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True enough. And I know some proposals were for it to be semi-mobile for just such a reason. Is there some reason it couldn't be retractable? I.e. just pull some of it back in if some piece of debris needs to fly over the top of it.

No, because the slingshot is only used for short periods of time. It doesn't have to be kept in tension 24x7 for no good reason. Besides the slingshot was an (apparently bad) attempt at humor.

I hope not, because if that's the case we're all screwed. I think America's spirit is alive and well, personally.

If it falls, it'll flutter down to the ground.

OK, I'll bite. Why would it "flutter" if all but the last 100 miles are beyond the atmosphere? As the NASA "feather falling on the moon" experiment demonstrates, 99.5% of the ribbon would fall accelerating at the rate of gravity.

Let's say the failure is at the geosynchronous point, which I would believe to be the worst case scenario (and perhaps a likely point, as it would be the point with the highest tension stresses on the ribbon.) If I'm right, everything nearer to earth at that point will begin to fall, accellerating at 9.8 m/s^2. Sure, the part of the ribbon that began its fall in the atmosphere would "flutter", but everything above 100 miles would experience no drag to slow it. It would enter the atmosphere at a much higher velocity.

Would a carbon fiber ribbon, designed to withstand solar and Van Allen radiation plus the cyclic temperature stresses of nights and days, simply "burn up" on reentry? Keep in mind that only the leading edge would suffer the full brunt of reentry friction, leaving the rest of this highly engineered ribbon to slip straight in. Or could part of it "bunch up" (perhaps led by the mass where the climber was) and enter as a large mass? Could that serve as a "whip handle" to pull the rest of the fiber in, causing a "red Mars"-type whip effect? Sure, it's not "sequoia sized" and wouldn't have the same mass that caused the devastation in the novel, but it'll have enough of its own mass to still pose a threat. If nothing else, the falling ribbon could potentially tangle and slice through the rest of the elevator ribbons.

I'm sure there is some science you based your statement on, but I think it's less simple than just stating "it'll flutter down because it's shaped like Saran wrap."

Tornado's, earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding... Mother nature probably poses a very large threat to this thing. As opposed to space debris huddling along at 17000+ mph?

And yes, an aircraft could just aim for it Oh, noes!!!!11 the terrorist are coming.

I'm still waiting for a giant slingshot. Don't the same hazards apply to your slingshot?

Success is never final and failure never fatal. It's courage that counts. --Abraham Lincoln

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. --JFK

What happen to America's spirit? Are we too busy cowering in fear hoping our gov't protects us? Man up, America.

If Mozilla had $820 million and several hundred rocket scientists working full time and over time on only the Gecko engine for three years, then yeah, I think it might pass Acid2.

I'm not saying it's reasonable that it hasn't, I'm saying it's unreasonable to compare a bunch of cowboys that do stuff for fun with a few paid employees along with them to JPL making robots and sending them to Mars.

We can aerobrake to slow down a 2t probe from Mach 20 (I'm not sure the entry speed of the probes, this is just a guess. I don't think it will be slower than that)

More or less. The escape velocity for Mars is 5 km/s, so the probes from Earth hit the atmosphere slightly above that, about 5.5 km/s. That's 16-17 times the speed of sound at sea level on Earth (don't know the Mach number on Mars).

But to slow down a 200t spacecraft from that speed to Mach 1.0 is much more difficult. There is simply not enough air in the Mars atmosphere, especially in the upper atmosphere, which is where aerobraking takes place.

I see your point. Taking values from this NASA Web site, the terminal velocity for a 200-tonne object with a 100 m^2 cross-section (a heavy space shuttle) is still above 1 km/s at 5000 m altitude. I suppose you could use a retro-rocket for the last km/s (30-40% of the payload for fuel) then switch to a (large) parachute.

And you don't need a 200-tonne lander, anyway. :-)

Reverse rocket propulsion has worked on moon, but in order to do it on Mars, we need a whole lot more fuel. IIRC it's on the order of 5X the mass of your payload.

If you slow down from 5 km/s to 0, yes, that would be it. If you can shave 4 km/s off your entry velocity by aerobraking, that's much less.

The reverse propulsion problem is also compounded by the strong side wind.

You just have to thrust opposite to the airflow...

Now, I didn't say it was easy. Actually you convinced me that landing a 200-tonne behemoth on Mars is quite hard. But I don't think it's impossible with current technology, and I believe one can get away with a much lighter lander anyway, which would be easier. So, manned Mars missions should be possible in not too long a timeframe.

As it is, with that gold disc in the voyager spacecrafts showing the planets of our system, it's doubtful ET will find us now since he'll see our system has only 8 planets but his directions said there would be 9.

