Slashdot Mirror

As I understand the lunar dust is much "rougher" as it hasn't been polished by the same forces (eg: wind and water), which causes it to stick to just about everything.

The Effects of Lunar Dust on EVA Systems During the Apollo Missions

"the effects could be sorted into nine categories: vision obscuration, false instrument readings, dust coating and contamination, loss of traction, clogging of mechanisms, abrasion, thermal control problems, seal failures, and inhalation and irritation. Although simple dust mitigation measures were sufficient to mitigate some of the problems (i.e., loss of traction) it was found that these measures were ineffective to mitigate many of the more serious problems (i.e., clogging, abrasion, diminished heat rejection). The severity of the dust problems were consistently underestimated by ground tests, indicating a need to develop better simulation facilities and procedures."

I wonder how someone could manufacture "fake moon dust" here on earth. Meh, at least I can sleep at night knowing this isn't my problem.

The consequences to the world economy of, say, an earthquake that devastated Tokyo would be appalling.

Been there. Done that. That's just Japan, but major quakes have caused severe damage in other parts of the world. Tragic? Yes. Severly damaging to the local economies? Yes. However, to say they had major consequences on the economy of the whole world? No.

And I think this statement sums up so much about the troubled psychology of so many climate change deniers. Because they worry about doom, they deny that we are causing it.

Correlation is not causation. Let me say that again; correlation is NOT causation. Would the world climate be changing if mankind was not here? Yes. This is undisputed. So what makes you so sure that mankind is all of a sudden the cause? If we are the cause then without mankind the climate would not change, yet science has demonstrated that the climate has been changing for quite some time, in cycles of heating and cooling long before mankind could possibly have any effect. Is it likely that mankind has some effect on the climate? Sure. But when you state that mankind is the cause you are making far more assumptions than hard science can support.

First, some science. We are causing it. We are pumping vast amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

I just thought I should point out that your statement contains no science what-so-ever. Plenty of conjecture, sure.

Secondly, no-one is talking about 'doom'. ...... However, it will cause serious problems.

Well statements like severe economic consequences world-wide sure sound like 'doom' to me. Will climate change cause problems? I have no doubt. Will they be serious? I guess it depends on where you live and what you consider serious. I will continue to take issue with people who think mankind is the sole cause of climate change.

This is something that I care about a lot, and all I have to say is that if it matters to you, do something about it:

http://www.seds.org/ - Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
http://www.nss.org/ - National Space Society
http://www.yurisnight.net/ - Yuri's Night, the international space party
http://www.xprize.com/ -X-Prize Foundation
just to name a few...

or of course if you're young enough and willing to work a civil servants salary:
http://www.nasa.gov/about/career/index.html

-Brian

and there is no immediate payoff to being in space.

      There isn't?

      http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/shuttle.htm And these are just in the past 15 years or so...

The Saturn picture (the number one) was the picture of the day on October 16th at the NASA "Astronomy Picture of the Day" website:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061016.html

I think the mosaic of Barnard's Loop should have been in there. Wow, what an impressive shot!

More on the Saturn photo

Many of these were amazing - the sheer scale of some of these images never fails to floor me. The Saturn photo at the end, however, truly sent shivers down my spine at how beautiful it was. Naturally, I was crushed to find that the link to the larger version wasn't working.

Luckily, the copy on APoD works fine. I thought I'd post it here in case someone else, like me, was looking to make a desktop out of this amazing photo.

Pretty good list though I would add amateur astronomer Christopher Go's image of Oval BA "aka Red Jr." on Jupiter. This alerted amateurs and pros alike to set their sights on the new red spot.

NASA X-43A could do mach 9.6 in 2004 using scramjets. Here's a link...
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/x43-main.htm l

The thing I'm wondering is how scramjets do in the upper atmosphere where there is less oxygen? Though there's also less drag up there so might do the acceleration lower in the atmosphere.

Scramjets are the "fusion" of aircraft research. Always 10-20 years away. I'll believe it when I see something flying.

Quote from article about the disappearing island:
      "An annual 3.14 mm rise in sea level at Sunderbans due to climate change is eating away 12 islands on the delta, says a study by a group of scientists from Jadavpur University." http://in.news.yahoo.com/061030/48/68wfx.html

Also, there has been an estimated 18.5cm rise in sea level over the last 100 years. That would yield an average of 1-2mm/yr, though satellite data is showing a slightly higher rise of 3mm/yr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/Key_Topics/IceSheet_Se aLevel/index.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImage s/images.php3?img_id=17300

Where in the world did you find 34mm/yr? Someone would have to be out of their mind to actually publish that! At over an inch/yr, substantial parts of our continents would have gone under water in the last century. You're talking about an 8 *FOOT* rise over the last century at 34mm/yr, rather than the actual measured increases that an order of magnitude smaller, and then some.

