Then sell the rights to say Playboy?
Posts by annodomini2
1181 publicly visible posts • joined 24 May 2010
NASA wants space washing machine for ISS, Mars bases
Too rude for the road: DVLA hot list of banned numberplates
US stealth bombers finally get nuke-nobbling super bomb
LOHAN gets hands on mighty thruster
And when the motor fires it'll break the pressure gauge!
What I suggested previously was a second valve (the original design had your layout), that way the pump could be shut off and the valve closed and any leaks in the system could be monitored for, if the vacuum is stable for long enough close the second valve and ignite the motor.
NASA working on nuclear rocket for manned Mars trips
John Smith 19 covered a lot of it, but the basic issues are cost and risk.
$/lb to orbit (Including launcher design and development costs) as the US like to call it, is cheaper on a larger launcher that a smaller one.
Additionally, it's not just launching the pieces, the ISS and Hubble required a lot of human intervention to assemble. So there may be 10 pieces including fuel, but 15-20 launches to get the thing into orbit and ready for it's mission.
As a single stack the launch risk is reduced as the odds of a failure go up with number and frequency.
Also there is a strong risk of collision when on orbit, even automated.
Failure to dock, collision and other factors may result in the elements already launched being useless.
The reason NASA has not had a death in space so far is due to 2 factors:
1. Good risk mitigation.
2. A lot of luck!
Read up on the first moon landing,
My favourite of the mistakes is the design of the exit on the lunar lander, they didn't account for the expansion of the spacesuits due to vacuum.
When they exited onto the surface they caught the switches inside on the control panel, specifically they broke the switch that activated the accent rocket engine to return them to lunar orbit.
They were fortunate in that they were able to activate the system using a pen, but it all very nearly ended in disaster.
UK broadband speeds crippled during 'rush hour'
Fusion boffins crack shreddy eddy plasma puzzle
Another new Russian nuclear powerplant comes online
I get the impression that the western governments have been gambling on getting fusion working and plants online before the current batch expire. And LOST!
Given JET and ITER seem to be never ending black hole money pits, maybe they should have spread bet on different technologies and not relied solely on Tokamak to solve all their problems!
Renault Fluence ZE
Production electric motorcycle breaks 100 mile range
NASA tells Voyager 2 to save its strength
Hydrazine.
Basically as you are in space there is very little resistance so your fuel consumption is determined by the number of manoeuvres you need to make and how quickly you want those manoeuvres to occur.
So if you can wait 2 weeks for the thing to turn around and only do it once every 3 months then very little.
Voyage has 2 sets of control thrusters, they are turning off the primary system to save power, but there will be no backup if the operating one fails.
They roll the ship to perform experiments, then point the dish back towards earth to transmit the results.
Also to compensate for changes in attitude due to external factors, e.g. being hit by micrometeors.
Zuckerberg: 'Make partnerships, not war'
Japan develops powered armour suit for nuke workers
NASA: Martians likely lived underground
Record flight is step toward HYPERSONIC SPACE AIRSHIP
The issue may be power consumption, I get the idea they intend to use a higher thrust version of VASMIR, which currently produces 5N of thrust for 200Kw of electrical power, with respectable fuel efficiency.
They will need significantly more thrust than 5N, and so probably significantly more power for the engine.
Maybe they can compromise fuel efficiency to reduce power consumption, but increase thrust.
There are significant challenges to be overcome to make this work!
1. Structural integrity
Contrary to the statement made about not needing heat shielding, when accelerating up to orbital velocity there will be a period where the ship will be in the upper atmosphere (as it needs the lift from the helium to maintain the altitude!), at a high but not orbital velocity e.g. 12,000mph.
The atmosphere is not very dense at these altitudes, but at that speed you're covering a huge distance in a small amount of time, compressing the low pressure gas against the ship and causing friction heating. While the temperatures will be lower than those experienced by the shuttle, this still requires protection.
2. Thrust
There will be a transition point, basically there needs to be enough thrust to overcome the aerodynamic drag in the upper atmosphere and also enough thrust to keep the ship up when the velocity is such that it will 'pop' out of the atmosphere and not fall back as it loses buoyancy.
Otherwise it'll just end up skipping along the atmosphere not gaining any speed as it will slow down (And heat up!) as it drops back into the drag of the atmosphere.
The magnetic fields themselves aren't heavy, but there are 2 basic flaws in your argument:
1. Something needs to generate that magnetic field, adding weight. Also the bigger and/or stronger the magnetic field required the bigger and heavier the equipment required to generate said field.
2. Magnetic fields won't stop all types of radiation.
Back to the Future DeLorean to go under the hammer
Intel mad for power, but stacked-up dies keep MELTING!
