By the way, most airplanes are expensive because of product liability litigation, not because its expensive to make an airplane.
Had to repeat that for emphasis. Given the technology level and materials, such a plane should cost about as much as a nice European import car. But, the history of people suing manufacturers after accidents, and juries awarding said people money (regardless of the actual cause), drives the price up dramatically.
On a side note, if you're willing to spend a few years doing it (and you trust yourself enough), you can build your own airplane that performs better, costs much less to buy, and costs less to maintain, than the manufactured ones out on the market.
If you guaranteed a minimum quality-of-life for everyone, I guarantee that at least 20-30 percent would stop working that day, and become nothing more than a burden on the rest of society. Unless you plan to start forcing people to work, a system like that would collapse rather quickly.
Perhaps more damaging is the propensity of survivors (or victims' families) to sue the manufacturer after an accident, and that of the jury to award ridiculous amounts, regardless of the actual cause of said accident. In the more extreme cases, it's like suing Honda because you got in an accident while applying makeup.
Prices were extremely cheap years ago--actually, too cheap. The prices went back up because the ones they were charging before were simply unsustainable. Everyone was too short-sighted, trying to grab customers with low fares that were sustainable during the short term, but forgetting or ignoring things they would have to pay later. Operating costs for a car are cheaper at first if you neglect all the maintenance, but it eventually catches up on you when your engine seizes because you never changed the oil.
In the same way, a lot of smaller start-up carriers entered the market (Jetblue, Airtran, etc.) with cheap seconhand aircraft, or new ones on really nice deferred payment plans. They were able to set very low prices because oil was still cheap, initial aircraft acquisition and maintenance was cheap, and they didn't have to pay for the personnel overhead (senior staff making big $, retirees/pension expenses, other established costs) or international infrastructure (overseas flying takes big airplanes, more fuel, and more rigorous maintenance practices) that larger, established carriers did. It's like a single guy just getting out of college as a brand-new engineer--he may not take home quite as much money as the older engineer, but living in a small apartment, driving an older used car, and still being young and healthy, he could have a lot more discretionary funds than the older guy who has a family, house, kids in college, medical bills, and parents in the nursing home.
As I mentioned above, American flyers' first priorities when choosing a ticket are price, price, price, price, schedule, and price. The new upstart carriers jump in and charge a lot less than the older ones (because they have far fewer expenses to cover), and the major airlines either have to match the new guys' pricing, or get shut out of a market. In many cases, flights were operated at a loss, even when completely full, in order to maintain market share and ensure feed for connections.
During this time, you also see the rise of contract carriers (Comair, Expressjet, Skywest, etc) flying regional jets (RJs). These smaller carriers have much lower personnel costs, and so a greater portion of their costs are fuel. The RJs, especially in the 40-50 seat range, have pretty poor fuel fuel economy, and their operating costs can be twice as much as standard "mainline" aircraft. With oil spiking as much as it has, costs for the regional carriers has gone up as well; those costs are usually passed on to the "parent" carrier.
All combined, these factors mean that the dirt-cheap fares airlines were charging in the 90's were unsustainable. The new upstart carriers either had to raise prices to pay for heavy maintenance, rising fuel prices, their special purchasing deals, and (to some extent) an older workforce wanting raises. The older ones couldn't sustain the lower costs because of the above-mentioned factors (overhead, infrastructure), and the older aircraft they flew just got more expensive in terms of maintenance and fuel consumption. Workers (especially pilots) got too eager asking for raises during the good times, and personnel costs went even higher. At the same time, 9/11 hit, and suddenly traffic was down across the board. All of this meant that the formerly low prices we enjoyed had to come back up to reasonable levels.
I think we're seeing the same thing with the housing market (and tech stocks earlier... and heck, even social security)... prices are pushing too far to one extreme because of all of the hype, but eventually the market has to correct itself and come back to reasonable levels--and everyone whines because they wanted and expected the good times to continue forever.
"Oh no, I can't fly where I want to go for less money than it would cost to go any other way! It can't be fuel costs; I just know they're out to screw me!"
