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Now, what's being overlooked, of course, is the scientific merit of such a feat. This is one of those cases where we have an opportunity to gather data at very little additional cost, and it may reveal new insight that may assist future work.

If we ever do leave Earth for a significant length of time, running on a treadmill is one of the often-proposed mechanisms for maintaining muscle during the long trip, and possibly for the long stay at an extraterrestrial outpost. Unfortunately, we haven't really had much success with treadmills so far. Even with rigorous exercise, astronauts have typically lost up to 0.4-1% of their bone density per month in space, and when we're talking about trips of several years, that's a significant health hazard. This run provides a rare insight: what if the astronauts do more than just "rigorous exercise"? What if they routinely do what would be extreme on Earth?

During the run, Peake's body was monitored, and of course routine measurements will continue. This may provide a promising avenue for future research, or it may not. It may indicate against future research in this direction. Either way, the expense to do it now is only a few hours of time, rather than the millions or billions of dollars to run a specialized experiment.

Don't think of it as spending money to run a marathon in a spectacular war. We already spent the money to put people in space, and now we're getting every bit of data we can for that money.

I'm pretty sure that it will involve the use of Dextre, the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) on the end of Canadarm2. Dextre, sometimes called the Canada Hand is the most sophisticated space robot ever built. http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/i... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

If you're interested in actually seeing the rovers, the Canadian Space Agency has a good page describing them:
http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/media/backgrounders/2012/1019.asp

Not really the case. If it was how did Cadadarm and Dextre get there?

Sorry, there's no NASA in Canada.

Well, we have the CSA -- they kinda helped make the robotic arm in the shuttle and other things. It's not like we aren't involved in these things.

Huh, and here I was thinking they called it the "Canada arm" 'cuz it sits on top and does relatively nothing...


Just messing with ya, canucks, no hard feelings!

So, just because they're researches, should they have applied for a government grant to invent some exuberant, overpriced, adhesive tape to be used in that particular experiment exclusively?

This is Canada, we need to be more cost effective and responsible with tax-payer money. Your options are scotch tape, beer, Tim Horton's coffee, moose droppings, and snow -- and in most of the country, the snow is only actually about 4 months of the year contrary to popular belief.

Sorry, there's no NASA in Canada.

Well, we have the CSA -- they kinda helped make the robotic arm in the shuttle and other things. It's not like we aren't involved in these things.

For the majority of us latitude isn't in that 45-50 deg range. It seems Auroramax offers live aurora streaming from one of those frigid locations in Canada. Search engine results don't seem too encouraging on variety for this, though.

She is each of "Astronaut, explorer, diver, scientist, and pilot.". Astronaut, deep sea diver, military pilot, commercial pilot, scientist, speaks six languages, and on top of it all plays piano and sings with top music groups like the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.

So - you are assuming that space science is solely NASA then? While that make up a large chunk of the resources for space science, they are not the only resource. As you say, DoD does provide instruments such as DMSP and LANL as does NOAA. In Canada our resources are small and we often have to use multiple agencies just to cover over a small project (for example, our current project uses funding from NSERC as well as CSA and CFI grants.

NASA does have several multi-spacecraft projects (see THEMIS for example). But, you are correct, ESA does have a leg up on this sort of stuff.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think that human space flight does have it's place. My question at this point is more "Is it worth (scientifically) putting money into human space flight or instrumentation and robotic exploration and space technology and engineer?" I would say without any reservation, that human space flight, at this point, is not worth it. Is it worth sending a couple of men to the moon to collect a few rocks and find out some tiny info about the 50 square km that they land in or use a high resolution imager to map the moon? Then using that same technology - adapt it to map Mars? Or Europa or Titan? That spacecraft could also have instrumentation to study high energy particles near the moon, looking at safety issues for long term stays - all sort of useful science that would lose out.

What about developing the engineering and technological means to allow for long stays on the moon? Spend 5-10 years researching astronaut safety, building materials, biospheres, ecological and environmental surveys for using natural resources - then go to the moon for extended stays of weeks and months? Using this technology to then go to Mars? It is the choice of where to put the limited funds for the next 5 years, 10 years... where will it be of the most use?

NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/

ESA = European Space Agency
http://www.esa.int/

CSA = Canadian Space Agency
http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/default.asp

JAXA = Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(ooops)
http://www.jaxa.jp/

Tons more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_agency

But the really amazing data came from the LIDAR instrument, which was able to track the formation of the clouds at the atmosphere's boundary layer. Cloud formation became more pronounced as the summer gradually faded and the atmosphere cooled at night, and the scientists were eventually able to detect cirrus-like clouds as they dropped "tilted vertical sheets" of ice particles back to the surface of the planet. In short, they watched it snow.

Leave it to us Canadians, we go to Mars to talk about the weather and manage to find snow.

Oh, and this is also old news, although it may be "new news" because today's article talks about *nighttime* snowfall and not just plain old "snowfall".

But the really amazing data came from the LIDAR instrument, which was able to track the formation of the clouds at the atmosphere's boundary layer. Cloud formation became more pronounced as the summer gradually faded and the atmosphere cooled at night, and the scientists were eventually able to detect cirrus-like clouds as they dropped "tilted vertical sheets" of ice particles back to the surface of the planet. In short, they watched it snow.

Leave it to us Canadians, we go to Mars to talk about the weather and manage to find snow.

Oh, and this is also old news, although it may be "new news" because today's article talks about *nighttime* snowfall and not just plain old "snowfall".

Just imagine if the Avro Arrow program hadn't been cancelled (and documentation destroyed and all the prototypes cut up with a torch) back in the '50s. Canada could have been a global player in the aerospace industry.

Actually, Canada is a player in aerospace.

Look at COM DEV and MacDonald Dettwiler, not to mention the Canadian Space Agency.