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80,000 km is not the closest. How about the Grand Teton Meteor of 1972? This one was seen in the US and Canada as a bright daylight fireball. It was very close - about 50 km - but did not hit. Instead, it burned through the atmosphere and went off back into space.

Then there's this one, which is believed to be a meteor that was put into Earth orbit on the first pass, then re-entered 100 minutes later after orbiting the Earth once.

I was quoted in an article in Florida Today about bad recruiters. Typical "Recruiter Hell" story.

I would hope that some point, the whole issue could be revisited: as long as the engine design has been proven, the tank design/manufacture could always be improved.

After you've read about the commission's report, read this piece by former astronaut Walter Cunningham.

In addition to Cunningham's perspective on the failings of NASA managers and personnel ("Former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin's decade of "faster, better, cheaper" in the 1990s was not better -- it was less safe and delivered only on the cheaper part. Focus switched to avoiding individual blame or responsibility, and risk avoidance became part of the management culture, even as operations became more risky.)"you'll learn some things you need to know:

--NASA funding is 20 percent of 1965 levels;
--The shuttle's piece of that budget is down by 25 percent in the last decade;
--Spending on research and personnel at NASA's safety office was cut by almost one-half;

Cunningham says: "You can't continue to make draconian cuts in spending and have acceptable mission safety. What you get, instead, is a shuttle flying into a barrage of foam it was designed to avoid at all costs and not recognizing it as a flight safety problem."

The real panels cost $800,000 each. So combined with the $1 million custom-built wing frame, the cost of the tests is $4.2 million not counting the fake fiberglass parts or money paid to Southwest Research Institute for use of its unique nitrogen gas gun.

The real panels cost $800,000 each. So combined with the $1 million custom-built wing frame, the cost of the tests is $4.2 million not counting the fake fiberglass parts or money paid to Southwest Research Institute for use of its unique nitrogen gas gun.

A quick check on Spacetoday.com points to several good articles ...

SpaceFlightNow article
Florida Today article and it has three video's of the test
Orlando Sentinel article
Washington Post article
Houston Chronicle article

Last time people tried to meet up with a comet, they ended up dead, and covered with purple cloth.

Because most people wouldn't respect the request "Wait, Mr. $criminal, I left my pistol at home; let me go get it and I'll be right back!"

Where I work there have been stories (all old from before I started, thankfully) of at-work violence (no, it's not the Post Office!). The little town I work in even had its own mass-murderer!

A firearm left out of arm's reach is a pretty paperwieght.

Nobody has done it except for the first crew.

STS-112
"Making his first hands-on landing, first-time shuttle commander Jeffrey Ashby took over manual control of the shuttle five minutes before touchdown as the spaceplane passed through 50,000 feet above the Florida spaceport. "

STS-93
"Update for 11:17 p.m. EDT
Commander Eileen Collins is taking manual control of Columbia. Three minutes to touchdown. The shuttle has gone sub-sonic. Twin sonic booms now being heard in the local area around Kennedy Space Center."

STS-113
"Following a computer-controlled plunge to a point about 50,000 feet above the Kennedy Space Center, commander James Wetherbee, making a record fifth descent as a shuttle skipper, took over manual control and guided the spaceplane to a breezy landing, reports CBS News Space Consultant William Harwood."

If I remember correctly, the first Shuttle pilot (dunno his name, some ex-Navy pilot)

Pilot, Robert Crippen, USN
Mission commander, John Young, USN

I get most of my understanding of the Shuttle landing procedure from the X-Plane sim, which makes it very clear that it's extremely difficult for a human being to land the Shuttle...

I would suspect that they have a leetle bit more training than you do.

"The device contains 9,400 feet of magnetic tape that permits up to two hours recording time. It was turned on 10 minutes before Columbia's Jan. 16 launch and then turned off about six minutes after the shuttle reached orbit.

The recorder was activated again 15 minutes before Columbia began its ill-fated, 45-minute plunge through the atmosphere.".

Is it possible that the impact of the foam on the left wing (or other launch time anomoly) was caught on tape?

Cassini. Remember that name. You're going to hear a lot about Cassini over the next few years. The knowledge brought to us by that probe will make science headlines for the rest of this decade. Not bad for something that cost 15% of the Federal Foodstamp budget in FY2001.

I haven't seen anyone try and connect the "purple streak" picture and the break-up, so i'll post my theory references again and hope it gets considered.

The tiles were damaged heavily at launch, scratched deeply as in previous incidents.
The roughtiles heated and shed, leaving a trail of debris plasma.
The plasma trailacted as a conduit for an electrical arc from charged particles in the high upper atmosphere,similar to the Ben Franklin kite legend.
A huge bolt travelled along the plasma trail to the left wing where it caused severe damage, enough to cause a cascading failure over subsequent minutes. Blue jets, elves and sprites are large atmospheric electrical phenomena which occur at the altitude the space shuttle was passing thru and were being studied by Ramon in the MEIDEX dust experiment.
My,My, Hey, Hey

I haven't seen anyone try and connect the "purple streak" picture and the break-up, so i'll post my theory references again and hope it gets considered.