Apple iPhone 4S
@nsld
Depends...
With an Iphone, typically the contract is so expensive, no
You still need to pay for calls, texts and data with that:
So the phone costs say £400 retail, or £25 a month on an 18m contract with a free phone (yes they do exist!).
Yes the total is £450, so it's more expensive you say, but if the same minutes, texts and data contract would cost say £15/month
Buying the phone separately and then paying for the contract would cost you £670 not £450.
So the net effect is you save £180 on the phone.
Boffins whip up SELF-WIRING chip
Punters to favour Smart TV over 3D TV
Toyota Yaris 2011
Arduino to add ARM board this year
Nissan Micra DIG-S
Fewer cylinders = Fewer parts = Cheaper to make
Because they've come up with algorithms to dynamically balance an engine without needing balancer shafts, they're cheaper to make.
Also if they can share more parts this saves on tooling costs.
e.g. 1.2 3cylinder and 1.6 4 cylinder, same pistons, rods and associated components.
In automotive, if they can save 10p per car on 500,000 cars they will try to.
NASA: Beam me up some power, Scotty
Ah, but...
"Sending enough energy to replace commonly-used present day space propulsion via laser beam would be quite a feat. One of the most powerful lasers in the world that's capable of keeping a beam going for any length of time - Boeing's Airborne Laser Test Bed - can put out only a few megawatts of juice, but (according to El Reg's back-of-a-pint-coaster calculations) it takes about 190 gigawatts to power the first stage of a Saturn V rocket and 4.1GW to make a single Delta IV core rocket go."
That assumes you're also carrying fuel, which for most rockets is about 90% of the mass of the vehicle.
LOHAN to suck mighty thruster as it goes off, in a shed
NASA unveils its chosen Shuttle successor
"I do not understand why VASIMR technology has not been deployed yet to the space station at least. It appears to have worked reliably in deep space missions and everything I read tells me it's ready for prime time."
VASIMR hasn't been into space yet, other types of ION engines have. VASIMR has only been tested in hypobaric chambers.
The flight engine was due to go up on the last shuttle launch, but it wasn't finished in time.
Zalman ZM-VE200 portable virtual Rom drive
Sweden rolls out invisible infrared tank
What vegetables are best for growing in Spaaace?
Here lies /^v.+b$/i
Google special
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Tombstone_Header.h
// ------------------------------
//
// Author: None
//
// Copyright: Google
//
// License: Mine!!!
//
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
IF HeartBeatPresent = True AND BreathingInAndOut = True THEN
Dig me up this f***ing instant
ELSE
Leave flowers and beer below
END IF
ARM vet: The CPU's future is threatened
Power efficiency is still critical
1. Portable computing devices e.g. Smartphones, Tablets, laptops etc, even with a 10 fold increase in battery, this either allows for:
a) An increase in performance with no degradation in battery life.
b) Huge increase in battery life (becoming increasing important for many users)
c) Balance of the 2.
If you can halve the power consumption of the chip you can use a smaller battery for the same job, making the device cheaper and lighter.
2. Data and Processing centre's are one of the largest consumers of CPU's, their operating costs are mainly power consumption, batteries are not going to affect this and many studies have recently shown that 10% reduction in CPU and memory power consumption has huge implications for their operating costs as there is much less heat generated and resulting reductions in cooling requirements.
You may see as much as a 30-40% operating cost reduction for an equivalent setup.
He missed something...
FPGA's
He talks about a move to dedicated hardware, if designers can achieve this balancing act between CPU's and GPU's as he suggests moving to a device like an FPGA may also be possible.
For dedicated tasks that overload CPU's and GPU's, ASIC's can't be beaten, not even FPGA's can match them for size and power usage.
However, ASIC's by their very nature are inflexible, he mentions putting encryption hardware on the chip, how many times a week do we see on this site. "Some team, somewhere has cracked x algorithm or technique".
An FPGA would allow the majority of the performance of the ASIC, but allow for the update to a new algorithm or technique.
As stated in the article, one of the major costs is verification and once the silicon is set it can't be reworked, in FPGA it can, certain issues can be fixed with firmware updates.
Also not all features are used at once so the device can be reconfigured on the fly to serve the purpose in use at a specific time, reducing silicon area and as a result power consumption, without compromising functionality.
Acer Aspire 5755G 15in Core i7 laptop
Re:...ignoring specs again.
There are a lot of high level components in that laptop, I'm not arguing that.
But the device you use most on a laptop is the screen.
This is a business laptop and the screen resolution determines your work area.
Bog standard 1366x768 just doesn't cut the mustard at this price point, if it was 1440x900 or 1920x1080 I may have been more accepting.