescope better than the old one: California Extremely Large Telescope
I know an engineer working on this project who jokes that "Thirty Meter Telescope" is a good name because if funding is cut they can downscope to the "Twenty Meter Telescope" without having to change any of the "TMT" logos.
Run computers on TAI (International Atomic Time). Keep it constantly flowing, and never add or remove seconds, as per the definition. Then simply calculate UTC in software from a published leap offset between the two, which compensates for the leap seconds:
UTC = TAI - leapseconds
Then define all the timezones off of UTC as normal.
This is basically what they do in one area I have experience in where keeping precise track of time is important: spacecraft navigation. Ephemeris Time (not actually obsolete as the article claims) is generally referenced as the number of seconds since January 1st, 2000, 12:00:00 TT, is the "official" time that you work with when computing the positions of heavenly bodies (and spacecraft). The transformation from ET to UTC (the human-readable time) changes when leap seconds are added. When using UTC to compute the position of things, you use the history of leap seconds to convert correctly from UTC to ET, then use ET to figure out where things are.
Is it a new rule on/. that EVERY article has to include a comment featuring the tired, stale "overlords" joke? Nope - it is in fact a very very OLD rule.
I, for one, welcome our "tired, stale overlord-joke"-ing overlords!
The only reason I was remotely worried about the Iranian "hostage" situation was because I feared our wonderful "kill em all and let God sort em out" government would use it as an excuse to turn an already 2 front war(Afghanistan and Iraq) into a 3 front war. I'm pretty sure this is the hostage crisis GP was talking about. In 1979 Iranian militants seized the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostange for 444 days (with the approval of the new theocratic government).
Google seems to be deploying something similar Google's thing, while cool, is very different. They are recognizing the presence of a face (*any* face) in an image, for which good algorithms have existed for quite some time. The tech in TFA is about recognizing *specific* faces, which is way harder to do accurately (and there is significant debate about how good humans even are at this task, without context).
Americans spent millions to engineer a pen that writes upside down for space travel. Russians just used a pencil. While your point is valid, this anecdote is an urban legend. Both the Russians and the Americans used pencils until Fischer developed the space pen on their own dime. Using pens alleviated the safety problem stemming from the debris associated with pencils, and ever since both the Americans and Russians have used pens.
A passenger jet, supposedly, harms the environment as much per passenger, as five passenger cars would over the same distance -- if you ignore the impact of building and maintaining the roads. Well, it depends on what you mean by "harms the environment." Let's look at something easy to quantify, fuel economy. According to Wikipedia, the Boeing 777-300ER (to pick an example) carries 365 passengers a maximum of 7880 nautical miles (9068 miles) and carries 47,890 US gallons of fuel. That works out to 69 seat-miles per gallon, or equivalent to a single car with three passengers getting 23 mpg (or maybe you have a more efficient car - maybe it's two passengers in a car with 34.5 mpg). So in this context air travel looks pretty good.
Of course then there's harder to quantify stuff like how the jet exhaust is being injected much higher in the atmosphere, and other factors like how much pollution per gallon does the jet emit compared to a car, but I think your basic statement is way off. Plus the "impact of building and maintaining the roads" is no small thing either.
Apples has a much better marketing department and Microsoft has a much better business model for its shareholders. Who has a better business model for their shareholders? Have a look at the
5-year stock chart. Looks to me like Apple is up 700% while Microsoft is essentially level.
I don't understand why everyone is always obsessed with Apple's (or anyone's) market share. Apple isn't in the market share business, they are in the making money business. Sure your market share needs to be bigger than zero to make money, but Apple has been doing just fine with the few percent they have. Better than fine, actually - 700% gain in 5 years (3 years, really - the first 2 were net flat) is nothing to shake a stick at. Seems like Apple currently has both better marketing and a better business model for their shareholders.
The fact that lawyers get paid even if they lose is a contributing factor to this abuse, as few people can afford to front the retainer even if they have a chance of winning their attorney fees back in the counter-claim. That's one of the reasons why this letter was awesome - they highlight the fact that the lawyers can be held liable for pursuing litigation of claims with no reasonable basis in fact. It seems like that should get their attention.