ET may, of course, have a better picture of this solar system when hesheit arrives than we have today. If so, it'll be the things not listed on the Pioneer 10 plate (e.g., Kuiper belt objects) that throw himherit more than the fact that the ninth thing that was listed is some insignificant little pair of rocks.

See also Voyager 2 golden record.

As it is, with that gold disc in the voyager spacecrafts showing the planets of our system, it's doubtful ET will find us now since he'll see our system has only 8 planets but his directions said there would be 9.

ET may, of course, have a better picture of this solar system when hesheit arrives than we have today. If so, it'll be the things not listed on the Pioneer 10 plate (e.g., Kuiper belt objects) that throw himherit more than the fact that the ninth thing that was listed is some insignificant little pair of rocks.

See also Voyager 2 golden record.

As it is, with that gold disc in the voyager spacecrafts showing the planets of our system, it's doubtful ET will find us now since he'll see our system has only 8 planets but his directions said there would be 9.

ET may, of course, have a better picture of this solar system when hesheit arrives than we have today. If so, it'll be the things not listed on the Pioneer 10 plate (e.g., Kuiper belt objects) that throw himherit more than the fact that the ninth thing that was listed is some insignificant little pair of rocks.

See also Voyager 2 golden record.

This phrase is in there twice" 1)"described by NASA's chief as "Apollo on steroids"" then later , 2) "in the words of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, "Apollo on steroids.""

I don't see the problem; Griffin actually said it. Google should get many references; searching only on NASA-affiliated Web sites, see e.g.:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/index.cfm?MMCat egory=Video
http://www-lib.ksc.nasa.gov/lib/archives/chronolog ies/2005CHRONO.PDF

This phrase is in there twice" 1)"described by NASA's chief as "Apollo on steroids"" then later , 2) "in the words of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, "Apollo on steroids.""

I don't see the problem; Griffin actually said it. Google should get many references; searching only on NASA-affiliated Web sites, see e.g.:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/index.cfm?MMCat egory=Video
http://www-lib.ksc.nasa.gov/lib/archives/chronolog ies/2005CHRONO.PDF

Most of the other topics have been of the "I can't think for myself or do a web search, let me ask someone who might have."

... here is how my wife and 1-year-old son and I did it.

If you enjoy camping, there is a KOA just north of Titusville on the interstate. Otherwise check out the state parks. (they were all full, fourth of july week and all).
Anywhere along the shore close to the shuttle is good (pull out a map...) but where we saw it - along with mostly locals - was a bridge just **north** of Space View Park (A Max Brewer Memorial Parkway). Take the bridge until you are almost to the entrance of the park, and camp it. You will need to get there hours early (we got there 8 hours early and there were quite a few people... but it was the first return to flight mission). Bring a grill and some fine grillables.
The other options is viewing **at** kennedy space center which is a mile or two closer, but the tickets are sold out by now.
Launch schedules are on NASA's website http://www.nasa.gov/
For the whole experiance? Take a few days, go camping, the day before go tour Kennedy Space Center, because if the stars align and there aren't any problems with the shuttle they will actually drive you within a mile or two of it and you get some pretty good camera shots (from inside the van). I'd suggest getting there 2 days before the launch, go to KSC, go to the launch, don't be suprised if the launch gets scrubbed, and plan on having vacation last a few extra days in order to attend scrubs, if they happen. If not there are plenty of other attractions...

If you are in the DC area you can always try Wallops Island for launches of some smaller vehicles.

They have a store for purchasing tickets:

http://kennedyspacecenter.stores.yahoo.net/

Also saw this when searching for the causeway passes, which seems to indicate that you might have to go some other way:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/about/question s/faq.html

Now if they only had crashed the lunar modules of Apollo in a spectacular display of exploding moon dust and told people to watch through their telescopes. Then we would have to listen to these dipshit conspiracy theorists talk about us never going there in the first place.

They did, in addition, they crashed at least one S-IVb into the moon.

http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/pg15.htm

"Six megapixels" and "high resolution" do not belong in the same sentence. If you had said a hundred megapixels, I might agree with you. Then you could have (400 megabytes) x (15 layers and masks) x (30 backups in the "Undo" stack)... I think you can eat memory (and then swap) very nicely under those circumstances, just for one image. (And no, a 400 megabyte raw image is not ridiculous -- try scanning a 6x7 cm transparency at 4000 dpi and see what happens!)

It was an accident. The computer eventually became conscious again. But I think it was 12000 dpi, and I think it was a larger file than that, in fact I think it barfed at the file size it was going to have to produce (2GB I'm guessing).

I really don't have a use for scanning anything at that resolution. I have a 3.2 megapixel Olympus camera which takes shots that are high resolution enough to produce a very good looking printed photograph which is a respectable size. I scan stuff like baseball cards, old photograph negatives, text and forms, model textures, things like that. To me, 3000x2000 is enormous. I realize I'm not a graphics guy or anything... but I probably do more than what I'd call an "average" user.

