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I thought the Mars Pathfinder lander had been renamed Sagan Memorial Station?

6.2MiB, 4000x4000 pixels
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/gallery//press/200701 10a/picture-3.jpg
Naw, they just aren't checking all their links.
Is a little further down the page.

I can't understand why Slashdot links to the New Scientist site when NASA is surely the best place to link to. Seems like a ploy for traffic by New Scientist to me.

Anyway, there's a better image here.

This high-res version of the image has pointers to the objects of interest - I still can't figure out which pixel is supposed to be the rover though.

There is a collection of much higher resolution pictures on the NASA site to the point you can see the ramps on the lander.

It is difficult to see whether the sojurner rover is nearby or not. The programming was set to make it do so but I like the thought of an intrepid little robot setting off on it's own.

"It's a magical world, Hobbes old buddy. Let's go exploring"

If you want to geek out and track the lifespan of the various Mars missions, you can do so on your Palm with MarsClock. If you want the desktop version check out Mars24. Both should be updated for Pheonix sometime this year.

Aerogel. It's been covered on /. before. You can read about it here.

There are companies marketing it now. You can buy it in cut sections. It would be perfect for lining the outside of an IDF. One thing though--it will hold in heat equally as well as keep it out. You might have to have an AC unit of some kind.

Some expert is always trumpeting the fact that "Johnny can't program,"

Here is some of it http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/computer s/Appendix-II.html

According to NASA, MGS outlived its design parameters by 400%, and relayed important information right up to the end. Further, the Mars Rovers have outlived their warranty by 2 years. I think we're doing something right.

Here's a brief explanation with a picture.

What gives... this is 13 billion year http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040309.html the new one is only one billion?

It is worth nothing, though, that even outside of engineering, it's not at all without precent to refer to such a controller as a six-axis system. For example, the NASA SimLabs VMS package is described as "the only large six-axis motion system in the world". And that was just my first quick Googling attempt.

Point being, you can accuse Sony of a lot of things, but their controller is accurately named (even if it is a cheap knock-off of the Wiimote).

That's what you asked for, wasn't it? Or did you expect me to argue against him on the assumption that his data is correct? I do assume that it is, but I have no idea about the method he uses for collecting it, i.e. how he chooses sites, which sites he chooses, etc. AFAICT, he doesn't say, which means his data isn't reproducible, and therefore has zero scientific validity.

But could his data be so flawed that even a child would have to question it? It is, and I showed you why: It doesn't even take the southern hemisphere into consideration. Or if it did, the southern hemisphere would be very much colder than the northern. It's not. This isn't "facts of one side are impugned by the other and visa versa"; the other side is a blatant fraud.

I don't know whether you're trolling or just a complete fucking retard.

• CO2 by volume: 96.5% (965,000ppm)
• Surface Pressure: 92 Bars
• Distance from Sun: 108.2 million km
• Average temperature: 464C

• Distance from Sun: 149.6 million km
• Surface Pressure: 1 Bar
• CO2 by volume: 350ppm
• Average temperature: 15C

• Distance from Sun: 227.9 million km
• Surface Pressure: 0.01 Bars
• CO2 by volume: 95.32% (953,200ppm)
• Average temperature: -63C (yes, minus)

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/96/tpxerror.html [ nasa.gov]

"Measurements of global sea-level rise from a U.S. instrument in space likely will be revised downward because of a recently discovered error in the data-processing software, mission scientists said. Initial indications are that sea-level measurements from the U.S. altimeter aboard the U.S.-French TOPEX/Poseidon satellite likely will agree more closely with Earth-based tide gauges, as well as with the French altimeter on the satellite. Preliminary findings from TOPEX/Poseidon data..., indicated the Earth's sea surface was rising ... more than 5 millimeters per year. Data collected from December 1992 to April 1996 have been updated and suggest that the new sea level rise estimate will be revised to 1 to 3 millimeters per year."

The recent speculation that man is causing global warming and that sea levels will suddenly rise is the result of flawed computer models and flawed satellite data...and journalists and politicians being unprofessional. Let me review a few details with you.

In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, convened by the United Nations, said: "No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has been detected."