Terminal Island sank because the area is geologically unstable. We may have helped it by releasing some of the contained liquid acting as bedrock, but it wasn't due to the ocean becoming deeper.

"Losing mass at a significant rate" is sensationalist journalism at best..

Yes, it's called an Optical Logic Gate.

Quite right. Here's a single chart that's worth more than a thousand ignorant and misinformed climate-change trolls. May I now post my regular link to RealClimate.org for the benefit of any sceptics out there who really do have an interest in what the actual science actually says.

Short-term changes in sea level like waves, tides, and storm surge mask the effects of rising sea levels. When the signal-to-noise ratio is that low, you end up with news articles stating that the island in question became uninhabitable 22 years ago.
 
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but compared to serious examination of long-term sea level trends, one island isn't a very useful measuring stick.
 

My wife's name and my own already went up in 2003, as part of this programme. I have the pre-take off and post-landing certificates for it. They are of absolutely no practical value whatsoever, but I simply don't care. I love the fact our names are up there, and now we have kids I think I'm going to sign up again and and put our kids' names there too.

It's a harmless, fun programme to generate some interest and I applaud its intent.

Cheers,
Ian

A quick google tells me the sun reverses magnetic field every 22 years. 11 is in the middle, guess that is why but not fully. So we shift that question upstream one notch as to the "why?" part. source : http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/sun/activit y/solar_cycle.html

I also just found out this NASA solar division lost funding

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.sht ml

Their forecast is based on historical records of geomagnetic storms. Hathaway explains: "When a gust of solar wind hits Earth's magnetic field, the impact causes the magnetic field to shake. If it shakes hard enough, we call it a geomagnetic storm." In the extreme, these storms cause power outages and make compass needles swing in the wrong direction. Auroras are a beautiful side-effect. Hathaway and Wilson looked at records of geomagnetic activity stretching back almost 150 years and noticed something useful:. "The amount of geomagnetic activity now tells us what the solar cycle is going to be like 6 to 8 years in the future," says Hathaway.

They can put a crew up in space, but in order to watch a clip of the landing you have to download the newest RealPlayer... /sigh

Of all news sources, why the random BBC link? Why not link to the shuttle website?

Sunglasses as in "darkened glass" were certainly in use. But actually useful sunglasses that cut out the correct parts of the spectrum while leaving you able to see in dim light were, actually, developed on the space program dime.

Smoke detectors -- as in the useful radioactive ones that work -- were developed on the space program dime.

Cordless drills were spinoffs from the "reactionless" drills used by astronauts. Your point about batteries "being invented in Mesopotamia" is just silly curmudgeonly-ness and you know it.

But why should I have to do your Googleing for you? Here's a recent list (that doesn't include the three above which you can look up yourself).

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinoff1997/spin97.htm l

I just looked up GRbs, and found this page, which seems to say that they're distributed equally. Also that they are from the beginning of the universe. But I don't know much about this, and may well be wrong.

I wasn't about to go all Max Tegmark... Interesting ideas, though.

I just looked up GRbs, and found this page, which seems to say that they're distributed equally. Also that they are from the beginning of the universe. But I don't know much about this, and may well be wrong.

I wasn't about to go all Max Tegmark... Interesting ideas, though.

Ah!

Yes; I understand what you're saying.

The thing is, we didn't "explode out" from a point. Rather, the big bang happened "everywhere." (support)

The raisin bread analogy of expansion works better, for understanding this.

Imagine that the distance between the walls of your bedroom, and all the objects in your bedroom, are expanding. Next year, everything is twice as big, and twice as far apart. But the objects themselves stay the same size. (Due to various gravitational, electromagnetic, whatever effects.) This is basically what it's like in the universe. The "big bang" is that a bunch of space appeared between things, very quickly. But we don't know that the universe doesn't go on forever. There is stuff out beyond your apartment, you have neighbors and so on, entire cities.

