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Comment: Re:Armor (Score 2) 327

by FatLittleMonkey (#46480721) Attached to: What If the Next Presidential Limo Was a Tesla?

Tesla gets its acceleration from briefly over-volting the motor. That's why it's only available during acceleration. That's also why the top speed is much lower than an equivalent-acceleration ICE sedan. Whereas constant power (not just acceleration up to speed) is what is required to drag those ridiculous armoured limos around.

You're competing with a 7lt diesel light-truck engine.

Comment: Re:Don't they have to fly that thing around? (Score 1) 327

by FatLittleMonkey (#46480641) Attached to: What If the Next Presidential Limo Was a Tesla?

if the Prez flew commercial it wouldn't be such a big deal.

Nixon did that. [Turned out they were flying AF-1 along behind him, just in case he needed a fast return trip.]

Might as well fly on a military transport. Saves buying dedicated aircraft. And the President gets nice photo-ops in a military-style flight-suit, walking down the loading ramp of a C-130.

Which might solve the problem of the next Presidential limo. Just use a few off-the-shelf APCs. Problem solved.

Comment: Re:Why? (Score 1) 205

by FatLittleMonkey (#46431165) Attached to: Firefox OS Will Become the Mobile OS To Beat

That's certainly my situation. Fortunately there were no irreversible upgrades, unlike the AC. But I'm pretty much forced to cancel all attempted updates because the phone won't handle them. (Mainly memory. I don't have enough on-phone memory to run just the raw OS (and vendor shit) once I accept upgrades. I freed up over a third of my memory by rolling back upgrades of the core Google apps.) Thankfully they clearly separate security upgrades from brand-upgrades. Oh wait, no, they don't.

[The phone's still under warranty, so I've waiting before I try Cyanogen. By then, perhaps FFOS will be an option.]

Comment: Re:Shrug. (Score 1) 153

[The point of the phrase is that if you are too overprotective or risk adverse, you won't achieve anything. Otherwise, what the hell is the aphorism actually for?]

My response was intentionally arrogant-flippant as a joke. But in all seriousness, we coddle the young too much. I understand in industrial practice it makes sense, we should be seeing gains in working conditions over time. It's the 21st Century, we shouldn't have to break people to run an economy. But the young evolved to have fast reflexes, fast healing, amazing learning by exposure, and a natural tendency to take risks and experiment. Shutting them behind walls of cotton wool does not allow them to utilise their incredible gifts in order to learn about their environment before those gifts start to dry up, plus it also prevents our society from expanding. (Coz I sure as hell am not climbing over the next hill. I'm tired and my stories are on.)

There's a saying from... well I heard it somewhere in northern Europe... that "a childhood without a broken leg is a wasted life."

Having weaker safety in university labs, getting stronger as you move through industry, reflects how we naturally learn and age. It's how society should work.

Comment: Re:How did this go to trial? (Score 4, Interesting) 236

by FatLittleMonkey (#46428539) Attached to: Drone Pilot Wins Case Against FAA

the FAA regulates the National Airspace System in which this RC aircraft was flying.

The FAA only gets to regulate objects within the "airspace" within very narrow limits. It has deliberately tried to blur those limits to include RC devices as "aircraft". This judge slapped them down for overreach.

Do I need a NOTAM to throw a frisbee, or fly a kite? And what magically happens to turn a 5 foot wide foam glider from an unregulated toy into a regulated "aircraft" because it was used commercially. Did it suddenly become more dangerous because the footage was going to be sold commercially, and if so... how did it know?

It doesn't matter what you're flying,

Judge seems to disagree.

The FAA doesn't regulate cars, RC or otherwise so the RC car example is not relevant.

Well done you for deliberately missing the point. That's always so productive.

Comment: Re:Lab != Industrial site (Score 4, Interesting) 153

And if you don't have sloppy health and safety standards in your lab, how can you accidentally discover new phenomena.

If Fleming maintained correct use of an autoclave... If Spencer hadn't walked in front of that unshielded magnetron... If Goodyear had a proper hood over his stove... If the Coca-Cola guy had properly labelled his supplies... If Becquerel properly stored his equipment and samples... If Hoffman (LSD) and Schlatter (Aspartame) had worn gloves or just hadn't licked their fingers after working with chemicals...

[If I hadn't regurgitated the first result of typing "accidental di"]


by FatLittleMonkey (#46426881) Attached to: Drone Pilot Wins Case Against FAA

Assuming the "one person had to take evasive measures" wasn't an aircraft, how is it an FAA matter? If he'd been using a large RC car in a public park to harass people, would it be dangerous driving because it's less than 50 feet from a road?