Here's a 10 megapixel photo of Mars.
Here's a 6 megapixel photo of the new lava dome inside of Mt. St. Helens.

Those are not "low" or "medium" resolution to me.

Still image from Camera 145. Still image from Camera 147

Video Real (buffering)

Video Windows codec

Still image from Camera 145. Still image from Camera 147

Video Real (buffering)

Video Windows codec

I just did a quick check. Mercury is smaller than our moon.

No it's not. From http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/moon_worldbook.html and http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/mercury_worldbook.ht ml respectively, "The moon's average radius (distance from its center to its surface) is 1,079.6 miles (1,737.4 kilometers), about 27 percent of the radius of Earth." and "Mercury is the planet nearest the sun. It has a diameter of 3,032 miles (4,879 kilometers), about two-fifths of Earth's diameter."

My own preferred criterion for planethood is that every object which is round and in orbit around the sun gets to join the party but we divide the planets into categories. You've got your major planets (i.e. the classical eight) and your minor planets of which Pluto is the best known. So what if we wind up with a hundred planets? Most people will only remember the original nine and textbooks will only need to add an asterisk to Pluto's entry noting that it's the best known of many minor planets.

I just did a quick check. Mercury is smaller than our moon.

No it's not. From http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/moon_worldbook.html and http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/mercury_worldbook.ht ml respectively, "The moon's average radius (distance from its center to its surface) is 1,079.6 miles (1,737.4 kilometers), about 27 percent of the radius of Earth." and "Mercury is the planet nearest the sun. It has a diameter of 3,032 miles (4,879 kilometers), about two-fifths of Earth's diameter."

My own preferred criterion for planethood is that every object which is round and in orbit around the sun gets to join the party but we divide the planets into categories. You've got your major planets (i.e. the classical eight) and your minor planets of which Pluto is the best known. So what if we wind up with a hundred planets? Most people will only remember the original nine and textbooks will only need to add an asterisk to Pluto's entry noting that it's the best known of many minor planets.

Sorry. The shuttle DOES NOT use boineg 767 Avionics. The job of the two is VERY different. The shuttle DOES have a glass cockpit now. The eight balls like they used for attitude control on Apollo and on the old shuttle are gone.

http://oea.larc.nasa.gov/news_rels/2000/art/glassc ockpit/EL-2000-00037.JPG

Forget it Google is my friend.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/970411a.html

The Question
(Submitted April 11, 1997)

My first graders want to know, How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space? I think the potty chair is in place. Is this correct?

The Answer
We have come up with a number of answers to your question. We will let you, as the professional teacher, decide which is appropriate for your classroom and what is best left to the teachers lounge.

I. The Official NASA pages:

A. There is a nice space shuttle web page at: http://shuttle.nasa.gov/ Digging in there I found a Q&A Web page. Here's what it says: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/faq/ living.html

6. How do you take a bath, brush your teeth, and go to the bathroom in space?

We do not have a bath or shower on the Shuttle, so we just wash off with wet washcloths, using soaps that you don't have to rinse off. When we brush our teeth, we can either swallow the toothpaste or spit it into a washcloth. Designing a toilet for zero-gravity is tougher. We use air flow to make the urine or feces go where we want, since gravity will not do it for us. You have to be more careful and think about what you are doing with the toilet in the Shuttle.

B. Another colleague pointed out that Johnson Space Center is the home of the astronauts, and they have some web pages dealing with this issue too. (We really know little more than you do about the astronaut program -- but they do.)

Their home page at: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/ has links for KIDS, EDUCATORS, and more.

I went to their page: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/more.html and this is what I found:

This used to be under the old FAQ at Spacelink. It has since been removed.

4. HOW DO ASTRONAUTS GO TO THE BATHROOM AND TAKE CARE OF OTHER PERSONAL HYGIENE?
Each Space Shuttle has a toilet that can be used by both men and women. Designed to be as much as possible like those on Earth, the units use flowing air instead of water to move waste through the system.

Solid wastes are compressed and stored on-board, and then removed after landing. Waste water is vented to space, although future systems may recycle it. The air is filtered to remove odor and bacteria and then returned to the cabin.

Astronauts brush their teeth just like they do on Earth. There is no shower on the Shuttle, so astronauts must make do with sponge baths until they return home.

The toilet that was first flown aboard STS-54 is completely new in design and offers new and improved features:

The new toilet features better hygiene, larger storage capacity, greater dependability, and an overall cost savings in maintenance.

-The previous model had a 14-day capacity for storage of waste material. The new model has an unlimited storage capacity.

-The new model features a cylinder system where a plastic bag is placed in the toilet before use. The bag is then sealed and is forced to the bottom of the cylinder after each use by a plunger attached to a lever. A new bag is then placed in the toilet for the next astronaut. When the cylinder is filled, it is replaced by a new cylinder.

