Re: So... uhm...
That's the idea.
Posts by Andrew Newstead
269 posts • joined 11 Sep 2008
Woman sues NASA for ownership of vial of space dust
Re: So... uhm...
No, they are only claiming ownership of the materials that they spent the money on to retrieve and bring back to Earth. If you go and collect your own samples then that is a different matter.
Take-off crash 'n' burn didn't kill the Concorde, it was just too bloody expensive to maintain
Re: Surprise Sighting
That one was going up to the air museum at east Fortune, near Edinburgh The one at Filton was flown in..
Sysadmin wiped two servers, left the country to escape the shame
Started learning my more serious computing with a Sinclair QL (when they were being sold cheap at Dixons). The first lesson with a QL was backup everything because the microdrives were finicky as hell!
I ended up having 3 or more copies of everything I was using. Still paranoid even now.
Prof Stephen Hawking's ashes will be interred alongside Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin
Re: Britain's highest honour?
It has been said that Hawking was offered a knighthood but turned it down as a protest over the state of funding in UK science at the time.
Seen from spaaaaace: Boffins check world's oceans for plastic
Fancy a viaduct? We have a wrought Victorian iron marvel to sell you
Just up the road...
Thanks for this article. I live just to the west of this in Derby. A thing that you might be interested to know is that Derby also has a good industrial museum as well as Nottingham. Situated in the old Silk Mill building, considered to be the first factory in the world! Well worth a visit.
Office junior had one job: Tearing perforated bits off tractor-feed dot matrix printer paper
Re: Speaking of carbon paper...
I keep some stashed away for model making projects, It's damn useful for tracing patterns onto sheet plastic.
Fender's 'smart' guitar amp has no Bluetooth pairing controls
A Hughes failure: Flat Earther rocketeer can't get it up yet again
Observing for your self
A simple bit of astronomy and travel can show you the Earth has a curved surface. Spot the pole star in your sky, note where it is in relation to the northern horizon. Travel a fair distance south and make the same observation again and see if it changes. If you are in the northern hemisphere then the the pole star will get closer to the northern horizon and on the equator the pole star will be on the horizon and will disappear over the horizon as you travel further south. This can only happen if the surface of the planet is curved.
And before you ask, yes I have carried out this test when I went on holiday from the UK to Crete a few years ago ago and got a definite change in position of the star patterns. If you accurately measure the angles involved you would be able to calculate using some simple trig the actual diameter of the Earth.
Supermicro is, like, totally harnessing green energy sources to churn out servers, dude
Re: coal gas
Ah the natural gas conversion. That was help start me down the electronics path. The fitters doing the conversions had lots of cable and battery holders they were scrapping off, every lad (and it was lads) in the street ended up with boxes of kit which we used to cobble up all sorts of circuits. The shocker circuits using some of the old transformers were fun...
SpaceX delivers classified 'Zuma' payload into orbit
Re: Mars Orbit?
As I understand it there will be no circularisation burn, just lobbing the Car into a Holman transfer.
Mars Orbit?
Come on Reg, you should know better! The Tesla roadster is not being sent into orbit around Mars, it is being launched into a solar orbit that goes out as far as Mars' orbit around the Sun.
Everyone is getting this wrong!
Apple embraces El Reg! iOS 11 is now biting the hand that types IT
Re: What do you expect?
Tribalism. History is full of examples of humanities' tendency for forming antagonistic cliques around concepts or physical items claiming their superiority, this is just another one.
OK, we admit it. Under the hood, the iPhone X is a feat of engineering
Same reason we build hi-rise buildings, to get more accomodation into a smaller footprint. In this case Apple frees up space to fit the larger battery needed for the display.
Ubuntu 17.10: We're coming GNOME! Plenty that's Artful in Aardvark, with a few Wayland wails
Re: Tension, apprehension, And dissension have begun.
"Tenser said the Tensor" - damn, I'm not going to get that out of my mind for the rest of the day...
Must re-read The Demolished Man again soon.