New space has been appearing, and we are seeing light from "far away." It is plausible (likely?) that the entire observable universe that we see right now, occupied a space, at the time of the big bang, filled a space smaller than a centimeter, perhaps even just a plank length (smallest meaningful distance.) It doesn't mean that that was the size of the entire universe.

We'd be seeing this light from the other end of the centimeter only now, because a lot of new space appeared, and continues to appear, between one end of that centimeter, and the other end of the centimeter. (Don't take this "centimeter" figure too literally, though; I'm just pulling that out of the air. I just mean "a very small distance.")

We do not and cannot observe the big bang from our own position in space. We just assume that people N billion light years away (50-something?) see the light that was at our particular spot, 13.7 billion light years ago. "Wait, how can someone 50+ billion light years away see light that came from here 13.7 billion years ago? Did it travel faster than light?" No; The difference is because new space has appeared before and behind the light, as it was traveling. Sort of like if I drove what for me was 100 miles by the car's count, but then we found that the road had grown to 200 miles by the time I arrived at my destination.

Does this help explain?

The main thing is that the big bang wasn't just a point; It happened everywhere. When we see the big bang in the Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation, we are seeing the light of the big bang as it happened in other places. Granted, we were all scooched together a bit more at the beginning, than we are right now. But the fact remains, the light traveled from somewhere else, and it was somewhere else, back then, too.

Oh; No, we- we actually see the Big Bang, today. We see not only the big bang, but the times between the big bang, and the present. It's sort of like looking at inverted tree rings-- the center tree rings are the present, and the outer tree rings are the past. We even see "bands" of history; For example, radio galaxies only appear within a certain radius. There are "growth stages" to the matter in the universe. You only see such-and-such at ye distance, and such-and-such things at ye further distance, and so on, all the way back to the very "beginning," the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. With Mitaka, you can see also the formation of the large scale structure of the universe, very clearly. The futher away you go, the more jumbled the matter is. As you get closer and closer and closer, you see more segregation, and then the nodal points and the filament and so on.

In a sense, the answer to your question is a "Yes!" We do see "space become very bright all around." That is, we see the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. That is what it is. It is the initial light from the Big Bang. Or rather, it is the surface of last scattering. The CMBR was predicted by the Big Bang model, (more or less by the reasoning you just gave,) and then observed, after the prediction.

We are conditioned to think that the big bang was "bright" in the sense of shining visible white light, but my understanding is that our eyes simply observe the wrong frequency range, to be able to see it. If you look with microwave vision, you do indeed see it.

Incidentally, there's some truth to what you are saying about "if the universe continues to expand..." We already see the initial light from the Big Bang, like I just explained, but, as time passes, there's less and less of the big bang that we can truely see. The end-game scenario of the expansion of the universe would be the big rip, where we can't even see beyond the end of our own galaxy, our own solar system, our own planet, 3 feet in front of us, our own body, our brain, individual molecules, atoms, subatomics, ...

So, we can see the Big Bang, we just see less and less of it as time goes by. Basically on the lines you were arguing.

Oh, one thing that may help to explain this, is that the big bang didn't happen at "a point." Rather, it happened everywhere. Or, rather, the entire observable universe fit into roughly the space of a point, (though the big bang may well have happened in infinite space, we have no idea,) and our observable universe is the only thing observable to us. We don't think the entire universe is shrinking; Only our field of vision. But it seems unlikely that the galaxies beyond our field of vision are actually disappearing. Just because I turn my head, doesn't mean my girlfriend goes away from the universe.

Oh; No, we- we actually see the Big Bang, today. We see not only the big bang, but the times between the big bang, and the present. It's sort of like looking at inverted tree rings-- the center tree rings are the present, and the outer tree rings are the past. We even see "bands" of history; For example, radio galaxies only appear within a certain radius. There are "growth stages" to the matter in the universe. You only see such-and-such at ye distance, and such-and-such things at ye further distance, and so on, all the way back to the very "beginning," the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. With Mitaka, you can see also the formation of the large scale structure of the universe, very clearly. The futher away you go, the more jumbled the matter is. As you get closer and closer and closer, you see more segregation, and then the nodal points and the filament and so on.

In a sense, the answer to your question is a "Yes!" We do see "space become very bright all around." That is, we see the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. That is what it is. It is the initial light from the Big Bang. Or rather, it is the surface of last scattering. The CMBR was predicted by the Big Bang model, (more or less by the reasoning you just gave,) and then observed, after the prediction.