The tiles were damaged heavily at launch, scratched deeply as in previous incidents.
The roughtiles heated and shed, leaving a trail of debris plasma.
The plasma trailacted as a conduit for an electrical arc from charged particles in the high upper atmosphere,similar to the Ben Franklin kite legend.
A huge bolt travelled along the plasma trail to the left wing where it caused severe damage, enough to cause a cascading failure over subsequent minutes. Blue jets, elves and sprites are large atmospheric electrical phenomena which occur at the altitude the space shuttle was passing thru and were being studied by Ramon in the MEIDEX dust experiment.

New image evidence shows damage to the composite section of the wing. An increasing reliance on composite materials in aircraft construction creates the potential for additional problems because the composites can allow a connection between lightning and airplane electrical circuits

Here is how an electric bolt may have occurred:

The tiles were damaged heavily at launch, scratched deeply as in previous incidents.
The rough tiles heated and shed, leaving a trail of debris plasma.
The plasma trail acted as a conduit for an electrical arc from charged particles in the high upper atmosphere,similar to the Ben Franklin kite legend.
A huge bolt travelled along the plasma trail to the left wing where it caused enough damage to induce a cascading failure over subsequent minutes. Blue jets, elves and sprites are large atmospheric electrical phenomena which occur at the altitude the space shuttle was passing thru and were being studied by Ramon in the MEIDEX dust experiment.

The solution is (d) all of the above.

We already had a vehicle which didn't need to be rebuilt between missions. You'd just throw it out and buy a new one. Still cheaper and safer than a shuttle- the crew didn't even need to know how to fly a plane! (But he couldn't strech his legs). An enhanced Gemini would've been better than the Shuttle for all missions- it just doesn't give you the Buck Rogers feeling of piloting the same craft back and forth into space.

Hubble seems to be the only example I can find of an important satellite being repaired. Maybe there were others, less newsworthy. If only the Hubble and a few other satellites were repaired, then they hardly justify even a fraction of the shuttle program's $20,000+ million startup cost. The entire brand new Hubble cost $1,500 million- just 3 times the price of a shuttle launch. (Most satelittes cost less than $50 million, much of that recoverable design costs. Hubble's lenses made it's replacement cost uniquely higher)

The major other use of the Shuttle's "space-truck" abilities is to assemble space stations, and the same astronomers who love the Hubble widely agree that ISS is a boondoggle (they keep quiet to stay friendly with NASA).

STS-107 Columbia landing journal.

Uh huh. What I don't get is once it collapses into a briefcase, how did Moller reduce the mass so you can actually lift the briefcase?

In case the sarcasm tag wasn't on, I no more believe that Moller can actually make a reliable flying car that gets 28mpg (running on good old Texaco Regular of course) @ 350mph @ 20k feet @ 65dba than they could accomplish the aforementioned mass-reduction-briefcase trick.

What they will offer is a hunk of red, expensive vaporware that sits in your garage like the Russian shuttle they tried to sell on ebay a year or so ago.

Maybe ebay should have a "got too much money sitting around?" section....

I agree. ISS is an example where good money was thrown after bad. BUT there have been many many times when the reverse has been the case at NASA. So often they have brought a project to 80% completion, only to cancel it at the last minute. The ones I can think of off the top of my head:

• Triana -- all hardware finished, never launched.
• Apollo 18, 19 & 20 -- All hardware finished, crews trained, never launched.
• Skylab B -- Entire space station was built, a Saturn V was available, never launched.

[Posting as a coward because I don't want to undo the mods I made earlier on this story.]

Given the safety record of some notable, Chinese technology, combined with their well known regard for human life, I'll not be accelerated to 250 mph by anything made in China, thank you.

As many people have commented the space station has been a huge black hole of money.

For each win we've had there we've suffered many setbacks.

85% of their time is required for maintenance.

Very little hard science has been done due to construction delays and retrofitting many of the parts.

Even the science they have done hasn't been much.

Russia may be a joke about contributing, but they have the right idea on raising money. Send people who can afford to millions up there to fund further development.

Todays launch was for a French commercial satellite, Eutelsat. The shuttle is banned from commercial satellite launches. See here. Minor payloads, such as experiments, routinely fly in the Shuttle and also the International Space Station.

-Fantastic Lad

Online Communities are not just made up of people who have met online. Sometimes real life friends organize to get together online to enjoy a game together.

I don't know Warsinger or his player. Never met him in real life or in DaoC.

But I find that this gesture is a very nice one, and probably not the only gesture to commemorate this individual's passing. I'm sure his face to face friends met face to face to lay him to rest. His online gaming friends met online to commemorate his passing.

This is no weirder than running a marathon to remember someone who ran marathon's or launching Gene Roddenberry's ashes into space.

If you know someone in a certain context you tend to want to memorialize them in that context.

