Posts by John Smith 19 16330 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
"I've got a *big* idea"
"It'll need a good new IT system (possibly with database)"
NHS IT reform, National ID cards, regional fire control rooms, air traffic control (managed to p**s a way a fair bit but often forgotten), NIRS2, unified courts/prison/parole system (I'm sure there are others but I'm nearly spitting blood at this point)
*All* began with those 2 little sentences.
"Or did previous governments mess up equally badly, equally as often?"
Well there was the classic Nimrod AEW b*llsup which left GEC with a £100m in profit (cost+) and cost the tax payers c£1bn in the 70s and early 80s.
The UK aid defense system was another massive piece of s**t.
"They seem to have had a penchant for putting unqualified incompetents behind important desks."
Any idea which front bencher of *any* UK political party has an actual IT qualification? Serious project management skills?
"subjected to ideological vetting and their mastery of Marxist-Leninist dialectic was viewed as far more important than actually understanding the job and being able to do it."
A charmingly old fashioned view of the Labor party. Tony Blair's "genius" was making the Labor more Thatcherite than the Conservative party, not less.
As for understanding the job well Andrew Lansley spent *years* as a shadow Health minister and was thought to be a safe pair of hands.
And then he introduced his reform proposals.
I'd say *all* political parties should beware of *two* things.
"I've got a great *big* idea"
*It'll need a good IT system"
"Censure" SFW.
"Fine" Guess we'll have to ask for more in our budget allocation next year.
But "Stated a policy then *failed* to implement it (or made no effort to find out if it *was* implemented)" Goodbye.
Now that *might* improve things a bit.
And of course "Connecting for IT" has only been running what 14 years?
From a site I have hear others describe.
Do you have an aunt you sometimes visit?
In the mean time I will retain my cheery grin and aim to keep my comments friendly. Although the grin might become a bit more Joker than Willy Wonker in future.
This being Friday I will of course raise a glass to the one that got away.
Not until at least 24 months after April 2011 (Oct 2013).
El Reg reported Spacex got the funding for the Dragon escape system this April and Musk's timetable was 3 years from then to fielding a fully crew rated capsule *including* a 6 month float for contingency problems)
Note that they have to launch 12 Dragons to ISS (presumably with *no* mishaps) before they carry crew. I'll guess they will be eager to launch those once COTS 2 7 3 are out of the way and I'll suspect they will use them to *gradually* implement the upgraded features to a full crew escape capability.
But we're still awaiting the COTS 2/3 demonstrator. Suggestions have been made the merged mission would fly in Oct 2011, which seems plausible as COTS2 should have been listed as a separate mission on the Spacex website by now as we are at the end of Q2.
Note both the European and Japanese cargo carriers docked with ISS on their *first* launches so Spacex's request to merge them is pretty reasonable.
"When I was young, I always dreamed I would see the first flight of a reusable space vehicle, and I did; but I never dreamed I would see the last... (with apologies)."
As the shuttle is rather more a tear-down-after-each-flight-and-rebuild-then-add-a-bunch-of-new-parts (The ET is *always* a one shot part and the SRBs are not AFAIK permanently partnered with any *specific* shuttle) you have seen *neither* the first nor the last flight of a *reusable* space vehicle.
Just a mostly *refurbishable* one.
It's taught a *lot* of lessons to a lot of people.
I expect what you're looking for to be along sometime in the next 10 years.
What' you've seen is *barely* the start of the art.
It will not be the end.
"An initiative, largely unfunded at present, has begun with its aim to improve the state of the instrumental land surface temperature record. "
The cynicism comes from the fact that what you describe seems so admirable it should be funded as a matter of course, if for no other reason than a general house clearing of what seems to be *highly* suspect data.
Except it isn't.
And the issues of data management seem so bad they should have been picked up and resolved *decades* ago.
Except they weren't.
I *fully* support this proposal. But boy has it taken them a while to get round to it.
The conduction path is only *part* of the problem.
Note that in *theory* the inks (or rather a basis for development) exist in the thick film hybrid industry. Both resistive and insulating ones exist so screen printed resistors (and to a lesser extent) capacitors have been available for decades.