Most regions already have "creating a public nuisance" and "endangering the public" type laws that could already cover this. Even "Conducting a business activity in a public space without a permit". This likely could have been taken care of at the city/county level, turning it into a Federal case is unnecessary. Overcharging and regulatory creep should never be condoned. Not just the inherent dangers to us when TPTB use a law beyond its original intent; but also because, as in this example, if it annoys the judge, TPTB may end up with a legal precedent that might be manipulated in a case where the law is intended to apply.

Comment: Re:Why would it be infeasable? (Score 1) 374

by FatLittleMonkey (#46401985) Attached to: Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible

The proposal is to automate as much of the operations as possible. So I assumed that. (Human astronauts spending that long in space would require breakthroughs in radiation shielding (or some kind of medical breakthrough.))

Teleoperation is easier in theory, but even designing a teleoperated repair 'bot of the complexity required is be beyond current robotic state-of-the-art. To get the dexterity/flexibility you need, the thing would still require highly advanced controls and sensors. (In the same way you've got nerve cells in your body, not just your brain.) I used "AI" as a short-hand for all that.

Radiation in space would quickly kill anything advanced enough to operate such a robot (even if the "higher functions" were remotely guided by humans on Earth). Space-hardened electronics is dumber than what is used for high end robotics, and the requirements for ribbon repair (amongst other systems) are beyond the capability of any robotic system in the lab today, so sufficiently adaptable and space hardened 'bots are multiple generations away. Technology might advance enough to allow such systems one day, perhaps even fully autonomous systems, but we don't know that it will.

It's the same with ISRU production for the towers. It might be possible, but it's currently well beyond the capability of any system on Earth. It's not just a matter of adapting technology to a more difficult environment of space, there's nothing there to adapt. I sincerely hope it becomes possible one day, but today it isn't, and we don't know that it ever will be, or what it'll look like when it arrives.

747s exist. We know they are possible. But the Wright Bros could not build a 747, no matter how much money you gave them. But most importantly, and something I should have said three or four posts ago but honestly I only just thought of it, the Wright Brothers couldn't even understand how to design the very concept of a 747, so they likely would have gone off on in the wrong direction, chasing something that actually isn't possible, even with 2014 technology.

Many of the technologies required for the lunar elevator are things we don't even know if they are possible. They seem likely; mere extensions of things we're already working on. But... well, you only need to read any old futurism article about what technology would be like today.

That's why people focus on things like the ribbon material. That's just physics. Materials either are, or aren't, strong enough. Possible, or impossible.


by FatLittleMonkey (#46399893) Attached to: Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible

and that if we threw enough money at the problem (which we won't), it would be solved.

No. "Feasible" doesn't mean it's just a matter of throwing money at it. A lunar elevator could still turn out to be impossible with existing materials/technology, even with an unlimited budget. (As I said, I think the repair systems alone are beyond the state-of-the-art in robotics. Not just that the specific equipment doesn't exist at Walmart, I mean it's beyond the available or reasonably projected level of AI. That's without allowing for them operating in space, in full chip-killing radiation...) It might be possible with an unlimited budget and unlimited time to allow science to advance enough to catch up.

There's a bunch of stuff required for the lunar elevator which might be possible given enough money, but there's also likely to be a whole bunch which, in spite of being theoretically "feasible", are probably in reality beyond our current scientific ability to create even with if you threw the entire US GDP at them.

For a more limited example of "feasible but...", the Orion capsule is "feasible... but" it's now likely to be so heavy that it may exceed the ability of the Navy to recover it onto an aircraft carrier after it splashes down. That doesn't mean you can't design a dedicated recovery ship for it, or more likely adapt another ship such as a amphibious or semi-submersible ship. But that wasn't the intention, so Orion was clearly "unfeasible" as originally conceived: You can't make the capsule they proposed, at the mass they wanted, with the technology available.

Likewise, the SLS is "low-risk" according to NASA definitions... but if it aborts too early during launch, the expanding cloud of solid-fuel particles from the SRBs would still be burning if the capsule descends back through that region, setting fire to the abort-parachutes and causing the crew to fall to their deaths. (See the random path of the shuttle SRBs before they were detonated, during the Challenger explosion. There's no way to eliminate the chance of the SRB's detonating under the descent path of the capsule.)


by FatLittleMonkey (#46397049) Attached to: Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible

Missed? No, they are right there in the report. Ie, technologies that we do not have, which would individually be a major NASA program, and which are the minimum requirement for a space elevator of any type. (The robotic repair systems alone are probably beyond the current state of the art of robotics, IMO. But the ground station, the "tramway" tower construction (let alone ISRU fabrication), the L1 ribbon deployment system, the actual elevator "cars", even the single use "tramway" cable tow-vehicle, etc etc etc. Possibly within current technological limits, but each hideously expensive to develop.)

