Ignore the haters, they don't understand the politics for this. I used to design industrial Ethernet networks for a large vendor, and we spent quite a bit of time pointing out to customers how dangerous the direct lines were. However, IT departments have very little say over manufacturing networks. This isn't always a bad thing (see the many IT/help desk horror stories). Because the remote access is often required as part of the maintenance contract, offer to partner with manufacturing to install a small firewall with access filters that are controlled by IT, but set (requested) by manufacturing.
A small Cisco ASA, Juniper SRX or its like will do the job nicely, and can shield you from hack attempts along that access path.
Denmark is an awesome place I'm sure. It's also about half the population of the greater San Francisco Bay area, which isn't the largest metro area in the USA. You also have a relatively homogeneous culture (with a strong work ethic) and can't project military power very far beyond your borders (to protect your trade). You could drive anywhere in your country in less than a day.
Maintaining the infrastructure of an ISP is challenging over the long term, especially in an environment where your "expert" may sell her/his unit and leave. So you don't want to own any servers. However, it's a damn good idea to wire every unit to a common DMZ/patch bay in a secured space. I'd recommend running some sort of combo cable up to each unit (Cat 5, multimode fiber and RG6), something like this: http://www.smarthome.com/868241J/2-Cat-5e-2-RG6-Quad-Cable-Jacket-500-Feet-RG6-Coax-Cable/p.aspx Each subscriber can then decide how they want to access the Internet, and what they way to pay, and you don't get somebody knocking holes in your walls trying to run cable. You could even designate one of the Cat5 drops as a common net that you put cameras on, if you need to.
Drop in a full size 2 post rack, add in a few shelves (one for each ISP), and make power available. Done.
...they've always had a problem with this, though. I was there years ago (at the beginning of the Internet boom) and we were one of the most hacked targets on the planet. Everyone seems to think that all the secret UFO data was in NASAs network -- and the pace of attacks was astounding. You had to have an RSA token to login to anything. It got so bad that we ended up having to put an optical tap (even as contractors, we fought that one) on the FDDI ring what was MAE-WEST so the FBI and other TLAs could try to track some of these idiots down.
Given that funding went down and many of the top IT / networking guys went into the booming private sector, I'm not surprised it's still a problem. All of the mission critical stuff is pretty well walled off -- but the rest of it has major issues. I don't think we'll loose a spaceship to it, but getting your email can be very annoying.
A combination of VPN access and firewalling does the trick. I've tested it with AB (EthernetIP) gear and it works fine. There are quite a few vendors that will sell you the parts, but they aren't the traditional ones (Omron, AB, etc,...) so most of the controls folks seem to ignore their existence. When it comes to control, go to them. If it's data security, Cisco, Juniper,...
This thread has -- to me -- completely validated the reason for the existence of the Internet. I've gotten a non-linear metric ass-load of pleasure out of it.
My previous life had me using 'scopes every day. My experience: HP/Agillent got into the business because of a decision by the Navy, not because they built good scopes. I love everything else they make but...
Tektronix, on the other hand, builds scopes you can beat the crap out of. I'm talking "put it on the back of a golf cart and drag it around an accelerator" or "I'm in the middle of a desert and I need a scope" crap out of. Reliable as hell, and thats a critical thing for a school. My engineering department had us sleeping on lab benches to wait to get access to the few working Siemens logic analyzers, so reliability is key.
Pay the money, go with Tek. They'll work well, and continue to work.
I spent a bit of time working on this issue when I was at "a freakin large router company". Large customers deal with this by setting themselves up peering agreements ISPs and using BGP to do load balancing. Great stuff, but not so scalable for home users...
Have a look at this: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6628/products_ios_protocol_option_home.html It has the ability to probe path characteristics passively or actively and intelligently route traffic based on it. It will run on a Cisco 1800 series router, so pick up an 1801 (with built in DSL interface), use an Ethernet interface to talk to the modem for the other service, and off you go. Kinda spendy, but it's the cheapest solution that has this level of intelligence.
