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Posting Leader
Posted 30 September 2016 - 04:03 PM
Just saw a report that Tesla chief Elon Musk is not happy with the timeline presented by NASA for
the Orion project to make it to Mars. He stated that he could get a man there much sooner. So, is
Mars going to be a destination for the Teslas with Autopilot?
Grand Champion Poster
Posted 30 September 2016 - 04:25 PM
I'm sure the telemetry needed to get to Mars will be guided by computers. Musk had a BIG presentation yesterday, outlining his plan for a manned Mars mission in the not-too-distant(relative term) future. He outlined some of the challenges to be overcome and some possible solutions to those challenges.
Posting Leader
Posted 30 September 2016 - 07:59 PM
Before we put a man on Mars we should make it safe to ride a train here on Earth.
Just sayin'
Grand Champion Poster
Posted 01 October 2016 - 09:48 AM
Before we put a man on Mars we should make it safe to ride a train here on Earth.
Just sayin'
He's workin' on that too... search for "hyperloop".
Posting Leader
Posted 02 October 2016 - 04:16 PM
The New Jersey Transit train was equipped with a system which should have stopped the train well before
the station. This system has been on all major common carrier railroads for decades. In the past, accidents
which occurred when this system was operational usually happened because it was bypassed by the operator.
Reasons it could fail otherwise are that the sending unit on the track was not functional, the sensor on the
car truck was not working, a break in the wiring, or a failure in the central control system. This system requires
the operator to acknowledge a signal on a regular interval. Failure to do so will put the train into shut down and
breaking mode until the train comes to a complete stop. Operators have been caught taping the pushbutton
down or putting a weight on the deadman's pedal to cause the system to think the operator is responding to
the signal. If the operator falls asleep or is otherwise incapacitated, the train will continue on as if the operator
was responding to the signal, and could crash into a stopped train or station. We don't know yet if this was the
case with the NJT train.
In the past I restored old railroad equipment, mostly steam locomotives, and kept up on the new signalling and
train traffic management systems. PTC, positive train control, is the latest of these. It's fore runner was CTC,
and is what most railroads are using right now. This system is very old, and yet some railroads have lines where
it has never been installed, operating on waivers from congress. The new PTC system was supposed to be installed
years ago, but the FRA has continued to push back the deadline for it's implementation. The railroads complain
that it is far too expensive, but that is not actually true. There is far less hardware installation required for the new
system. Congress and the FRA need to hold to the 2018 deadline, or more accidents could happen.
