The problem is that the higher education system (at least in my experience with engineering/science schools) is that the classes are oriented towards preparing future graduate students for academia. This does nothing for the engineer who gets out into the real world to actually build things; all he knows is formulae and theory. No practical experience at all.
I'm not saying the education should just be a future-job training program. But there needs to be a focus on practical applications of what is being learned, instead of theoretical. Georgia Tech used to send all its engineering students through what is basically a shop class. MEs would work with machine tools, EEs would build electric motors, etc. Sadly, that has been cut... and now you see fresh wide-eyed engineers come out into the field with absolutely no clue how real things are made. Everything to them is simplified, theoretical, and perfect. They wind up designing parts that are physically impossible to make.
I stopped going to my physics lectures about week 2, when I realized the professor was just reading off of slides copied straight from the book. I'd go turn in homework, and go to the tests... but otherwise I'd just skip class and go get lunch, since my day was otherwise booked solid (labs and class) from 0800 to 1900.
The next semester they introduced PRS (personal response systems). The fail rate didn't change.
As someone pointed out elsewhere, just because the runway is large to handle the aircraft doesn't mean it's strong enough, or that the taxiways, facilities, and other parts can accommodate it. If the taxiways aren't wide enough or strong enough, the ramp not big enough... you're out of luck. Taxiway width is of a particular concern for the A380; the outboard engines are so far off centerline that they hang beyond the edges of most taxiways. You run a greater risk of sucking up dirt, rocks, trash, and other things than you do if the engines are over pavement.
There's precedent for this; the A340-600 is prohibited from some airports (or parts thereof) not due to weight, but because it's so long that it can't make the turns on taxiways and things.
I doubt you'll see the President flying on any twin-engine aircraft outside North America, due to redundancy concerns. The chance of an engine failure on a modern twin is actually somewhat lower than that of a four-engine jet, but with the twin you have to divert to the nearest airport. The quad can keep going on three engines. This isn't a problem for airliners, but the potential security nightmare of AF1 making an unplanned diversion to a foreign airfield would pretty much rule out a twin for overseas flights. Remember, too, that there's a greater-than-normal chance this aircraft will be shot at; seems to me four engines might give it more survivability.
Also remember that this aircraft needs to have all of the C3I gear the President might possibly need, plus support staff and all that. It pretty much narrows it down to the A380 or 747-8. I'm thinking 747 myself; not due to "buy American" concerns (though that will certainly play a part) but rather airport accessibility. The 747 can operate out of more airfields than the A380.
The shuttles are a bust, as unfortunate as that is.
Irony: The shuttle is a bust, in part, because NASA whored itself out to the Air Force to get funding. The large delta wings, fragile thermal-protection system, extra-large payload bay, and heavy bringback capability all stem directly from USAF requirements. Had NASA gone with its own specs, the shuttle might have been cheaper, smaller, and safer. And to rub salt in the proverbial wound, the Air Force never used all the capability it asked for.
Disclaimer: I have no experience with LED "lightbulbs" like those in TFA, only LED flashlights
To me, the biggest hangup on going to LED lighting from CFLs would be the spectral issue. In my experience, "white" LEDs don't actually put out true white light, but rather several distinct wavelengths that look approximately white to human eyes. IIRC they lose some definition with red/green. Not as big an issue for a flashlight, but in room lighting I'd kind of want all the colors showing up. This may very well be solved by now, however. I don't know.
Yes that was the idea but I don't see how they could have planned to do it that way. Shuttle can't re-enter from an earth return trajectory. A capsule like Apollo was needed for that so however you see it, Apollo was a requirement.
You could build a dedicated earth-orbit to moon ship that flies back and forth but never enters the atmosphere. Use the shuttle to go up to the station or whatever and rotate the crews, but you don't need to send it out of LEO. Takes a bit more infrastructure, but ultimately it's a bit more flexible.
This is your favorite? Seriously? How very insightful that you are able to pick your favorite way for billions of people to die!
I'm pretty sure he didn't mean favorite as if he liked killing a bunch of people, but rather that he thought it was the most ironic. Poor choice of words maybe, but I see what he was getting at. At least, I would find that situation to be ironic.