Hotter than the Sun: JET – Earth’s biggest fusion reactor, in Culham
Astroboffins spot tiniest star yet – we guess you could call it... small fry
Concorde without the cacophony: NASA thinks it's cracked quiet supersonic flight
User loses half of a CD-ROM in his boss's PC
Re: Slot loaders
I had one like that, except my one year old stuck a malted milk biscuit in the FDD of my old Mac 8600. That definitely needed a new drive...
Andrew
Opportunity rover gets bored of spot it's explored since 2014
Re: This article needs some translation to english
Er, the European Space Agency is not part of the EU. It is a separate organisation and not all EU countries are involved and a few non EU countries are. The UKs membership is not affected by Brexit.
Oh snap! UK Prime Minister Theresa May calls June election
Happy days for second-hand smartphone sales
Re: Yeah, duh...
The 5 and SE are also a reasonable fit for my hand - or am I holding it wrong...
International Space Station celebrates 18th birthday in true style – by setting trash on fire
velocity and space
A comment on the problem of matching velocities in orbit and living space on a Soyuz.
It's true that there are trajectories that allow a Soyuz to rendezvous with the ISS quickly ( a few hours) but these depend on the relative positions of the station and the launch site at launch. Sometimes these paths are not available and so there has to be a period of "catching up" in orbit, the Soyuz makes orbital changes that will allow it to gain on the station and then match orbit for docking. Things could be done faster but the Soyuz doesn't carry sufficient propellant to allow this and still have enough for a deorbit burn at the end of the mission.
Regarding the living space of the Soyuz, yes it is tight but it does have an orbital module attached, effectively a spare room. This more than doubles the living space of the Soyuz spacecraft compared to just the re-entry module on it's own and can be closed off from the re-entry module so giving a degree of privacy if needed. I believe the toilet facilities are in the orbital module. This module is usually full of cargo on the way up and is packed with rubbish for the return flight, as the module is jettisoned before re-entry and burns up in the atmosphere.
Hope this helps.
Pluto has massive underground oceans, say astro-boffins
Re: Past and present
Hold on, this is not an assertion but one of two different theories that have been offered to explain the observed data from New Horizons.
Your observations about the conditions on Pluto may indeed be correct, but there is evidence of the movement of the Sputnik Planitia within recent geological timescales. That and the visual absence of cratering on the surface of the Planitia, which is accepted as evidence of the activity of some sort of process that has recently (geologically speaking again) reshaped the area, leaving a smooth surface.
Some sort of activity is happening out there, that is apparent, and that implies a source of energy to drive it. This is just an attempt to explain that, not proof.
Boffins eschew silicon to build tiniest-ever transistor, just 1nm long
'Flying Bum's' first flight was a gas, gas, gas
Captain Piccard's planet-orbiting solar aircraft in warped drive drama
Re: No, it's not
Re the electric Hi-bypass fan, Rolls-Royce are investigating just this idea in relation to an hybrid propulsion system, with Airbus. In this approach a gas turbine powered generator produces electricity which is used by the electric fans.
Whether this actually comes about is another question.
Blighty will have a whopping 24 F-35B jets by 2023 – MoD minister
Re: Pound falls
Not necessarily, don't forget that these will sel in dollars. At the moment that means we will get good money for them. Rolls-Royce is doing well because of the fall of the pound.
PM resigns as Britain votes to leave EU
Flying Spaghetti Monster is not God, rules mortal judge
Re: Excellent
A bit of myth this. Protestantism was already underway in Europe due to the writings of Luther and Calvin as a reaction to the excesses of the Catholic Church at that time. In Britain this thinking was already gaining credibility before Henry jumped on it and formed the Anglican Church (which is not that different to the Catholic Church). The total break with Rome came with the Elizabethan Religious Settlement.
William Hague: Brussels attacks mean we must destroy crypto ASAP
History tells us...
I seem to remember that we didn't need encrypted digital communication methods for most of the cold war, World War 2, or the rest of recorded history come to that. Remove Crypto from mobile phones, internet, etc. and the bad guys will just go back to methods which don't rely on electronic communications, such as couriers (assuming they haven't already...).