We are conditioned to think that the big bang was "bright" in the sense of shining visible white light, but my understanding is that our eyes simply observe the wrong frequency range, to be able to see it. If you look with microwave vision, you do indeed see it.

Incidentally, there's some truth to what you are saying about "if the universe continues to expand..." We already see the initial light from the Big Bang, like I just explained, but, as time passes, there's less and less of the big bang that we can truely see. The end-game scenario of the expansion of the universe would be the big rip, where we can't even see beyond the end of our own galaxy, our own solar system, our own planet, 3 feet in front of us, our own body, our brain, individual molecules, atoms, subatomics, ...

So, we can see the Big Bang, we just see less and less of it as time goes by. Basically on the lines you were arguing.

Oh, one thing that may help to explain this, is that the big bang didn't happen at "a point." Rather, it happened everywhere. Or, rather, the entire observable universe fit into roughly the space of a point, (though the big bang may well have happened in infinite space, we have no idea,) and our observable universe is the only thing observable to us. We don't think the entire universe is shrinking; Only our field of vision. But it seems unlikely that the galaxies beyond our field of vision are actually disappearing. Just because I turn my head, doesn't mean my girlfriend goes away from the universe.

OK!

First is WMAP Cosmology 101: Big Bang Concepts. I think this page is reputable, because the domain is map.gsfc.nasa.gov. There are a few things about this link- First, it makes no real commitments to shape. It says it's possible that the universe has a more complex shape than "closed sphere, flat, or open," but it's unwilling to commit to anything. That said, it suggests flat, by pointing out that "If the density just equals the critical density, the universe is flat, but still presumably infinite. ... While the answer is not yet known for certain, [the average density of matter] appears to be tantalizingly close to the critical density."

Another important thing to note there, is that they use the terms "universe" and "visible universe" almost interchangably. (See, for example, the first paragraph under "The Origin of the Cosmic Microwave Background.") This jives with what Wikipedia says about "Observable universe:" "Both popular and professional research articles in cosmology often use the term "universe" to mean "observable universe"." I try not to use Wikipedia, but if it points out something that seems to agree with other websites, I conditionally take it. So: When they talk about the "size" of the universe, they almost always mean the size of the observable universe. (see also...)

Yet another thing to note here, is that it says that the universe doesn't necessarily start at a point. The Big Bang may have occurred everywhere. The "bang" is about the space that is appearing between all galaxies, not that the universe was first bound into a nutshell, and then exploded outwards. A picture I have made in my head, (which may reflect astrophysicists understand, which may not reflect astrophysicists understanding,) is that, plausibly, first there was stuff everywhere, infinitely, in all direction, but, that as time passed, "additional blank space" was put between all the things that exist. The entire observable universe came from just one small tiny dot of the stuff that is everywhere. The space that we see is mostly stuff that was added, since time began. So it's not so much that the universe started out small, and then grew large, as it is that the universe started out infinite, and that infinite universe is scaling outward, like scaling the real numbers out by some multiplier, over and over and over again. (Supporting link: "In this picture the Big Bang occurred everywhere."

Here's another website, on curious.astro.cornell.edu. Cornell "astro" .edu sounds reliable enough, to me. Sadly, this site is dated January, 1999.

Here's a 2006 educational publication, chapter 4 says that the universe is very nearly flat. This is typical of what I've seen on most sites. Note that in 5.1, he notes that the universe may be infinite; This, too, is fairly typical, in sites I see.

There are a number of newspaper articles, that have news of astronomers finding "hints" at one shape, or another shape, but there's nothing conclusive. In my experience, these articles are usually (A) confusing, and very likely (B) confused, and seem to be okay with that: "What will these wacky scientists come up with, next?" A funnel, a soccer ball, a pill, ...

When

OK!

First is WMAP Cosmology 101: Big Bang Concepts. I think this page is reputable, because the domain is map.gsfc.nasa.gov. There are a few things about this link- First, it makes no real commitments to shape. It says it's possible that the universe has a more complex shape than "closed sphere, flat, or open," but it's unwilling to commit to anything. That said, it suggests flat, by pointing out that "If the density just equals the critical density, the universe is flat, but still presumably infinite. ... While the answer is not yet known for certain, [the average density of matter] appears to be tantalizingly close to the critical density."