I did this with a Recaro seat that I bought from a shop going out of business. I then went and got a seat base from the facilities guys (they tried to get me to take a new chair) and made a mount with some aluminum.
>If people were smart (same goes for society as a whole, too), we'd build houses that took much less energy to heat and cool. Instead, houses >are cheap, flimsy cardboard boxes, so we waste enormous resources every summer/winter fighting the laws of thermodynamics.
Unless you live near a major active fault line, in which case a "flimsy cardboard box" would be a really good idea. We don't see many brick houses around here.
That said, my community requires advanced energy planning for construction projects. However, it *does* cost money to meet these goals. I was willing to pay it. Others aren't. You may spend more resources trying to bring your house up to energy code than you'll save. This isn't a good idea. Sometimes it's just better to have a throw-away house.
I took apart a MacBook Pro last night for the first time. We were trying to upgrade the hard drive -- and it was a total pain in the butt. I don't personally care if you run a Mac or a PC -- Linux runs on all of them. I do know that I can change the drive or motherboard in a Thinkpad very quickly; it was obvious that the MacBook wasn't designed to be easily serviced. Not a big deal for the average/. crowd, but a huge issue for IT departments. Maybe the desktops are better (and they looked so the last time I got into one), but a lot of folks are issuing out laptops instead of desktops these days.
Oh, and it didn't recognize the hard drive, and wouldn't say why. Not good. Worked fine when we put the old one back in, though.
Dude, the cooling system in that place is more amazing then almost anything else. You should see how many pipes there are in there.
A two mile long LINAC, damping rings, beam switch yard, final focus, all klystrons, most magnet drivers, power supplies, etc... all water cooled. Friggen amazing.
The only things there more amazing is the the positron vault and the Z detector.
Well, we did have some circuit breakers fall off a shelf, too:-)
The accelerator shut down during the earthquake because the PPS (Personnel Protection System) sensors were jarred. I saw someone trip it once by backing a cart into an access door. When things get really quiet you know you've screwed up.... (are you out there Roger?)
What Bebo didn't tell you about the alignment (or you didn't mention), is that they do it when the system is up to temp -- so the tunnel is very warm (like 110 to 120 F). Not a thing I ever had to do, thank prime. But walking the tunnels during down time was amazing and spooky and damn fun. Pity you didn't get to do that.
I worked at SLAC for more than 6 years, night shift in the accelerator maintenance. It's not the rat droppings, it's the black widows you need to watch for. I once killed more than 20 of them -- and that was in one sector (100m), on one task (ranging). And that's only the ones that were in my way.
I still miss the place, but like my current job better.
-- Loudog -- Listening to the song of the klystrons
Is the Hubble so valuable to the world that it's worth risking the lives of astronauts to fix? Or is it really a PR machine for NASA and a tool for grad students to get a PhD? What's the big deal? Is anything going to happen in the few years it takes to justify, fund, build a launch a new telescope that ground based system can't handle?
Honestly, what's the rush? How did we manage without it?
Hey, you might be on to something here. One of the stated design goals seems to be containment of waste for an insanely long amount of time (Caveat: I am an engineer and I used to hold DOE hig/very high/contamination radiation certs). So we need an institution that's going to be around for a while.
Who's been around longer? The Christian Church? Or any of the currently existing governments?
Heh. Meanwhile we're taking down windmills because they're "hurting birds", undamning rivers because they interrupt fish spawning and solar is still a pipe dream. Most of the new hydrogen based transportation technology needs massive amounts of electrical power to work. Where are you going to get the energy?
This is the most useful comment about Katrina that I've seen yet. Congratulations to you sir!
As an aside, I'm noticing an interesting trend to the debate on most forums about the government response: The same outlets that have been bitching that the current government is too intrusive are castigating it for not being intrusive enough. People amaze me.