With both the lack of interest and the distortion of the original goal, Computer Science as we know may be dying with the elders. Computer Science originally had nothing to do with computers (as in personal computer) per se, but with the science of computation, optimal algorithms for pure math problems, etc. Actually, it was nothing but a branch of Math. As someone who has written a fair bit of code, but is far from being a real developer, and who has done some theoretical computer science, the fact that these two very different disciplines reside in one department (Computer Science) has always confused me. It seems like it would be more appropriate to have Software Engineering programs (and departments) distinct from Computer Science. After all, there is very little that is scientific about much of what is considered "Computer Science." Other (older) branches of engineering seem to have figured this out long ago - nobody goes to school in Materials Science to learn how to be a mechanical engineer - that's what Mechanical Engineering school is for. Which of course isn't to say that there shouldn't be communication (absolutely there should!), but the distinction would make sense.
If you must have software patents, why not a specialist software patent office to deal with them? Because nobody really wants the job - it's boring and it doesn't pay well. What may be needed is a system like the DARPA uses for many of its program managers: domain experts take a couple of years out of their regular technical career to manage programs in their area of expertise, in the spirit of public service. It may be easier to get solid experts to do this than to get them to give up productive careers to read patents.
Secondly, you will also need to get power adapters for various locations (Europe uses a different plug design and have different voltage/frequency setting than the US, and parts of Asia are a mixed bunch - in some countries, the plug is different but the voltage is the same as US or Europe and vice versa).
Make sure you look at the voltage/frequency specs for the power adapter for any electronics you do bring carefully - may items (such as my laptop) will run happily on European or American power standards, and you just need a plug adapter, which is cheaper and less bulky than a unit that converts voltage and frequency. Having a couple of power adapters is handy, but you may be able to get away with one plug adapter and one that also converts.
A billion here, a billion there, after a while you're talkin real money! -Evert Dirksen I was talking to a career government official acquaintance the other day (reasonably high-level guy), and he mentioned that for a long time the standard unit of "small" amounts of money in government (particularly defense) was known as the "Dirksen" after this guy, and was equal to one billion dollars. Now that a billion dollars is hardly anything to them anymore, they just call anything below one billion dollars "chump change." Essentially, if you can do something for less than a billion dollars, it's no problem. Once your program exceeds chump change, you start getting too much attention.
"Seriously? We launch a gajillion dollar probe, chance it in a sling around the largest planet in our solar system to only save 3 years" a) slightshots are a pretty well tested maneuver
b) it provides additional observations that are valuable in themselves, eg features on Io that have changed since Galileo last observed them.
c) 3 years gives us a chance to study Pluto's atmosphere before it freezes out as Pluto moves away from the sun. d) How would you get there faster, Mr. Smarty Pants? I'm sure the good folks at NASA would love for you to enlighten them. They definitely haven't thought carefully about efficient travel across the solar system...
Correction: gravitational slingshot does not save time, it WASTES time. Fastest method is Hohmann transfer [wikipedia.org] but it requires prohibititive amounts of energy (rocket fuel).
Nope. The Hohmann transfer is generally the most fuel efficient way to get from one elliptical orbit to another. You could clearly do it arbitrarily faster if you had unlimited fuel. Furthermore, if you're going to the outer planets and so have convenient targets to utilize (such as Jupiter), the gravitational slingshot can hugely reduce travel time without the penalty of using massive amounts of fuel (since you're robbing a bit of energy from the body you're slingshotting about). In the absence of such a slingshot the Hohmann transfer will be most fuel-efficient for a given specific impulse, but you're probably better off with an ion drive (a la DS-1 and the upcoming Dawn mission) with huge Isp, but not enough thrust to do a Hohmann transfer (since the HT assumes all your transfer impulse is applied at one instant). Then you just thrust continually at a low level for a long time.
Are micro satellites really not useful for communications though? I have my doubts there. Is there not an effort afoot to provide that very thing? I have no reference in this case, but I am sure there was something to do with high altitude/low orbit devices to replace comms satellites.
Like I said, I haven't worked in this area for a while, but I have a lot of doubts about being able to do commercial scale communication with microsats. IIRC the power usage on big comm satellites is something like 5-10 kW, for which you need some serious solar arrays. Power needs in lower orbits would be smaller, but still big - you have to transmit a huge amount of data over a wide area. Small sats could probably be used for comm with a small number of users in targeted applications, like for the military, but I don't see how it would work for public broadband communication. For the military, though, maybe, especially because you get the additional benefit of being able to work out global coverage, which is tricky with geostationary satellites.
Good luck with the thesis - I'm working on my dissertation (not on anything aerospace related, though), and I know what a load of work that is.
