Three. Carmack did the same, but he backed out I believe.
Now revived as a kickstarter, Exos Aerospace
Four, Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic
Five, Paul Allen, Stratolaunch/Vulcan Aerospace
why Jeff Bezos is doing the same thing that SpaceX is already doing ?
They're not, New Shepard is a SUBorbital craft not an orbital one. I don't know if there are even any plans to make an orbital version...
From https://www.blueorigin.com/new...
"We continue to be big fans of the vertical takeoff, vertical landing architecture. We chose VTVL because it’s scalable to very large size. We’re already designing New Shepard’s sibling, her Very Big Brother – an orbital launch vehicle"
So: yes.
Desalination is a plausible solution for water for consumer use--that is, urban and suburban locations.
It is not a very plausible solution for agricultural use-- too expensive.
Actually, there are a number of issues with desalination as it presently exists. The cost of plant construction and operations puts the cost of water supply at roughly triple that of traditional methods.
Exactly. That's why it's not a plausible solution for agricultural use. If your application is to take water and spray it on the ground, yes, it needs to be cheap.
For urban and suburban use-- well, given the rents, and the cost of housing, in San Diego (not even to mention San Francisco!)-- the cost of water just isn't a factor. You could triple it and not notice.
They also depend on fossil fuels and thus contribute to greenhouse gasses. They produce brine and boron contaminants that can not easily be disposed of on either land or sea without potentially significant impact of the wildlife exposed to them.
Those are engineering problems.
The 2 "crops" that are taking the water:
Shut those 2 things down and water problem solved.
You are clueless.
Look, I hate Nestle and I think bottled water is stupid too, but the amount of water they bottle is trivial compared to the trillions of gallons of water shortage representing the drought. They could bottle a hundred times more water, or a thousand, and it still wouldn't make a lick of difference.
The problem is measured in trillions of gallons. It's not drinking water that's the problem here.
> Back when I was working on lasers for power beaming
Short or long haul? Down or up?
We looked at lasers for space-to-Earth power beaming, but it's less practical than you might think-- heat rejection gets to be a serious problem. Most of the practical applications were Earth-to-space or space-to-space power beaming.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl...
http://proceedings.spiedigital...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10...
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.js...
Desalination is a plausible solution for water for consumer use--that is, urban and suburban locations.
It is not a very plausible solution for agricultural use-- too expensive. Do you realize that those people take the water and just dump it on the ground?
*(well, some of the suburban people just spray it on the ground, too. But they spray millions and millions of gallons on lawns. Sounds like a lot... but agriculture uses trillions of gallons.)
Water rights are complicated. Since the rule is, whoever grabbed it first owns the rights to the water, the people who own it aren't necessarily the ones who use it most responsibly. http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Agriculture is 80% of California's water use (although only 1.5% of California's economy) The big problem is almonds. Who would have thought that such a niche foodstuff would drive agricultural water? https://www.bostonglobe.com/bu...
Trillions? Yep: http://science.nasa.gov/scienc...
Guys, people plant in California because it's one of the most fertile soils in the USA.
Too bad it's a semi-arid climate-- that's to say, much of the time it's a desert.
The idea of using lasers to de-orbit space debris has been around for a while.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/...
Back when I was working on lasers for power beaming, the idea was discussed as an alternate use for the ground-based lasers.
Not any more isolation than expeditions to Antarctica in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Wrong. Hobart is 7 days sail away. Sthn NZ is even closer.
Now. That's why I said " in the late 19th and early 20th century."
Back then, they would get frozen in, winter-over stuck in ice, and in the following summer, do the exploration.
Not any more isolation than expeditions to Antarctica in the late 19th and early 20th century.
I hate that movie. I haven't seen it, but the advertising has put me off. The man is so important, but not once during any of the ads I saw for it, did they mention his name.
There are many possible reasons to not like the movie, but this isn't one of them. The movie itself doesn't in any way hide his name.
This, for example http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/n... or this http://www.slate.com/blogs/bro...
might be reasonable excuses to not want to see the movie.
Yes, I've mentioned this before-- if there are bacteria on Mars, they will be extreme halophiles.
http://online.liebertpub.com/d...
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.js...
Yes, it seems way to early to evaluate the program. This is the very first report; basically it's saying "the program just started". Clicking through the links leads to this one: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/a...
with more numbers in the summary:
The state agency responsible for economic development across New York says companies last year created 76 of the nearly 2,100 new jobs promised over five years in return for tax breaks under the Cuomo administration's Start-Up NY program.
The first annual report from the Department of Economic Development says 30 companies began operating in 2014 among 54 initially approved for the program.
According to the report, they made $1.7 million of some $91 million investments promised over five years as part of Start-Up NY. The program has established 356 tax-free zones at 62 colleges and universities that act as sponsors.
The agency says another 26 businesses have been approved so far this year, while 12 have withdrawn applications.
No holograms showed up. This is a pepper's ghost illusion apparently performed with a projector and semitransparent material.
Exactly. This is fake news. Holograms that can can be projected into and move through empty air do not exist except in science fiction. This "march" did not happen.
I read a lot of science fiction, but I do like to actually distinguish what is real and what is Star Trek.
How did this show up on slashdot, a site for self-proclaimed nerds, which is to say, people who actually care about real technology?
One man's constant is another man's variable. -- A.J. Perlis