The achilles heel of any current alternate energy deployment is the reliance on the grid to act as the "energy backup" when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. Unfortunately, we don't have a two way grid; nor is it smart enough to safely handle multiple energy sources being fed up into it from unplanned nodes (like your house for example). The current solar and wind systems out there can get away with it because there aren't many of them. Having to bring up "peaker" power stations on calm or cloudy days actually increases the pollution production of the combined "clean energy"/grid system considerably.
Batteries are still way to expensive and damaging to the environment to allow a significant percentage of consumers to go off of the grid entirely.
I presented a paper on distributed grids in Stockholm a few years ago. In the course of this gathering I had a chance to talk with one of the energy authorities from Denmark. Denmark gets 20% of it's power from wind farms. They were having a lot of trouble controlling the energy flows. Smart distribution is essential. Safe energy storage is also required to scale the system.
Fortunately, the US government is already working on these issues. Some things worth looking at:
The Grid 2030 conference we had two years ago: http://www.electricity.doe.gov/about/boxstor y2.cfm ?section=about&level2=box2
The Gridwise Council: http://www.gridwise.org/
It's also interesting to note that the most efficient technology we have for power production we have right now is co-generation, and the most environmentally friendly and economical large scale power systems are nuclear. Hmmm.
Yup, a dense urban area compared to the majority of the country.
I drive a performance car that get 25 miles to the gallon. My wife drives a Suburban because -- quite frankly -- when an idiot driving a smaller car plows into her she'll be fine. That's why we own two of them (and the diesel one gets better mileage than your minivan, and is a 1983 model) It carries 9, which your minivan can't do.
I can drive at twice your speed and be twice as safe because I know how to drive and have upgraded my car to deal with it. If you use your signals I'll let you in. Deal.
I guess that's American? Or the fact that I've actually served in the military (5 years active, 3 years guard.) I lived overseas for a while. I've seen the world and know what is at stake. I've put my life on the line for my country. That's American too.
If you think that your fellow Americans are assholes, you really need to get to know your country better. I've been everywhere but Alaska and found a whole bunch of really wonderful folk, both conservative and liberal. Sure, there are a few morons but most of our country is wonderful.
Oh, and I obey laws too. And follow my own beliefs. And don't believe the mass produced compost that the Democrats tried to feed the American public in this election. Not to say that the Republicans did much better, but there you have it. My religion is my private business, and I can care less if you have any or not.
I'm a real environmentalist -- I believe in sustainable energy that we can actually build (nuclear). Instead of whining about it I consult, at my expense, to the Gridwise counsel and other orgs that are actually trying to build something. I volunteer my time in the community. So what? Plenty of people do, liberal or conservative. What's your point?
Yet you brandish you volunteer service and your envirnmental habits like a religion. And you sound like an angry "born again". Huh.
I had to deal with this problem when I worked in an experimental physics environent -- and found that mice liked to live on the heatsinks for the magnet drivers. Guess what: mouse piss conducts! This is really bad when you're running delicate high gain amps. So....
We tried everything. Alcohol. Solvents of all different kinds. Nothing worked until I brought some simple green in from home. This is what you do:
Remove all the water sensitive components from the case (hard drive, CDROM, etc,...) Leave the cover off of the case. Put it into a deep sink and wet it with warm water. Then scrub it out gently with a 10:1 solution of water and simple green. Use a large soft brush for the major areas and acid brushes to get in the the corners.
Rinse it out a few times with warm water.
Get a heat gun (used for shrink tubing) or a really good hair dryer or space heater and blow dry the unit for about 45 minutes, turning as needed. Allow to air dry for 24 hours. Re-install/replace HD, CDROM. Smoke check.
Our chassis always looked brand new after this treatment.
Too bad it doesn't come with a plan on how industry will benefit from space applications.
[SNIP]
Too bad the Internet didn't either. And after quite a bit of hype, folks are actually making money on it in ways that no one ever anticipated.
Do you know what the "killer app" is for space? I can assure you NASA doesn't. The civilian sector initially saw that communications was the big thing and now they're making money on it. Imagine that. What will happen if we can radically drop the cost of getting to LEO?