I do agree, though, that a path of simply reducing impact and shrinking, never stepping outside the magic circle of earth, is essentially collective suicide. Either we move on to other planets and the stars, or we eventually kill/starve ourselves off or die from a planetwide catastrophe (planet-killer asteroid, gamma-ray burst, etc).
Then we should have continued on from Apollo. Build a small base and a reliable transportation system. The Saturn V was too expensive and the program had to stop.
That was the idea behind the space shuttle... but then politicians got involved, and we see how well that ended up. Ironically, it would have been cheaper on operational costs alone (ignoring shuttle R&D) just to keep building and flying the Apollo-issue Saturn V, even without economy of scale or eventual improvements.
It may be a concept that will never be profitable in our lifetimes, but I'd hesitate to say it will never be profitable.
That's space exploration in a nutshell. And it's why I think relying solely on the private sector to push for space settlement just won't work. No company is going to pour billions and billions of dollars into something if the return may not be realized for decades.
But has anyone yet asked why these kids need individual laptops, especially as supplied by the school system? I hope said district has solved any problems related to its students not learning the basic material or dropping out, because otherwise I think the money spent on laptops would be put to much better use buying quality textbooks with solid, appropriately-rigorous coverage of the material.
If your kids can't read, do simple math, or understand basic science, giving them a computer won't solve anything.
A bare Shuttle weighs 230,000 lbs - add in a 50,000 lb payload and the entire package comes in at 280,000 lbs.
No, according to NASA:
Atlantis is commonly refered to as OV-104, for Orbiter Vehicle-104. Empty Weight was 151,315 lbs at rollout and 171,000 lbs with main engines installed.
a Shuttle weighs 4.5 million pounds with a maximum payload weight of approximately 50,000 pounds
That's for the entire stack - orbiter, boosters, and full external tank. The orbiter itself has an empty weight of about 180,000 lb. So you're looking for a launcher that can put 200,000lb or so into orbit; there are only a couple: Saturn V, Energia, and the shuttle (remember, the orbiter goes into orbit too, plus whatever it's carrying).
That's why many national sales tax proposals include a rebate check to everyone that negates the taxes that would be paid on spending up to a certain amount. For example, let's say the national sales tax rate is 20%, and the "sales tax free" limit is $25k. That means everyone would receive a check each month for (25000 * 0.2)/12 ~= $416.
It basically works out so that anyone earning the limit of $25000 pays no taxes (assuming they spend every dollar they earn). Anyone earning less than that gets some additional money. Someone earning $50k pays an effective rate of 10%. And so on... you end up with a tax rate that starts out negative, and asymptotically approaches X% (where X is the sales tax rate).
This also has the added benefit that "under the table" income still gets taxed in the end.
the nearest cop might be 4 hours away. Sure changes your thoughts on gun ownership...
Heck, four miutes away is too far when you need the police. Fact is, the police rarely make it to the scene of a crime in time to do anything but take a report, render first aid, or find the body. And really, they aren't even required to respond at all.
Anyways, back on subject... I'm surprised NYC didn't adopt the same tactic used by many rural Georgia towns and start cracking down on moving violations. Just lower a few speed limits, throw in a red light camera or two, and find a few willing police officers and judges... and you too can fund half your city's budget through traffic fines on out-of-town visitors!
Obama's position on civil liberties is clear. He doesn't believe in them any more than Bush did.
His positions on liberties and freedoms are like those of most politicians. They all promote freedom to do "harmless" stuff, because it's not a threat to them or their power. But it's very rare to find one who promotes the "dangerous" ones. Being able to speak freely about and criticize the government (and call them on it when they screw up), habeas corpus, keeping and bearing arms, the right to privacy (both physical searches and observation)... those are ones that keep the government from exercising absolute control. There's a reason those things are the first things mentioned in the bill of rights, and in very clear terms; they knew the government would sooner or later try to restrict that.
We never saw why we need to explore space, which is to not go extinct
There, fixed that for you. The reason we need to explore space is to colonize it and ensure the survival of the species. Any technology or research that does not directly further this aim should be discarded, and our number one priority should be the permanent settlement (and terraforming, where possible) of the Moon and Mars. Beyond that, the outer planets, and eventually to the stars. Otherwise, we die. Maybe in ten years, maybe in two thousand. But as long as we're stuck on the surface of one planet, we are vulnerable, and eventually something will come along and kill us, if we don't finish ourselves off first. It's just a matter of time.