Coat? - Mines the one with the John le Carre book in the pocket.
Norks uses ballistic missile to launch silent 'satellite'
Re: hmm
Difficult, the beast is in a polar orbit and neither the Americans or the Russians are set up to launch manned spacecraft to polar orbit.
However, it probably doesn't matter as the Americans (and probably the Russians too) have the capability of photographing the satellite from the ground and so, more than likely, have images of the satellite already.
http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2015-05-11
Unfortunately it doesn't have sufficient propellant to make the required orbital change. The space plane is in a roughly equatorial orbit and the Norks satellite in in a polar one. the space place would have to be launched into a polar orbit to intercept.
Come on kids, let's go play in the abandoned nuclear power station
Re: I visted here in 1988
Did they tell you the story about the visiting Prof who kept setting off the detectors - on the way in!
Turns out he has a tiny piece of something radioactive caught in the turn up of his trousers that had been dropped back in his lab at Harwell...
Whoops!
I visted here in 1988
In the late eighties they actually did run tours around Dounreay. My wife and I visited in 88 and spent the morning being shown around with a party of about 20 public, grups and kids. It was a fascinating day. We were shown around the hot lab facilities with 7 or 8 inches of lead glass between us and chunks of Uranium and Plutonium, remote manipulators being used. We even went into the Reactor building (the second one, not the golf ball) and stood on top of the reactor, which was not running at the time.
A very memorable day!
Four Boys' Own style World War Two heroes to fire your imagination
Not quite right about Bruneville
A few points.
The raiding party (about 150 men) was dropped into St Bruneville and taken off by sea. The raid was a spectacular success with the Paras holding off any kind of counter attack while the techies stripped the Radar set of most of it important black boxes and the antenna, all of which was brought back to Blightie for analysis.
What they found from this led to jamming techniques being developed for the bombers and helped to set up a decoy for the D Day landings
Andrew (something of a military history buff)
NASA books space shuttle delivery truck
Re: Awful
Hmmm - a couple of points need addressing here, I'll start with the last one, why should NASA want such a beast that can glide and land on a runway. The capsule method has been admitted to have quite a rough landing and this has caused concern that some of the more fragile payloads that need returning from the ISS will be damaged or destroyed on landing. The aerodynamic glide and landing has been shown (100 + space shuttle landings) to be very gentle and is considered to be more acceptable for fragile cargo. Also the cargo will be accessible much more quickly after landing because the vehicle will return to well equipped facility (usually the launch site).
Referring to the lifting body shape. This has been regarded as the best form of aerodynamic reentry vehicle since the sixties. As the body of the vehicle has the wing shape it is possible to pack the mechanisms of the craft into the vehicle much more efficiently than you would with the space shuttle. The shuttle's wings did indeed incur a mass penalty but this is not the case with a full lifting body design. The fins on the lifting body are not too much about lift, more directional control.
Bigger than Higgs? Boffins see hints of bulbous new Boson
Space fans eye launch of Lego Saturn V
Re: I'd have that
They certainly have! New tooling for the Apollo CSM to make it the correct diameter and a Skylab version with the Skylab fairing (no Skylab unfortunately, but does keep the Apollo bits). Mat Irvine, ex BBC model maker and a prominent figure in the space modelling community (yes, there is one) consulted for Airfix on the new parts.
And yes, I would have one of these Lego jobs like a shot!
Northrop wins $55bn contract for next-gen bomber – as America says bye-bye to B-52
A few comments
I've read the above with interest but I wonder if many commentards have actually read the reports and releases that have been circulated in the last few days. A few points I have picked up on.
1. The aircraft is not being seen as a big tech driver (in the same way as F35). The thinking is that USAF "really" needs these and doesn't want a big development holdup developing new tech.
2. The aircraft is being designed so that new tech can be added later, as it is developed. They are calling this an "open architecture", a "black box" aeroplane (not a particularly new trick, this is how the Tornado GR1 became the Tornado GR4).