I worked as a contractor to NASA for a year. I have friends that worked there for almost a decade. We were all unsurprised that NASA is having the safety problems it is. Inevitable, really. It's the most ineffective org I've ever seen -- and I've been in the USAF and worked for DOE for a few years. Corporate politics is polite conversation in a tea room to the full combat that is NASA.
One of the most useless things I've ever seen is a NASA civil servant. Not that they aren't nice, but useless. Now look at what Rutan is doing over at Scaled Composites, how badly the Air Force shocked NASA when they ran the Clemantine mission, and tell me why we shouldn't get NASA out of the way and put the space program where it belongs: the universities, the private sector, and the military.
Find out how many people got fired for the shuttles blowing up and you'll start to get the picture.
If we all went out and implemented this design now, it would quite likely take down what's left of the power grid. We'll need a distributed power grid with better controls before this becomes practical.
I worked as a contractor to NASA for a year on various network projects. My father was a "rocket scientist" for the Atlas and Mercury programs, so I have some knowledge of what excellence in space programs should look like.
What I saw was very scary. The politics were intense and the science was very spotty. It was not a good experience. It was proof that a Ph.D doesn't mean that you can think.
Much of the folks that worked on my project (with up to 10 years of NASA experience) think that NASA is full of idiots. And -- for but the occational flash of true genius I saw -- I'd have to agree with them. We certainly wouldn't be able to accomplish the equivalent of a "moon shot" with today's NASA. Sad. They used to have the right "one person", they don't anymore.
I certainly don't use the phrase "takes a rocket scientist to..." because I've seen NASA in action. Ouch.
Slashdot Mirror
Ignore the haters, they don't understand the politics for this. I used to design industrial Ethernet networks for a large vendor, and we spent quite a bit of time pointing out to customers how dangerous the direct lines were. However, IT departments have very little say over manufacturing networks. This isn't always a bad thing (see the many IT/help desk horror stories). Because the remote access is often required as part of the maintenance contract, offer to partner with manufacturing to install a small firewall with access filters that are controlled by IT, but set (requested) by manufacturing.
A small Cisco ASA, Juniper SRX or its like will do the job nicely, and can shield you from hack attempts along that access path.
Denmark is an awesome place I'm sure. It's also about half the population of the greater San Francisco Bay area, which isn't the largest metro area in the USA. You also have a relatively homogeneous culture (with a strong work ethic) and can't project military power very far beyond your borders (to protect your trade). You could drive anywhere in your country in less than a day.
Apples != Oranges.
Maintaining the infrastructure of an ISP is challenging over the long term, especially in an environment where your "expert" may sell her/his unit and leave. So you don't want to own any servers. However, it's a damn good idea to wire every unit to a common DMZ/patch bay in a secured space. I'd recommend running some sort of combo cable up to each unit (Cat 5, multimode fiber and RG6), something like this: http://www.smarthome.com/868241J/2-Cat-5e-2-RG6-Quad-Cable-Jacket-500-Feet-RG6-Coax-Cable/p.aspx Each subscriber can then decide how they want to access the Internet, and what they way to pay, and you don't get somebody knocking holes in your walls trying to run cable. You could even designate one of the Cat5 drops as a common net that you put cameras on, if you need to.
Drop in a full size 2 post rack, add in a few shelves (one for each ISP), and make power available. Done.
...they've always had a problem with this, though. I was there years ago (at the beginning of the Internet boom) and we were one of the most hacked targets on the planet. Everyone seems to think that all the secret UFO data was in NASAs network -- and the pace of attacks was astounding. You had to have an RSA token to login to anything. It got so bad that we ended up having to put an optical tap (even as contractors, we fought that one) on the FDDI ring what was MAE-WEST so the FBI and other TLAs could try to track some of these idiots down.
Given that funding went down and many of the top IT / networking guys went into the booming private sector, I'm not surprised it's still a problem. All of the mission critical stuff is pretty well walled off -- but the rest of it has major issues. I don't think we'll loose a spaceship to it, but getting your email can be very annoying.