Well, this was what my thoughts were based on, although admittedly it isn't micro satellites
Williams, Edwin, William Crossley and Thomas Lang, 'Average and maximum revisit time trade studies for satellite constellations using a multiobjective genetic algorithm', Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, 49, 3, 385-400 2001
I'm not sure what that article has to do with your comments. The idea of the paper is maximal coverage with constellations of satellites - how to design things so satellites pass over the same spot frequently. Systms like GPS (or spy satellites) would be an application here - GPS satellites are in (IIRC) a 12-hour orbit, and you want to make sure so 3-5 of them are in view of any location at all times. Like you say, this has little to do with micro satellites. Communications satellites are generally in a 24-hour orbit, so they effectively "hover" over a particular location, making revisit time a moot point. The point remains that microsats are really not suitable for communication, though I don't argue that they are potentially very useful for both astronomy and spying.
large satellites are a waste of time.
Current work in computing/robotics has shown clearly that clusters are the way forward.
Which is more durable, large satellites or clusters of tiny, multiply redundant (if less efficient) satellites.
Thing is, perhaps small satellites are individually less capable, but if they still exist after a satellite takedown attack, then reduced functionality has to be preferable to no functionality at all.
This is a communications satellite. Which means lots of power. Which means HUGE solar arrays. Comm also means big electronics and big antennae. Which means you can't really do it well with a cluster. Clusters are great (potentially) for things like telescopes (looking up OR down), where you can use the long baseline achievable with a cluster to efficiently get huge collecting area. This is where most if not all of the research in formation flight is. I don't actively work in this area anymore, but I'm not aware of anyone trying to build large-scale high-bandwidth communications networks using small satellites.
Note: I think the main link in this thread has incorrectly summarized the article. I just read the original article and the headline is just plain wrong IMO.
Geez, no kidding. IAYANS (I am yet another neuroscientist (though on the theoretical end)), and the original article says nothing like the headline or the news story: here it is. The authors are just using thermodynamic arguments to say that the action of anesthetics may be explained by changes in membrane freezing point, which changes the propagation properties of electrical solitons (vaguely like sound waves). They specifically say at the beginning that this does not contradict the ion-channel view of propagation in the same way that thermodynamic gas laws don't contradict the fact that gasses are made of atoms flying around.
As a neuroscientist, I find this article interesting and food for thought, but not earth-shattering as the summary seems to imply. As a person, though, it underscores the unsettling reality that we really have little to no understanding of how and why anesthetics actually work, which I guess is why they call it practicing medicine.
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I know an engineer working on this project who jokes that "Thirty Meter Telescope" is a good name because if funding is cut they can downscope to the "Twenty Meter Telescope" without having to change any of the "TMT" logos.
UTC = TAI - leapseconds
Then define all the timezones off of UTC as normal.
This is basically what they do in one area I have experience in where keeping precise track of time is important: spacecraft navigation. Ephemeris Time (not actually obsolete as the article claims) is generally referenced as the number of seconds since January 1st, 2000, 12:00:00 TT, is the "official" time that you work with when computing the positions of heavenly bodies (and spacecraft). The transformation from ET to UTC (the human-readable time) changes when leap seconds are added. When using UTC to compute the position of things, you use the history of leap seconds to convert correctly from UTC to ET, then use ET to figure out where things are.I, for one, welcome our "tired, stale overlord-joke"-ing overlords!
Of course then there's harder to quantify stuff like how the jet exhaust is being injected much higher in the atmosphere, and other factors like how much pollution per gallon does the jet emit compared to a car, but I think your basic statement is way off. Plus the "impact of building and maintaining the roads" is no small thing either.
I don't understand why everyone is always obsessed with Apple's (or anyone's) market share. Apple isn't in the market share business, they are in the making money business. Sure your market share needs to be bigger than zero to make money, but Apple has been doing just fine with the few percent they have. Better than fine, actually - 700% gain in 5 years (3 years, really - the first 2 were net flat) is nothing to shake a stick at. Seems like Apple currently has both better marketing and a better business model for their shareholders.
b) it provides additional observations that are valuable in themselves, eg features on Io that have changed since Galileo last observed them.
c) 3 years gives us a chance to study Pluto's atmosphere before it freezes out as Pluto moves away from the sun. d) How would you get there faster, Mr. Smarty Pants? I'm sure the good folks at NASA would love for you to enlighten them. They definitely haven't thought carefully about efficient travel across the solar system...
Good luck with the thesis - I'm working on my dissertation (not on anything aerospace related, though), and I know what a load of work that is.
As a neuroscientist, I find this article interesting and food for thought, but not earth-shattering as the summary seems to imply. As a person, though, it underscores the unsettling reality that we really have little to no understanding of how and why anesthetics actually work, which I guess is why they call it practicing medicine.