In short, they can't without significantly adding to the cost. They are at the limit of what can be shielded using current technology (I'm referring to the heat shield). Any shield larger, needed to protect a larger payload, would cook the payload. There's some ideas on how to make larger heat shields, but they haven't been tested (or even built) yet.

I don't even know if there's a rocket large enough to carry such a large vehicle to Mars as the one you're proposing.

Finally, the cost doesn't proportionally go up with extra weight on the vehicle. They go up exponentially. It would probably be cheaper to send two identical vehicles than to send one that weighs twice as much.

If the interviewer has any brains, I'm sure they'd grant some amount of syntax mistakes so long as you show the basic understanding of pointers. If you wrote:

struct abcd {
    abcd* next;
    int value;
}

rather than:

struct abcd {
    struct abcd* next;
    int value;
};

I don't think they would hold it against you. Even if you forget the name of C's memory allocation function malloc() and just wrote memory_allocator() I think that would be fine since anyone can quickly look up function names in a normal working environment.

If you are used to using references in Java and forget C's * syntax for pointers, they'd probably just ask you more questions about that to make sure you understand how linked lists are supposed to work.

On the other hand, if they simply took the code you wrote and gave you a pass/fail on whether it compiled and worked then that would be ridiculous.

At least they didn't ask to code a linked list in Java. In C it's trivial with pointers. In Java, I would be stuck at "Why?" since there's already a LinkedList container. I'm only partially kidding.

It's not really that unfair of a question because the answer is so simple and fundamental. It basically shows that you understand the concept of pointers and memory allocation, which even in Java is relevant due to the similarity to references.

I have. While the fear of being alone is common enough, I haven't heard of anyone at that age believe there's a significant chance they will die if left alone. This isn't a fear she told others about. As far as I can determine, I'm the only one she told about why she didn't want to be alone.

She also didn't seem to have any mental disorder. I'm familiar with several different ones, and she seemed completely normal with the exception of not wanting to be alone for any significant length of time.

On top of that, the odds of this happening while she was alone were very low. Out of the entire year we spent together, there were only 4 or 5 days she spent several hours or more alone. She had a full-time job and almost always had days off on the same days I did.

To me, the problem is simple. Anything I can think of that would be predicted by something that has no physical basis cannot be studied scientifically. Even if the prediction is true, how can the prediction be repeated? Obviously, some sort of advanced scientific knowledge gleaned simply from religion would be wonderful, but the lack of such proof doesn't mean other predictions are false.

For a personal example, my wife recently passed away at the age of 24. Ever since she was young she hated being alone. She had a vivid dream when she was a child that she was going to die alone at a young age. She also very much believed this dream, going to such lengths as going to work with her mom or always living in homes with roommates. She was also extraordinarily careful, trying not to do anything risky or dangerous.

Yet, after spending over 3 weeks together on our honeymoon, she died the day after we returned home while I was at work. It was the first time she had been alone in over 25 days. She died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism, without showing any symptoms during the weeks prior to her death.

In addition, just two months before the trip she emphatically warned me to not leave her at home alone. On her last day, I simply forgot about it and thought she would want rest (she had even wanted to go with me to work that day).

This, of course, is a one-time event and not reproducible. It seems very unlikely that a young woman would be in such fear of dieing alone at that age and, despite her best efforts, dieing alone. It could be a case of bizarre coincidences, but of course to me that also seems unlikely.

Even a student's time is worth something. Nobody can write a program for truly 'free'. There is always an opportunity cost.

Except that Hoover was very reluctant to pump money into the economy or try in anyway to save the banks. That's a pretty huge difference. There's also a pretty big difference between the depression that resulted from Hoover's actions (or inactions) and today's recession.

This is something you can test yourself without too much trouble.

Make two boxes sealed in plastic. Put some dry ice in one, nothing in the other. Put a thermometer in each one and place them under a heat lamp. The one with dry ice will definitely be warmer than the other box.

You could easily saturate one box with water vapor and leave the other one dry if you want to do another experiment.

ANA was the launch partner with Boeing for the 787. They ordered the first set of 787s years ago and played a large role in the initial requirements that the 787 is designed to meet (although other customers played important roles in the design requirements of the 787 too). Without ANA the 787 would likely be a somewhat different jet and the design process may not have started at that time.

However, they did not provide engineering help to Boeing. They were upset about the delays with the 787 like all of the other customers, but all Boeing could do was to be flexible with them and substitute 767s or other jets for some of the 787s ANA ordered. Boeing also paid penalties to ANA for being late and likely gave them additional discounts as well.

Customers only have so much flexibility with the 787. No passenger 787 can be bought that does not include the cool lights and darkening windows. They can add more seats, but nothing close to 500 of course. The 787 that could carry the most is the 787-9, at nearly 300.

The 787 is designed as a replacement to the old 767 and carries roughly the same number of passengers. It has a slightly longer range with the main improvements being passenger comfort (lights, windows, reduced cabin noise) and greater efficiency (uses about 20% less fuel than the 767).

I would not have the job I have today without subsidized student loans. My family couldn't afford to give me any money to go to college and I could not have been able to afford to do it at the time either since I was only 18.

I've had this job for 10 years (ever since I graduated) and am very grateful to have it. Even if I could have had private loans for college, the interest rate would have made it difficult for years afterward due to the higher payments needed.

I am good friends with several Libertarians. However, they seem to be more idealistic than practical and every one of them came from a family that could have put them through college without subsidized student loans. If I told them I could not have gone to college with them without federally subsidized student loans they probably wouldn't believe me. But it's absolutely true.

I know someone who majored in Japanese, then got a masters in biochemistry and was in charge of a project putting a microbiology experiment on a satellite. She's intelligent in many ways, but is also an anti-vaxxer. She grew up in an extremely conservative family though, which I think may have had something to do with it.

I watched the original on cntv.cn yesterday before they took it down. I'm not exactly sure how Falun Gong was able to hack cntv.cn.

The Chinese people have an even crappier opinion of their government than we do.

There's no comparison between the US and Chinese governments. Heck, I know a girl whose family is well connected politically in China and even she doesn't want to deal with the Chinese government. It's just far too corrupt and everyone only cares about themselves. The government is completely opaque and it's ridiculously easy to embezzle public money due to the lack of accountability and openness. And that's at the national level, at the local level it's even worse, especially in the countryside.

Just for one specific example, a drunk guy ran over and killed a couple of women late at night. When the police showed up, he said he was the mayor's son so what were they going to do about it. Fortunately, someone got it on video and it caused the people to protest and force him to go to jail (and for his father to apologize). But that guy's attitude is pervasive in the Chinese government's upper levels, with political power tending to pass from one generation to the next and having the ability to do almost anything and get away with it.