I can tell you've never actually worked in the aviation industry, or had any exposure to aviation other than as a passenger. It's a lot more expensive than you realize. Airplanes are very expensive ($100+ million each, in many cases); maintenance is expensive (an engine change, for example, can cost $1 million); trained staff (pilots, mechanics, dispatchers) is expensive... I just don't understand why people get so up in arms that an airline charge a few hundred bucks for a flight, when Greyhound or Amtrack wouldn't be that much cheaper, if not more expensive. And I'd bet that a lot of them are the same people willing to slap down $4-5 each day for their super Starbucks latte, or go out to lunch every day for $8.
Remember, even twenty years ago, flying was not a commonplace thing for the general public... and before that (especially prior to deregulation), only a tiny fraction of the population could afford to fly more than a couple of times in their life. Tickets are a hell of a lot cheaper now than they used to be (dollar amount has remained roughly constant, but inflation has made them much cheaper than before, relative to a person's payheck).
You claim that things would all be better if we'd just put in high speed trains. We'll do it as soon as you front the many billions of dollars it would take to run them all over the country. We just don't have the infrastructure here. Trains work in Europe and Japan because the population densities there are much higher than in the US, and distances between cities are much less. It simply isn't practical to install thousands and thousands of miles of new rail line between all the major US cities. (They MIGHT work in the northeast because all of the cities are a lot closer, but not out west).
Airlines have tried competing on service, food, legroom, in-flight entertainment... but in the end, regardless of how they answer surveys or make claims to the contrary, American passengers unanimously vote for the lowest price they can find. If one airline offers a ticket for $1 less than the other guys, passengers flock to them. Pre-regulation, prices were fixed and airlines competed on service, but the modern passenger just wants his cheap flight, and seems willing to put up with just about anything to get it. If people would start co-locating their liquid assets and their speech centers, maybe we'd start to see more legroom or whatever.
I agree that there is too much management and non-operations cost in most airlines... but it is nowhere near the majority of the cost you claim it is.
I, too, started with Basic (albeit in the mid-90's). Never saw LOGO... but I used a Lisp derivative (scheme) in our intro CS course at Georgia Tech. Even us non-CS guys (engineers, science majors, even liberal arts people) had to take the class.
Scheme was probably one of the worst things they could have had us using for such a class. The majority of engineers and the others didn't need to get too far into advanced programming concepts; most of us will never use anything more complicated than matlab.
Obviously, the course changed the semester after I took it; engineers/science people took a matlab-based class, liberal arts people used java and python, and CS moved on to something else.
I think most young children could probably use Basic once they can read and understand basic algebra.
I don't want herds of autonomous airplanes for an entirely selfish reason--those of us that CAN fly an airplane competently will wind up restricted and forced out of the way.
Just so we're clear on this, that is the statutory minimum. Your instructor will not sign you off for solo, and the FAA examiner won't sign you off for your license, if you aren't capable of meeting the standards.
The minimum time for a standard private ticket is 40 hours, with a bunch of other requirements (certain number of "cross-country" hours, night flight, navigation, etc). The national average is somewhere around 60-80 hours--and that's flight time, which doesn't include ground instruction or studying on your own. I don't expect that a sport pilot license will take too much less, despite what the regulations say. Most people generally aren't even ready to solo until at least 20 hours. (Interestingly, the average used to be 5-6 hours, and people would think something was wrong with you if you hadn't done it by 10 or so... but now the FAA requires much more material to be covered prior to solo)
Flight instruction isn't like driver's ed, either. The instructor works you hard (simulated emergencies, proficiency maneuvers, unusual attitudes, and so on); you aren't just tooling along aimlessly like driving. The tests are harder, too. First, you have a written/computer exam covering things like aviation regulations, flight planning, proper technique, and weather. Then, your checkout consists of an oral exam over any and every subject the examiner wants to (mine included hydraulic systems, overwater navigation, aerodynamics, performance characteristics of the airplane, and "what would you do if..."), and a flight check. The flight check has very specific standards, and you will demonstrate just about everything you've learned. Bust one little thing, and you fail the checkride--I nearly busted mine by being just a bit too high during one approach. It's not "let's go flying and you only fail if you break a regulation."