3. Northrop apparantly got this gig based on the work done on two previous projects, The B2 stealth bomber and a very secret recce drone that seems to be in operation. Don't know much about the drone (obviously...) but the tech developed for the B2 would obviously be applicable without much change.
4. USAF has put a lot of effort and resource in up front during the competition between Northrop and Boeing/Lockheed to ensure the proposals would be mature enough to proceed to the next stage without compomising the aims of the project, a new bomber aircraft within the stated budget.
5. The individual flyaway cost of the aircraft is aimmed at being less that than that of the B2, whether it makes it of not is a moot point of course.
For reference;
http://aviationweek.com/defense/lrs-b-why-northrop-grumman-won-next-us-bomber?NL=AW-05&Issue=AW-05_20151028_AW-05_970&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1&utm_rid=CPEN1000001529824&utm_campaign=4155&utm_medium=email&elq2=f7479ce6bf80427eb8b8ba998f6da578
Crash this beauty? James Bond's concept DB10 Aston debuts in Spectre
Top boffin Freeman Dyson on climate change, interstellar travel, fusion, and more
Re: So you've reached 0.5c...
Robert Forward had a plan for this. His sail is split into a number of concentric sections. At launch we have the full sail and maximum acceleration. When we want to decelerate we detach the outer section of the sail and focus the laser light reflecting off it on to the central section. The outer section goes flying onwards but the centre section and payload decelerates into the target system. Forward then goes on to suggest that you drop further sections to act as a reflector to drive the vehicle back to Sol and then use the laser on the centre section for deceleration into the Sol system.
For reference see:
http://www.transorbital.net/Library/D001_AxA.html
Andrew
Virgin Media's SPAM-AGEDDON 'fix' silences mailboxes
Er Guys...
Not wanting to upset the applecart here folks, but until I read this piece I didn't know there had been problems with ntlworld addresses (obviously I have one). My email seems to be behaving itself, anyone else finding this?
Massive global cooling process discovered as Paris climate deal looms
Re: VOCs - white paint yellowing
Just a thought folks. I'm a model maker and one of the tricks we use to stop white paint (gloss or matt) yellowing over time is to add a drop of a royal blue paint to the white paint. Don't know the science but it does work quite well for both enamels and acrylics.
Spirit of the Ghost: Taking a Rolls-Royce Wraith around France
The Las Vegas incident was a GE 90 and the problem with the A380 only affected the Trent 900 model and has been addressed.
US to stage F-35-versus-Warthog bake-off in 2018
SPACESUIT, once FOUND ON MOON: Crowd action saves it for the public
Lunar module disposition
The Lunar module lower sections (descent stage) were left behind on the lunar surface when the astronauts returned to lunar orbit. These were designed to act as "launchpads" for the ascent stages. The original plan for the ascent stages was to be abandon them in lunar orbit after return to the Command module and this was done for Apollos 10 and 11. However from Apollo 12 onwards it was decided to de orbit the ascent stages and impact them on the surface to create artificial "Moon quakes" which could be recorded on the seismometers that were left on the surface of the moon. The only two that this did not happen with were Apollo 13 and Apollo 16. Apollo 13's LM was bought back from the Moon as a "lifeboat" and burned up in the Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean after separation from the command module. With Apollo 16 control of the LM was lost at jettison so the impact manoeuvre was abandoned an the LM left in lunar orbit.
For the vehicles left in lunar orbit their reprieve was short lived. One of the discoveries of the Apollo programmes was that the Moon's gravity field is not uniform, there seem to be "mass concentrations" that cause the field to vary significantly at different locations. This becomes difficult for plotting a spacecraft's orbit (indeed this is how they were found in the first place). Because of these variations the ascent stages eventually crashed into the surface of the Moon.
Hope this of use to you.
Ideal solar system for SECOND EARTH found – and it's just 186 light-years away
Behold: Pluto's huge ICE MOUNTAINS ... and signs of cryovolcanoes?
Re: Wow
Not quite accurate I'm afraid. Venus has had quite few spacecraft visit it, the latest being ESAs Venus Express. This number has included a number of landers and atmosphere probes.
