Most people are familar with the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you), and most in business are familiar with the other golden rule (He who has the gold makes the rules).
I've always been partial to this version: "Do unto others before they do unto you";)
This "gravity tractor" idea isn't just a "show off fancy stuff" trick. I agree that a fixed surface-mount propulsion system or mass driver might seem simpler, but those don't work too well on something that's spinning. The gravity tractor doesn't have to worry about timing its thrust so it's pointed in the right direction, and it doesn't have to worry about landing on a spinning or irregularly-shaped object.
Sorry to hear you didn't like it....do you like getting 'buzzed' at all on booze or anything else? Just curious if you just prefer to be totally sober in all facets of life?
Oh, I like a mild to moderate alcohol buzz... but there's a reason I don't drink to the point that I can barely stand up, and it's not just because of the hangovers. Nitrous was like that. I don't like the freaky feeling of being still awake but knowing the rational part of my brain is slipping away. It's like sleep paralysis--you're half-conscious, maybe still dreaming a bit, but you can't do anything about it. (Incidentally, sleep paralysis is believed to be the real cause of a lot of alien abduction stories)
Anyway, I never grew up in fear of the dentist...a bit of gas and good to go. I've NEVER understood people that won't take the gas, or would even think of going to a dentist that didn't offer gas (that's one of my criteria for going to one). I mean, if you're gonna have to have something done...have a little fun with it.
Most dental work I've had (dozens of fillings, two root canals, and an apicoectomy) was done with local anesthetic only (novocane/lidocane). The injections don't feel that good, especially in the roof of the mouth, but it's nice to understand what's going on--especially if your dentist is nice enough to explain what's going on, and gives you a mirror or puts it on the TV so you can see, too.
Twice I was put under general anesthesia (put to sleep) for oral surgeries. The first time, they put me on gas before putting in the IV. I positively hated the gas feeling. It felt like my hand was dropping through my torso, and made me very queasy. No fun at all.
The second time, they tried to gas me, and I said "screw that, just stick me." "No, just relax and breathe, it'll help relax you before the IV." "Look, lady, I give blood every eight weeks. I watch the needle go in, and it doesn't bother me at all. I'm not going to breathe that gas because it makes me sick, so just stick the damn needle in already and get it over with." "But, sir..." "JUST STICK ME!!"
So yeah. Either leave me fully conscious and kill the pain, or knock me out completely. If I'm going to get only halfway there, alcohol tastes a lot better than nitrous.
Heck, I've even passed on the local anesthetic for the really minor stuff (tiny fillings). Rubberlips suck too.
My day job is helping develop a new aircraft. It gives me some insight into what might be happening over there at Boeing. My take on the whole matter:
Boeing's first screwup was an entirely ridiculously aggressive schedule, one far more challenging than any of their previous projects. You'd think they would learn better, but apparently the latest batch of management monkeys figured they could make the impossible happen simply by declaring that it would, and expected the force of their words to be sufficient. (Lesson: things always take longer than you think they will. Use your worst-case estimate, not your best-case one)
Second, the outsourcing. Well, the outsourcing itself was not the problem, but rather it was the way they handled it. They farmed out major assemblies to far-flung companies, and then (here's the important part) didn't supervise them well enough. They simply took everyone's word that the engineering was sound and that they were on schedule with their builds. Everyone was actually late, but nobody wanted to admit it because nobody else was saying they were late. Eventually, they realized what was going on, but not after it was too late to fix it without causing too much of a delay. Boeing also failed to ensure that the fastener manufacturers would have their products ready in time... which would bite them in the ass later. (Lesson: Watch your subcontractors very, very carefully. Supervise their work, check their processes, and double-check their engineering)
Third, marketing. More specifically, the marketing types drove the program management and engineering decisions. Marketing wanted to shoot for a July 8 rollout to get an auspicious date... and thus commanded it to happen. Well, the only problem was that the airplane wasn't ready yet. Not only was it not assembled, but none of the internal systems were installed (they were supposed to be put in by the subcontractors, but everyone was late...). So what did they do? They slapped the empty sections together--with fasteners from Home Depot as a temporary fix, and painted it. That's right, they used ordinary hardware-store bolts in place of flightworthy fasteners because some marketing dweeb wanted to show "visual progress", and they didn't have the time to do it right. And not only did they use non-flightworthy parts, but they lost track of where they put them, meaning they had to go back and check all of the fasteners to make sure the temporary ones were removed. Boeing lost months because they had to go back and redo stuff that wasn't per spec. (Lesson: "visual progress" isn't. Half-assedly slapping something together to make it look like you've accomplished something just costs you more time, effort, and money down the road. Do it right the first time.*)
I don't know enough about the latest delays (structural issues) to be able to comment on them. But the earlier stuff I see parallels to in all kinds of places, even at work.