Standard avgas is 100 octane low-lead, to mitigate detonation in traditional engines (Lycoming, Continental, etc). Most of these older engines haven't changed much since the 30s.
A lot of the newer, smaller engines, like Rotaxes and Jabirus, can run on automotive unleaded gas (often 93 octane). The older engines often can too, though you have to be careful as ethanol can eat up seals in the fuel system and give you a very bad day. This is getting more popular as gas prices rise
We're also starting to see airplanes with computer-controlled diesel engines running on standard Jet-A.
Also, the vehicle in TFA isn't VTOL--it would need a runway like any other airplane.
And we used to have Galileo around Jupiter. The problem is not just lack of power (RTG's aren't the only things solar panels degrade, too...), but the spacecraft as a whole wears out. Micrometeoroid impacts, radiation (especially around Jupiter), and Mr. Murphy all take their toll. And sometimes, they just run out of fuel.
So what does this mean for us, exactly? Would we still perceive things as we do now (only with some relativistic stuff changing), or does everything suddenly go nuts? FTL travel, maybe?
And mostly-OT but seemed related: I remember a couple of SF short stories about something like this... one was "Mimsy were the Bogroves" or something like that, where two kids discover 4-dimensional toys from the future, then read "Jabberwocky" and figure out how to move in time.
The other one was about a kid who befriends a neighbor working in 4-D stuff. The kid (because he's young and has an open mind or something) learns to move about in that dimension as well, and communicate with creatures living in other dimensions. Don't remember the title of that one, thoguh.
Paper's flammable (or at least, easier to light than plastic).
My question is: how do you fight counterfeiters with plastic money? Seems like it would be relatively easy to fake, compared to metal or newer paper currencies?
I know... but the post I replied to originally referred to changing scalar speed ("airspeed" if you will) by deliberately thrusting with a component opposite to the instantaneous velocity vector. There's no need to do that; you could just thrust radially. Slowing down (again, scalar reference) would help reduce your turn radius and maybe increase the overall turn rate, but whether you would do that or not depends on the tactical situation.
As for atmospheric flying I fly airplanes in my spare time, and I can tell you there's no need to slow down before turning--you just roll and pull. You do get a small increase in drag when turning (due to the greater lift requirement), which would slow you down a bit, but it is basically negligible for shallow turns. I've only seen it start getting noticeable during sustained turns, or when I pull 3-4 G's.
Means the same thing, IIRC... Commodore is used in navies to refer to those who hold the rank of Captain, but are not the commanding officer of the vessel, because a ship can only have one captain. It doesn't matter what the CO's rank is, the person ranked Captain is referred to as Commodore if he is not the CO.
No, _not_ "just like a race car." There's no need to slow down before entering the turn. Airplanes (and fictional space fighters) don't fly like cars drive.
I just don't understand why government feels the need to tax everything repeatedly... I mean, you get taxed on your income on payday. Fine. Then, you go out and get $thing, and pay a tax when you buy it. The entity you bought it from also pays tax. On top of that, some things you pay taxes (property, ad valorem, etc.) on even after buying it. And even after that, if you sell said item, legally it counts as income, and you have to pay again!
Someone stated in another discussion that the government splits up taxation into all of these separate things to hide how much we're really paying, and that if we saw how much of our income really went to the government, then we'd flip out and be all "holy shit, taxes are too high!" He might be on to something...
Um, I thought all that was covered under the "appalling tactics" category, including "invasive computer code [and] purchasing of legislators."
DRM would fall under invasive computer code, and the other offenses you mentioned (Canadian tax, radio station fee, etc) would be the purchasing legislators stuff.
When I said "don't care as much about copyright," I meant that to contrast them with the "information should be free, and I should be able to download whatever I want without paying for it!" crowd. I certainly agree that the **AA orgs are stepping about thirty miles over the line of traditional copyright, fair use, and privacy. I just got lazy and didn't want to type all of that.