-The previous model relied on air flow to pull the waste to a holding tank. None of the waste was separated as it is now. The new system provides better hygiene conditions. There was no way to empty the old system. When it was full, it simply could hold no more waste materials. It had a 14 day capacity.

-The new toilet also provides an odor-free environment. The old model did not.

-The opening in the lid of the toilet was increased from 4" to 8", allowing for easier handling of the plasti

Forget it Google is my friend.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/970411a.html

The Question
(Submitted April 11, 1997)

My first graders want to know, How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space? I think the potty chair is in place. Is this correct?

The Answer
We have come up with a number of answers to your question. We will let you, as the professional teacher, decide which is appropriate for your classroom and what is best left to the teachers lounge.

I. The Official NASA pages:

A. There is a nice space shuttle web page at: http://shuttle.nasa.gov/ Digging in there I found a Q&A Web page. Here's what it says: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/faq/ living.html

6. How do you take a bath, brush your teeth, and go to the bathroom in space?

We do not have a bath or shower on the Shuttle, so we just wash off with wet washcloths, using soaps that you don't have to rinse off. When we brush our teeth, we can either swallow the toothpaste or spit it into a washcloth. Designing a toilet for zero-gravity is tougher. We use air flow to make the urine or feces go where we want, since gravity will not do it for us. You have to be more careful and think about what you are doing with the toilet in the Shuttle.

B. Another colleague pointed out that Johnson Space Center is the home of the astronauts, and they have some web pages dealing with this issue too. (We really know little more than you do about the astronaut program -- but they do.)

Their home page at: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/ has links for KIDS, EDUCATORS, and more.

I went to their page: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/more.html and this is what I found:

This used to be under the old FAQ at Spacelink. It has since been removed.

4. HOW DO ASTRONAUTS GO TO THE BATHROOM AND TAKE CARE OF OTHER PERSONAL HYGIENE?
Each Space Shuttle has a toilet that can be used by both men and women. Designed to be as much as possible like those on Earth, the units use flowing air instead of water to move waste through the system.

Solid wastes are compressed and stored on-board, and then removed after landing. Waste water is vented to space, although future systems may recycle it. The air is filtered to remove odor and bacteria and then returned to the cabin.

Astronauts brush their teeth just like they do on Earth. There is no shower on the Shuttle, so astronauts must make do with sponge baths until they return home.

The toilet that was first flown aboard STS-54 is completely new in design and offers new and improved features:

The new toilet features better hygiene, larger storage capacity, greater dependability, and an overall cost savings in maintenance.

-The previous model had a 14-day capacity for storage of waste material. The new model has an unlimited storage capacity.

-The new model features a cylinder system where a plastic bag is placed in the toilet before use. The bag is then sealed and is forced to the bottom of the cylinder after each use by a plunger attached to a lever. A new bag is then placed in the toilet for the next astronaut. When the cylinder is filled, it is replaced by a new cylinder.

-The previous model relied on air flow to pull the waste to a holding tank. None of the waste was separated as it is now. The new system provides better hygiene conditions. There was no way to empty the old system. When it was full, it simply could hold no more waste materials. It had a 14 day capacity.

-The new toilet also provides an odor-free environment. The old model did not.

-The opening in the lid of the toilet was increased from 4" to 8", allowing for easier handling of the plasti

Forget it Google is my friend.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/970411a.html

The Question
(Submitted April 11, 1997)

My first graders want to know, How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space? I think the potty chair is in place. Is this correct?

The Answer
We have come up with a number of answers to your question. We will let you, as the professional teacher, decide which is appropriate for your classroom and what is best left to the teachers lounge.

I. The Official NASA pages:

A. There is a nice space shuttle web page at: http://shuttle.nasa.gov/ Digging in there I found a Q&A Web page. Here's what it says: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/faq/ living.html

6. How do you take a bath, brush your teeth, and go to the bathroom in space?

We do not have a bath or shower on the Shuttle, so we just wash off with wet washcloths, using soaps that you don't have to rinse off. When we brush our teeth, we can either swallow the toothpaste or spit it into a washcloth. Designing a toilet for zero-gravity is tougher. We use air flow to make the urine or feces go where we want, since gravity will not do it for us. You have to be more careful and think about what you are doing with the toilet in the Shuttle.

B. Another colleague pointed out that Johnson Space Center is the home of the astronauts, and they have some web pages dealing with this issue too. (We really know little more than you do about the astronaut program -- but they do.)

Their home page at: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/ has links for KIDS, EDUCATORS, and more.

I went to their page: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/more.html and this is what I found:

This used to be under the old FAQ at Spacelink. It has since been removed.