*But* the substrates have usually been rigid ceramic and the firing temperatures have been in the 700-800c range (not really home oven use. Not even SMT hot level).
No one ever seems to have *quite* got round to making a semiconductor ink, which would be the *key* bit to making active devices like transistors.
Zinc Oxide? Titanium Oxide? (fairly cheap and classed as non toxic but I'm sure it is a semi-conductor) Cadmium Sulfide or Selenide? The last too are pretty toxic but definitely are.
Mine would be the one with a rather elderly back copy of Practical Electronics in the pocket.
The answer is with the lack of transparency of a UK energy bill you just don't know.
Just because an onshore wind turbine generates power < 6% of the time (at least one does this) the system still has to satisfy that need for electricity from somewhere.
The *target* for onshore wind availability is (IIRC) 26%. So a power station that's *not* wind reliant able to pick up at *least* 74% of the generating hours has to be standing behind that to deliver full service.
It will need >74% of the equivalent fuel duel due to frequent start up transients.
Factor in construction costs of *both* systems £4Bn could be on the *low* side.
And rape works almost as well as the ever popular TOTC routine.
But if Cooper has *so* many cases where DNA was the *key* element in finding the criminal why did choose ones which are so *marginal* in terms of the use of DNA?
Are these are her *best*?
Because (given the amount of time NuLabor's DNA policy has run, and is *still* running) you'd think she'd have some gems.
Cases where the culprit came within a *whisker* of walking away after 5 years.
Or perhaps where the DNA sample was the *only* evidence which (finally) gets a confession out of them. CCTV is rubbish, no finger prints, car identification etc.
Note that at present it is only *possible* Cameron's feet are turning to clay. I hope he will show some *real* backbone (or at least the Lib Dem force him to make good on his promise).
As for "remain private indefinitely" this is complete BS.
Depending how this is played the last investor in sets the market price (or at least that's what FB would *hope* would happen). So far $70Bn. Is $100Bn possible? Who knows.
Then the IPO happens and all the big share holders sell out (or rather cash in ) and Zuckerberg et all become billionaires (or in some cases *multi* billionaires).
Leaving the new owners to work out what the company is *really* worth. IE its actual net *profit* and dividends.
We know FB is popular and collects *lots* of personal information about people.
But how much *money* does it make from this?
Is called Geothermal Energy Extraction System Organic Rankine (GESSOR)
Thought up by a Lecturer at Reading U in the late 70's and of course completely ignored by generations of civil servants because it's too "small" scale.
A relatively little known fact about boreholes is that *all* of them are quite hot, ranging from roughly 50c to something like 350c. It 's driven by the Earths' natural radioactivity and will last for several billion years.
Standard SOP is to take over a field which is releasing hot(ish) water, run it through a heat exchanger with a low boiling point fluid on the other side (isobutane seems popular but I'd guess the flourocarbons would be safer) to drive a turbine then re-inject the fluid back into the ground
BTW The "fluid" is *not* water, it's hot brine, which is nasty, with dissolved things like sulphides, which makes it *much* nastier and you would not want them being vented to the atmosphere.
Ormat inc seem to be world leaders ( http://www.ormat.com/technology ). Their turbines even run slow enough to generate normal 50-60Hz mains power *without* the tricky power electronics usually seen in small directly connected turbine/generator systems. Probably a *very* smart move when they started 30 years ago , but I suspect there is much less of a price advantage today.
GESSOR eliminated needing 2 wells by *not* taking anything out of the ground. It inserts a heat pipe down the well and boils the working fluid in situ, In principle it needs more of the fluid (which is likely to be a bit expensive) but like other systems is closed cycle. The target were North Sea oil wells. 1 Platform (in the 1970's) could drill 20 holes and each well was anticipated to generate 0.5-1.0 MW.
pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/pdf/IGAstandard/SGW/1986/Lockett.pdf
There is a UK GS map of UK geothermal resources.
http://shop.bgs.ac.uk/Bookshop/product.cfm?p_id=UKGEO
An oil field about 50miles outside LA has 9000 wells of which c900 are still active. The other 8100 would generate roughly 4GW (about 6% of the UK electricity demand).