Having seen many discussions along this line over the past year or two, I've picked up on a couple of different motivations from people opposing the RIAA/MPAA. Most opposition appears to fall into these (simplified) categories:
The first group is the "all information should be free" group, and seems to see all manner of copyright to be immoral, unjust, and responsible for the deaths of babies.
The second group seems to not mind copyright, but is bothered by the poor quality of the product (especially music) and the exorbitant costs associated. They just want to punish the RIAA for stupid pricing and turning out crap, or to "stick it to the man."
The third group doesn't care about the copyright issue as much, but is more concerned with the appalling tactics used by the **AA groups. Filing lawsuits without proof, continuing to press suit on little old ladies without computers, unlawful search, threatening letters, invasive computer code, purchasing of legislators, etc.
You guys are both right. Using a gravity assist reduces the delta-V needs of your spacecraft, allowing either a bigger payload for a given rocket, or a smaller rocket (read: less $) for a given payload. It can also cut down on travel time if used correctly.
However, I do find it hard to believe that aerobraking allows finer orbit control than a propulsive burn, especially around Mars. That atmosphere changes a lot relative to earth's, and introduces a lot of uncertainty on some missions. And even if we're talking aerocapture, it's still a little uncertain. The primary reason for both is fuel savings.
It would work just fine... that is, assuming it works at all. The photon drive has a little problem; namely, it requires about 300 megawatts of power to produce a Newton of thrust... and that's at 100% efficiency.
The Orion concept is much more technically feasable, barring any massive breakthroughs in materials and fusion power.
Not quite... first, they haven't yet conducted a full-scale wing test; the airframe for that is still under construction. Second, the "touching over the cabin" was an exaggeration by someone at Boeing; the 787 wings are more flexible than traditional metal wings, but they aren't that flexible. And even if they could structurally bend that far, you'd rupture fuel and hydraulic lines and all kinds of other components long before reaching that point.
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Had to repeat that for emphasis. Given the technology level and materials, such a plane should cost about as much as a nice European import car. But, the history of people suing manufacturers after accidents, and juries awarding said people money (regardless of the actual cause), drives the price up dramatically.
On a side note, if you're willing to spend a few years doing it (and you trust yourself enough), you can build your own airplane that performs better, costs much less to buy, and costs less to maintain, than the manufactured ones out on the market.
If you guaranteed a minimum quality-of-life for everyone, I guarantee that at least 20-30 percent would stop working that day, and become nothing more than a burden on the rest of society. Unless you plan to start forcing people to work, a system like that would collapse rather quickly.
Perhaps more damaging is the propensity of survivors (or victims' families) to sue the manufacturer after an accident, and that of the jury to award ridiculous amounts, regardless of the actual cause of said accident. In the more extreme cases, it's like suing Honda because you got in an accident while applying makeup.
Prices were extremely cheap years ago--actually, too cheap. The prices went back up because the ones they were charging before were simply unsustainable. Everyone was too short-sighted, trying to grab customers with low fares that were sustainable during the short term, but forgetting or ignoring things they would have to pay later. Operating costs for a car are cheaper at first if you neglect all the maintenance, but it eventually catches up on you when your engine seizes because you never changed the oil.
In the same way, a lot of smaller start-up carriers entered the market (Jetblue, Airtran, etc.) with cheap seconhand aircraft, or new ones on really nice deferred payment plans. They were able to set very low prices because oil was still cheap, initial aircraft acquisition and maintenance was cheap, and they didn't have to pay for the personnel overhead (senior staff making big $, retirees/pension expenses, other established costs) or international infrastructure (overseas flying takes big airplanes, more fuel, and more rigorous maintenance practices) that larger, established carriers did. It's like a single guy just getting out of college as a brand-new engineer--he may not take home quite as much money as the older engineer, but living in a small apartment, driving an older used car, and still being young and healthy, he could have a lot more discretionary funds than the older guy who has a family, house, kids in college, medical bills, and parents in the nursing home.
