Friday, June 30, 2017

a friday night film


102,106,76,0,B

22 comments:

John Wells said...

A very basic comparison of the Mavic Pro consumer level drone to the Apollo Lunar Lander. News Theme by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) Artist: http://incompetech.com/ Audio of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon is in the public domain and constitutes fair use. Downloaded from https://archive.org/details/Apollo11Audio/550-AAG.wav

Unknown said...

Very creative and interesting idea to sync the Mavic descent to the Apollo recording. Another interesting comparison is that the Apollo guidance and navigation computer used a fixed (ROM) memory called core rope memory. It consisted of copper wires woven with ferrite cores into a rope and encased in plastic. If a wire passed through a core it was a "1" and around a core was a "0". It had a memory density of 74 kilobytes per cubic foot. The Mavic can use an external micro SD memory card that holds 64 GB of data. Of course one thing people forget about in these comparisons is that spacecraft computers are VERY dependable and hardened against radiation. The Mavic's chip would be toast quite quickly if taken into space.

John Wells said...

...and propellers don't work very well in the vacuum of outer space.

John Wells said...

Shout out to Amy Shira Teitel and her channel Vintage Space... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw95T_TgbGHhTml4xZ9yIqg

Unknown said...

Well yes there is that slight problem with propellers in space. My point of course was about the Mavic's processor chip you showed in the video. Back when I worked on the shuttle in the early 1990's one of my co-workers was involved with a project to fly IBM thinkpads on the shuttle. In this forum he talks a little bit about it and the problems involved with using consumer grade electronics in space as well as what happened to one that was exposed to the vacuum of space when the international space station's Spektr module depressurized.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27043.0

John Wells said...

I agree that shielding sensitive chips is a problem when it comes to flight in deep space. No doubt that "consumer grade electronics" would have to be beefed up. How hard can that be when the computer power on the Mavic is smaller than the size of a dime compared to the suitcase sized tangle of wires on the Apollo AGC that was less sophisticated than a modern toaster oven?

Unknown said...

I'm no expert by any means on radiation hardened electronics, but I'm sure it could be done with enough money. However, rad hardened electronics have about the opposite qualities of those that make the Mavic's chip desirable for it's application, small size, fast, power efficient and relatively inexpensive.

Alternatively you could shield normal electronics, but that either requires lots of power (magnetic shielding) or adds weight (lead, water or other physical shielding)

Here's a page from NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/18nov_eaftc

Unknown said...

Enjoyed juxtaposition of mavic pro and moon landing clip. Better still, your unknown guest who brought first hand history/science input gave quite the thrill.

John Wells said...

That was Chupa...my attack rooster. I try to include him in as many videos as I can.

Margery Billd said...

TY Unknown, especially the radiation part. My dad worked on the space program in the 50's. Vast difference today.

Road said...

Another cool, creative, and clever use of your tools. Nicely done and thought provoking.

They way art ought to be.

Ronald Mahan said...

And I am proud to have Sam Sledge, a Master Electrician, who worked on the NASA Space Project at the Clear Lake Facility (near Houston) as one of our regular guests our Mahan Hunt Camp. In fact, this electrical wizard - rewired our cabin's rat eaten wiring and - it is now amazingly dependable! And Sam also had one of his welder buddies fabricate most of the beautiful NO SAY - NO PAY sign on the entrance Road to the Terlingua Ranch.

remmij said...

very clever concept and execution… NASA would be proud… or SpaceX - Buzz would get a kick out of it, even Neil might have cracked a smile. Hope it goes big.
the chicken has landed…
looks like you fit right in as a Mission Commander… even with out the crew cut…
mission control - the Right Field Lab Stuff
the stellar twitter - where's the "Chupa 9"?

Unknown said...

I have to agree with ROAD.

owyn said...

very creative ,and entertaining. love it.

Chipper said...

....HAHAHAHA.......clever!

rj said...

The computing component in space flight is the least of their worries. Easily done and not big money anymore in the overall scheme of things. The political will to explore is not there unless it is about military advantage. We should remember that transistors were only about 10 years old at the time of Sputnik in 1957 and integrated circuits were not perfected until the sixties, primarily for the space program. Those components took computing out of the hands of IBM and their mainframes and into our houses and businesses. Now ICs and microprocessors enable our Dick Tracey pocket communicator to do things Chester Gould could not have imagined. But those same ICs and processors created inexpensive handheld calculators, ensuring the average American kid knows little about math and it's supremely beneficial side effects: development of analytical thought at an early age when new concepts are easy to grasp.

leilani said...

Very clever idea, especially since that patch of the earth out there, even with attack chickens preening around, is the closest to a moonscape most of us will ever get to see in person.

You should drop a link to this to @DJI Global on Twitter. Should help boost your view count.

John Wells said...

I don't do twitter...but I sent a link to the video to DJI as well as Movidius yesterday.

WhyR said...

rj: Space probes and robotic explorers continue to be to be sent to the far reaches of the Solar System- Pluto, Jupiter, Saturn, and repeatedly, to Mars, even though no apparent military advantage is gained by their funding. The shining jewel of American space exploration and technology development, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was initially funded by the Army but joined NASA in 1958 and has been focused on the exploration of the Solar System and the Universe, in a civilian sense, since. The ESA sends probes to Mars and cometary targets in extremely complex and lengthy missions of no direct military significance; simply exploration of the unknown. American civilian space flight has blossomed, helped in no small part by technology transfers from NASA. This does not necessarily match the gloomy picture you paint.
The development of calculators simply meant nobody had to memorize multiplication tables any more- students are still solving algebraic problems related to the real world and calculus is still taught everywhere. If anything is shutting down critical thinking in developing minds, in my opinion, it's the "smartphone" and the ever more complex apps on it. People gravitationally drawn into their omnipresent devices develop attention deficits that keep them from driving or even walking safely, and distracted thinking inevitably expands to taint every waking hour.

stevo said...

Best yet, informative & entertaining..

Samuli said...

This was SO good! Jurassic era alien in the end and all.