24/7/365.
For the next several billion years.
The Dept of Energy and the CEGB probably found this all a bit complicated in the 1970's (We're not interested unless it's at *least* a GW on 1 site).
How about a 1 MW power source in your back garden?
Probably something quite hard to understand by Cameron's standards.
Anaerobic digestion?
Micro hydro?
Tidal (not *necessarily* involving an estuary barrage)?
Wave? In fact some of the systems the *Scottish* parliament are trialling around the Scottish coast.
Sadly most of these are a *bit* complicated to explain (in a sentence of less than 10 words and words of less than 2 syllables) and lack the oh-look-at-us-we're-doing-something quality that a bunch of *huge* windmills have.
Even if some of those windmills spend <6% of the year doing *anything*.
There is *actually* an audit trail.
Funny whenever some member of the general public has their personal information screwed up (as described on El Reg previously) it's "Sorry we don't hold a record of who accessed your records, changed them and f**ked up your life for 6 months."
Of course audit trails are only useful when they lead to trials, preferably of the criminal variety, or at least dismissal.
Thumbs up for a local paper doing a bit of proper *investigative* journalism for once.
"We have *no* monopoly. We're just *really* good at our business. Anyone could compete with us if they wanted to*"
Thumbs up for this. Better late than never.
*And had a few $Bn to build the data centres and get Intel to specially screen their processors for us.That's called a "Barrier to market entry"
But you'd never guess that.
As for "known" holes.
Well if they are *known* this suggests big red flags in the manual along the lines of "Review *all* administration settings dealing with this and the code that handles them"
It's not bugs that annoy me.
It's people tripping up over the *same* bugs. over and over again.
Mirrors are NOT 100% reflective.
Quite true.
"specialized dichrotic mirrors"
If you mean dichromic that's the kind of mirror that splits the IR generated in a cinema projector away from the visible light used to illuminate the film. The "di" means 2 in Latin, not in dye. They are quite robust.
The mirrors in lasers reflect from roughly 97% to above 99%. precise thicknesses of conductors and non conductors. Usually vacuum deposited.
"Anti-reflective" coatings are also interference based and rely on the same technology. Since they are incorporated in camera lenses and sun glasses I'd say they are fairly rugged.
I'll summarize .
No.
in more detail.
Skylon. Single stage air breathing reusable Hydrogen fueled horizontal take off and landing orbital (M23) launch vehicle.
Falcon 9/Dragon. 2 stage expendable (so far) Kerosene fueled orbital (M23) rocket mounting returnable reusable (designed for re-use but AFAIK not tested as such, yet) capsule.
Virgin Galactic 2 stage reusable *sub* orbital (M3 max) horizontal take off and landing with 1 jet powered stage, one hybrid (NOx/rubber) engine.
Branson does not want to be a spaceship developer. Musk does not want to do wings. The *main* overlap is *all* of them are pursuing people and satellites that pay.
"license the closed loop cooling system..."
It's a key part of the SABRE *engine*, not the structure, and liquid Hydrogen is a *key* part of what makes it work. The other don't use H2 and don't *want* to use it, or rather the builders of VG's vehicles don't want to use.
Virgin Galactic *might* look at a passenger carrying Skylon if it was built. Part of that might be to sign an MoU which Reaction Engines Ltd (Skylon is the product) could use to raise finance on, making it more likely to *be* built in the first place (and they might no be alone in signing such a document).
"Granted I know bugger all about this"
That's a given. However you're smart enough to know it. That gives you an advantage. And you're a bit less ignorant than you were. You might also look up ITAR (not the Russian news agency) and how it makes putting *any* kind of non US payload on a US launcher a real PITA.
Disclosure. I work for none of the above, but I did write to Reaction Engines a long time ago and they kindly wrote back. You could have read everything else on the web.
It's not *factually* incorrect.
But the *implications* it makes about the competence of Spacex's management are grossly slanted.