4. HOW DO ASTRONAUTS GO TO THE BATHROOM AND TAKE CARE OF OTHER PERSONAL HYGIENE?
Each Space Shuttle has a toilet that can be used by both men and women. Designed to be as much as possible like those on Earth, the units use flowing air instead of water to move waste through the system.

Solid wastes are compressed and stored on-board, and then removed after landing. Waste water is vented to space, although future systems may recycle it. The air is filtered to remove odor and bacteria and then returned to the cabin.

Astronauts brush their teeth just like they do on Earth. There is no shower on the Shuttle, so astronauts must make do with sponge baths until they return home.

The toilet that was first flown aboard STS-54 is completely new in design and offers new and improved features:

The new toilet features better hygiene, larger storage capacity, greater dependability, and an overall cost savings in maintenance.

-The previous model had a 14-day capacity for storage of waste material. The new model has an unlimited storage capacity.

-The new model features a cylinder system where a plastic bag is placed in the toilet before use. The bag is then sealed and is forced to the bottom of the cylinder after each use by a plunger attached to a lever. A new bag is then placed in the toilet for the next astronaut. When the cylinder is filled, it is replaced by a new cylinder.

-The previous model relied on air flow to pull the waste to a holding tank. None of the waste was separated as it is now. The new system provides better hygiene conditions. There was no way to empty the old system. When it was full, it simply could hold no more waste materials. It had a 14 day capacity.

-The new toilet also provides an odor-free environment. The old model did not.

-The opening in the lid of the toilet was increased from 4" to 8", allowing for easier handling of the plasti

Forget it Google is my friend.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/970411a.html

The Question
(Submitted April 11, 1997)

My first graders want to know, How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space? I think the potty chair is in place. Is this correct?

The Answer
We have come up with a number of answers to your question. We will let you, as the professional teacher, decide which is appropriate for your classroom and what is best left to the teachers lounge.

I. The Official NASA pages:

A. There is a nice space shuttle web page at: http://shuttle.nasa.gov/ Digging in there I found a Q&A Web page. Here's what it says: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/faq/ living.html

6. How do you take a bath, brush your teeth, and go to the bathroom in space?

We do not have a bath or shower on the Shuttle, so we just wash off with wet washcloths, using soaps that you don't have to rinse off. When we brush our teeth, we can either swallow the toothpaste or spit it into a washcloth. Designing a toilet for zero-gravity is tougher. We use air flow to make the urine or feces go where we want, since gravity will not do it for us. You have to be more careful and think about what you are doing with the toilet in the Shuttle.

B. Another colleague pointed out that Johnson Space Center is the home of the astronauts, and they have some web pages dealing with this issue too. (We really know little more than you do about the astronaut program -- but they do.)

Their home page at: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/ has links for KIDS, EDUCATORS, and more.

I went to their page: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/more.html and this is what I found:

This used to be under the old FAQ at Spacelink. It has since been removed.

4. HOW DO ASTRONAUTS GO TO THE BATHROOM AND TAKE CARE OF OTHER PERSONAL HYGIENE?
Each Space Shuttle has a toilet that can be used by both men and women. Designed to be as much as possible like those on Earth, the units use flowing air instead of water to move waste through the system.

Solid wastes are compressed and stored on-board, and then removed after landing. Waste water is vented to space, although future systems may recycle it. The air is filtered to remove odor and bacteria and then returned to the cabin.

Astronauts brush their teeth just like they do on Earth. There is no shower on the Shuttle, so astronauts must make do with sponge baths until they return home.

The toilet that was first flown aboard STS-54 is completely new in design and offers new and improved features:

The new toilet features better hygiene, larger storage capacity, greater dependability, and an overall cost savings in maintenance.

-The previous model had a 14-day capacity for storage of waste material. The new model has an unlimited storage capacity.

-The new model features a cylinder system where a plastic bag is placed in the toilet before use. The bag is then sealed and is forced to the bottom of the cylinder after each use by a plunger attached to a lever. A new bag is then placed in the toilet for the next astronaut. When the cylinder is filled, it is replaced by a new cylinder.

-The previous model relied on air flow to pull the waste to a holding tank. None of the waste was separated as it is now. The new system provides better hygiene conditions. There was no way to empty the old system. When it was full, it simply could hold no more waste materials. It had a 14 day capacity.

-The new toilet also provides an odor-free environment. The old model did not.

-The opening in the lid of the toilet was increased from 4" to 8", allowing for easier handling of the plasti

Forget it Google is my friend.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/970411a.html

The Question
(Submitted April 11, 1997)

My first graders want to know, How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space? I think the potty chair is in place. Is this correct?

The Answer
We have come up with a number of answers to your question. We will let you, as the professional teacher, decide which is appropriate for your classroom and what is best left to the teachers lounge.