Rest in Peace

...on Mars. Silicon is an important ingredient in the manufacturing of computers and according to some experts it is possible to construct artificial life using computers. The inescapable conclusion is that this is evidence that life once inhabited the Martian surface.

...not only because of the recent failures, but because there's a possible deadline in sight. Early 2014 is the most ideal date in sight to launch a manned mission to the red planet, as reported today at BBC News, years ago in an article from Space Online, and many places in between.

The basic idea is that a manned mission launched in 2014 would have the built-in safety feature of an easy slingshot return, which (if you're in a crippled ship) could make a big difference when it's the life of astronauts and not just their equipment at stake. If NASA can gather some reliable information in the meantime, they might just have a shot of making the deadline. It's probably too late already, considering how much time these things take (especially considering how much time these things take NASA) ...but it's a hell of an opportunity to just dismiss.

...not only because of the recent failures, but because there's a possible deadline in sight. Early 2014 is the most ideal date in sight to launch a manned mission to the red planet, as reported today at BBC News, years ago in an article from Space Online, and many places in between.

The basic idea is that a manned mission launched in 2014 would have the built-in safety feature of an easy slingshot return, which (if you're in a crippled ship) could make a big difference when it's the life of astronauts and not just their equipment at stake. If NASA can gather some reliable information in the meantime, they might just have a shot of making the deadline. It's probably too late already, considering how much time these things take (especially considering how much time these things take NASA) ...but it's a hell of an opportunity to just dismiss.

I've been thinking about an idea I had during the last meeting my wife and I attended last week-- perhaps one way to help our community is to help provide low-cost computers with internet connectivity to people in our neighborhood to help disseminate local news that the mass media (eg. the local paper) won't or doesn't cover. Many people in my area don't have computers yet-- there's a lot of retired fixed-income older people here in Florida :^)

I imagine that setting up an organization that builds low- to mid-range Linux-based computers already set up to use a "free" ISP for people that don't have the means to buy one. These machines would come from either parts bought used at the computer shows that come through town or via donations.

Perhaps some of you will say that Linux isn't the best OS for computer newbies; but when you plan on giving the machines away, Windows/MacOS and their associated applications are prohibitively expensive.

It's just an idea that's been rattling in my head for the past few days... Of course,before I start rolling out these machines, I've got to get my own going satisfactorily, yaknow.

Jeff

Perhaps NSI should be made accountable for this kind of stupidity. I can't imagine not getting an encryped password from NSI. I can't imagine NSI not requiring confirmation on domain name changes. They've even admitted that this thing has happened before.

I don't speak for my employer, of course, but I'd think twice about renewing my domain through NSI without some kind of insurance against this kind of thing.

Yes, I'm a little perterbed about it. No, it doesn't effect me personally. Yet.

Jeff

Now before I get flamed, I'm not putting evolution on par with creationism as science. But at least when I went to school, it was taught as scientific dogma, not science, and in my opinion this is why it is open to criticism by creationists. Perhaps somebody younger can report that they're teaching creation better these days, but I bet the people making this decision are around my age (late 30's to 40's), and were taught the same way I was.

By way of analogy, every school child knows that the world is round, not flat. But how do they know? Their direct observation tells them the world is flat, or maybe a bit crinkly. Have they made observations that contradict this? For that matter, most people could readily live there lives believing the world is flat, leaving an elite few to handle tasks like navigation and launching satellites. Do we teach children the world is round just to produce an elite few who will go on to understand the implications of this?

The same applies to evolution. Of course, it is critical that everyone know that evolution is the standard biological model; but kids should be taught to make the observations that make this so, not just that it is true. I think most people's ideas of evolution come more from social and political theories than from the natural world. As a result, I find that people have a kind of "nature, red in tooth and claw" view of evolution. While natural selection through competition is a fact of life, evolution also produces symbiosis, as in lichens which are colonies of blue green algae and fungi, or certain flowers which are polinated by a single species of hummingbird.

I think the most wonderful aspect of evolution, specifically speciation through mutation, is how it explains things that just are. Often there is a reason, but there doesn't have to be. The shagbark hickory has a delicious nut and shaggy bark, but the pignut hickory has a nut that tastes like an acorn and smooth bark. Neither one is more fit than the other, they're just mutations.

Mushrooms are my favorite example. Sure, truffles smell like an estrous pig so wild hogs will eat them and shit spores all over the forest. There's another mushroom that is dangerous to cook because when heated to a high temperature it gives off monomethyl hydrazine -- a powerful and poisonous rocket fuel. As far as I know this doesn't confer any advantage on this mushroom over its its relatives that don't do this. It's just an infinite number of monkeys puttering around in the genome.

I once heard a mycologist tell about a call he got from a concerned citizen about a huge emergence of mushrooms carpeting the hill behind her house by the millions. She'd lived there for years and never seen them before: tiny green mushrooms shaped like a miniature human penis and smelling strongly of cat piss. Surely if there is intelligence behind such a phenomenon, that intelligence must be sublimely demented.