A combination of VPN access and firewalling does the trick. I've tested it with AB (EthernetIP) gear and it works fine. There are quite a few vendors that will sell you the parts, but they aren't the traditional ones (Omron, AB, etc,...) so most of the controls folks seem to ignore their existence. When it comes to control, go to them. If it's data security, Cisco, Juniper,...
This thread has -- to me -- completely validated the reason for the existence of the Internet. I've gotten a non-linear metric ass-load of pleasure out of it.
My previous life had me using 'scopes every day. My experience: HP/Agillent got into the business because of a decision by the Navy, not because they built good scopes. I love everything else they make but...
Tektronix, on the other hand, builds scopes you can beat the crap out of. I'm talking "put it on the back of a golf cart and drag it around an accelerator" or "I'm in the middle of a desert and I need a scope" crap out of. Reliable as hell, and thats a critical thing for a school. My engineering department had us sleeping on lab benches to wait to get access to the few working Siemens logic analyzers, so reliability is key.
Pay the money, go with Tek. They'll work well, and continue to work.
I spent a bit of time working on this issue when I was at "a freakin large router company". Large customers deal with this by setting themselves up peering agreements ISPs and using BGP to do load balancing. Great stuff, but not so scalable for home users...
Have a look at this: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6628/products_ios_protocol_option_home.html It has the ability to probe path characteristics passively or actively and intelligently route traffic based on it. It will run on a Cisco 1800 series router, so pick up an 1801 (with built in DSL interface), use an Ethernet interface to talk to the modem for the other service, and off you go. Kinda spendy, but it's the cheapest solution that has this level of intelligence.
I did this with a Recaro seat that I bought from a shop going out of business. I then went and got a seat base from the facilities guys (they tried to get me to take a new chair) and made a mount with some aluminum.
I've been using it for 9 years. It's still nifty.
>If people were smart (same goes for society as a whole, too), we'd build houses that took much less energy to heat and cool. Instead, houses >are cheap, flimsy cardboard boxes, so we waste enormous resources every summer/winter fighting the laws of thermodynamics.
Unless you live near a major active fault line, in which case a "flimsy cardboard box" would be a really good idea. We don't see many brick houses around here.
That said, my community requires advanced energy planning for construction projects. However, it *does* cost money to meet these goals. I was willing to pay it. Others aren't. You may spend more resources trying to bring your house up to energy code than you'll save. This isn't a good idea. Sometimes it's just better to have a throw-away house.
I took apart a MacBook Pro last night for the first time. We were trying to upgrade the hard drive -- and it was a total pain in the butt. I don't personally care if you run a Mac or a PC -- Linux runs on all of them. I do know that I can change the drive or motherboard in a Thinkpad very quickly; it was obvious that the MacBook wasn't designed to be easily serviced. Not a big deal for the average /. crowd, but a huge issue for IT departments. Maybe the desktops are better (and they looked so the last time I got into one), but a lot of folks are issuing out laptops instead of desktops these days.
Oh, and it didn't recognize the hard drive, and wouldn't say why. Not good. Worked fine when we put the old one back in, though.
Dude, the cooling system in that place is more amazing then almost anything else. You should see how many pipes there are in there.
A two mile long LINAC, damping rings, beam switch yard, final focus, all klystrons, most magnet drivers, power supplies, etc... all water cooled. Friggen amazing.
The only things there more amazing is the the positron vault and the Z detector.
-- Loudog
Well, we did have some circuit breakers fall off a shelf, too :-)
The accelerator shut down during the earthquake because the PPS (Personnel Protection System) sensors were jarred. I saw someone trip it once by backing a cart into an access door. When things get really quiet you know you've screwed up.... (are you out there Roger?)
What Bebo didn't tell you about the alignment (or you didn't mention), is that they do it when the system is up to temp -- so the tunnel is very warm (like 110 to 120 F). Not a thing I ever had to do, thank prime. But walking the tunnels during down time was amazing and spooky and damn fun. Pity you didn't get to do that.