As I mentioned above, American flyers' first priorities when choosing a ticket are price, price, price, price, schedule, and price. The new upstart carriers jump in and charge a lot less than the older ones (because they have far fewer expenses to cover), and the major airlines either have to match the new guys' pricing, or get shut out of a market. In many cases, flights were operated at a loss, even when completely full, in order to maintain market share and ensure feed for connections.
During this time, you also see the rise of contract carriers (Comair, Expressjet, Skywest, etc) flying regional jets (RJs). These smaller carriers have much lower personnel costs, and so a greater portion of their costs are fuel. The RJs, especially in the 40-50 seat range, have pretty poor fuel fuel economy, and their operating costs can be twice as much as standard "mainline" aircraft. With oil spiking as much as it has, costs for the regional carriers has gone up as well; those costs are usually passed on to the "parent" carrier.
All combined, these factors mean that the dirt-cheap fares airlines were charging in the 90's were unsustainable. The new upstart carriers either had to raise prices to pay for heavy maintenance, rising fuel prices, their special purchasing deals, and (to some extent) an older workforce wanting raises. The older ones couldn't sustain the lower costs because of the above-mentioned factors (overhead, infrastructure), and the older aircraft they flew just got more expensive in terms of maintenance and fuel consumption. Workers (especially pilots) got too eager asking for raises during the good times, and personnel costs went even higher. At the same time, 9/11 hit, and suddenly traffic was down across the board. All of this meant that the formerly low prices we enjoyed had to come back up to reasonable levels.
I think we're seeing the same thing with the housing market (and tech stocks earlier... and heck, even social security)... prices are pushing too far to one extreme because of all of the hype, but eventually the market has to correct itself and come back to reasonable levels--and everyone whines because they wanted and expected the good times to continue forever.
I can tell you've never actually worked in the aviation industry, or had any exposure to aviation other than as a passenger. It's a lot more expensive than you realize. Airplanes are very expensive ($100+ million each, in many cases); maintenance is expensive (an engine change, for example, can cost $1 million); trained staff (pilots, mechanics, dispatchers) is expensive... I just don't understand why people get so up in arms that an airline charge a few hundred bucks for a flight, when Greyhound or Amtrack wouldn't be that much cheaper, if not more expensive. And I'd bet that a lot of them are the same people willing to slap down $4-5 each day for their super Starbucks latte, or go out to lunch every day for $8.
Remember, even twenty years ago, flying was not a commonplace thing for the general public... and before that (especially prior to deregulation), only a tiny fraction of the population could afford to fly more than a couple of times in their life. Tickets are a hell of a lot cheaper now than they used to be (dollar amount has remained roughly constant, but inflation has made them much cheaper than before, relative to a person's payheck).
You claim that things would all be better if we'd just put in high speed trains. We'll do it as soon as you front the many billions of dollars it would take to run them all over the country. We just don't have the infrastructure here. Trains work in Europe and Japan because the population densities there are much higher than in the US, and distances between cities are much less. It simply isn't practical to install thousands and thousands of miles of new rail line between all the major US cities. (They MIGHT work in the northeast because all of the cities are a lot closer, but not out west).
Airlines have tried competing on service, food, legroom, in-flight entertainment... but in the end, regardless of how they answer surveys or make claims to the contrary, American passengers unanimously vote for the lowest price they can find. If one airline offers a ticket for $1 less than the other guys, passengers flock to them. Pre-regulation, prices were fixed and airlines competed on service, but the modern passenger just wants his cheap flight, and seems willing to put up with just about anything to get it. If people would start co-locating their liquid assets and their speech centers, maybe we'd start to see more legroom or whatever.
I agree that there is too much management and non-operations cost in most airlines... but it is nowhere near the majority of the cost you claim it is.
I, too, started with Basic (albeit in the mid-90's). Never saw LOGO... but I used a Lisp derivative (scheme) in our intro CS course at Georgia Tech. Even us non-CS guys (engineers, science majors, even liberal arts people) had to take the class.