*Dear God that pisses me off to no end... I can't tell you how many times I've been told just to "hurry up and do it" because my manager wished to show "visual progress", only to have to go back and do it again, correctly. Tape measures and paper flat patterns simply can't be used to install mount points with tolerances in the thousandths... either get the proper tooling support to do it right, or fit the entire thing together before installation. "Visual progress" is right up there with "think of the children" in the "worst phrases of the English language" category...
Not just nearly, it can land completely on its own from what I understand. Essentially just program the runway, etc into the autopilot and it's done.
That just entails flight path and speed. Flap settings, brakes, arming the ground spoilers, and extending the landing gear are all still things that must be done manually.
Very little flying nowadays is done manually, the pilots are essentially just there in case something goes wrong.
Not quite. Though pilots often set autopilot soon after takeoff, and certainly use it in cruise whenever possible, landings are almost always done manually whenever possible. Autolandings are only done when required by weather conditions or for currency (aircraft and pilots both have to perform an autolanding every month or so to stay current). Some guys do more manual flying than others.
Autopilots are, in essence, just glorified cruise controls. They don't make decisions or plan flights on their own; the pilots input all of that themselves and make all of the decisions. The autopilot's job is to handle the low-level stuff (keep the wings level, hold this airspeed, etc.) so the pilots can concentrate on keeping aware of their surroundings, avoiding other traffic, navigating, handling other systems, dealing with ATC, and all that.
The two dollar bill was a one time promotional thing in the seventies, and most people born since, oh, say 1985 have never seen one.
Oh, they still make them. Not many, but some. I believe you can even special order them; costs you $4 to get your $2 bill, but you can get them. Ted's Montana Grill (Ted Turner's burger restaurant chain) used to give them (and dollar coins, IIRC) as change all the time.
The biggest problem in my mind is that the term "sex offender" is applied far too broadly. See, when most people hear that term, they think of the sociopath who kidnaps little girls, rapes them to death, and leaves their bodies in ditches. Or the creepy old uncle who touches his young nieces and nephews. For such people, these laws aren't harsh enough.
However, a lot of "sex offenders" aren't anything like this. They earned that dubious distinction by, say, pissing in the bushes while drunk ("public indecency"), sending half-naked pictures of themselves to their highschool sweethearts while under 18 ("making and distributing child pornography"), or having sex with said similarly-aged sweetheart ("statutory rape"). It's one thing to put harsh measures on the child molesters in the first paragraph, but do the offenses I just mentioned really merit all this? Does somebody really deserve to be stripped of his rights to vote, own a gun, live where he wants, and live in privacy just because he took a piss in the bushes one day? Should stupid horny teenagers be labeled as rapists the rest of their lives for screwing on prom night and getting caught?
It's almost certain it would have been a white elephant. Though to be fair, a new generation of white elephant isn't entirely a bad thing as we won't ever develop the requisite technologies without actually flying multiple generations of craft.
If only more people understood that. Everyone wants cheaper access to space, but nobody wants to ay the legwork to get it. New technologies don't just appear out of nowhere; someone has to work on them. Making powerpoint slides and computer models doesn't count; paper printouts, equations, and nebulous ones and zeros don't put payloads in orbit.
SS2 isn't going to orbit at all--it's not even close. It'll get up to 60 miles, but it will come right back down again--think throwing a baseball into the air. All it will do is a suborbital lob.
For that matter, I don't even think you'll get a stable orbit at 60 miles. Aerodynamic drag will still be fairly significant; at most, you'll get an orbit or two before it decays.
If you can reach a stable orbit, going a little bit higher (to hit ISS, for example) is pretty trivial compared to the trouble of reaching orbit at all.
Secondly, work out basic stuff like finances: how is the money going to be spent and on what, how are you going to pay bills.. and so on... get that sort of stuff worked out before.