Sitting around crying about how it's expensive and anticipating the private sector to do it "cheaper and more efficiently" is a long wait for a train don't come. The investment is huge, with relatively little monetary return in the next few decades. No private company or group will invest trillions of dollars into something that might not break even until their grandkids are old.
I'm going to be mighty pissed off when something comes along to kill us off and we don't have any kind of off-site backup. But I'm also going to laugh at everyone when they start demanding to be saved and wondering why we didn't have a space program in place to evacuate the planet or stop that asteroid. And I'm going to say "well, I told you so, but you thought it was too hard and too expensive. You wanted iPods and failing social programs and an immediate return. You plugged your head in the sand and ignored me, and now all of us are going to die because you couldn't see past the end of your nose."
Incidentally, many of the technologies which enable this feed back into making more efficient use of resources on Earth, and in reducing environmental impact. Plus, it creates jobs, provides something positive to inspire people, and just might give children the intellectual spark that makes them want to be scientists, engineers, and generally productive members of society, rather than hollywood actors, pro atheletes, Wall Street stockbrokers, and (ugh) politicians.
My take on Scheme: I came in fall 2002 as an aero engineering major. At that time, everyone took CS1321, which was the Scheme-based class. Lots of people struggled--and frankly, I think it was useless for anyone who was not a CS major; they never really grasped the language or anything about programming. Basic or Matlab would have been better for them.
Thankfully (at least for those who followed me), the course was soon broken up. The non-technical majors got a Java and Python-based class with an emphasis on media stuff, the engineers got a Matlab course (laugh and get it out of your system; maybe it's not "real" programming but it's what the vast majority of us are actually going to be using later on), and I think CS went to Java.
Incidentally, I wound up as the only non-CS person in the accelerated section of 1321--which was, well, different. But that's a story for another time.
The point is that, if the kids only ever learn to use a calculator, they will be completely and totally helpless without it. That's why you see those idiots standing behind the cash register who can't count out change without the register telling them how much. The calcluator becomes a magic box that spits out answers; if the kid screws up and puts something in wrong, he'll never know.
I'm not saying kids can't use them, but they should learn to do stuff manually first--and honestly, there's nothing in the math curriculum before middle school that isn't just as fast by hand as it is with a calculator. You don't need calcluators to do 12 x 5, or to perform simple addition.
I really just don't get this "every student needs a computer at his desk" thing. We need to make sure our kids can read and do basic math (both things that have been taught for centuries without electricity) before we start worrying about giving them computers. Spend that money on decent textbooks that aren't full of fluff instead.
Too many people treat checklists as "do lists", meaning they go down the list step-by-step, doing each thing as they go down. I've seen this a lot among small-airplane pilots.
In large aircraft, the crews use "flows" performed from memory (usually tracing a particular path around the panel, hence the name), followed up by a checklist to catch the critical items. This way, you're not cluttering up the list with mundane little things--the more things on the list, the easier it is to miss one of them because you lost your place or whatever.
A better article on the subject: http://www.avweb.com/news/leadingedge/leading_edge_checklists_and_flows_194990-1.html
For true disaster preparedness the only solution is a backup hot site. Mars would be nice.
You may speak in jest, sir, but your statement holds a lot of truth. Establishing self-sustaining colonies throughout the solar system (and eventually the stars) should be the primary goal of any space program, not watching earthworms in zero-g. Get yourself established on other planets and moons, and that technology will feed directly back into asteroid defense and "green" efforts.
Plus, it provides jobs and incentive for people to stay in school. It's a win all around. And as John Young said, the dinosaurs died because they didn't have a space program.
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The problem is that the higher education system (at least in my experience with engineering/science schools) is that the classes are oriented towards preparing future graduate students for academia. This does nothing for the engineer who gets out into the real world to actually build things; all he knows is formulae and theory. No practical experience at all.