Scheme was probably one of the worst things they could have had us using for such a class. The majority of engineers and the others didn't need to get too far into advanced programming concepts; most of us will never use anything more complicated than matlab.
Obviously, the course changed the semester after I took it; engineers/science people took a matlab-based class, liberal arts people used java and python, and CS moved on to something else.
I think most young children could probably use Basic once they can read and understand basic algebra.
I don't want herds of autonomous airplanes for an entirely selfish reason--those of us that CAN fly an airplane competently will wind up restricted and forced out of the way.
The minimum time for a standard private ticket is 40 hours, with a bunch of other requirements (certain number of "cross-country" hours, night flight, navigation, etc). The national average is somewhere around 60-80 hours--and that's flight time, which doesn't include ground instruction or studying on your own. I don't expect that a sport pilot license will take too much less, despite what the regulations say. Most people generally aren't even ready to solo until at least 20 hours. (Interestingly, the average used to be 5-6 hours, and people would think something was wrong with you if you hadn't done it by 10 or so... but now the FAA requires much more material to be covered prior to solo)
Flight instruction isn't like driver's ed, either. The instructor works you hard (simulated emergencies, proficiency maneuvers, unusual attitudes, and so on); you aren't just tooling along aimlessly like driving. The tests are harder, too. First, you have a written/computer exam covering things like aviation regulations, flight planning, proper technique, and weather. Then, your checkout consists of an oral exam over any and every subject the examiner wants to (mine included hydraulic systems, overwater navigation, aerodynamics, performance characteristics of the airplane, and "what would you do if..."), and a flight check. The flight check has very specific standards, and you will demonstrate just about everything you've learned. Bust one little thing, and you fail the checkride--I nearly busted mine by being just a bit too high during one approach. It's not "let's go flying and you only fail if you break a regulation."
Standard avgas is 100 octane low-lead, to mitigate detonation in traditional engines (Lycoming, Continental, etc). Most of these older engines haven't changed much since the 30s.
A lot of the newer, smaller engines, like Rotaxes and Jabirus, can run on automotive unleaded gas (often 93 octane). The older engines often can too, though you have to be careful as ethanol can eat up seals in the fuel system and give you a very bad day. This is getting more popular as gas prices rise
We're also starting to see airplanes with computer-controlled diesel engines running on standard Jet-A.
Also, the vehicle in TFA isn't VTOL--it would need a runway like any other airplane.
And we used to have Galileo around Jupiter. The problem is not just lack of power (RTG's aren't the only things solar panels degrade, too...), but the spacecraft as a whole wears out. Micrometeoroid impacts, radiation (especially around Jupiter), and Mr. Murphy all take their toll. And sometimes, they just run out of fuel.
So what does this mean for us, exactly? Would we still perceive things as we do now (only with some relativistic stuff changing), or does everything suddenly go nuts? FTL travel, maybe?
And mostly-OT but seemed related: I remember a couple of SF short stories about something like this... one was "Mimsy were the Bogroves" or something like that, where two kids discover 4-dimensional toys from the future, then read "Jabberwocky" and figure out how to move in time.
The other one was about a kid who befriends a neighbor working in 4-D stuff. The kid (because he's young and has an open mind or something) learns to move about in that dimension as well, and communicate with creatures living in other dimensions. Don't remember the title of that one, thoguh.
I think you just described the next US election as well...
Paper's flammable (or at least, easier to light than plastic).
My question is: how do you fight counterfeiters with plastic money? Seems like it would be relatively easy to fake, compared to metal or newer paper currencies?
I know... but the post I replied to originally referred to changing scalar speed ("airspeed" if you will) by deliberately thrusting with a component opposite to the instantaneous velocity vector. There's no need to do that; you could just thrust radially. Slowing down (again, scalar reference) would help reduce your turn radius and maybe increase the overall turn rate, but whether you would do that or not depends on the tactical situation.