Sea levels have oscillated on a century time scale over the past 1400 years. Professor Nils-Axel Morner, head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics Department at Stockholm University and past president of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, "Observational data obtained by our international team of experts shows conclusively that the sea level is not rising." "In the last 5000 years, global mean sea level has been dominated by the redistribution of water masses over the globe. In the last 300 years, sea level has been oscillation close to the present with peak rates in the period 1890-1930. Between 1930 and 1950, sea fell. The late 20th century lack any sign of acceleration." Sea levels were 25 cm higher in 1050 (Medieval Warm Period) than in 1650 (Little Ice Age). Since 1650, sea levels have risen at an average rate of 1 mm per year, with the exception of the cool 1800s, when there was little or no rise.

"The data does not support any sea-level rise at all. ... There is no evidence, over the last century, that suggests there will be an acceleration in sea level" -- Wolfgang Scherer, the director of Australia's National Tidal Facility at Flinder's University in Adelaide.

Over the last 3,000 years, there have been at least 5 periods of "global warming". The Medieval Warm Period was from 800 AD to 1400 AD. It ended around 600 years ago. This was followed by the Little Ice Age that started 500 years ago and ended just over 100 years ago. Not surprisingly, Greenland just harvested its first barley in 600 years. Barley and grapes for wine were major crops in Greenland until 1400 AD.

Don't forget to understand the influence of the Maunder minimum and thermal haline.

According to the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, global average temperatures did not increase between 1998 and 2005. Yes, there was a period of warming between 1970 and 1998 - but there was also a similar period of warming between 1918 and 1940, well before the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1964, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate. Of the 1.5 F in warming the planet experienced over the last 150 years, two-thirds of that increase occurred between 1850 and 1940.

The 1 degree increase in global temperature over the past century is nothing unusual. For example, the Medieval Warm Period, from A.D. 1000 to 1400, was warmer than the 20th century.

Human activities contribute at most only 3% of carbon

Venus' atmosphere:

• CO2 by volume: 96.5% (965,000ppm)
• Average temperature: 464C

Earth's atmosphere:

• CO2 by volume: 350ppm
• Average temperature: 15C

Mars' atmosphere:

• CO2 by volume: 95.32% (953,200ppm)
• Average temperature: -63C (yes, minus)

You can't infer any correlation between CO2 and temperature with the limited dataset provided above. From general knowledge we know that electromagnetic (and thermal) fields fall off with an inverse-square of distance, so we can assume that Mars would be receiving less heat input from the sun than Earth, and Venus more.

My point is that there are more factors affecting temperature than the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

There might well be factors other than CO2 affecting the temperatures here on Earth, such as: a possible shift in our orbit around the sun; a possible weakening of the Van Allen Radiation Belts (allowing more radiation input); deforestation (trees help to cool things as well as absorb CO2 and product O2); Urban Heat Islands (ok, I don't buy this one myself since satellite measurements do actually show increases in some places away from urbanized areas and cooling over some others); and probably a whole bunch we haven't identified yet.

All we know for certain is that the global average temperature is increasing, but we don't actually know for 100% certain what's causing it. CO2 is just the most-likely suspect at the moment.

Venus' atmosphere:

• CO2 by volume: 96.5% (965,000ppm)
• Average temperature: 464C

Earth's atmosphere:

• CO2 by volume: 350ppm
• Average temperature: 15C

Mars' atmosphere:

• CO2 by volume: 95.32% (953,200ppm)
• Average temperature: -63C (yes, minus)

You can't infer any correlation between CO2 and temperature with the limited dataset provided above. From general knowledge we know that electromagnetic (and thermal) fields fall off with an inverse-square of distance, so we can assume that Mars would be receiving less heat input from the sun than Earth, and Venus more.

My point is that there are more factors affecting temperature than the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

There might well be factors other than CO2 affecting the temperatures here on Earth, such as: a possible shift in our orbit around the sun; a possible weakening of the Van Allen Radiation Belts (allowing more radiation input); deforestation (trees help to cool things as well as absorb CO2 and product O2); Urban Heat Islands (ok, I don't buy this one myself since satellite measurements do actually show increases in some places away from urbanized areas and cooling over some others); and probably a whole bunch we haven't identified yet.

All we know for certain is that the global average temperature is increasing, but we don't actually know for 100% certain what's causing it. CO2 is just the most-likely suspect at the moment.

