I used to manage a couple of RISC-based Unix boxes at my old job. The probes that NASA uses for deep space missions use different chip and instruction sets than any regular desktop. The OS used for those probes is very spare, but very efficient, which is how NASA engineers are sometimes able to resend the entire code to malfunctioning probes millions of miles away.
As for the delay in some tech, I think we also have to look at shifting paradigms, profit motives, and politics. For a long time, space exploration was tied to national security and national pride: beat the Reds and the Russkies to outer space so they can't "win" over us. The early heady days from Mercury to Apollo were full of patriotic symbolism, and security concerns, such as making sure we conquer near space so an enemy doesn't seed it with nuclear weapon bearing satellites. Also, those space programs resulted in a lot of demonstrably useful tech that filtered down to everyday life: the microwave oven, heat-resistant ceramics. Tang. We used to think that space exploration would provide a never-ending source of innovative technological advances that would trickle down to make our lives better. But once political/militaristic views changed the emphasis on space diminished. Shuttle accidents made people think we weren't ready for primetime. The billions of dollars spent on programs that couldn't get men to Mars, probes to the nearest star, or anything approaching an elegant space station soured some on the whole affair. Perhaps more importantly, the explosion of tech hear in Earth--in the form of the computer/Internet revolution--turned our eyes inward instead of outward. Suddenly the new frontier for both intellectual innovation and profit was shifting from jobs in aerospace, to those in programming, Web design, network support, and computer support. Nowadays you see very few young people who dream of being either astronauts or engineers in the aerospace industry. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mr. Worf" <hellomahog...@gmail.com> To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:54:21 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Boeing's unmanned aerial vehicle hits goals Blame Nixon and the oil crisis of the 70s. If it wasn't for those two things we would have been pretty close to some of those things by now or at least a moon base. Another thing that we have to blame is the larger companies PC companies that brow beat innovators into dust if they didn't follow the same direction they they went in which was wrong. Back in the 70s - 2000s RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) computers were used as workstations by engineers and colleges because of their speed. They processed more information 2 -10 times faster than regular desktops at the time using smaller commands. (Basically they noticed that it was faster to process a lot of small commands than a few large complex ones.) But thanks to IBM majority of us ended up using Intel processors which was based on CISC (complex instruction set computing). At some point in the 90s they realized that utilizing some of the ideas used by RISC was the way to go, but it RISC processors are still around. Your Iphone, and PS2 uses one. On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Keith Johnson < keithbjohn...@comcast.net > wrote: "I want my flying cars!" Every time I read stuff like this, I can't help but flash back to when I was a kid in the '70s, watching shows like "Lost in Space" (suspended animation, handheld laser weapons, AI robots, and FTL travel by the '90s), "Land of the Giants" (hypersonic sub-orbital passenger jets by the '80s), and "The Six Million Dollar Man" (advanced cybernetics, flight vehicles, even weather control by the '70s). You'd be surprised how many hours I spent drooling over those great astronomy books with artist renditions of domed Moon colonies, rotating space stations, portable jet packs, etc. I just *knew* that by now we'd have all the above tech and more. As a kid, watching Star Trek saying that Captain Christopher's son would lead a manned probe to Saturn, I knew we'd have ion rockets taking us to Martian colonies and asteroid mining sites by now. I knew we'd be flying PanAm rockets to that space station for vacations. Sigh...we're decades behind where I thought we'd be. So cool as this is, I always have to fight that feeling in my gut that it's way behind schedule. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mr. Worf" < hellomahog...@gmail.com > To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 2:39:07 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Boeing's unmanned aerial vehicle hits goals Boeing's unmanned aerial vehicle hits goals Boeing said the first flight of the X-51A WaveRider unmanned aerial vehicle reached a top speed of about Mach 5 and flew nearly three and a half minutes before losing acceleration and being destroyed. By Seattle Times business staff Boeing said the first flight of the X-51A WaveRider unmanned aerial vehicle reached a top speed of about Mach 5 and flew nearly three and a half minutes before losing acceleration and being destroyed, as planned. Using a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne supersonic combustion ramjet motor, the unmanned vehicle was launched from under the wing of a B-52 Stratofortress that took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California. "We built four test vehicles to get a successful flight, and we hit many of our goals right out of the gate, the first time around," said Charlie Brink, the Air Force's X-51A program manager. "This is a new world record and sets the foundation for several hypersonic applications, including access to space, reconnaissance, strike, global reach and commercial transportation," said Joe Vogel, Boeing director of Hypersonics and X-51A program manager. -- Celebrating 10 years of bringing diversity to perversity! Mahogany at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahogany_pleasures_of_darkness/ -- Celebrating 10 years of bringing diversity to perversity! Mahogany at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahogany_pleasures_of_darkness/