Separate checking accounts. Keep one joint-access one for paying the rent/mortgage, bills, nights out together, etc., but each of you needs your own personal account that the other one has no say over. This will eliminate 75-90% of the "why the hell did you buy that?!" screaming matches.
Finally, I hope you are getting a decent amount of sex now because however much that is, its going to be *less* once you are married. if you arent getting much or any now then you might want to rethink things...
Understatement of the year right there. Get as much as you can now, cause it ain't gonna happen once the honeymoon is over...
Some other stuff:
Don't go overboard on the wedding. Stick to what you can afford, and remember: it is your wedding, not your parents' or friends'. Do things the way you want to (though compromise may be necessary if said third parties are subsidizing it).
Divide up the housework, especially if you both work. Nothing pisses people off like being the only one doing dishes, cooking dinner, cleaning the bathroom, picking up the other person's leavings, etc. Trust me on this. Doing all that work sucks, and it will piss you off, no matter how patient and understanding you try to be. If you're both messy people, set a schedule or something.
Each of you needs your own outside activities. My wife and I nearly broke up (before we were married) over this; neither of us was doing much of anything outside the relationship, and we were around each other pretty much every waking moment we weren't at work. You both need your own friends and own activities, and you need a healthy balance of them vs. the time you spend together. As corny as it sounds, absence does make things better, to a point.
Finally, figure out your stance on kids well in advance. Figure out not only whether you want them or not, but how many, when, how (natural vs. adopt, etc), and (this is very important--plan for contingencies!!) what you're going to do if you can't have kids, whether due to infertility or a medical condition that makes pregnancy dangerous. Try to get that settled before the wedding, because nothing is worse than realizing afterward that your previous plan might not be possible.
the AK-47 is, by definition, an assault rifle. It is designed for attack. It has a long range, and will shoot through your house and all the houses within a straight line of your shot for 1/4 mile.
You gonna back that up, or are you just using the "I know nothing about guns but I'm just going to make an outrageous statement about how I thinkthings are"? A 7.62x39 will penetrate 2-3 interior walls, not rows and rows of houses. Most people don't realize it, but the AK is not some uber-powerful building destroyer; in fact, it's very similar in range and power to a lever-action.30-30 hunting rifle.
It may surprise you, but "assault rifles" were not actually developed for purposes of "long range attack". Previous to WWII, standard infantry rifles fired full-size rounds (which many polular modern hunting rounds are descended from) that were effective out to 600-800 yards with a competent marksman. The Germans, however, realized that those rounds were heavy, had hard recoil, and weren't being used to their long-range potential. Therefore, they developed the StG 44 "sturmgewehr" (literally, "assault rifle") which fired smaller, less-powerful rounds than the normal rifles, making it easier to carry and fire but sacrificing range and power. Too many people think these misnamed "assault weapons" on the civilian market are more powerful than traditional hunting rifles; they actually aren't. The AR-15/M-16 family, for example, fires a round originally developed for "varmint hunting", picking off small animals like groundhogs, coyotes, prairie dogs, etc.
Further, a "sawed-off" shotgun is actually not the best home-defense weapon. Ideally, a semi-auto rifle firing intermediate rounds (like the AK or AR rifles) is ideal; you get more than the five rounds or so of a shotgun, it's more controllable, and is more easily fitted with lights and such. And if overpenetration is a concern, the 5.56x45 round used by the AR-15 series actually presents less of a danger after passing through a single interior wall than handgun rounds or even 00 buckshot.
Dogs are certainly good for home protection, but you can't just rely solely on them--your last-ditch, nothing-else-left weapon should still be a firearm.
The problem isn't the hacker-launched missiles themselves; rather, the problem comes when everyone else starts launching in reaction. There's an axiom in strategic nuclear planning that "if one flies, they all fly". Basically, once the first launch is detected, everyone else has less than half an hour to make a decision. They don't know if it's just a rogue missile or the start of an attack, and they face the dilemma of doing nothing and letting all their forces be wiped out if that's the case. Therefore, they launch too. And so on. It snowballs into global nuclear war.
This is the best case I can think of for at least a limited BMD system. You aren't going to stop a full attack, but a limited system with good coverage can pick off the one stray launch set off by an accident, coup, crazy madman, terrorist, or what-have-you. Down that one missile (or handful of them), and you now have a chance to make a phone call or two on the dedicated hotline, figure out exactly what the heck is going on, and hopefully get everyone calmed down.