Venus' atmosphere:

• CO2 by volume: 96.5% (965,000ppm)
• Average temperature: 464C

Earth's atmosphere:

• CO2 by volume: 350ppm
• Average temperature: 15C

Mars' atmosphere:

• CO2 by volume: 95.32% (953,200ppm)
• Average temperature: -63C (yes, minus)

You can't infer any correlation between CO2 and temperature with the limited dataset provided above. From general knowledge we know that electromagnetic (and thermal) fields fall off with an inverse-square of distance, so we can assume that Mars would be receiving less heat input from the sun than Earth, and Venus more.

My point is that there are more factors affecting temperature than the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

There might well be factors other than CO2 affecting the temperatures here on Earth, such as: a possible shift in our orbit around the sun; a possible weakening of the Van Allen Radiation Belts (allowing more radiation input); deforestation (trees help to cool things as well as absorb CO2 and product O2); Urban Heat Islands (ok, I don't buy this one myself since satellite measurements do actually show increases in some places away from urbanized areas and cooling over some others); and probably a whole bunch we haven't identified yet.

All we know for certain is that the global average temperature is increasing, but we don't actually know for 100% certain what's causing it. CO2 is just the most-likely suspect at the moment.

I don't know that the Moon Landing teams were German. Maybe you are thinking of Rockets? The Saturn V team was lead by Von Braun. But take a look at the Manual for the Lunar Module, available at

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11LM5structures. pdf

In it, you will see many standard measurements listed. 32" here, a 2 3/8" vent opening there. The weights are listed in pounds. The only metric measurements (for distance, as far as I can tell) seem to be part of the thermal shield and blanket, where the largest layer is 1.25 mil (I assume millimeters?), the only measurement larger than a millimeter, and the rest are fractions of a millimeter.

In fact, if you look at original Saturn V docs (not Wikipedia, which is not reliable), located at:

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.g ov/19710065502_1971065502.pdf

you will see that almost all measurements are standard. They talk yards (yes, yards), inches, pounds, gallons, etc.. Now, did you want to continue with your critique? Regarding tractors, I defy you to find European tractors that have lasted as long as mine with as many original parts, while being used summer and winter for 40 years (plowing, mowing, tilling and grading)

I don't know that the Moon Landing teams were German. Maybe you are thinking of Rockets? The Saturn V team was lead by Von Braun. But take a look at the Manual for the Lunar Module, available at

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11LM5structures. pdf

In it, you will see many standard measurements listed. 32" here, a 2 3/8" vent opening there. The weights are listed in pounds. The only metric measurements (for distance, as far as I can tell) seem to be part of the thermal shield and blanket, where the largest layer is 1.25 mil (I assume millimeters?), the only measurement larger than a millimeter, and the rest are fractions of a millimeter.

In fact, if you look at original Saturn V docs (not Wikipedia, which is not reliable), located at:

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.g ov/19710065502_1971065502.pdf

you will see that almost all measurements are standard. They talk yards (yes, yards), inches, pounds, gallons, etc.. Now, did you want to continue with your critique? Regarding tractors, I defy you to find European tractors that have lasted as long as mine with as many original parts, while being used summer and winter for 40 years (plowing, mowing, tilling and grading)

From NASA article

Someone in an above thread posted a link to a NASA animation of the orbit.

If you give the Java Applet (before anybody complains, I'd like to see you do something like this via AJAX) a minute to load and fiddle around with the controls, you can rotate around and see the comet's path relative the earth, adjusting the date a day at a time.

As you can see, between now and Jan 15th, the comet moves almost directly between the sun and the earth, and is completely lost in the glare. As the earth moves around a little further in it's orbit, the sun, comet, earth no longer form a nearly straight line, so it becomes visible again, but because it's orbit is highly inclined (it flew basically over the sun's north pole), the comet at the same time passes below the ecliptic plane. Unfortunately, this will probably be when it's at it's brightest. The upshot is our friends in the southern hemisphere should be able to catch some twilight glimpses of it then. lso, if the comet does get as bright as some of the optimistic estimates (Magnitude -8), it will even be faintly visible during the day (all over)! It will fade out of sight through February.

