You need to cite a source for those numbers, the linked article says 464M$ average launch price for ULA (Atlas V/Delta IV). SpaceX costs look like all up, 125M$ for AtlasV looks like launch vehicle itself, maybe, no integration or launch costs or sustainment or etc. additional costs. What does ULA get, total, from the Federal and State Govt, for how many launches?

Proton M looks same, vehicle only.

Not criticizing, but would love to see the source of that data.

andy

Boeing and Airbus actually compete on jetliners. Embraer et. al. would jump in if they slacked off.

Boeing and Lockheed-Martin got the federal government to fund the development of two separate EELV rockets, so there would be competition, then spun their rocket businesses off into United Launch Alliance and got rid of the competition between them. Amaze anyone that costs are now half a billion to orbit?

Spacex can crush them.

andy

People will still need human jobs, robot bartenders/wait staff will be a novelty. Rich people will always want to show how rich they are, the economy will cope with machines.

Strippers, for example, make far more than the minimum wage. There will always be a human market.

Fashion, art, archtecture, none are machine driven.

Science, engineering, have survived the computer age, they will continue to do so.

All this does if free us from some of the boring jobs leaving us free to do interesting ones.

If the only existence you can imagine for yourself is 40 hours a week doing production line assembly, I really feel for you, you are missing the whole point of being human.

andy

I have gotten 4.1 and 4.2 basically the day it was released on my Galaxy Nexus, and any updates same (4.2.1 currently). Rox. T-Mobile prepaid. Rox. Don't see why I would go with anything else, ever; half price of iPhone, half price for service, does everything I need it to.

App for everything. I'm sure there are corner cases, but I don't need paper maps, a GPS, flashlight, camera, laptop (for travelling anyway...), or a music player, in addition to a phone, anymore.

andy

I used to think like that. I have worked for a defense contractor now, and they are wasteful entities. Not as wasteful as government entities, but damn close. Elon did an interview with Wired, it was good. He looked for ways to do things cheaper better faster. In the world of defense contractors, that's very easy pickings. He also put up his own money to start.
I think you would be suprised how cheap a lot of big government purchases could be, if done the same way. We have the examples, SpaceX rockets, Predator drones, Wright Brothers.

The only reason government contractors complain about requirements is they are taking government money to do the DESIGN, PROTOTYPING, and production. If you do it all on your own, you get to do it your way; but if it fails, you get nothing.

andy

I think you have that wrong way round, the Hubble mirror is the size it is because Lockheed (prime) could build it cheaper if it was sized the same as satellites they were already building. See wikipedia article on kh-11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_Kennan
these were 2.4m space telescopes first launched in 1976, same prime as Hubble.

andy

I love that AMD makes current gen processors that fit in previous gen mb, so I can do a cheap mid-life upgrade. Athlon X2 to Phenom 2 X4 (945) chip; AM2 mb. Awesome! Cheap. It will be a sad day if AMD goes away, left with only Intel expensive for homebuilds.... Only AMD has made sense for me, pretty much every time I was building a machine. Their cost-performance was the best for complete machine builds, not withstanding the cheap mid life upgrade bonus above.

andy

Music? You do know that Tipper Gore (Mrs. Al Gore) was cofounder of the PMRC, who absolutely tried to control the music we listen to. They all the same man, two sides of the same coin.

This music witchhunt, that was during the time when climate change was the most important thing in the world, to Al, that he never did a damn thing about, in all his years of public service.

Or something.

andy

How did you do that, get in my brain?

*grin*

This is awesome! Fake post to slashdot, fake website for kitchen faucets...is this the intarwebs everyone else gets?

I don't have my abuse numbers anymore, can someone rid the net of this scum please?

andy

T-Mobile Monthly. 60$, 2GB 4G, unlimited slow after that. Unlimited text and voice. Spotty coverage for data, but sometimes blazing fast (SF bay area, LA, etc).

Most importantly, no hassles! Pay. Works. Don't pay, doesn't work. No contract. No activation fees. No fee fees. OMFG awesome.

You have to provide your own phone. Google Galaxy Nexus was my choice, but then I like the Google infrastructure.

andy

Worked well when we used it. Email to the network owner, log excerpts, etc; they found machine and fixed it. One was in Italy at some university, they were really cool, emailed us back and everything. Didn't work all the time, but you would be amazed how well a nice note to the network folks works. They don't want to pollute the net; they are much like you in that way.

andy

This situation was made for lawyers. Or something.

andy

Might be a cool study tho, anti-vaxx schools. Then when their kids die or get sick IN DROVES, people will forget about this stupid anti-vaxx movement. Think about how fast a contagion will move through a completely defenseless population. Would only take 1 or 2 examples for parents to wake the fsck up. Especially since its the wealthy heli perents who are anti-vaxx and relying on others to protect their preciouses....

andy

We call this practice, bottom feeding....

Makes you wonder why HR would do this if their hires will jump ship at the earliest opportunity...Oh w8, its HR. Lowest dollar hire wins! Id10ts.

andy