I'm not saying the education should just be a future-job training program. But there needs to be a focus on practical applications of what is being learned, instead of theoretical. Georgia Tech used to send all its engineering students through what is basically a shop class. MEs would work with machine tools, EEs would build electric motors, etc. Sadly, that has been cut... and now you see fresh wide-eyed engineers come out into the field with absolutely no clue how real things are made. Everything to them is simplified, theoretical, and perfect. They wind up designing parts that are physically impossible to make.
I stopped going to my physics lectures about week 2, when I realized the professor was just reading off of slides copied straight from the book. I'd go turn in homework, and go to the tests... but otherwise I'd just skip class and go get lunch, since my day was otherwise booked solid (labs and class) from 0800 to 1900.
The next semester they introduced PRS (personal response systems). The fail rate didn't change.
Let's just stick to killing them with fire - Simple, cheap, clean, and effective
I prefer lobbing nukes from orbit. The fireworks are more impressive, and there's a greater chance of success.
As someone pointed out elsewhere, just because the runway is large to handle the aircraft doesn't mean it's strong enough, or that the taxiways, facilities, and other parts can accommodate it. If the taxiways aren't wide enough or strong enough, the ramp not big enough... you're out of luck. Taxiway width is of a particular concern for the A380; the outboard engines are so far off centerline that they hang beyond the edges of most taxiways. You run a greater risk of sucking up dirt, rocks, trash, and other things than you do if the engines are over pavement.
There's precedent for this; the A340-600 is prohibited from some airports (or parts thereof) not due to weight, but because it's so long that it can't make the turns on taxiways and things.
I doubt you'll see the President flying on any twin-engine aircraft outside North America, due to redundancy concerns. The chance of an engine failure on a modern twin is actually somewhat lower than that of a four-engine jet, but with the twin you have to divert to the nearest airport. The quad can keep going on three engines. This isn't a problem for airliners, but the potential security nightmare of AF1 making an unplanned diversion to a foreign airfield would pretty much rule out a twin for overseas flights. Remember, too, that there's a greater-than-normal chance this aircraft will be shot at; seems to me four engines might give it more survivability.
Also remember that this aircraft needs to have all of the C3I gear the President might possibly need, plus support staff and all that. It pretty much narrows it down to the A380 or 747-8. I'm thinking 747 myself; not due to "buy American" concerns (though that will certainly play a part) but rather airport accessibility. The 747 can operate out of more airfields than the A380.
The shuttles are a bust, as unfortunate as that is.
Irony: The shuttle is a bust, in part, because NASA whored itself out to the Air Force to get funding. The large delta wings, fragile thermal-protection system, extra-large payload bay, and heavy bringback capability all stem directly from USAF requirements. Had NASA gone with its own specs, the shuttle might have been cheaper, smaller, and safer. And to rub salt in the proverbial wound, the Air Force never used all the capability it asked for.
Disclaimer: I have no experience with LED "lightbulbs" like those in TFA, only LED flashlights
To me, the biggest hangup on going to LED lighting from CFLs would be the spectral issue. In my experience, "white" LEDs don't actually put out true white light, but rather several distinct wavelengths that look approximately white to human eyes. IIRC they lose some definition with red/green. Not as big an issue for a flashlight, but in room lighting I'd kind of want all the colors showing up. This may very well be solved by now, however. I don't know.
Yes that was the idea but I don't see how they could have planned to do it that way. Shuttle can't re-enter from an earth return trajectory. A capsule like Apollo was needed for that so however you see it, Apollo was a requirement.
You could build a dedicated earth-orbit to moon ship that flies back and forth but never enters the atmosphere. Use the shuttle to go up to the station or whatever and rotate the crews, but you don't need to send it out of LEO. Takes a bit more infrastructure, but ultimately it's a bit more flexible.
This is your favorite? Seriously? How very insightful that you are able to pick your favorite way for billions of people to die!
I'm pretty sure he didn't mean favorite as if he liked killing a bunch of people, but rather that he thought it was the most ironic. Poor choice of words maybe, but I see what he was getting at. At least, I would find that situation to be ironic.
I do agree, though, that a path of simply reducing impact and shrinking, never stepping outside the magic circle of earth, is essentially collective suicide. Either we move on to other planets and the stars, or we eventually kill/starve ourselves off or die from a planetwide catastrophe (planet-killer asteroid, gamma-ray burst, etc).