With an perihelion of only 0.2 AU and an aphelion of over 5000 AU, we can bet that it will be a long time before this comet swings back through the inner solar system.

NASA's story on this here.

No idea if this will help you (probably not in where to view the comet) but this was a solid few minutes of boredom-reliever!

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db_shm?des=2006+P1

Yet another NASA engineer who potentially compromises the design of a spacecraft in the name of environmentalism. You wanna know why the Space Shuttle is having all these recent foam problems that crashed the Colombia? Because they switched the formula to remove freon in order to be more environmental even though the EPA gave NASA a special waiver. The original design worked, but it used freon in the foam. Don't believe me? Here is a journal entry from NASA's website in 1997!!!: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/people/journals/space/ka tnik/sts87-12-23.html

During the STS-87 mission, there was a change made on the external tank. Because of NASA's goal to use environmentally friendly products, a new method of "foaming" the external tank had been used for this mission and the STS-86 mission. It is suspected that large amounts of foam separated from the external tank and impacted the orbiter. This caused significant damage to the protective tiles of the orbiter. Foam cause damage to a ceramic tile?! That seems unlikely, however when that foam is combined with a flight velocity between speeds of MACH two to MACH four, it becomes a projectile with incredible damage potential. The big question? At what phase of the flight did it happen and what changes need to be made to correct this for future missions? I will explain the entire process.

Yet somehow this never got mentioned by the mass media back when Colombia disintegrated over Texas.

Secondly, there is no outstanding debate in the industry on whether or not polypropylene, film, or even tantalum capacitors (what they're referring to as solid, though they're probably talking about tantalums) are of superior quality to electrolytics for audio applications. Electrolytics have changing thermal characteristics, worse tolerances, and tend to introduce a small amount of phase shift into whatever AC signal you're passing through them. Yes, these properties are measurable with the right equipment and are not generally questioned.

Agreed. Tantalum capacitors have much better performance than electrolytics in most circumstances. However, there is outstanding debate about whether the use of tantalum capacitors is ethical, as tantalum is just about the rarest element that's actually used in the electronics industry and most of the deposits are in developing countries. Accusations have been levelled that electronics manufacturers are going to inordinate lengths to secure tantalum deposits, and the people who live there are the losers (especially since the by-products of processing tantalum ore are decidedly unpleasant).

I try to avoid using tantalum capacitors in my own designs as far as possible, trying to keep to NASA's guidelines for component derating when using electrolytics. Where I need precision capacitances I design the circuit so that a ceramic NP0 or similar EIA Class 1 capacitor can be used instead. I haven't had any capacitors fail yet.

This one is a classic -- take a look at the "blank laptop" screen in this picture.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/shuttle /sts-98/hires/s98e5004.jpg

A well-written story about it: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/02/14/in_space_n oone_can_hear/

Alongside computer experts, I think that a lot of normal users would have the urge to buy a blank laptop simply because it is cheaper and might find themselves in this same situation.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/96/tpxerror.html [ nasa.gov]

"Measurements of global sea-level rise from a U.S. instrument in space likely will be revised downward because of a recently discovered error in the data-processing software, mission scientists said. Initial indications are that sea-level measurements from the U.S. altimeter aboard the U.S.-French TOPEX/Poseidon satellite likely will agree more closely with Earth-based tide gauges, as well as with the French altimeter on the satellite. Preliminary findings from TOPEX/Poseidon data..., indicated the Earth's sea surface was rising ... more than 5 millimeters per year. Data collected from December 1992 to April 1996 have been updated and suggest that the new sea level rise estimate will be revised to 1 to 3 millimeters per year."

The recent speculation that man is causing global warming and that sea levels will suddenly rise is the result of flawed computer models and flawed satellite data...and journalists and politicians being unprofessional. Let me review a few details at you.

In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, convened by the United Nations, said: "No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has been detected."

Professor Nils-Axel Morner, head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics Department at Stockholm University and past president of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, "Observational data obtained by our international team of experts shows conclusively that the sea level is not rising." "In the last 5000 years, global mean sea level has been dominated by the redistribution of water masses over the globe. In the last 300 years, sea level has been oscillation close to the present with peak rates in the period 1890-1930. Between 1930 and 1950, sea fell. The late 20th century lack any sign of acceleration. Satellite altimetry indicates virtually no changes in the last decade. Therefore, observationally based predictions of future sea level in the year 2100 will give a value of +10±10 cm (or +5±15 cm)."

