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Re: [ARSCLIST] Long-term/preservation audio
At 11:16 PM 7/16/2003 +0200, George Brock-Nannestad wrote:
From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad
Mike Richter commented:
............................
In real terms, there are warehouses of
> NASA satellite data which cannot be reduced because there is no longer
> hardware to read the tapes on which they are stored.
----- Now, to be honest, is that not only a question of cost? If a genuine
national need existed, such as the need to prove that certain weapons were
indeed ready to be fired in 45 minutes, which would be proved (not dis-
proved) by these tapes, then funding for at least makeshift hardware would be
found faster than you can press the bulk erase button.
Of course, it's a matter of cost. The data were collected without
considering the cost of data reduction, so once the tapes were written,
they were stored. There is no glamour in reducing data, only in flying the
bird and showing the results.
I delivered a paper at the IEEE on design of a satellite system starting
from the information needed from it, back through the technologies for
reducing the data, then to the characteristics needed of the bird. The
result was a feasible, inexpensive, configuration which had none of the
high-cost, high-risk technologies with which NASA was besotted. Of course,
it went nowhere - as have the data collected from the bird which flew at
more than ten times the cost.
It always reduces to cost; the technologies are available but funds are
limited. The only reason that all public-domain books are not available on
the Internet is cost.
Mike
mrichter@xxxxxxx
http://www.mrichter.com/