I. The Official NASA pages:

A. There is a nice space shuttle web page at: http://shuttle.nasa.gov/ Digging in there I found a Q&A Web page. Here's what it says: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/faq/ living.html

6. How do you take a bath, brush your teeth, and go to the bathroom in space?

We do not have a bath or shower on the Shuttle, so we just wash off with wet washcloths, using soaps that you don't have to rinse off. When we brush our teeth, we can either swallow the toothpaste or spit it into a washcloth. Designing a toilet for zero-gravity is tougher. We use air flow to make the urine or feces go where we want, since gravity will not do it for us. You have to be more careful and think about what you are doing with the toilet in the Shuttle.

B. Another colleague pointed out that Johnson Space Center is the home of the astronauts, and they have some web pages dealing with this issue too. (We really know little more than you do about the astronaut program -- but they do.)

Their home page at: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/ has links for KIDS, EDUCATORS, and more.

I went to their page: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/more.html and this is what I found:

This used to be under the old FAQ at Spacelink. It has since been removed.

4. HOW DO ASTRONAUTS GO TO THE BATHROOM AND TAKE CARE OF OTHER PERSONAL HYGIENE?
Each Space Shuttle has a toilet that can be used by both men and women. Designed to be as much as possible like those on Earth, the units use flowing air instead of water to move waste through the system.

Solid wastes are compressed and stored on-board, and then removed after landing. Waste water is vented to space, although future systems may recycle it. The air is filtered to remove odor and bacteria and then returned to the cabin.

Astronauts brush their teeth just like they do on Earth. There is no shower on the Shuttle, so astronauts must make do with sponge baths until they return home.

The toilet that was first flown aboard STS-54 is completely new in design and offers new and improved features:

The new toilet features better hygiene, larger storage capacity, greater dependability, and an overall cost savings in maintenance.

-The previous model had a 14-day capacity for storage of waste material. The new model has an unlimited storage capacity.

-The new model features a cylinder system where a plastic bag is placed in the toilet before use. The bag is then sealed and is forced to the bottom of the cylinder after each use by a plunger attached to a lever. A new bag is then placed in the toilet for the next astronaut. When the cylinder is filled, it is replaced by a new cylinder.

-The previous model relied on air flow to pull the waste to a holding tank. None of the waste was separated as it is now. The new system provides better hygiene conditions. There was no way to empty the old system. When it was full, it simply could hold no more waste materials. It had a 14 day capacity.

-The new toilet also provides an odor-free environment. The old model did not.

-The opening in the lid of the toilet was increased from 4" to 8", allowing for easier handling of the plasti

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/970326c.html
Despite the fact that Pluto and Neptune temporarily change places in their distance from the sun, they will never collide. This is due to two reasons: First, Pluto's orbit is inclined to the ecliptic. by 17 degrees. (To see an illustration of this, take a look at
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/overview.htm l )
So even though we say their orbits "cross", Pluto is actually quite a distance "above"Neptune. Secondly, Pluto orbits the sun twice for every three orbits of Neptune. The two planets are said to be in a "resonance orbit". For such orbits, the two bodies never get close to each other. In fact, the closest the two planets come to each other is 2 billion kilometers.

Actually, while Pluto comes closer to the Sun than Neptune, they are never that close. Pluto's erratic orbit ensures that it is well above the solar system equator when it does cross. The chart here shows how far it really is at the cross (chart is in AU =~ 149 billion meters).

Enterprise. It really wasn't that useful, it had no engines, and was "launched" in the air on the back of a 747 to glide to a landing, to test the Shuttle's performance in the air and in landing.

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/resources/orbi ters/enterprise.html

Maple is pretty good for HUGE numbers.

Maple is good, Mathematica is good, what the heck, good old Common LISP is good (and knows about ratios) -- and Forth did not even have floating point numbers, proclaiming in its main defining book something along the lines of "real men do not use floating point" -- it was before political correctness times, when Forth was actually used to control robotics/avionics, including some Space Shuttle programs (see http://forth.gsfc.nasa.gov/ for mission list), and, of course, before it became PostScript! :-)

Paul B.

NASA imagery is normally copyright-free, as government documents produced at government expense.

Some matierials produced by NASA may have copyrights. (For instance: movies with copyrighted music in the background which was licensed for NASA's use and needs an additional license if it gets cloned elsewhere).

More a NASA web site.

I don't know about *high quality*, but you can access a WEALTH of moon landing information, including radio transmission transcripts, astronaut commentary, mission logs, photos, and tons of video from the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal.

Anyone else read that and wonder what IBM would want with the International Space Station?

Of course, they could probably run it better than NASA these days...