"The data does not support any sea-level rise at all. ... There is no evidence, over the last century, that suggests there will be an acceleration in sea level" -- Wolfgang Scherer, the director of Australia's National Tidal Facility at Flinder's University in Adelaide.

In 1050, during the Medieval Warm Period, sea level was 25 centimeters higher than in 1650, during the Little Ice Age. Since 1650, sea level has been steadily rising at a rate of 1.8 mm per year.

Over the last 3,000 years, there have been at least 5 periods of "global warming". The Medieval Warm Period was from 800 AD to 1400 AD. It ended around 600 years ago. This was followed by the Little Ice Age that started 500 years ago and ended just over 100 years ago. Not surprisingly, Greenland just harvested its first barley in 600 years. Barley and grapes for wine were major crops in Greenland until 1400 AD.

Don't forget to understand the influence of the Maunder minimum and thermal haline.

Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, global average temperatures did not increase between 1998 and 2005. Yes, there was a period of warming between 1970 and 1998 - but there was also a similar period of warming between 1918 and 1940, well before the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1964, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate. Of the 1.5 F in warming the planet experienced over the last 150 years, two-thirds of that increase occurred between 1850 and 1940.

The 1 degree increase in global temperature over the past century is nothing unusual. For example, the Medieval Warm Period, from A.D. 1000 to 1400, was warmer than

Go to this link.
    The header blurb is as follows:

LUNAR IMPACTS

Mission statement: Use Earth-based observations of the dark portion of the moon to establish the rates and sizes of large meteoroids (greater than 500 grams or 1 pound in mass) striking the lunar surface.

Why it is important: The Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) eventually calls for extended astronaut stays on the lunar surface. Spacecraft, vehicles, habitats, and EVA suits must all be designed to withstand the stresses posed by the harsh lunar environment over this period of time. Meteoroids, and the ejecta produced when they create impact craters, are part of this environment. "

Essentially NASA has an Automated Lunar and Meteor Observatory that continuously is watching the Moon.

Then they: "attach an ASTROVID StellaCam EX camera to each of our telescopes, and route the camera output into a Sony tape deck, which converts the video signal into a digital format that is stored on a hard disk. After an observing session, we look for flashes in the data. Our first impact was found by someone simply looking through a couple of hours of video. This can be quite tedious, however, and tired humans can easily miss a short impact flash, so custom computer software was developed to look for the flashes. If one is found, additional software is then used to extract detailed information on the flash -- its brightness as a function of time (light curve), where it was seen on the moon, if it was due to a meteor shower, and so forth. Using this information, we can estimate the mass or size of the meteoroid."

This seems to indicate that they've already got the system working.

• The first 90,000 miles are toll-free, Cisco Systems company profile (detailed), 8 September 2002.
• The first 90,000 miles are toll-free, Cisco Systems Newsroom news story (brief), as seen on Newsroom, 21 February 2001.

Articles discussing this include:

• Now that's a long distance call!, Humans in Space, NASA, 3 June 2003.
• Johnson Space Center, NASA Spinoff magazine, 2001.http://www.techbriefs.com/spinoff/spinoff2001 /johnson.html -->
• This isn't Houston, Lafe Low, CIO Magazine, 1 October 2001.
• Voice over IP takes a giant step forward, Jon William Toigo, Washington Technology vol. 16 no. 1, 2 April 2001.
• Astronauts call home via shuttle VoIP link, William Jackson, Government Computing News, vol. 20 no. 5, 5 March 2001.

'Cannot' is a word. It is contracted to 'can't'. This is perfectly acceptable grammar. 'Ain't' is an accepted grammatical form, although the word itself in nonstandard and should not be used formally.

Punctuation goes inside of quotation marks when the punctuation is part of the passage being quoted, and outside the marks if not -- e.g. Malolm X asked, "What did we do, who preceded you?"; Did Churchill really say, "In the morning I'll be sober, but you'll still be ugly"?

You're also using quotation marks incorrectly. To set off a key concept you should use 'single quotation marks' or italics. You never use double quotation marks for "emphasis".