-- Loudog
-- Ex SLAC'r
I worked at SLAC for more than 6 years, night shift in the accelerator maintenance. It's not the rat droppings, it's the black widows you need to watch for. I once killed more than 20 of them -- and that was in one sector (100m), on one task (ranging). And that's only the ones that were in my way.
I still miss the place, but like my current job better.
-- Loudog
-- Listening to the song of the klystrons
Is the Hubble so valuable to the world that it's worth risking the lives of astronauts to fix? Or is it really a PR machine for NASA and a tool for grad students to get a PhD? What's the big deal? Is anything going to happen in the few years it takes to justify, fund, build a launch a new telescope that ground based system can't handle?
Honestly, what's the rush? How did we manage without it?
Hey, you might be on to something here. One of the stated design goals seems to be containment of waste for an insanely long amount of time (Caveat: I am an engineer and I used to hold DOE hig/very high/contamination radiation certs). So we need an institution that's going to be around for a while.
Who's been around longer? The Christian Church? Or any of the currently existing governments?
Heh. Meanwhile we're taking down windmills because they're "hurting birds", undamning rivers because they interrupt fish spawning and solar is still a pipe dream. Most of the new hydrogen based transportation technology needs massive amounts of electrical power to work. Where are you going to get the energy?
This is the most useful comment about Katrina that I've seen yet. Congratulations to you sir!
As an aside, I'm noticing an interesting trend to the debate on most forums about the government response: The same outlets that have been bitching that the current government is too intrusive are castigating it for not being intrusive enough. People amaze me.
Or at least, not yet.
r y2.cfm ?section=about&level2=box2
The achilles heel of any current alternate energy deployment is the reliance on the grid to act as the "energy backup" when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. Unfortunately, we don't have a two way grid; nor is it smart enough to safely handle multiple energy sources being fed up into it from unplanned nodes (like your house for example). The current solar and wind systems out there can get away with it because there aren't many of them. Having to bring up "peaker" power stations on calm or cloudy days actually increases the pollution production of the combined "clean energy"/grid system considerably.
Batteries are still way to expensive and damaging to the environment to allow a significant percentage of consumers to go off of the grid entirely.
I presented a paper on distributed grids in Stockholm a few years ago. In the course of this gathering I had a chance to talk with one of the energy authorities from Denmark. Denmark gets 20% of it's power from wind farms. They were having a lot of trouble controlling the energy flows. Smart distribution is essential. Safe energy storage is also required to scale the system.
Fortunately, the US government is already working on these issues. Some things worth looking at:
The Grid 2030 conference we had two years ago:
http://www.electricity.doe.gov/about/boxsto
The Gridwise Council:
http://www.gridwise.org/
It's also interesting to note that the most efficient technology we have for power production we have right now is co-generation, and the most environmentally friendly and economical large scale power systems are nuclear. Hmmm.
-- Loudog
Yup, a dense urban area compared to the majority of the country.
I drive a performance car that get 25 miles to the gallon. My wife drives a Suburban because -- quite frankly -- when an idiot driving a smaller car plows into her she'll be fine. That's why we own two of them (and the diesel one gets better mileage than your minivan, and is a 1983 model) It carries 9, which your minivan can't do.
I can drive at twice your speed and be twice as safe because I know how to drive and have upgraded my car to deal with it. If you use your signals I'll let you in. Deal.
I guess that's American? Or the fact that I've actually served in the military (5 years active, 3 years guard.) I lived overseas for a while. I've seen the world and know what is at stake. I've put my life on the line for my country. That's American too.
If you think that your fellow Americans are assholes, you really need to get to know your country better. I've been everywhere but Alaska and found a whole bunch of really wonderful folk, both conservative and liberal. Sure, there are a few morons but most of our country is wonderful.