Then we should have continued on from Apollo. Build a small base and a reliable transportation system. The Saturn V was too expensive and the program had to stop.
That was the idea behind the space shuttle... but then politicians got involved, and we see how well that ended up. Ironically, it would have been cheaper on operational costs alone (ignoring shuttle R&D) just to keep building and flying the Apollo-issue Saturn V, even without economy of scale or eventual improvements.
It may be a concept that will never be profitable in our lifetimes, but I'd hesitate to say it will never be profitable.
That's space exploration in a nutshell. And it's why I think relying solely on the private sector to push for space settlement just won't work. No company is going to pour billions and billions of dollars into something if the return may not be realized for decades.
*cough*Falcon 4*cough*
Thankfully, in that case, someone leaked the source code... development and expansion still continues 10 years after release.
But has anyone yet asked why these kids need individual laptops, especially as supplied by the school system? I hope said district has solved any problems related to its students not learning the basic material or dropping out, because otherwise I think the money spent on laptops would be put to much better use buying quality textbooks with solid, appropriately-rigorous coverage of the material.
If your kids can't read, do simple math, or understand basic science, giving them a computer won't solve anything.
A bare Shuttle weighs 230,000 lbs - add in a 50,000 lb payload and the entire package comes in at 280,000 lbs.
No, according to NASA:
Atlantis is commonly refered to as OV-104, for Orbiter Vehicle-104. Empty Weight was 151,315 lbs at rollout and 171,000 lbs with main engines installed.
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/resources/orbiters/atlantis.html
Discovery and Endeavour are about the same; Challenger was around 175k and Columbia was about 178k.
a Shuttle weighs 4.5 million pounds with a maximum payload weight of approximately 50,000 pounds
That's for the entire stack - orbiter, boosters, and full external tank. The orbiter itself has an empty weight of about 180,000 lb. So you're looking for a launcher that can put 200,000lb or so into orbit; there are only a couple: Saturn V, Energia, and the shuttle (remember, the orbiter goes into orbit too, plus whatever it's carrying).
That's why many national sales tax proposals include a rebate check to everyone that negates the taxes that would be paid on spending up to a certain amount. For example, let's say the national sales tax rate is 20%, and the "sales tax free" limit is $25k. That means everyone would receive a check each month for (25000 * 0.2)/12 ~= $416.
It basically works out so that anyone earning the limit of $25000 pays no taxes (assuming they spend every dollar they earn). Anyone earning less than that gets some additional money. Someone earning $50k pays an effective rate of 10%. And so on... you end up with a tax rate that starts out negative, and asymptotically approaches X% (where X is the sales tax rate).
This also has the added benefit that "under the table" income still gets taxed in the end.
the nearest cop might be 4 hours away. Sure changes your thoughts on gun ownership...
Heck, four miutes away is too far when you need the police. Fact is, the police rarely make it to the scene of a crime in time to do anything but take a report, render first aid, or find the body. And really, they aren't even required to respond at all.
Anyways, back on subject... I'm surprised NYC didn't adopt the same tactic used by many rural Georgia towns and start cracking down on moving violations. Just lower a few speed limits, throw in a red light camera or two, and find a few willing police officers and judges... and you too can fund half your city's budget through traffic fines on out-of-town visitors!
Obama's position on civil liberties is clear. He doesn't believe in them any more than Bush did.
His positions on liberties and freedoms are like those of most politicians. They all promote freedom to do "harmless" stuff, because it's not a threat to them or their power. But it's very rare to find one who promotes the "dangerous" ones. Being able to speak freely about and criticize the government (and call them on it when they screw up), habeas corpus, keeping and bearing arms, the right to privacy (both physical searches and observation)... those are ones that keep the government from exercising absolute control. There's a reason those things are the first things mentioned in the bill of rights, and in very clear terms; they knew the government would sooner or later try to restrict that.