Famicom is not a contraction. It was a brand name for the NES in Japan. It is a trande name and a proper noun; that's why it's capitalized.

'Alot' is not a word (unless you're speaking of Adaptive Large Optics Technologies), nor is it a contraction.

Bad grammar usage makes the writer look ignorant. Arguing in defense of bad grammer usage makes the arguer look ignorant and obtuse. If something is worth saying, it is worth saying correctly.

but then you prolly dont cair about you're grammer cuz their always corecting them and besides who rilly needs all theese rediculous rules any way ha ha ha LMAO

Hey, there are pretty pictures, too. Plus, I can think of 355 billion dollars spent a lot less wisely.

I take it you've never published in a peer-reviewed journal before. The raw images were probably available, but it takes some careful analysis of all the data to determine what they were seeing, and you want to have those conclusions verified by fellow scientists before announcing it to the world.

From another page about this at NASA (emphasis added):

Radar-dark surfaces are smooth and most likely liquid, rock, ice or organics. More than 75 radar-dark patches or lakes were seen, ranging from 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) to more than 70 kilometers (43 miles) across.

The images are blatantly false-colour. The "blue" areas meant to potray liquid (making people think of water) but could just as easily be ice or lava flows.

They are charging 20 million a person?

When indexed for inflation the entire Apollo program would cost about $85,000,000. Hell, the entire NASA budget for 1960 through 1973 would be about 250 million. The Apollo program put six manned missions on the moon with 1960s technology.

We put 18 men on the moon for what it would cost for 4 low earth orbits.

That is pathetic. Now we've decided to go back but this time its going to take 15+ years and cost several billion dollars. And the worst part is that nobody cares.

I bet we here at Slashdot could raise enough money to start our own space program and beat our government back to the moon by at least a year or two.

numbers from http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-16_Apoll o_Program_Budget_Appropriations.htm and converted http://www.measuringworth.com/

This other location at the Cassini site, and this older article from the BBC.

The original article is in the journal Nature, but you need a subscription to view it. You can still read the abstract, though.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/x-33/dc-xa.htm

That's ok, David Scott did it for him:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/a15.clsout3.html

So what you're saying is while there's a theoretical difference between the impact timings, the practical effect likely couldn't be measured. Makes sense.

well, that's not entirely true. Although I do believe that an airplane diving, or rising, nose first through a cloud wouldn't leave much of a hole, I have witnessed on several occasions clouds that got ripped apart by an airplane traversing through them. The only reason I saw this, though, is because the clouds were pretty thin. This picture might show something like it, though in my case it was a lot more subtle.. it was also a lot higher up: http://www.capetownskies.com/dane/apr75_24cirrus_b andb.jpg

It is also quite possible with thicker clouds, but it's usually not visible from the ground: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/Images/d ownplane.gif

However.. veritable holes in clouds, I have only ever seen in the form of 'hole punch clouds': http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=hole+punch +cloud

They did everything they intended to accomplish the rovers and more. I'm just surprised they decided to upload the updates to both of them instead of just one of them.

They may have done it that way because it may not possible for their mission support software on the ground to handle two different versions of flight software on Mars.

In any event, NASA's flight software development process is extremely rigorous, up to and including an Independent Verification and Validation center in West Virginia which independently evaluates all NASA flight software (http://www.ivv.nasa.gov/). It's not like it's a beta version of code being sent to the Rovers - the likelihood of finding a bug in the code that escaped testing was sufficiently low to justify uplinking to both rovers.

If anyone wants some light holiday reading, you can check out NASA's software engineering requirements at: http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?t=NPR&c =7150&s=2

They did everything they intended to accomplish the rovers and more. I'm just surprised they decided to upload the updates to both of them instead of just one of them.

They may have done it that way because it may not possible for their mission support software on the ground to handle two different versions of flight software on Mars.

In any event, NASA's flight software development process is extremely rigorous, up to and including an Independent Verification and Validation center in West Virginia which independently evaluates all NASA flight software (http://www.ivv.nasa.gov/). It's not like it's a beta version of code being sent to the Rovers - the likelihood of finding a bug in the code that escaped testing was sufficiently low to justify uplinking to both rovers.

