Remote Operated Aircraft Targets Hurricanes 56
burnin1965 writes "Usually news articles about remote operated UAVs involve blowing people up. NASA's application takes a different path and uses the utility of the aircraft for scientific research that will benefit humanity. I haven't read much about NASA's Global Hawk lately, but they have been busy providing up-close access to the recent string of hurricanes."
"NASA's application will benefit humanity" (Score:1)
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This could save big money. (Score:2)
Presently, Mississippi politicians have larded up the hurricane hunter fleet in Biloxi, MS.
The use of drones could eliminate the need for putting pilots and crew in harms way and shut down an over-expensive program. Its time the government began investing in technologies that will save money rather than just protecting political pork.
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Depends. The original UAVs, the Predator and Global Hawk UAVs were not originally carrying anything except surveillance gear. Now, both the Predator and it's big brother the Reaper [http://www.google.com/search?q=Reaper+UAV] carry Hellfire missiles in day-to-day operations. I don't believe the Global Hawk does this though (although they are *great* for long range/loiter operations compared to the Predator/Reaper).
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Four! Four corners! What are you, educated stupid?
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Damn straight.... because there are 4 corner days 4 quads; cubic time cubes. That's 16 corners, not 8.
The 16 corners are the one true number.
4 days rotating simultaneously within a single rotation of earth. [sic]
etc etc etc [paraphrasing timecube.com]
Remote operated UAVs? (Score:2, Funny)
Remote operated UAVs? As opposed to all the manned ones?
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Are you actually not aware that UAVs are regularly used to perform military strikes, or what?
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Are you actually not aware that UAVs are regularly used to perform military strikes, or what?
No, just pointing out that the number of UAV flight hours dedicated to strike missions is a tiny percent of all UAV flight hours ref2 [wikipedia.org] ref2 [military.com] (500,000 flight hours per year, 92 projected attacks in 2010 at ~10 hour mission per attack is 920 hours - so 0.1% of flight hours on attack). It's the equivalent of saying that all planes are only used for bombing while ignoring every other aspect of aviation.
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If anybody had said anything like that, you might have a point, but nobody did.
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Or remotely autonomous?
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This post clearly shows that Slashdot is doomed. My Karma be damned for posting this. Someone had to say it, and if it results in a down vote (or whatever it is here) then, well so be it.
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Yes, better warnings for hurricanes benefits nobody.
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It clearly benefits humanity in the 2nd & 3rd meaning of the word. As for the 1st, that's a subjective call as to how many people need to benefit, and by how much, before it's a collective benefit.
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Saving a few lives when 100x as many die every year to massive overpopulation?
The overpopulation problem seems to be fixing itself then.
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By that logic, the fire department should just shut down. The lives and property they save are just a drop in the bucket.
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Here's a hint: If you find that everybody is doing something wrong and you're the only one who gets it right, that probably doesn't mean it is they who are wrong.
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It is not proof, but it is a pretty strong indicator. Nobody was trying to build a logical proof.
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Or so you like to tell yourself, rather than admit you're on the losing side of an argument.
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Live streaming paintball bombardment (Score:1, Funny)
Come on, NASA, let us queue up for 30 seconds of access to a live feed with the ability to move/aim/zoom the camera and fire a paintball! Charge for it and make millions!
Aerosonde has been doing it for a while (Score:2)
The (former) little aussie that could :) - they have since been bought out by Boeing (Insitu).
Aerosonde has been doing it for a while [nasa.gov], hence aero-sonde. I believe they started doing crazy weather stuff some time before they were the first UAV to cross the Atlantic [wikipedia.org] in 1998.