...he'd shown that the Fields Medal award system had no holes and was therefore topologically equivalent to a sphere, as per the Poincare Hypothesis that he had proved earlier. However, as he had proved that since cows are spherical, it follows that the medal must also be topologically the same as a cow, since the transform works both ways. A cow can weight 850 lbs. Clearly this is utterly impractical to carry, never mind wear as a medal. Besides which, it would obviously exceed the maximum weight for carry-on luggage.

Is there a Tufte equivalent for academic prose?

Well, if you mean for technical academic prose, here's a little gem from NASA (it's an oldie):

Clarity in Technical Reporting
by Katzoff, S., NASA.

Original NASA article
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/ dark_matter_proven.html
John Baez (physicist who have a lot of fun staff on his homepage) more coherent explanation
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week238.html

Here's some info from NASA.

The announcement of the pending announcement regarding Dark Matter

"This is the most energetic cosmic event, besides the Big Bang, which we know about," said team member Maxim Markevitch of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.

I guess he's never heard of Zaphod Beeblebrox.

"A universe that's dominated by dark stuff seems preposterous, so we wanted to test whether there were any basic flaws in our thinking," said Doug Clowe of the University of Arizona at Tucson, and leader of the study. "These results are direct proof that dark matter exists."

Also a bit of info on physorg

How does the Coalsack Nebula fit into this? It's dark and it's matter, right?

Here's a few more details about this Impact Theory:

"The basic idea is this: about 4.45 billion years ago, a young planet Earth -- a mere 50 million years old at the time and not the solid object we know today-- experienced the largest impact event of its history. Another planetary body with roughly the mass of Mars had formed nearby with an orbit that placed it on a collision course with Earth. When young Earth and this rogue body collided, the energy involved was 100 million times larger than the much later event believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. The early giant collision destroyed the rogue body, likely vaporized the upper layers of Earth's mantle, and ejected large amounts of debris into Earth orbit. Our Moon formed from this debris."

Plus, this page has a really cool rendering of the Impact:
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/ques tions/question38.html

Anyone remember "2001, A Space Odyssey?" Heywood Floyd is rocketed from Earth to an orbiting space station, which is ... half-built. http://dayton.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2003-00 093.jpg

The "intended" launch rate for the Atlas V and Delta IV was 20 vehicles per year. They are right now flying 5/year. The cost of the metal in the machines is not the issue. The Atlas V especially is a very simple machine with far fewer elements and components than an equivalent Falcon. Costs are in the people to support the missions and keep the machine alive through years.

I see you're not counting the development costs for the early ICBM days of the Atlas series. Encyclopedia Astronautica claims that part is another $2.23 billion in 1965 dollars. Using the GDP deflator, that becomes more than $10 billion in today's dollars. So total development cost is around $12 billion, assuming you're right about the Atlas I through V costs and those costs are in current dollars.

And while an Atlas V doesn't have as many engines as the Falcon V design would have, visual inspection of pictures indicates that the Atlas's engines are far more complex than the proposed Falcon 9 engine (or here for a CAD drawing). There's a lot less plumbing associated with SpaceX's Merlin engine meaning if SpaceX can maintain that level of complexity, they'll have an engine that is far easier to assemble than the RD-180 that the Atlas V uses.

Second, a glance at the official purpose of NASA (as described in the amended act that established NASA) reveals that NASA oversees nonmilitary US activity in space, that it should "seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space", and then as the first of the activities that NASA should engage (which follow these previous declarations) "The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space."

In other words, science isn't the main priority at NASA nor IMHO should it be. So claiming that NASA is "stealing from science" and is a "feeder for the aerospace business' policy" ignores that encouraging "commercial use" of space is a higher priority and that the recent moves can be rationalized as doing just that. I'm not saying they actually are fulfilling their purpose, just that it's not enough to criticize a NASA move by saying that it takes away from space science.

IMHO, the current manned missions do little to support NASA primary purposes. It's just salt in the wounds that they are funded with money taken from the space science budget. Nor is NASA addressing significant problems with the proposed missions. For example, we have no idea what the health consequences are to extended living in Martian and Lunar gravity (0.4 and 0.16 gees respectively). Assuming the Ares launch vehicles remain unchanged, we don't have backup vehicles in case these fail. If the Ares V vehicle is grounded for a couple of years of NASA soul-searching (ie, NASA conducts an accident investigation), then all programs that depend on this launcher are halted for a similar length of time. This will generate huge expenses each time it happens. We aren't studying the Moon very well given the ambition to colonize the Moon.

Finally, given the importance of space science missions to future US commercial activity in space, it's not clear to me why these missions have been scaled back or delayed. It will ultimately just add to the cost of the missions and thwart one of the prime objectives of NASA.

