IBM isn't anymore. I know this from inside source from different fronts: IBM buys companies, then squeezes the lemon. Then dumps it.

For years, IBM has taken over departments of companies tired of "managing IT", rehired the people who were fired on worse terms. while they are declined training or any other investment. "Take it or leave it".

They have one huge battery of dusty old consultants, who have been unmarkettable. IBM itself isn't anything progressive from themselves anymore. Dusty, clunky legacy pile of shit software.

The launch window is small because ISS has to be essentially lined up in orbit in a tight tolerance (called the phase angle) to rendezvous this quickly. Usually the Soyuz plays "catch up" over 2 days by flying lower (and faster) than ISS. You can control the closing rate between the vehicles by altering the altitude difference between them, which allows you to make up differences in the orbits between the vehicles. Those differences are usually just fallouts of other things, like having uncertainty in launch dates, getting the altitude just right for other vehicles (there is about a rendezvous a month at ISS), etc. It's not because Soyuz is slow, it's because spreading the rendezvous over 2 days gives you some targeting flexibility.

You have less margin to work with when you are trying to get there in 4 orbits instead of 34 orbits. Hitting that target with both ISS and Soyuz is hard but it's more about ground targeting than performance of the launch vehicle. The launch vehicle didn't give any extra oomph to get there faster, the ground essentially had the vehicle phasing in a tight tolerance at launch. They also sped up some of the tracking that was being done and turning that around into updated burns for the next orbit instead of coasting to a set of burns the next day, which was a bunch of work for the ground in a short period of time.

The Russians that devised this actually published it - it's an interesting read if you have access to the journal or want to spend $32:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576510001633

I can only imagine how many tens of billions that will cost.

Just get a google datacenter up there and have them pay rent to NASA.

Soon you'll have Microsoft trying to follow, while a privatized space-launcher shoots up new techies and supercomputers.

Economical crisis averted, jobcreation as long we whip our globally our creditcards and click adwords.

I don't think you're going to find a GPS based solution to help you

If the guy wants scuba GPS, get him his scuba GPS and become somewhat creative:

• Make a small floating GPS-receiver which floats and follows you and tracks your location (by your sonar pattern fe.) add some sonar panels.
• Attach GPS-receiver to snorkel, only update GPS location when you come to the surface for a low-resolution path of your adventures
• etc.. I'm sure egineers in this forum can come up with another 100 approaches

A man with such an accomplishment on his CV will always find a job.

You must be a youngling.

I have an impressive CV. Each job or client they allow me to do more difficult and complex things.

In your carreer, if you give your maximum you won't come into a comfortable zone: each other job I need to give maximum (to maintain what I have on my record) PLUS the extra edge expected "for someone with such a CV".

There are moments you cannot keep it up though, and your energy levels and determination can't keep up with your CV. After 10 years carreer in misc fields (advertizing, finance, mobile, retail, ...) I burned out. I haven't cashed in my CV and will need to perform at the same level to embody my CV.

If you want to take a step back (my exgf worked 10 years in finance, wanting to get out) you'll hear "You are overqualified for this job".

Too bad they've traditionally been buried beneath a *horrid* UI

Make the UI layer detached from all the core logic. Get a GUI-oriented guy to focus on the UI only.

I thought this was a standard design pattern, no ? There's nothing "burried", they just had more focus on the functionality and don't have a dedicated GUI guy.