Well, considering you're surrounded by at least three inches of steel in every direction, plus a whole bunch of salt water... I wouldn't be worried too much. It's noise you'd really be concerned about.
While the aircraft may not take as much raw skill just to manhandle around the sky, the information a modern fighter or bomber pilot has to absorb, process, and react to has grown dramatically. All adding a computer really does is take the pilot's mind off of things like "I have to make sure I don't stall here" or "I have to use rudder to roll at high AOA" or "I can't pull too hard or I'll rip the wings off" and allow him to concentrate on more useful things like avoiding air defense sites and tracking hostile aircraft.
Modern aircraft of all kinds are easier to fly than ones that are decades older. That isn't a bad thing. The principles of flying are the same regardless.
If you're going to spend enough money to keep the line ready to go on relatively short notice, you might as well spend just a little more and actually build the airplanes. And that way you have them in service, can debug them, have guys trained to fly them, and know better how to employ them.
By that definition, just about everything the military operates is obsolete. The B-1, B-2, B-52, F-15, F-16, and F-18 were all developed with the Soviet Union in mind. Are they obsolete too?
I'd say that the F-22's mission of air superiority/air dominance is still quite relevant, and the F-22 is, bar none, the best airplane available for that job. The Soviet Union may not exist any more, but that doesn't make the aircraft useless. In fact, it has taken on new roles; equipped with GPS/INS-guided bombs (and in the future, new antiradiation missiles), the F-22 is quite capable of taking down the newest air defense systems like the ones operated by Iran, China, etc. Just because it's not suitable for droning around dropping the occasional bomb on a group of insurgents doesn't mean we should just write it off.
Ideally, you always have the proper tools for every job... but when you can't do that, you get the good tools that let you do lots of things, rather than the crummy ones that limit your options.
Again, how the hell does this get "insightful?" You can't just flip a switch and have airplanes start rolling off the line... some parts can have lead times of a couple years. Plus, you need to retrain all the workers, because if they sit around doing nothing, they forget what to do. If we ever get to a point where we really need the airframes, it'll be too late--wars develop real fast.
Your 44 hour statistic is years old, from when the aircraft first entered service. They've improved significantly. It's called a learning curve or debugging process...
Obsolete? How do you figure?
And oh noes, it's only been in service a couple years and never flew a combat mission! It's obviously useless and should be canceled immediately! Nevermind that the aircraft it's replacing (and contemporaries of it) didn't see combat for years after they entered service...
Assuming that's true (can't verify ATM), that was actually probably simulating the collective control on a helicopter, which is mounted to the left of the pilot and operates with a handbrake-like motion.
Space flight still has a lot of basic research to do. Something that does not translate well into revenue, thus something a private corporation would not readily invest in. Private businesses are usually great when it comes to taking existing technologies and making them more efficient and more accessible. They suck at coming up with new ideas.
I wouldn't say they "suck at coming up with new ideas". They're actually pretty good at it, so long as there's a decent potential for near- to moderate-term return on the investment. The problem is that space technology often doesn't have a return until well in the future, if at all. No investor or corporation is going to put billions into developing spacecraft and space stations if they aren't going to get a return for decades.
We don't know how to make it safe or routine yet. In my mind, that's justification to spend the money and figure it out. Unfortunately, too many people think high-efficiency engines, advanced lightweight structures, and durable thermal protection systems just materialize from thin air at some unspecified date in the future, and therefore we should just sit back and do nothing till they appear.
It doesn't work like that. Reliable, cheap space access doesn't just happen. You need to work on it first, and too many don't understand that.
Imagine if, in 1909, the world had collectively decided to stop building new airplanes and just wait until something like the 747 came along. We sure wouldn't have reliable aviation.
They deliberately shut down just a hair early to make sure the tank re-enters where they want it to. The shuttle could easily bring the tank all the way to orbit, albeit at a slight payload hit.
Well, that, and there's also the problem of having to recompute the launch trajectory a bit, and having to figure out some way to maneuver the tank after it's jettisoned.
So yeah. It's not done now, but it could have been done relatively easily had it been desired.
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Most people are familar with the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you), and most in business are familiar with the other golden rule (He who has the gold makes the rules).
