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Even given how outdated, expensive, failure-prone and downright dangerous the Space Shuttle is, they're still pretty goddamn sweet looking when they lift off.

Agreed. The video footage during ascent is amazing.

The planned Ares V should continue the tradition of spectacular launches. It will use 2 shuttle-derived 5 segment solid rocket boosters and 5 (!) RS-68 H2/O2 engines that burn even more colorfully than the shuttle SSMEs. Should be a great show at night.

Click here to download the 16.3 MB MP4 video file. It is about 3 minutes and 22 seconds long. Awesome stuff.

The liquid propellants are at normal pressure and are liquid because they are very cold. I refer you to this NASA fact sheet: http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/nasafact/count2 .htm#cryo

The propellant tanks are vented during the filling process. The boiloff that occurs during filling vents outside the tank. The hydrogen gas is piped away from the vehicle. The oxygen leaves via the vent cap on the top of the external tank that lifts up and swings away from the vehicle just before launch. Shortly before main engine ignition, the tanks are pressurized by closing the vents until they reach launch pressure.

It is true that compressing gasses can make them liquid at higher temperatures, but that isn't the case here. In fact, I don't know whether oxygen and hydrogen can be liquified at room temperature. I'd have to get a look at a phase diagram for them. Or perhaps wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen. In the table on the right, the critical point is 154.59 Kelvins. At temperatures above this, the liquid phase for Oxygen does not exist. Room temperature is well above this, by over 100 Kelvin. Also, the pressure required to liquify at that temperature is 5.043 MPa. Normal atmospheric pressure is 101.325 kPa. So there is no way to store liquid oxygen at room temperature.

Oxygen boils at 90 Kelvins and melts at 54 Kelvins. Hydrogen boils at 20 Kelvins. So, liquid Hydrogen is cold enough to freeze Oxygen solid at standard pressure. That means that liquid Hydrogen tanks need to be insulated so that Oxygen ice doesn't form on them. During filling of the hydrogen tank, the entire piping sytem and the tank itself is purged of all air using Helium, which is a gas down to around 4 Kelvins.

There is a lot of boil off that occurs as the tanks are filled and the and the tanks cool down to the fuel temperature. This is accounted for during the fueling process.

The property of cooling on expansion is exploited to make liquid Oxygen. Oxygen is pressurized to very high pressure, which makes it heat up. The pressurized gas is then cooled. The cooled, pressurized oxygen is then allowed to expand which causes it to cool enough to condense. (If it wasn't cooled enough to condense, the cooled gas could be used to cool another batch of pressurized oxygen to make it colder so that when it is allowed to expand, it would condense.) Once you have the liquid, you can store it in properly insulated tanks.

Hope that helps.

Sorry to piggyback on a joke. This is the actual status, copied from NASA's shuttle page

Status Update
During a routine inspection overnight after the draining of the external fuel tank, a crack was discovered in the foam near a bracket that holds the liquid oxygen feedline in place. This piece of foam has been estimated to be 0.0057 pounds. It is believed that the rain experienced during yesterday's launch attempt caused water to run down the feedline and form ice near the top of the strut next to the feedline bracket. As the tank warmed and expanded, the ice that formed most likely pinched the foam on the top of the strut, causing a crack and eventual loss of the small piece of foam.

At a Mission Management Team meeting this morning, a decision was made to continue analyzing available data before making a final decision regarding tomorrow's launch attempt. The question is whether there needs to be a hands-on inspection of the area around the foam crack before launch.

The Mission Management Team will meet again at 6:30 p.m. EDT to hear the results of the analysis and make a decision on whether we will attempt to launch tomorrow or Wednesday. Currently, there is a 60 percent of favorable launch weather for tomorrow and a 40 percent chance of favorable weather for Wednesday.

It sounds like "crack" isn't a very descriptive term. A small piece broke off, probably due to the weather-related causes. They're trying to decide if they need to erect a platform to do a hands-on inspection.

