Rot'nApple
macrumors 65816
Well you know it is not on Verizon's "Can You Hear Me Now" network, because everyone knows, in space, they can't hear you scream! 🙄😀
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Final Space Shuttle Lifts Off With Two iPhones Aboard
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Well you know it is not on Verizon's "Can You Hear Me Now" network, because everyone knows, in space, they can't hear you scream! 🙄😀
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ipedro
macrumors 604
You realize that it wasn't this President who EOL'd the Shuttle right? It's been planned for quite some time, and the final stamp was made in the Bush administration.
I too will miss the Shuttle but I like the idea that the new programs will encourage private enterprise to enter the space flight business. The government space program had little incentive to reduce the cost of space travel because there was always a massive grant around the corner.
With the commercialization of space travel, it is guaranteed that the price will come down, new methods will be found and we will finally be delivered the promise made by the introduction of the Shuttle 30 years ago: routine flights to earth orbit and beyond!
But didn't Obama actually propose more budget for NASA to be spent for more advanced stuff and leave the low orbit vehicle stuff to private companies like Space X?
I guarantee that people have brought iPhones above 10,000 feet in an unpressurized environment. Mr Rainier and Mt Whitney are both over 14,000 feet, Mt Hood is over 11,000 feet. Denali (McKinley) is over 20,000 feet. There are plenty of mountains that are popular mountaineering objectives over 20,000 feet. I am certain people have brought iPhones up these mountains, and in some cases they have made phone calls (when there is service).
Yeah, there are a ton of 14k mountains around these parts and I've been up a few of them with an iphone. Needless to say it works just fine.
kdarling
Contributor
Actually, GPS works fine at those speeds.
The problem would more likely be 1990s US federal law, which prohibits civilian GPS units from displaying information above 1,000mph or 60,000 feet... except in special experimental circumstances (and I doubt Apple modified these units' code).
I presume the prohibition is so you can't buy up a bunch of Garmins and use them to help you build cheap GPS-guided missiles. Or something along those lines.
nvbrit
macrumors 6502
there is still a replacement, it's called the Orion MPCV; there's already prototype models and early testing has already begun and will continue. The difference is, it's a capsule and not a shuttle.
fenderbass146
macrumors 68000
10,000 feet does not need a pressurized environment. I have been on top of pikes peak at 14000 without any problems to me personally... however my iPod classic did quit working near the top....it started working again on the way down.
nvbrit
macrumors 6502
the report already says they are modified iphones, we just don't know in what way they were modified.
Samuriajackon
macrumors 6502
nagromme
macrumors G5
Maybe theres no rhyme or reason. The GPS would have trouble through the metal of the craft. Plus, I doubt they care to test what the iPhones own GPS says anyway, since they have their own much better navigational equipment. (And the iPod can take an eternal GPS signal, so if any experiments are GPS-related, that would be the way to do it.) As for the still camera, the iPhones is great, but I doubt theyre relying on these phones for that purpose.
So that leaves... vibration alerts! 🙂
mr.steevo
macrumors 65816
Isn't the US a couple of decades away from being flat broke? That would effect morale more than being able to fly to the upper atmosphere a couple of weeks a year.
The whole Space Shuttle concept is economic. Government bureaucracy and elitism killed the commercial viability of the platform making it just another work project.
I for one will not cry when this prodigy child forced into a life of serfdom is retired. As I write this, there are a half dozen private spaceflight companies with working prototypes waiting for old man NASA to get the hell out of the way.
Bigelow Aerospace (http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/) has an inflatable space station in orbit now that is more viable than the ISS. NASA refused to fly it on the shuttle and just kept on raising prices til it was launched out of Russia into orbit.
The SpaceX Dragon (http://www.spacex.com/) completed a very successful set of test launches and will fly astronauts to the ISS and other private space stations in a few years.
Then there is Virgin Galactic (http://www.virgingalactic.com/) that will have space flights as affordable as a luxury cruises in a decade.
We just need to purge these socialist / elitist bankers that are trying to trash the US Economy so the Free Enterprise does not succeed in space. History has shown that money hoarders destroys themselves in time. That time is now.
Fortune favors the brave and not the safe. Blast off!
jlgolson
Contributing Editor
GPS scrambling has been deactivated for years. There's nothing to stop the iPhone from getting a proper GPS signal, except for it not expecting to be miles up.
At the altitude they are operating, GPS has an entirely different set of calibrations. Curious of the makers of the GPS chip-set
PHP:
What anti-radiation suit?
Except for launch, return and EVA work, the crew is in a shirt-sleeve environment throughout a mission.
Not in the foreseeable future, they're not.
Space Station crew rotation will be handled by Russian launches for quite some time. (Maybe SpaceX will get their Dragon/Falcon x rated and operating in a couple more years.)