Another important thing to note there, is that they use the terms "universe" and "visible universe" almost interchangably. (See, for example, the first paragraph under "The Origin of the Cosmic Microwave Background.") This jives with what Wikipedia says about "Observable universe:" "Both popular and professional research articles in cosmology often use the term "universe" to mean "observable universe"." I try not to use Wikipedia, but if it points out something that seems to agree with other websites, I conditionally take it. So: When they talk about the "size" of the universe, they almost always mean the size of the observable universe. (see also...)

Yet another thing to note here, is that it says that the universe doesn't necessarily start at a point. The Big Bang may have occurred everywhere. The "bang" is about the space that is appearing between all galaxies, not that the universe was first bound into a nutshell, and then exploded outwards. A picture I have made in my head, (which may reflect astrophysicists understand, which may not reflect astrophysicists understanding,) is that, plausibly, first there was stuff everywhere, infinitely, in all direction, but, that as time passed, "additional blank space" was put between all the things that exist. The entire observable universe came from just one small tiny dot of the stuff that is everywhere. The space that we see is mostly stuff that was added, since time began. So it's not so much that the universe started out small, and then grew large, as it is that the universe started out infinite, and that infinite universe is scaling outward, like scaling the real numbers out by some multiplier, over and over and over again. (Supporting link: "In this picture the Big Bang occurred everywhere."

Here's another website, on curious.astro.cornell.edu. Cornell "astro" .edu sounds reliable enough, to me. Sadly, this site is dated January, 1999.

Here's a 2006 educational publication, chapter 4 says that the universe is very nearly flat. This is typical of what I've seen on most sites. Note that in 5.1, he notes that the universe may be infinite; This, too, is fairly typical, in sites I see.

There are a number of newspaper articles, that have news of astronomers finding "hints" at one shape, or another shape, but there's nothing conclusive. In my experience, these articles are usually (A) confusing, and very likely (B) confused, and seem to be okay with that: "What will these wacky scientists come up with, next?" A funnel, a soccer ball, a pill, ...

When

If light existed only for 14.7 billion years, then objects couldn't be farther than 14.7 billion light years, in fact, much less. As the maximum speed they could have (relative to us) is the speed of light.

No; There's no reason to believe things didn't start beyond us. Furthermore, there is the expansion of space.

That is, at the time of the big bang, my understanding is that there may have been plasma that was billions of light years away. My understanding is that the big bang refers to initial density, and to expansion. But not necessarily to a beginning in a single point.

In my defense, I refer you to a NASA site, "WMAP Cosmology 101," the part that begins with: "Please avoid the following common misconceptions about the Big Bang and expansion..."

As long as they do not take over Nasa WorldWind. http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

A friend of mine (who will remain anonymous) works with the flight simulators at NASA Ames, the ones on the big hydraulic arms, which are FAA certified for pilots to qualify as 747 flying time.

I asked him if they were also certified to qualify for the Mile High Club (if the simulator's rock'n, don't come a knock'n). He said of course they were, but it was a good idea to turn off all the cameras, because otherwise everything you do in them is recorded.

They've got all kinds of programs for simulating any kind of air disaster, and there's nothing more exciting than "oh my god we're about to die" sex!

-Don

A friend of mine (who will remain anonymous) works with the flight simulators at NASA Ames, the ones on the big hydraulic arms, which are FAA certified for pilots to qualify as 747 flying time.

I asked him if they were also certified to qualify for the Mile High Club (if the simulator's rock'n, don't come a knock'n). He said of course they were, but it was a good idea to turn off all the cameras, because otherwise everything you do in them is recorded.

They've got all kinds of programs for simulating any kind of air disaster, and there's nothing more exciting than "oh my god we're about to die" sex!

-Don

A friend of mine (who will remain anonymous) works with the flight simulators at NASA Ames, the ones on the big hydraulic arms, which are FAA certified for pilots to qualify as 747 flying time.

I asked him if they were also certified to qualify for the Mile High Club (if the simulator's rock'n, don't come a knock'n). He said of course they were, but it was a good idea to turn off all the cameras, because otherwise everything you do in them is recorded.

They've got all kinds of programs for simulating any kind of air disaster, and there's nothing more exciting than "oh my god we're about to die" sex!

-Don

We have several sites that have been physically surveyed, plus the work done by Lunar Prospector. Please read up on Lunar Prospector before attempting to make an intelligent comment. Thanks.

NASA's Dec 2006 Press Release

Excerpt of interest (as was shown under other links found within the other threads):

"NASA has collected and processed more information about our planet and universe than any other entity in the history of humanity," said Chris C. Kemp, director of strategic business development at Ames. "Even though this information was collected for the benefit of everyone, and much is in the public domain, the vast majority of this information is scattered and difficult for non-experts to access and to understand.

