Solarsail

13 ms·

61.
by Solarsail 12y ago
All solid LV's haven't really been cheaper than liquids in the general case, the motors themselves tend to be quite expensive. Also, a single SRB is never sufficient, even with 0 payload a very large solid doesn't have the p
62.
by Solarsail 12y ago
I just worded it that way to point out they both have instruments on it. Sounded like what was important to point out. But yes, NASA has a couple instruments among the many ESA has on it, on an ESA mission.
63.
by Solarsail 12y ago
ESA has a few instruments mounted on Rosetta too. NASA's: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/microwave-instrument-for-th... (Unless this was sarcasm)
64.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Structural types, as opposed to nominal types?
65.
by Solarsail 12y ago
I'm pretty sure that was Steve Squyres in the book Roving Mars, discussing Spirit and Opportunity. From memory, a heat shield can get you from escape velocity down to ~mach 3, and then supersonic parachutes can get you down to ~100mph
66.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Do people actually behave along these lines? Vast majority of people in most places live and die within the same region they were born in. Most people who move countries do so to follow jobs around or get new jobs. The number of people w
67.
by Solarsail 12y ago
One of the early PL/1 compilers IBM wrote in the 60's did something akin to this. It was a 'premium' feature, available in one of the more expensive compilers. Where it detected any error or wrong looking code, it woul
68.
by Solarsail 12y ago
In the context of some other language being the origin of computing, and since the OP mentions Russian as fairly easy to work with... What if this had been Russian everywhere instead of English? If all of the terminology, POSIX, C and oth
69.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Only genetically unhelpable? I would sooner expect issues with teaching children who don't want to be taught than any actual ability to learn.
70.
by Solarsail 12y ago
(Sorry I didn't see your reply earlier) Sounds like an interesting project. I didn't point ML to say that meta-languages generally or ML itself were useless. Rather, that ML is specialized in a way that wouldn't aid in writ
71.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Doesn't this assume that SpaceX will succeed at reducing launch costs? If you look at volume, I don't see what you're getting at here. Almost nobody except for maybe Ariane V is operating at capacity. Delta IV tried sellin
72.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Would that be a bad thing? Unless you're referring to the current 'golden age' ending, wouldn't it be a good thing if modern day achievements are still that well regarded 5 centuries from now? (I suppose you could say t
73.
by Solarsail 12y ago
ML? I believe the genesis of 'Meta Language' and 'Standard Meta Language' was language design being done by people who wrote nothing but experimental compilers. Not sure how often they were bootstrapping, but it would
74.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Oops... Edit 2, since I can't edit this anymore. R7 has not flown over 3500 flights in 60 years, it's flown ~1600 flights. 749 on the model retired in 2011. http://astronautix.com/lvs/soya511u.htm
75.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Proton aside, Soyuz is singly the most reliable launch vehicle on the market, since the retirement of the US Shuttle and ULA Delta II. It has both the longest track record of anything out there, if you look at the entire R7 family, of over
76.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Odd that you would pick those two countries as your examples. Both are federations comprised of a number of separate sovereign governments. Or, for that matter, the United States of Mexico shares that trait of its name with America. (An
77.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Only if immigrants are merely settling empty land. As long as they want to start out as part of society, they'll need jobs, housing and regular infrastructure. My own region is growing nearly as fast as housing can be built. More th
78.
by Solarsail 12y ago
I'm not so sure the economics works so well for reusables. Flying a reuseable LV requires (as far as anybody's managed, we'll see with SpaceX) far more work than just fuel & go. Typically you'd need a lot of mainte
79.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Many people have suggested as much. The issue then is finding a large enough volume of customers / missions to make use of frequent flights. I've also heard (tho I don't have a link ready) that past 50 - 100 flights per yea
80.
by Solarsail 12y ago
For Oribital's Pegasus, about 25% (solid fuel) engines, and 25% support labour [1]. http://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/pdf/kane_mls.pdf Page 7 (Rest of that paper is also an awesome read abou
81.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but those companies will go bust before they get any hardware off the ground. They won't want to spend $20 billion USD over a quarter of a century before making a dime in revenue. SpaceDev wanted to
82.
by Solarsail 12y ago
From memory (I think one of the dev's comments on HHVM or Hippy a while back) Hippy started after HHVM was already underway. Hippy was mostly a proof of concept, to see if PyPy would be a viable strategy for a PHP runtime. HipHop was
83.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Couldn't you translate source given the ability to translate behaviour? If some behaviour in language X can be simulated by a state machine in Y, then you could just emit said state machine as the translation of the behaviour, give it
84.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Well, Java does have TCO already, just depending on the JVM you're using. J9 supports it, just not HotSpot. http://stackmonthly.com/2010/9/tail-call-optimization
85.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Metering is used in Canada. Many have criticized the policy as backwards, unfair, and hampering creativity compared to other countries. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/a-metere... Tho I do ag
86.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Notably, tho, Both SBCL and Clojure have optional types. So the number of indirections necessary is already substantially reduced, as per the GP. For this to be the case in practice, tho, requires that type annotations actually be commonl
87.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Apologies if you've already read this, but this paper was absolutely enlightening for me on what a more performant Python would look like: http://julialang.org/images/julia-dynamic-2012-tr.pdf especially section 2
88.
by Solarsail 12y ago
If it's literal bits etched into stone, wouldn't it still be digital (the way sections of a disk platter having a particular polarity is digital)? Analog would be etching the resultant data in graphical form into the rock. I&#x2
89.
by Solarsail 12y ago
French Canadian keyboards are fairly different from European French keyboards: French Canadian: http://www3.uakron.edu/modlang/french/images/kbd4.gif European French: http://www.fentek-ind.com&#x2
90.
by Solarsail 12y ago
Aren't these two equivalent statements? Liberty to do any particular thing, ever, increases the ability to do something wrong. And so requires more caution. That doesn't stop restrictions that would alleviate said caution from

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