I've always been partial to this version: "Do unto others before they do unto you" ;)
This "gravity tractor" idea isn't just a "show off fancy stuff" trick. I agree that a fixed surface-mount propulsion system or mass driver might seem simpler, but those don't work too well on something that's spinning. The gravity tractor doesn't have to worry about timing its thrust so it's pointed in the right direction, and it doesn't have to worry about landing on a spinning or irregularly-shaped object.
Sorry to hear you didn't like it....do you like getting 'buzzed' at all on booze or anything else? Just curious if you just prefer to be totally sober in all facets of life?
Oh, I like a mild to moderate alcohol buzz... but there's a reason I don't drink to the point that I can barely stand up, and it's not just because of the hangovers. Nitrous was like that. I don't like the freaky feeling of being still awake but knowing the rational part of my brain is slipping away. It's like sleep paralysis--you're half-conscious, maybe still dreaming a bit, but you can't do anything about it. (Incidentally, sleep paralysis is believed to be the real cause of a lot of alien abduction stories)
Anyway, I never grew up in fear of the dentist...a bit of gas and good to go. I've NEVER understood people that won't take the gas, or would even think of going to a dentist that didn't offer gas (that's one of my criteria for going to one). I mean, if you're gonna have to have something done...have a little fun with it.
Most dental work I've had (dozens of fillings, two root canals, and an apicoectomy) was done with local anesthetic only (novocane/lidocane). The injections don't feel that good, especially in the roof of the mouth, but it's nice to understand what's going on--especially if your dentist is nice enough to explain what's going on, and gives you a mirror or puts it on the TV so you can see, too.
Twice I was put under general anesthesia (put to sleep) for oral surgeries. The first time, they put me on gas before putting in the IV. I positively hated the gas feeling. It felt like my hand was dropping through my torso, and made me very queasy. No fun at all.
The second time, they tried to gas me, and I said "screw that, just stick me."
"No, just relax and breathe, it'll help relax you before the IV."
"Look, lady, I give blood every eight weeks. I watch the needle go in, and it doesn't bother me at all. I'm not going to breathe that gas because it makes me sick, so just stick the damn needle in already and get it over with."
"But, sir..."
"JUST STICK ME!!"
So yeah. Either leave me fully conscious and kill the pain, or knock me out completely. If I'm going to get only halfway there, alcohol tastes a lot better than nitrous.
Heck, I've even passed on the local anesthetic for the really minor stuff (tiny fillings). Rubberlips suck too.
My day job is helping develop a new aircraft. It gives me some insight into what might be happening over there at Boeing. My take on the whole matter:
Boeing's first screwup was an entirely ridiculously aggressive schedule, one far more challenging than any of their previous projects. You'd think they would learn better, but apparently the latest batch of management monkeys figured they could make the impossible happen simply by declaring that it would, and expected the force of their words to be sufficient. (Lesson: things always take longer than you think they will. Use your worst-case estimate, not your best-case one)
Second, the outsourcing. Well, the outsourcing itself was not the problem, but rather it was the way they handled it. They farmed out major assemblies to far-flung companies, and then (here's the important part) didn't supervise them well enough. They simply took everyone's word that the engineering was sound and that they were on schedule with their builds. Everyone was actually late, but nobody wanted to admit it because nobody else was saying they were late. Eventually, they realized what was going on, but not after it was too late to fix it without causing too much of a delay. Boeing also failed to ensure that the fastener manufacturers would have their products ready in time... which would bite them in the ass later. (Lesson: Watch your subcontractors very, very carefully. Supervise their work, check their processes, and double-check their engineering)
Third, marketing. More specifically, the marketing types drove the program management and engineering decisions. Marketing wanted to shoot for a July 8 rollout to get an auspicious date... and thus commanded it to happen. Well, the only problem was that the airplane wasn't ready yet. Not only was it not assembled, but none of the internal systems were installed (they were supposed to be put in by the subcontractors, but everyone was late...). So what did they do? They slapped the empty sections together--with fasteners from Home Depot as a temporary fix, and painted it. That's right, they used ordinary hardware-store bolts in place of flightworthy fasteners because some marketing dweeb wanted to show "visual progress", and they didn't have the time to do it right. And not only did they use non-flightworthy parts, but they lost track of where they put them, meaning they had to go back and check all of the fasteners to make sure the temporary ones were removed. Boeing lost months because they had to go back and redo stuff that wasn't per spec. (Lesson: "visual progress" isn't. Half-assedly slapping something together to make it look like you've accomplished something just costs you more time, effort, and money down the road. Do it right the first time.*)
I don't know enough about the latest delays (structural issues) to be able to comment on them. But the earlier stuff I see parallels to in all kinds of places, even at work.
