Posts by John Smith 19

@JimC

"here are dozens of good reasons why that could be... A Social worker who is on out of hours duty call for a large area could easily have to have basic detail on that many clients, if its only at the level that so and so is a client. And if you are out on the road then its going to be very difficult to find a Government Connect approved link, so you won't be able to get into the on line system, even if it is 24*7 supported (unlikely - budgets) and guaranteed to be available when you need to find out if Mr X has a history of beating up his current girlfriends little children or Ms Y has tendency to feed the kids smack if they wake up and cry in the night.."

All very worthy

So why not fit *all* office laptops with something like truecrypt and either assign and change the passwords on a regular basis (not letting staff change their own) or explain in detail what happens if they forget it.

@James Hughes 1

"If this fine means other councils get their act together then it is an acceptable burden on the taxpayer."

That's one hell of a *big* if.

@Piloti

short answer. You're wrong.

Look up what a software defined radio is. Pay particular attention to "phased array antennas" and "synthetic beam forming".

This is *low* level, high bandwidth activity.

@Robert Sneddon

"If Europe really wanted to get a man into space then using the new Soyuz launchpad would probably be best with a proven man-rated booster and capsule combo bought off-the-shelf from the Soviets, sorry, Russians "

Almost certainly.

however

"rather than trying to man-rate the Ariane and design a capsule version of the ATV in another round of reinvent-the-wheel."

Ariane 5 was *planned* to be man rated (AFAIK) as the planned launcher for the Hermes space plane. It's not entirely clear to me if they went ahead and did it or if that "rating" has been preserved given the various upgrades it's had.

I would guess the capsule bit would be an enlarged ARD (which used the Apollo shape) which ESA flew some years ago from an ex-Russian SLBM (IIRC) and which went without a hitch.

The basis of NASA's version of man rating AFAIK is structural safety factor of 1.4 + abort detection system + something a meatsack can trigger to get the crew out of there + crew escape system to get them out of there.

The first is cheap if you're still in design phase and willing to knock off a bit of payload. The 2nd might need some additional hardware in the control package (which usually seems to be at the top end of the last stage. Odd given a lot of time it will be issuing commands to the engines at the bottom end of *all* stages) and the third would mean running some wires from the control package upward to the capsule. What to do when astronaut (cosmonaut? euronaut?) presses the big red button can be tricky (and is why Spacex is saying it would take 36 months from contract funding till they could fly a human carrying capsule)

I've unaware of the ESA version but I'll guess it's pretty similar.

@K. Adams

"With a modest sacrifice in cargo capacity, you could add a parachute pack and an ablative cork outerliner (like what SpaceX is doing with its Falcon series),"

The capsule is called Dragon, Falcon is the launcher.

" and turn the pod into a reusable cargo module."

the key ablative is called PICAX, although their may be some cork used. Spacex seem keen on re-flying their capsules. Expdendable launch vehicle <> expendable capsule.

ESA have *talked* about enhancing the ATV design to act as a European capsule but has never got round to it.. The ARD programme demonstrated that Europe can do this.

"On the other hand, NASA's Space Shuttle, while reusable and very versatile, requires specialized refurbishment using high-tech ceramics and adhesives"

Reusable. Hardly. Refurbishable at best. The adhesive is "Room temperature vulcanisalbe" and is basically the stuff used to stick tiles to bathroom walls. But the tiles are specialized and expensive.

"Unless a good, reliable Single-Stage to Orbit (SSTO) technology comes along, I doubt we'll ever see anything like it launched again.)"

Depends what you mean by that.

"Like" as in wings? Possibly*. The cheapest *programme* option would be to go with a design which has lots of wind tunnel and flight experience IE the Orbiter shape. "Like" as in dump two refurbishable solid fuel boosters and an expendable propellant tank on the way up then I sincerely hope not. It would not be "Single Stage" would it?

As has been fairly well documented the STS was an architecture driven by a stupid funding pattern (which had *no* basis in the funding pattern of *real* large development projects), political coalition building and the technical failure of the engine manufacturers to deliver the spec they promised.

If you find the answer to the question is the STS architecture the *question* is FUBAR.

*Reaction Engines in the UK advocate a winged SSTO. Most SSTO supporters feel wings are a waste of mass and the cross range is unnecessary to the vehicles *primary* mission. The last serious attempt at a *preliminary* SSTO design was the DC-X with was large capsule shaped.

but planned to use a nose first entry (capsule cross range goes up quite a bit but so does heating).

Mines the one with the NASA Project Management handbook in the side pocket.

AC@16:30

*Brilliant* concept

Only I seem to recall the NSF releasing a report explaining that cross matching comms references to find the hidden terrorists by the their pattern of phone calls, texts etc was complete BS.

So does *anyone* know how well this supposed software works IRL?

@Vic

"Besides the fact that it is easier to make cylindrical pressure vessels than flat-sided ones,"

Quite true. However the lightest structure is one that carries *no* pressure load, by letting both side reach equal pressure. This is one of the reasons for the 18 vents on the side of the space shuttle (the payload bay is not pressurized in flight).

" they put live cargo (animals) in the hold. That kinda implies a pressurised hold..."

Note that word "mostly*. On most passenger flights there is no need (is it even possible) to enter the cargo holds and no need to keep them pressurized. IIRC some can be. It's more expense and trouble for the airlines.