A single 1km lunar tower construction would be the largest (and most expensive) project NASA has even done, even if the parts were already sitting in crates on the lunar surface. Pearson needs over 50 of them (more if they are smaller). And they are a small side-part of his proposal.

Likewise, a lunar facility which could produce tower-parts from lunar materials would be the most technologically advanced research project NASA has attempted in decades, even without the actual construction of towers. Much more demanding than anything going on at the $3b/yr ISS, or any of the $3b/yr SLS development, or the $9b JWST. And that's just something capable of taking regolith and outputting a small number of tower components; not something capable of actually producing a full 1km tower's-worth, let alone 50+. Just being able to produce the required types of parts at all. And ignoring that it has to be mobile and capable to tracking from the equator to the poles. (Or have a fleet of delivery vehicles capable of relaying parts to and from the construction sites. Each of which would be the largest and most advanced vehicles ever produced by NASA. Making the Mars Curiosity rover look like a toy.)

There's probably a thousand other technologies of similar difficulty and expense that I'm missing, too. These few just jumped out at me. Components which would individually be multi-decade multi-$billion/yr Agency-wide flagship programs. The 180,000km ribbon itself is beyond me to even speculate over the difficulty or cost, plus the ribbon's deployment system...

It's the difference in the definition of "Feasible". A lot of impossible/difficult/expensive proposals are deemed "feasible" by NASA standards. "No show-stoppers" as they say. Venture Star was "feasible", NASP was "feasible", Freedom Space Station was "feasible". Hell, SLS is considered not just "feasible" but "low-risk". Similar reports in the seventies of giant space-stations (Stanford Torus, Bernal sphere, or O'Neill cylinders) were considered "technologically feasible". And they likewise required impossibly huge projects as small sub-sets of their development (such as mining, processing, and giant mass drivers on the moon just to supply the raw materials for their construction.)

Pearson's elevator, while simpler than an O'Neill cylinder, would nonetheless make the Apollo program look like NASA's Christmas video.

[Aside: My throw-away comment in last post "or the sort of autonomous in-situ manufacturing that would have already replaced the entire manufacturing industry on Earth" is unclear. I meant if you had the technology to automate the construction of 1km lunar towers from nothing but lunar regolith and solar power, the same technology would have already revolutionised and replaced the majority of manufacturing and especially construction if used here on Earth. Imagine being able to construct, say, concrete and steel buildings or bridges by feeding iron ore, limestone, coke, water, etc, into an automated (solar powered) construction system.

Further aside: BTW, we should be developing lunar and asteroidal ISRU technologies. But proposing a giant space project which treats this radical and revolutionary technological advance as if it's already proven and mature... Hence, "you have to have an industry in place in space so large that you must have already solved the problem you are trying to solve with a space elevator."]


by FatLittleMonkey (#46375005) Attached to: Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible

Mr. Pearson's calculations

Keep reading until you get to the list of operational requirements.

As I said, you have to have an industry in place in space so large that you must have already solved the problem you are trying to solve with a space elevator (or the sort of autonomous in-situ manufacturing that would have already replaced the entire manufacturing industry on Earth if it was possible with current technology).

[Space elevators are a bit like He3 mining. While the claims might technically be right, by the time we are capable of performing the task, the assumptions underlying the entire equation would have changed. Therefore, outside of nerdy what-if thought-experiments, there's really no point "planning" them today, nor using them to justify any kind of advocacy.]


by FatLittleMonkey (#46366093) Attached to: Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible

Minimal length for a lunar elevator is about 80,000km, assuming a large counterweight. Longer if you are only using the deployment-system itself as the sole counterweight. Your gravitational "mid-point" is L1, about 60,000km from the moon. So you have to have a sufficient balancing mass (ribbon+counterweight) beyond 60,000km. A "true" elevator (ribbon only, no counterweight) is over 200,000km, or more than half way from the moon back to Earth.

The industry required to built that suggests you already have low cost access to space, and enough lunar surface activity to justify it. Which means you must have already solved the problem the lunar elevator is intended to solve. A space elevator doesn't get you "there", you already have to be "there" to justify (or afford) a space elevator; and if you are already "there", why do you need a space elevator?

Comment: Re:However.. (Score 1) 247

Actually, that's a safety mechanism

Actually, that's an excuse. The actual concern is solved by having a big red switch saying "Auto/Manual" which physically connects/disconnects the data-line between the avionics computer and the flight-deck. OTOH, making it physically impossible to fly the shuttle remotely was a management decision to reinforce the fiction of the necessity of manned space flight.

5lbs is a lot of dead weight