So yes, it is highly likely that the googlenasa.com site is the real deal, considering that Chris C. Kemp is actually a NASA employee.

Also, since the site was really not meant for the public, it is not particularly surprising that it was not mentioned in the announcement or that the server couldn't handle a Slashdotting.

Looks like it is real, but seems like a hoax due to the mislinked 2005 press release. Here is a 2006 nasa.gov press release

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/dec/HQ_06371_ Ames_Google.html

which names

"Chris C. Kemp, director of strategic business development at Ames"

Here are the real links that refer to today's media briefing:

ZDnet blog posting by Garett Rogers.
NASA's media advisory about today's media briefing (link via Gregg's blog post).
Article in New Scientist about Google and NASA's iEarth software (link via Gregg's blog post).

Start rant

The press release submitted by eldavojohn was issued on September 28, 2005! The media briefing hadn't even started when this posting was approved!

Attention slashdot "editors" -- the reason why you're losing mindshare to digg and other sites is for editing like this -- only a novice or clueless "editor" would get taken in by a bogus submission about a real event ocurring because they didn't trivally check its contents.

It's far too easy to slip things past slashdot's "editors", since a single "editor" can have the wool pulled over his eyes. Thus the surge in popularity of sites like digg, since (to build on esr's quote) Given enough eyeballs, all scams are transparent.

-- An unhappy long-time reader.

End rant

Yes, all of the previous is based on old or bogus. Here is the actual release from about 30 minutes ago: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/dec/HQ_06371_ Ames_Google.html

Here's a nasa link admitting the disclosure of the joint venture.

The name in the Nasa news aren't the same

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/dec/HQ_06371_ Ames_Google.html
Michael Mewhinney
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-3937

Jon Murchinson
Google Inc., Mountain View, Calif.
650-253-4437

VS

http://googlenasa.com/
Megan Smith
Business Development
Meghan.Smith@google.com

Chris C. Kemp
Business Development
Chris.C.Kemp@nasa.gov

This sounds like shit to me

But to build a proper orbital habitat, the most cost effective way, we need a few thousand people working on gathering lunar and or asteroidal materials and delivering them to Earth orbit. I'd say the next step is most certainly improving our lunar survey data with the establishment of a permenant moon base.

http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSe ttlement/75SummerStudy/Table_of_Contents1.html

For those of you nay sayers who think the money is better spent on social programs, get bent! I want my kids off this rock asap before clowns like you trap us all here for extinction.

The weight on the outer rim of the space station will be uneven. As a result, the space station will wobble and move as it spins. How would you compensate for this wobble? Rockets require fuel, which adds weight and a tremendous expense (The rockets need to be fired frequently).

I don't think this is an issue. The reason an unbalanced wheel wobbles isn't because of the imbalance, really - it's because you're expecting it (and constraining it, via the axle) to rotate around a point that isn't its center of mass. In a space station rotating like this, the imbalance will merely cause a alight shift of the axis of rotation. Other than if you're trying to include a central docking bay like the station at the start of 2001 (or Babylon 5), I don't think there's a particular issue here.

Besides, even if there was wobble, why would you compensate for it? It can't have a net effect of moving your station - it'll move a little in one direction in one half of the rotation, but move back again in the other.

I don't see an issue here. I don't think NASA saw an issue when they discussed this idea - or if they did, they never mentioned it.

AFAIK, the only problems to overcome are:

* Sufficiently cheap launch technologies. A workable rotating space habitat has to have a diameter of at least 900m. This makes them rather expensive to construct with current launch systems.
* Dependence on regular imports of stuff from Earth, to replace lost gasses and volatiles.
* Keeping the thing in an appropriate orbit will require periodic boosting. The reaction mass for this will need to come from somewhere.

Chris Kemp, director of business development, NASA Ames Research Center

NASA Ames Research Center is also the location mentioned in the press release on googlenasa.com

Yep, you're missing out on the actual announcment made today - http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/dec/HQ_06371_ Ames_Google.html

The news release is one year old. And the site is neither registered to NASA or to Google, but to INTERMEDIA.NET. It's basically PR, anyways.

I noticed that too. Seems someone posted the url for a year old announcement instead of the current one http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/dec/HQ_06371_ Ames_Google.html