Oh, and I obey laws too. And follow my own beliefs. And don't believe the mass produced compost that the Democrats tried to feed the American public in this election. Not to say that the Republicans did much better, but there you have it. My religion is my private business, and I can care less if you have any or not.
I'm a real environmentalist -- I believe in sustainable energy that we can actually build (nuclear). Instead of whining about it I consult, at my expense, to the Gridwise counsel and other orgs that are actually trying to build something. I volunteer my time in the community. So what? Plenty of people do, liberal or conservative. What's your point?
Yet you brandish you volunteer service and your envirnmental habits like a religion. And you sound like an angry "born again". Huh.
There's an issue here, but it isn't your country.
Interesting.
You must live in one of those dense urban areas that voted for Kerry.
I had to deal with this problem when I worked in an experimental physics environent -- and found that mice liked to live on the heatsinks for the magnet drivers. Guess what: mouse piss conducts! This is really bad when you're running delicate high gain amps. So....
We tried everything. Alcohol. Solvents of all different kinds. Nothing worked until I brought some simple green in from home. This is what you do:
Remove all the water sensitive components from the case (hard drive, CDROM, etc,...) Leave the cover off of the case. Put it into a deep sink and wet it with warm water. Then scrub it out gently with a 10:1 solution of water and simple green. Use a large soft brush for the major areas and acid brushes to get in the the corners.
Rinse it out a few times with warm water.
Get a heat gun (used for shrink tubing) or a really good hair dryer or space heater and blow dry the unit for about 45 minutes, turning as needed. Allow to air dry for 24 hours. Re-install/replace HD, CDROM. Smoke check.
Our chassis always looked brand new after this treatment.
-- Loudog
[SNIP]
Too bad it doesn't come with a plan on how industry will benefit from space applications.
[SNIP]
Too bad the Internet didn't either. And after quite a bit of hype, folks are actually making money on it in ways that no one ever anticipated.
Do you know what the "killer app" is for space? I can assure you NASA doesn't. The civilian sector initially saw that communications was the big thing and now they're making money on it. Imagine that. What will happen if we can radically drop the cost of getting to LEO?
I worked as a contractor to NASA for a year. I have friends that worked there for almost a decade. We were all unsurprised that NASA is having the safety problems it is. Inevitable, really. It's the most ineffective org I've ever seen -- and I've been in the USAF and worked for DOE for a few years. Corporate politics is polite conversation in a tea room to the full combat that is NASA.
One of the most useless things I've ever seen is a NASA civil servant. Not that they aren't nice, but useless. Now look at what Rutan is doing over at Scaled Composites, how badly the Air Force shocked NASA when they ran the Clemantine mission, and tell me why we shouldn't get NASA out of the way and put the space program where it belongs: the universities, the private sector, and the military.
Find out how many people got fired for the shuttles blowing up and you'll start to get the picture.
-- Lou
If we all went out and implemented this design now, it would quite likely take down what's left of the power grid. We'll need a distributed power grid with better controls before this becomes practical.
-- Lou
That's why Dick don't care.
I'm on a Solar Flare, radio....
A solar flare, oh oh, radio....
Sue the sun! We didn't authorize this!
Ain't we got fun?
-- Loudog
At the risk of feeding the flames:
I worked as a contractor to NASA for a year on various network projects. My father was a "rocket scientist" for the Atlas and Mercury programs, so I have some knowledge of what excellence in space programs should look like.
What I saw was very scary. The politics were intense and the science was very spotty. It was not a good experience. It was proof that a Ph.D doesn't mean that you can think.
Much of the folks that worked on my project (with up to 10 years of NASA experience) think that NASA is full of idiots. And -- for but the occational flash of true genius I saw -- I'd have to agree with them. We certainly wouldn't be able to accomplish the equivalent of a "moon shot" with today's NASA. Sad. They used to have the right "one person", they don't anymore.
I certainly don't use the phrase "takes a rocket scientist to..." because I've seen NASA in action. Ouch.
YMMV.
Everyone needs a cause: Stamp out phase jitter!