*Dear God that pisses me off to no end... I can't tell you how many times I've been told just to "hurry up and do it" because my manager wished to show "visual progress", only to have to go back and do it again, correctly. Tape measures and paper flat patterns simply can't be used to install mount points with tolerances in the thousandths... either get the proper tooling support to do it right, or fit the entire thing together before installation. "Visual progress" is right up there with "think of the children" in the "worst phrases of the English language" category...
That, sir, is f'ing hilarious. I'd mod you up but I wish to add to this discussion in other places.
Not just nearly, it can land completely on its own from what I understand. Essentially just program the runway, etc into the autopilot and it's done.
That just entails flight path and speed. Flap settings, brakes, arming the ground spoilers, and extending the landing gear are all still things that must be done manually.
Very little flying nowadays is done manually, the pilots are essentially just there in case something goes wrong.
Not quite. Though pilots often set autopilot soon after takeoff, and certainly use it in cruise whenever possible, landings are almost always done manually whenever possible. Autolandings are only done when required by weather conditions or for currency (aircraft and pilots both have to perform an autolanding every month or so to stay current). Some guys do more manual flying than others.
Autopilots are, in essence, just glorified cruise controls. They don't make decisions or plan flights on their own; the pilots input all of that themselves and make all of the decisions. The autopilot's job is to handle the low-level stuff (keep the wings level, hold this airspeed, etc.) so the pilots can concentrate on keeping aware of their surroundings, avoiding other traffic, navigating, handling other systems, dealing with ATC, and all that.
The two dollar bill was a one time promotional thing in the seventies, and most people born since, oh, say 1985 have never seen one.
Oh, they still make them. Not many, but some. I believe you can even special order them; costs you $4 to get your $2 bill, but you can get them. Ted's Montana Grill (Ted Turner's burger restaurant chain) used to give them (and dollar coins, IIRC) as change all the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_two-dollar_bill
The biggest problem in my mind is that the term "sex offender" is applied far too broadly. See, when most people hear that term, they think of the sociopath who kidnaps little girls, rapes them to death, and leaves their bodies in ditches. Or the creepy old uncle who touches his young nieces and nephews. For such people, these laws aren't harsh enough.
However, a lot of "sex offenders" aren't anything like this. They earned that dubious distinction by, say, pissing in the bushes while drunk ("public indecency"), sending half-naked pictures of themselves to their highschool sweethearts while under 18 ("making and distributing child pornography"), or having sex with said similarly-aged sweetheart ("statutory rape"). It's one thing to put harsh measures on the child molesters in the first paragraph, but do the offenses I just mentioned really merit all this? Does somebody really deserve to be stripped of his rights to vote, own a gun, live where he wants, and live in privacy just because he took a piss in the bushes one day? Should stupid horny teenagers be labeled as rapists the rest of their lives for screwing on prom night and getting caught?
It's almost certain it would have been a white elephant. Though to be fair, a new generation of white elephant isn't entirely a bad thing as we won't ever develop the requisite technologies without actually flying multiple generations of craft.
If only more people understood that. Everyone wants cheaper access to space, but nobody wants to ay the legwork to get it. New technologies don't just appear out of nowhere; someone has to work on them. Making powerpoint slides and computer models doesn't count; paper printouts, equations, and nebulous ones and zeros don't put payloads in orbit.
SS2 will only orbit at 60 miles
SS2 isn't going to orbit at all--it's not even close. It'll get up to 60 miles, but it will come right back down again--think throwing a baseball into the air. All it will do is a suborbital lob.
For that matter, I don't even think you'll get a stable orbit at 60 miles. Aerodynamic drag will still be fairly significant; at most, you'll get an orbit or two before it decays.
If you can reach a stable orbit, going a little bit higher (to hit ISS, for example) is pretty trivial compared to the trouble of reaching orbit at all.
Secondly, work out basic stuff like finances: how is the money going to be spent and on what, how are you going to pay bills.. and so on... get that sort of stuff worked out before.