As for atmospheric flying I fly airplanes in my spare time, and I can tell you there's no need to slow down before turning--you just roll and pull. You do get a small increase in drag when turning (due to the greater lift requirement), which would slow you down a bit, but it is basically negligible for shallow turns. I've only seen it start getting noticeable during sustained turns, or when I pull 3-4 G's.
Means the same thing, IIRC... Commodore is used in navies to refer to those who hold the rank of Captain, but are not the commanding officer of the vessel, because a ship can only have one captain. It doesn't matter what the CO's rank is, the person ranked Captain is referred to as Commodore if he is not the CO.
How about just Admiral?
No, _not_ "just like a race car." There's no need to slow down before entering the turn. Airplanes (and fictional space fighters) don't fly like cars drive.
I just don't understand why government feels the need to tax everything repeatedly... I mean, you get taxed on your income on payday. Fine. Then, you go out and get $thing, and pay a tax when you buy it. The entity you bought it from also pays tax. On top of that, some things you pay taxes (property, ad valorem, etc.) on even after buying it. And even after that, if you sell said item, legally it counts as income, and you have to pay again!
Someone stated in another discussion that the government splits up taxation into all of these separate things to hide how much we're really paying, and that if we saw how much of our income really went to the government, then we'd flip out and be all "holy shit, taxes are too high!" He might be on to something...
I'm an engineer at a large airplane company... we use it all the time.
Um, I thought all that was covered under the "appalling tactics" category, including "invasive computer code [and] purchasing of legislators."
DRM would fall under invasive computer code, and the other offenses you mentioned (Canadian tax, radio station fee, etc) would be the purchasing legislators stuff.
When I said "don't care as much about copyright," I meant that to contrast them with the "information should be free, and I should be able to download whatever I want without paying for it!" crowd. I certainly agree that the **AA orgs are stepping about thirty miles over the line of traditional copyright, fair use, and privacy. I just got lazy and didn't want to type all of that.
I thought that, too. Had never heard of the crazy salesman guy.
As for Maiden's mascot, of sorts, I think his name is just "Eddie."
Having seen many discussions along this line over the past year or two, I've picked up on a couple of different motivations from people opposing the RIAA/MPAA. Most opposition appears to fall into these (simplified) categories:
The first group is the "all information should be free" group, and seems to see all manner of copyright to be immoral, unjust, and responsible for the deaths of babies.
The second group seems to not mind copyright, but is bothered by the poor quality of the product (especially music) and the exorbitant costs associated. They just want to punish the RIAA for stupid pricing and turning out crap, or to "stick it to the man."
The third group doesn't care about the copyright issue as much, but is more concerned with the appalling tactics used by the **AA groups. Filing lawsuits without proof, continuing to press suit on little old ladies without computers, unlawful search, threatening letters, invasive computer code, purchasing of legislators, etc.
You guys are both right. Using a gravity assist reduces the delta-V needs of your spacecraft, allowing either a bigger payload for a given rocket, or a smaller rocket (read: less $) for a given payload. It can also cut down on travel time if used correctly.
However, I do find it hard to believe that aerobraking allows finer orbit control than a propulsive burn, especially around Mars. That atmosphere changes a lot relative to earth's, and introduces a lot of uncertainty on some missions. And even if we're talking aerocapture, it's still a little uncertain. The primary reason for both is fuel savings.
It would work just fine... that is, assuming it works at all. The photon drive has a little problem; namely, it requires about 300 megawatts of power to produce a Newton of thrust... and that's at 100% efficiency.
The Orion concept is much more technically feasable, barring any massive breakthroughs in materials and fusion power.
I think he's saying that you don't have to use all four digits... you could have a one, two, or three-digit code instead of a four-digit one.
Not quite... first, they haven't yet conducted a full-scale wing test; the airframe for that is still under construction. Second, the "touching over the cabin" was an exaggeration by someone at Boeing; the 787 wings are more flexible than traditional metal wings, but they aren't that flexible. And even if they could structurally bend that far, you'd rupture fuel and hydraulic lines and all kinds of other components long before reaching that point.