We never saw why we need to explore space, which is to not go extinct
There, fixed that for you. The reason we need to explore space is to colonize it and ensure the survival of the species. Any technology or research that does not directly further this aim should be discarded, and our number one priority should be the permanent settlement (and terraforming, where possible) of the Moon and Mars. Beyond that, the outer planets, and eventually to the stars. Otherwise, we die. Maybe in ten years, maybe in two thousand. But as long as we're stuck on the surface of one planet, we are vulnerable, and eventually something will come along and kill us, if we don't finish ourselves off first. It's just a matter of time.
Sitting around crying about how it's expensive and anticipating the private sector to do it "cheaper and more efficiently" is a long wait for a train don't come. The investment is huge, with relatively little monetary return in the next few decades. No private company or group will invest trillions of dollars into something that might not break even until their grandkids are old.
I'm going to be mighty pissed off when something comes along to kill us off and we don't have any kind of off-site backup. But I'm also going to laugh at everyone when they start demanding to be saved and wondering why we didn't have a space program in place to evacuate the planet or stop that asteroid. And I'm going to say "well, I told you so, but you thought it was too hard and too expensive. You wanted iPods and failing social programs and an immediate return. You plugged your head in the sand and ignored me, and now all of us are going to die because you couldn't see past the end of your nose."
Incidentally, many of the technologies which enable this feed back into making more efficient use of resources on Earth, and in reducing environmental impact. Plus, it creates jobs, provides something positive to inspire people, and just might give children the intellectual spark that makes them want to be scientists, engineers, and generally productive members of society, rather than hollywood actors, pro atheletes, Wall Street stockbrokers, and (ugh) politicians.
Georgia Tech, right?
My take on Scheme:
I came in fall 2002 as an aero engineering major. At that time, everyone took CS1321, which was the Scheme-based class. Lots of people struggled--and frankly, I think it was useless for anyone who was not a CS major; they never really grasped the language or anything about programming. Basic or Matlab would have been better for them.
Thankfully (at least for those who followed me), the course was soon broken up. The non-technical majors got a Java and Python-based class with an emphasis on media stuff, the engineers got a Matlab course (laugh and get it out of your system; maybe it's not "real" programming but it's what the vast majority of us are actually going to be using later on), and I think CS went to Java.
Incidentally, I wound up as the only non-CS person in the accelerated section of 1321--which was, well, different. But that's a story for another time.
To reverse that, when I went to get my learner's permit many years ago, the DMV lady wouldn't take my picture until I smiled.
You are under no obligation to report a crime you witness.
Just like the police are under no obligation to protect you.
And I'm not being sarcastic, either. The courts (including USSC) have consistently ruled that.
The point is that, if the kids only ever learn to use a calculator, they will be completely and totally helpless without it. That's why you see those idiots standing behind the cash register who can't count out change without the register telling them how much. The calcluator becomes a magic box that spits out answers; if the kid screws up and puts something in wrong, he'll never know.
I'm not saying kids can't use them, but they should learn to do stuff manually first--and honestly, there's nothing in the math curriculum before middle school that isn't just as fast by hand as it is with a calculator. You don't need calcluators to do 12 x 5, or to perform simple addition.
I really just don't get this "every student needs a computer at his desk" thing. We need to make sure our kids can read and do basic math (both things that have been taught for centuries without electricity) before we start worrying about giving them computers. Spend that money on decent textbooks that aren't full of fluff instead.
Too many people treat checklists as "do lists", meaning they go down the list step-by-step, doing each thing as they go down. I've seen this a lot among small-airplane pilots.
In large aircraft, the crews use "flows" performed from memory (usually tracing a particular path around the panel, hence the name), followed up by a checklist to catch the critical items. This way, you're not cluttering up the list with mundane little things--the more things on the list, the easier it is to miss one of them because you lost your place or whatever.
A better article on the subject: http://www.avweb.com/news/leadingedge/leading_edge_checklists_and_flows_194990-1.html
For true disaster preparedness the only solution is a backup hot site. Mars would be nice.
You may speak in jest, sir, but your statement holds a lot of truth. Establishing self-sustaining colonies throughout the solar system (and eventually the stars) should be the primary goal of any space program, not watching earthworms in zero-g. Get yourself established on other planets and moons, and that technology will feed directly back into asteroid defense and "green" efforts.
Plus, it provides jobs and incentive for people to stay in school. It's a win all around. And as John Young said, the dinosaurs died because they didn't have a space program.