Separate checking accounts. Keep one joint-access one for paying the rent/mortgage, bills, nights out together, etc., but each of you needs your own personal account that the other one has no say over. This will eliminate 75-90% of the "why the hell did you buy that?!" screaming matches.
Finally, I hope you are getting a decent amount of sex now because however much that is, its going to be *less* once you are married. if you arent getting much or any now then you might want to rethink things...
Understatement of the year right there. Get as much as you can now, cause it ain't gonna happen once the honeymoon is over...
Some other stuff:
Don't go overboard on the wedding. Stick to what you can afford, and remember: it is your wedding, not your parents' or friends'. Do things the way you want to (though compromise may be necessary if said third parties are subsidizing it).
Divide up the housework, especially if you both work. Nothing pisses people off like being the only one doing dishes, cooking dinner, cleaning the bathroom, picking up the other person's leavings, etc. Trust me on this. Doing all that work sucks, and it will piss you off, no matter how patient and understanding you try to be. If you're both messy people, set a schedule or something.
Each of you needs your own outside activities. My wife and I nearly broke up (before we were married) over this; neither of us was doing much of anything outside the relationship, and we were around each other pretty much every waking moment we weren't at work. You both need your own friends and own activities, and you need a healthy balance of them vs. the time you spend together. As corny as it sounds, absence does make things better, to a point.
Finally, figure out your stance on kids well in advance. Figure out not only whether you want them or not, but how many, when, how (natural vs. adopt, etc), and (this is very important--plan for contingencies!!) what you're going to do if you can't have kids, whether due to infertility or a medical condition that makes pregnancy dangerous. Try to get that settled before the wedding, because nothing is worse than realizing afterward that your previous plan might not be possible.
the AK-47 is, by definition, an assault rifle. It is designed for attack. It has a long range, and will shoot through your house and all the houses within a straight line of your shot for 1/4 mile.
You gonna back that up, or are you just using the "I know nothing about guns but I'm just going to make an outrageous statement about how I thinkthings are"? A 7.62x39 will penetrate 2-3 interior walls, not rows and rows of houses. Most people don't realize it, but the AK is not some uber-powerful building destroyer; in fact, it's very similar in range and power to a lever-action .30-30 hunting rifle.
It may surprise you, but "assault rifles" were not actually developed for purposes of "long range attack". Previous to WWII, standard infantry rifles fired full-size rounds (which many polular modern hunting rounds are descended from) that were effective out to 600-800 yards with a competent marksman. The Germans, however, realized that those rounds were heavy, had hard recoil, and weren't being used to their long-range potential. Therefore, they developed the StG 44 "sturmgewehr" (literally, "assault rifle") which fired smaller, less-powerful rounds than the normal rifles, making it easier to carry and fire but sacrificing range and power. Too many people think these misnamed "assault weapons" on the civilian market are more powerful than traditional hunting rifles; they actually aren't. The AR-15/M-16 family, for example, fires a round originally developed for "varmint hunting", picking off small animals like groundhogs, coyotes, prairie dogs, etc.
Further, a "sawed-off" shotgun is actually not the best home-defense weapon. Ideally, a semi-auto rifle firing intermediate rounds (like the AK or AR rifles) is ideal; you get more than the five rounds or so of a shotgun, it's more controllable, and is more easily fitted with lights and such. And if overpenetration is a concern, the 5.56x45 round used by the AR-15 series actually presents less of a danger after passing through a single interior wall than handgun rounds or even 00 buckshot.
Dogs are certainly good for home protection, but you can't just rely solely on them--your last-ditch, nothing-else-left weapon should still be a firearm.
The problem isn't the hacker-launched missiles themselves; rather, the problem comes when everyone else starts launching in reaction. There's an axiom in strategic nuclear planning that "if one flies, they all fly". Basically, once the first launch is detected, everyone else has less than half an hour to make a decision. They don't know if it's just a rogue missile or the start of an attack, and they face the dilemma of doing nothing and letting all their forces be wiped out if that's the case. Therefore, they launch too. And so on. It snowballs into global nuclear war.
This is the best case I can think of for at least a limited BMD system. You aren't going to stop a full attack, but a limited system with good coverage can pick off the one stray launch set off by an accident, coup, crazy madman, terrorist, or what-have-you. Down that one missile (or handful of them), and you now have a chance to make a phone call or two on the dedicated hotline, figure out exactly what the heck is going on, and hopefully get everyone calmed down.
