Enterprise Geeks Podcast – Moon Men and Magic Bullets
And that’s about as political as we get…
Season 4 Episode 10
We have a wide range of topics this week as we come about as close to political as we care to when we discuss Newt Gingrich and his plans to establish a permanent moon base. We also talk about new self guided bullets and what it must be like to write software for them. There’s also the little matter of the Facebook IPO and the big news that Craig is now back working for SAP.
- Catching Up
- Facebook IPO
- Can they continue to grow profits while avoiding the creepy factor with their advertising?
- How dependent is Facebook on content providers like Zinga?
- Are social media platforms mature to the point that a new disruptor couldn’t enter the market?
- Newt Gingrich and his plans for the Moon – http://news.yahoo.com/newt-gingrich-says-cash-prizes-spur-space-technology-110131695–abc-news.html
- NASA and the value of the maned spaceflight
- Should we go back to the moon?
- Did we go to the moon in the first place? 🙂
- Self guided Bullets – http://news.yahoo.com/sandia-labs-engineers-create-self-guided-bullet-161745833.html
- Who wants to debug the software on these things?
Running Time: 60:41
If you have questions, suggestions, or topic ideas for future episodes, give us a shout here.
7 responses to “Enterprise Geeks Podcast – Moon Men and Magic Bullets”
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EnterpriseGeeks 
Another fun podcast guys – but I am very disappointed you all seemed uncertain about the year that Apollo 11 landed on the moon.
Unlike you guys I was born before 1969, so far before it that I remember the event clearly. All my school crammed into the largest room we had around the only TV the school had to watch both the launch, the moon landing, moon walk and splashdown.
It is hard now, when technology changes so rapidly, and amazing new stuff hits us almost weekly to describe the effect this event had on the whole world. I doubt that man will never achieve anything as universally amazing in my lifetime.
And when you dig deeper and find out how primitive the technology they had available at the time was it only makes the achievement more remarkable. For example in the movie Apollo 13 when Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) asks them to check some calculations they show someone using a slide rule. At that time the pocket calculator did not exist.
I am all for man returning to the moon – assuming it is for valid scientific reasons. But I can’t agree that it should be a Presidential Election issue. IMHO – the USA and the World have more important issues to consider.
But if there is a trip to the moon going I am available – they surely will need an ABAPer onboard in case there is a shortdump.
Cheers
Graham Robbo
A good comprehensive list of moon hoax theories and their debunking is available at http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html
It contains one of my favourite proofs of the lunar landing; If you watch any footage of the lunar rover, you will see dust thrown up by the wheels of the rover. The dust goes up in a perfect parabolic arc and falls back down to the surface. Now, if this were filmed on the Earth, which has air, the dust would have billowed up around the wheel and floated over the surface. This clearly does not happen in the video clips; the dust goes up and right back down. It’s a beautiful demonstration of ballistic flight in a vacuum. Had NASA faked this shot, they would have had to have a whole set (which would have been very large) with all the air removed. We don’t have this technology today!
Hi Guys,
I had to have a long travel to be able to catch up with the EG podcasts. Bad I’ve just heard Craig is back at SAP in Walldorf. I just came back from there and I should have stopped to say hi.
For the CD replacement, why not DT (Development Tools). That may sound very simplistic, but honestly that is what we need. That what the track is about. All SAP Development tools and techniques. Few are the development tools that customers and partners don’t (at least eventually) have access to (better not even make the distinction).
BTW, where are you guys planning to stay at SAP Teched? I’ve heard that Hilton is already fully booked.
Leo
Instead of TechEd Hotel, I assume you meant DKOM. I have booked at the Hilton. There were still openings available online as of today – at least in the SAP Travel booking system. Perhaps we reserved a block of rooms.
As you can see… I am writting as I listen to the podcast…
I’ve just heard the discussion of going to the moon and I had to comment….
Craig, you mentioned “if each American would contribute 1 dollar…we would be able to put another shuttle to go to the moon”.
It seems you grossly underestimate the cost required to achieve such a thing.
Just to put in perspective. 300 million US is what US pays today Russia to get 6 astronauts to the space station !!!
http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2011/jul/13/marco-rubio/rubio-says-us-will-pay-russia-50-million-astronaut/
BTW, here is one assessment of how much it cost to get to the moon in the 60s
25.4 Billion (in the 60s money, equivalent today to 170 BILLION)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Program_costs_and_cancellation
To get the program setup, built, tested and executed, I believe we may be closer to 300 BILLION. Yeah, that is right, maybe around 1000 USD per American.
Now, would you put 1000 USD of your pocket to it?
Sure space program brings development to all of us, but we are no longer in the 60’s where we needed government to take initiatives (to build airliners, for example) and there is no cold war to brag about.
Opening the space program to the private sector has been a great idea and should be further supported.
Looking at cash alone, it is more likely today that we will get an i-Mars (Apple involvement as a side joke pigbacking on what Virgin has done…), before NASA does… 😉 ( a joke, of course )
Leo
Hey Leo – don’t tell me you were sitting having coffee in building 18 were you?
OK now on to the costs. Interesting where you got the numbers as the places I googled showed it 1.3 billion based on 94 numbers and I seriously doubt it jumped to 300 since. That’s Google for you though 🙂
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/lunar-05zzc.html
“Griffin said that in comparable terms, the new moon program would cost only 55 percent of Apollo’s missions and would not need an increase in NASA’s budget, which will be 16.4 billion dollars in 2006.”
I agree private sector but then I think of junk like this happening: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120199/
So in all seriousness though, $1 per US person won’t cut it but could you imagine the headway possible if it did happen? $313,008,000 that’s got to get us somewhere and everyone would feel part of it since they directly contributed, I’d even go a whole $2 😉
of course reality is there and the calculation is WAY off but still the spirit of the possibility is what drives so many of us isn’t it?
I was at the training center (Building 5 I think). That was from MON-THU.
On Fri I was at St-Leon-Rot Buildings 3 and 15.
Impressive how big all that is…
I will try to write a BLOG about it. It is nice to finally get to see that after working with SAP for 15 years….
Leo