If anyone wants some light holiday reading, you can check out NASA's software engineering requirements at: http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?t=NPR&c =7150&s=2

What a great story for the new year, but it should be said that this island formed this past august.

Someone posted these links to satellite pics on the blog page.

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA01899

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/sh ownh.php3?img_id=13971

What a great story for the new year, but it should be said that this island formed this past august.

Someone posted these links to satellite pics on the blog page.

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA01899

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/sh ownh.php3?img_id=13971

Apparently it smelt like gunpowder.

As I mention in my other post, I heavily favor using existing commercial launchers over developing new launch infrastructure. The Ares V is still useful because nothing comes close, but the same can't really be said for the Ares I.

Looking at the consolidation of the two rocket lines (the Delta IV and Atlas V variants) that can come close to the Ares I, I see that they've been consolidated into a single monopoly, the United Launch Alliance or ULA. That's not a sign of health. My take is that it's much more valuable to create genuine competitive in the commercial manned launch market (and prevent yet another economic disaster in the US space launch capacity) than to build the Ares I or for that matter to send expeditions to the Moon and Mars. Let us recall that development of launch infrastructure is higher up in NASA's charter than conducting space science or manned expeditions.

I consider the Ares I and V to "homebrew" in several ways. First, given their low launch frequency, they will be expensive. The Ares V is scheduled to launch 3-4 times a year while the Ares I sounds like it'll launch maybe 6-12 times per year (I really don't know, this unsubstantiated blurb indicates 10 launches per year over 2020-2025). The Ares I uses a 5 segmented sold rocket booster which to my knowledge is not a fantastically reliable and cost efficient design, but an untested redesign of the very reliable SRBs used on the Space Shuttle. Given ten launches a year, it won't be cost efficient either. By definition.

And ten launches a year would go a long ways to sustaining the US space launch industry in this region. Even if we including all existing Atlas V and Delta IV launches (of which there were apparently 5 total in 2006), that triples existing volume in this range. NASA can provide a big boost to this market now. And after the market gets more active (with both new competitors and fixed costs being divided across a larger group of launches than just the few NASA ones), then NASA can benefit from the resulting low launch costs.

Nope, it's growing fatter and fatter

NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists report this year's ozone hole in the polar region of the Southern Hemisphere has broken records for area and depth.

Overall however, the layer appears to be recovering.

First up nobody disputes there has been increased snowfall in Greenland's interior, in fact it was predicted by climate models.

Second, there have been more comprehensive and more recent studies from the GRACE sattelites, seen in the citation record at the bottom of your link. Also note in the GRACE mission statement that NASA purposfully designed the sattelites to measure the "exchanges between ice sheets or glaciers and the oceans".

Third, Johanessen et al. came to the best conclusion using the data they had, they just didn't have all the data available today.

Fourth, both the paper by Johanssen in your link and the more recent paper based on GRACE data from Rignot and Kanagaratnam agree with the predictions of climate models that say the interior will build and the edges will melt.

Last of all, allthough the result of 54cm is "very simple", measuring a volume of ice the size of Greenland is not a simple task and the error bars in the studies reflect that difficulty. Johanessen is a genuine skeptic when it comes to the impact of AGW, however even he does not doubt it is happening, nor does he doubt our CO2 emmisions are to blame.

It's also an accepted scientific "fact" that Greenland and the Antartic peninsula are subject to a phenomena called "polar amplification" which has seen their regional average tempratures rise by 3 degrees, compared to the global average of 1 degree. Now tell me again about "global warming scare mongering" or are you just trolling for AC's?

The survey documents for the first time extensive thinning of the West Antarctic ice shelves and an increase in snowfall in the interior of Greenland, as well as thinning at the edges. All are signs of a warming climate predicted by computer models.

Now if only the ice were getting thinner in Greenland, we'd have something to worry about. Unfortunately for you global warming scaremongers, that isn't the case. It seems the ice has been getting thicker in Greenland over the past decade or so.

Your link mentions a thickness increase in the interior only; there's a decrease on the margins. NASA says:

Greenland's low coastal regions lost 155 gigatons (41 cubic miles) of ice per year between 2003 and 2005 from excess melting and icebergs, while the high-elevation interior gained 54 gigatons (14 cubic miles) annually from excess snowfall.

Another study and that NASA report points to an overall decrease in ice.