That article is about Voyager 2 passing the termination shock not Voyager 1 passing the heliopuase. The /. blurb for that article is wrong. The magnetic edge of the solar system is not aka the heliopause. The CNN article linked from that blurb says that passing the termination shock earlier than expected implies that the heliopause in that direction is closer than expected. If you RTFA to which you are posting, you would have seen This picture showing the positions of Voyager 1, Voyager 2, the termination shock reported in TFA which you cited but did not read, and the heliopause.
So what's the difference between the termination shock and the heliopause? See wiki.

I have heard that it is more in the realm of 40 million years.

But that is a side issue. For those complaining about this classification process, just ask why we need classification in the first place, mere parlance and the ability for us to interpret and communicate ideas. The definition doesn't fundementally change the idea.

Some complete adshate was stumbling his site up saying how this classification was 'bad science' and when after 22 paragraphs of 'tearing it apart' and talking about how our moon could become a planet, his suggestion?

That we do not fucking classify what planets are. He didn't say it in that many words, but that was only because he didn't realise that most arguments are support to have a counterpoint, not just spout bullshit.

If we do not use orbit and mass (gravitational stability) what the fuck else?

Why don't we say the four biggest are planets? the smaller are not? We are dwarved by the bigger planets far more than we eclipse the newer 'planets'.

People are being tetchy and frivilous about this whole thing, and stepping over the issue of classification and what the fuck it means. Science mother fucker, do you speak it? Serioulsy. It is this narrowminded approach to 'scientific' debate that is all to customary and all to accepted.

Get the facts and the reasoning straight ffs.

http://vathena.arc.nasa.gov/curric/space/planets/

I cannot fucking believe I still have to write a fucking CAPTCHA to login. What fucking year is this? OMG we have a CAPTCHA let's put it on every motherfucking page. FUCK OFF COWBOYNEAL remove the code that requires the CAPTCHA is you are logging in and posting a comment. retard. (becauseif you are logged in your don't need to CAPTCHA) STUPID!

According to this picture in TFA, the Voyagers have passed the ternination shock, not the heliopause.

High resolution TIFF available at

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00451

The women you named are all noteworthy scientists, but there are a lot more famous women scientists than that! What about Lise Meitner, the famous nuclear physicist? Marie Curie's daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Don't forget Jane Goodall, the famous primatologist. Laura Bassi was a well-known Italian scientist in the 1700s who became the first woman to teach at a European college. Maria Mitchell was America's first professional woman astronomer. There were even female philosophers and mathematicians in ancient times, like Hypatia of Alexandria.

To find information about noteworthy women scientists, just search on the Internet for WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) Programs. Many WISE programs at large universities often have a resource libary of information on women scientists. Some WISE programs even maintain web sites with biographies of women scientists that include reference lists. I suggest that any teacher or librarian who is interested in developing a collection of materials on women scientists try contacting the director of a WISE program at a local college. She would probably be happy to help.

I have a book someplace that has short biographies of living women scientists and engineers who work for NASA, but I can't remember what it was called at the moment so I am having trouble finding it online at Barnes and Noble. There is also a web site related to this book called Women of NASA that has biographies of women who work for NASA (click on the Profiles link). This web site has a teacher guide on it as well.

The National Academies of Science also has a good web site about women in science called "I was wondering..." which is geared towards a young audience. The National Academies Press also has a Women's Adventures in Science book series related to this web site.

Women have made many important contributions to science throughout history, and there is a lot of information about women scientists out there. It just might take a little effort to find it.

The women you named are all noteworthy scientists, but there are a lot more famous women scientists than that! What about Lise Meitner, the famous nuclear physicist? Marie Curie's daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Don't forget Jane Goodall, the famous primatologist. Laura Bassi was a well-known Italian scientist in the 1700s who became the first woman to teach at a European college. Maria Mitchell was America's first professional woman astronomer. There were even female philosophers and mathematicians in ancient times, like Hypatia of Alexandria.

To find information about noteworthy women scientists, just search on the Internet for WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) Programs. Many WISE programs at large universities often have a resource libary of information on women scientists. Some WISE programs even maintain web sites with biographies of women scientists that include reference lists. I suggest that any teacher or librarian who is interested in developing a collection of materials on women scientists try contacting the director of a WISE program at a local college. She would probably be happy to help.

I have a book someplace that has short biographies of living women scientists and engineers who work for NASA, but I can't remember what it was called at the moment so I am having trouble finding it online at Barnes and Noble. There is also a web site related to this book called Women of NASA that has biographies of women who work for NASA (click on the Profiles link). This web site has a teacher guide on it as well.

The National Academies of Science also has a good web site about women in science called "I was wondering..." which is geared towards a young audience. The National Academies Press also has a Women's Adventures in Science book series related to this web site.

Women have made many important contributions to science throughout history, and there is a lot of information about women scientists out there. It just might take a little effort to find it.

The last huge storm I saw was in July 2004. The lights were south beyond the 90 degree point overhead, and there was a vortex even.

Solar minimum wasn't too long ago.