Anyone *not* knowing any better would consider his criticism damming (and if they are reading his blog they probably don't).
He's definitely a mouth for hire. I note the PhD is PolSci, not anything relevant to a discussion about engineering, business management or even the economics of space launch (travel is what happens to the payload *after* it reaches orbit. That part humans can already do quite well).
"Hello Mr Customer. You have a *big* problem. It's huge, gigantic even but fortunately I can solve it. Roughly speaking it's........"
"What, you've heard nothing about it and I'm a what?"
<checks diary>
"My mistake. I read my calendar wrong. I'll call you back next week."
Seriously he is published on risk assessment but this business looks like his idea of "risk assessment" is more along the line of "You risk your reputation if you don't hire me."
http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/4324/
A staff photo that I think is aiming at "avuncular" but looks more Don Corleone does not help
- Don't strap it anywhere near the rocket output
Most conventional launchers manage this.
- Don't let it weigh a hideous percent of the capacity
ESA describe Vega's capacity as 1500Kg in a 700km polar orbit. While launching it *along* the equator (or about 5deg off) will increase that somewhat this is well loaded for this launch vehicle. OTOH Vega is a totally *solid* vehicle of 3 SRB's in series. Like the US Scout but made in Italy. Might be a Ferrari, then again might be an Alfa Romeo.
- Think about using it to replace traditional capsule-configurations
If this a *proper* X programme then absolutely not. The information collected (which *should* be extensive) is the real payoff. It anchors the CFD and FEA software systems which *might* be used to design a proper vehicle (or prove the benefits of this have too many drawbacks).
People underestimate 2 things. The amount of cross range a capsule design *can* have and the difficulty of building a non axi-symetrical pressure vessel (X33 mult lobed Hydrogen tank anyone?)
It isn't clear whether they have addressed the following shuttle issues:
- Heat shedding during re-entry and landing
Well the relevant PDF on the ESA web site (bul128h_tumino.pdf which dates from 2006) mentions RCC ( a German specialty which should have flown on the X38) but the *aim* of an X programme is to try out *different* options and hopefully find what's best for what conditions.
- Landing gear
I think "The craft will then descend by parachute and land in the Pacific Ocean to await recovery and analysis" give a pretty big clue as to how they will handle this.
- Emergency evacuation during many parts of the launch cycle
It's an *unmanned* experimental vehicle, *not* a prototype like the X33. It fails it's toast.
If this sort of thing interests you you'd need to look at "FAcing the heat barrier by TA Heppenheimer," specifically the USAF's ASSET and PRIME programmes of the late 1960''s.
Not to mention the X20 Dyna-Soar.
The world has been here before (last time Orbital Sciences pitched it as crew vehicle with *half* the capacity of the Dragon capsule, which already exists).
It's been in first launch real-soon-now status since about 2009.
Europe's first mostly *Italian* designed and built launcher.
No that is not a joke.
Note that first launches (I've seen *no* indication of any other payload on Vega and the ESA page has not been updated since Feb this year) have a 50/50 shot at a successful launch.
To be fair Italy was the *only* European launch site for Scout solid rocket launchers (possibly NASA's *least* remembered but surprisingly successful rocket).
Icon expresses my surprise (to put it mildly)
A curious "Coalition of the willing" (to hand over damm near any amount of data) is it not?
Were these who were also mad keen on ISP having to hunt down copyright violations?
This groups sounds strangely familiar....
And as other have noted on the 9/11 perpetrators *domestic* US flights were seized by foreigners with *valid* visas.+
And by the way. Osabana bin Laden is *dead*. US forces killed him.
Remember?
Thumbs down for this US behavior. It'd be thumbs up for European stance (the above countries excepted).
A coal slurry was the original fuel Kelly Johnson had earmarked for what became the SR71.
Were it *possible * to carve big rings of coal out of a coal seam they could be inserted into the casing of a hybrid rocket, with LO2 providing the oxidiser. *Potentially* very cheap and fairly good performance but from a safety point of view a design you can shut *down* in an emergency.
Sadly they don't mine coal that way.
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