Well, considering you're surrounded by at least three inches of steel in every direction, plus a whole bunch of salt water... I wouldn't be worried too much. It's noise you'd really be concerned about.
Ah, "computers will make it all better!" Not so.
While the aircraft may not take as much raw skill just to manhandle around the sky, the information a modern fighter or bomber pilot has to absorb, process, and react to has grown dramatically. All adding a computer really does is take the pilot's mind off of things like "I have to make sure I don't stall here" or "I have to use rudder to roll at high AOA" or "I can't pull too hard or I'll rip the wings off" and allow him to concentrate on more useful things like avoiding air defense sites and tracking hostile aircraft.
Modern aircraft of all kinds are easier to fly than ones that are decades older. That isn't a bad thing. The principles of flying are the same regardless.
If you're going to spend enough money to keep the line ready to go on relatively short notice, you might as well spend just a little more and actually build the airplanes. And that way you have them in service, can debug them, have guys trained to fly them, and know better how to employ them.
By that definition, just about everything the military operates is obsolete. The B-1, B-2, B-52, F-15, F-16, and F-18 were all developed with the Soviet Union in mind. Are they obsolete too?
I'd say that the F-22's mission of air superiority/air dominance is still quite relevant, and the F-22 is, bar none, the best airplane available for that job. The Soviet Union may not exist any more, but that doesn't make the aircraft useless. In fact, it has taken on new roles; equipped with GPS/INS-guided bombs (and in the future, new antiradiation missiles), the F-22 is quite capable of taking down the newest air defense systems like the ones operated by Iran, China, etc. Just because it's not suitable for droning around dropping the occasional bomb on a group of insurgents doesn't mean we should just write it off.
Ideally, you always have the proper tools for every job... but when you can't do that, you get the good tools that let you do lots of things, rather than the crummy ones that limit your options.
Again, how the hell does this get "insightful?" You can't just flip a switch and have airplanes start rolling off the line... some parts can have lead times of a couple years. Plus, you need to retrain all the workers, because if they sit around doing nothing, they forget what to do. If we ever get to a point where we really need the airframes, it'll be too late--wars develop real fast.
Your 44 hour statistic is years old, from when the aircraft first entered service. They've improved significantly. It's called a learning curve or debugging process...
Obsolete? How do you figure?
And oh noes, it's only been in service a couple years and never flew a combat mission! It's obviously useless and should be canceled immediately! Nevermind that the aircraft it's replacing (and contemporaries of it) didn't see combat for years after they entered service...
Assuming that's true (can't verify ATM), that was actually probably simulating the collective control on a helicopter, which is mounted to the left of the pilot and operates with a handbrake-like motion.
They overshot the original intended landing point by about 4 miles because of a timing error--the descent burn started about four seconds late.
The rocks-and-boulders-and-crater thing you're thinking of was a different issue.
Space flight still has a lot of basic research to do. Something that does not translate well into revenue, thus something a private corporation would not readily invest in. Private businesses are usually great when it comes to taking existing technologies and making them more efficient and more accessible. They suck at coming up with new ideas.
I wouldn't say they "suck at coming up with new ideas". They're actually pretty good at it, so long as there's a decent potential for near- to moderate-term return on the investment. The problem is that space technology often doesn't have a return until well in the future, if at all. No investor or corporation is going to put billions into developing spacecraft and space stations if they aren't going to get a return for decades.
We don't know how to make it safe or routine yet. In my mind, that's justification to spend the money and figure it out. Unfortunately, too many people think high-efficiency engines, advanced lightweight structures, and durable thermal protection systems just materialize from thin air at some unspecified date in the future, and therefore we should just sit back and do nothing till they appear.
It doesn't work like that. Reliable, cheap space access doesn't just happen. You need to work on it first, and too many don't understand that.
Imagine if, in 1909, the world had collectively decided to stop building new airplanes and just wait until something like the 747 came along. We sure wouldn't have reliable aviation.
They deliberately shut down just a hair early to make sure the tank re-enters where they want it to. The shuttle could easily bring the tank all the way to orbit, albeit at a slight payload hit.
Well, that, and there's also the problem of having to recompute the launch trajectory a bit, and having to figure out some way to maneuver the tank after it's jettisoned.
So yeah. It's not done now, but it could have been done relatively easily had it been desired.