@Darren Tuffs

"If i say im going to do something for a price then do it but 2 years late and 4 times the cost id lose all credability and likely my job as well!"

You're not familiar with the defense con-tracting business then.

IIRC (reported in el Reg) the *average* MoD contract is 60% overdue.

AFAIK the Defense business is the one area where being over budget, over schedule and having produced *nothing* which comes close to meeting its acceptance criteria is not *quite* enough to kill a project.

Part of this might have to do with the MoD's (and other defense departments) fondness for changing the spec every so often, where had they built a bit of flexibility into the it in the first place, they'd get something working sooner rather than later.

The fact that decades of UK government policy to build a "National champion" has resulted in a company which is the *only* UK (ish) company that can build the big bits of defense hardware the MoD craves like a crack addict pretty much guarantees 1 bidder on the table and you take their price, because *no* foreign company could *possibly* meet the MoD's *unique* needs for stuff.

thumbs up because in the real world you're quite right.

AC@14:43

" This will have a big effect on the local area - many of these people were my schoolmates"

As it *always* does. Is it in a marginal Lib Dem or Con seat? Being in one (when Labor was in power) was very helpful then they were deciding where to build the next generation of aircraft carriers and submarines (coincidentally also built by BAe)

And once again BAe will play the "But think of the *incalculable* loss of skills/jobs/(revenue-to-us) to British industry" card.

As they *always* do.

I think BAe have used it's staff as "human shields" *many* more times than Saddam Hussein ever did.

""Maybe they should use some of the billions saved to help the 450 employees and families who will be affected when the jobs are lost."

I quite agree.

As others have said if it's defense industry jobs you could take *half* the programmes cost and pay *every* worker (they tend to earn normal peoples salaries, not investment gamblers) their *lifetimes* salary *several* times over and still come out a *long* way ahead.

It's funny in the 80's people used a similar argument to keep open the steel works of British Steel open. A group with 10s of 1000s of workers.

The government of the day didn't bat an eyelid on shutting them down.

I find defense engineering fascinating (human kind is rarely so creative as when it's trying to hunt and kill its fellows) but I loath special pleading by giga dollar (most of BAe staff are *not* in the UK and most of it's revenue is not in £. So much for the "British" in BAe) defense con-tractors.

I don't think I've *ever* seen a group of *huge* companies more prone to special case whinning that than the giga corps of the defense *business* (not hobby, charity, vocation or sacred trust)

Actually I do have a more constructive suggestion on defense procurement but I'll leave than for a more balanced post.

@Tanuki

"If you mention the 1980s Nimrod AEW3 I may have to bore you to suicidally-high levels of ennui with tales of semaphore-programming on the dreaded GEC 40xx series computers."

Would that have been the processor that ran so hot it needed liquid cooling?

Very fortunate indeed that the Nimrod designers had included space for some large coolant tanks in the wings.

Seriously weren't programmed in some kind of GEC proprietary language known only to a bout 4 people outside the company (3 of whom were ex employees)?

@davenewman

"I thought it was civilian Comets, with square windows, that were notorious for breaking in two after metal fatigue had grown cracks from the window corners right around the fuselage?"

Not quite. The original comet design had square windows whose corners acted as stress concentrators, which eventually called structural failure. The design was revised but the length of time taken to handle the situation meant other design were bought by the airlines. Frankly De Havilland (the original manufacturer) eagerness to use their own engine subsidiaries engines (none of which were very powerful) mandated *very* thin sheet and their lack of long term fatigue testing (to get it into the market ahead of Boeing) coupled with a patchy record on stress analysis (they seemed to have a tendency to break up in mid air) pretty much spelt accident waiting to happen.

" It was so famous that Nevil Shute wrote a popular thriller about it."

Not quite. The one I know "No highway" was written in 1948, the comet crashes date from the early 50's. It's been filmed with James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. The book is better.

@Dave 15

"where we might as well scrap the whole ministry of defence and armed forces in their entirity."

Hmmm.

Not sure about the *armed* forces but the MoD?

Remember all that oh-so-clever procurement took 20 000 staff to do.

And it looks like they still got it wrong.

@Steven Hunter

I'd always thought it was an ironic term for slow-witted (like "tiny" being a nickname for a a great bear of a man).

I think the UK associates it with the mythical Greek (hunter?)

@bitmap animal

"Very disappointed to see tabloid headline-grabbing tactics of valuing one plane using the total project cost against the build costs of individual production aircraft."

Look up the term "Absorption costing".

It's *very* popular in military procurement circles (popular with military con-tractors that is).

AC@18:18

"On a tangent, does anyone recall the GEC scientists that started commiting "suicide" in increasing bizarre ways "

Dimly.

it was in the late 80s, early 90's.

Someone noticed a bunch of specialists had committed suicide. I don't think they were all with the Generally Evil Company but they were all (or mostly) Asian men (Indian or Pakistani origin, not Viet Nam), most if not all were married and the suicides often involved drowning in lakes or rivers. They all seemed to be involved in "Signal processing" IIRC in a marine environment, so probably EW or ASW work. There was a book published but it did not seem to have a theory.

BTW I don't think it's a myth that the suicide rate amongst married Asian men is exceptionally low.

The whole thing seemed so bizarre I kept expecting a rather dapper old Etonian in a bowler hat and umbrella to pop up and start asking questions.

Mine will be the one with The Avengers Season 1 DVD in the pocket.