On the source page there's a picture that took me a minute to figure out, so I'll explain it. The solid orange to the left is the main body of the external tank. The round orange vertical item in the center of the picture is the LOX feed line. The big metal piece is probably part of the tripod mount. Just below and to the right of the mount is one of the brackets that holds the LOX line in place, covered in foam. Looking closely, you can see a little triangle of white where the little chunk (about 4 long) of foam spalled off. I assume the T-shaped feature to the right of that is the so-called ice/frost ramp, which they're concerned may be at risk for falling off in flight. It's much clearer in the high res picture linked on that page.

At first glance, it doesn't look like a concern at all, but obviously NASA wants to make sure of that. If anybody has serious reservations, they'll setup a platform to get somebody who knows what to look for up close to it and look for evidence that this may increase chances that the ice/frost ramp or other pieces of foam may fall (smaller cracks, loosening of the frost ramp, etc).

For comparison, this piece of foam is estimated at 0.0057 pounds and may be as large as a cellphone. The piece that struck Columbia's wing weighed an estimated 1.67 pounds and was described as "briefcase-sized"

To the best of my knowledge, that is not true. Look at the crew roster. All but one (a doctor in biometeorology for ESA) have engineering degrees, and almost all of them have masters or doctorates.

Also, they effectively do have a say. Nobody is holding a gun to their head. If they truly felt the risk was unacceptable (keeping in mind, however, these guys happily take risks most people find unacceptable), they could refuse to go.

Furthermore, and the astronauts no doubt realize this, despite their educational background and technical understanding, they are seldom in the best position to make the final call. They know the STS pretty well and provide input on some of the major decisions, but really the guys who should make the final calls are the administrators based on the recommendations of the engineers who know most about the relevant issues. In this case, they are seeking recommendations from the engineers who know most about the foam. In the end, the astronauts have to trust to some degree that these guys know what they're doing, so if they don't trust them or they feel sufficient reservation (enough to overcome their own drive to succeed) about the administrators decisions, they simply won't suit up.

The shuttle's got something like 10 million parts. If Joe Engineer tells Frank Skywalker that doohickey 3178219 is 1.6 mm out of tolerance and it'll take a week to make a new one, Frank isn't going to be say "Oh no, things should be in tolerance. I'm not getting on that thing." He's going to ask the engineer what ramifications this might have for the mission and if he should be concerned, to which Joe might reply, "Well, it might make the toilet seat squeak when you try to put it down. No worries." Given the complexity of making a go/no-go call in the foam case, it drives me up the wall to see some of the other comments from slashdotters not involved with NASA and often probably not with a mechanical engineering education criticising NASA for even considering launching when there's a small crack in the foam and we don't even know yet if it will affect the shedding or not.

After the difficulty NASA had with the Mars Orbiter back in 1999, and their subsequent determination to speed the transition to using SI units exclusively, it is amusing to see the problem described as a "4-5 inch crack", and the chunk that fell off as a "0.00057 pound, 3 inch piece". Wouldn't 0.25 g be clearer than 0.00057 lb? Exactly how long can transition take?

Of course, the shuttle can take a much, much larger payload than anything else currently available (I think).

More importantly, the Shuttle can return payloads and experiments to the ground. The Soyuz module has very little space to return payloads. Progress is destroyed during re-entry, as ESA's ATV will be.

In addition the Shuttle connects to ISS using the US docking port allowing the of transfer large rack-sized payloads into ISS. For example this mission will deliver the MELFI rack payload to ISS (a freezer capable of -80C) developed by EADS through ESA for NASA. For more information on MELFI see the ESA fact sheet (pdf).

What part of "Both programs had various accidents on the ground, not in missions." doesn't apply to Apollo 1?

The part that assumes "on the ground" and "mission" are mutually exclusive. Apollo 1 is a mission.

From the NASA site:
The AS-204 mission was redesignated Apollo I in honor of the crew.

(http://history.nasa.gov/Apollo204/index.html)

US space program lost 14 people in missions, in two Shuttle accidents, one on launch and another on descent.

And let us also remember the three lost in the Apollo 1 fire.

Here's a link to information at NASA:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_ feature_255.html

A cursory glance turned up these

http://countdown.ksc.nasa.gov/elv/public/
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/ksclive/kscv0 9.html
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/ksclive/kscv0 3.html
java, not quite streaming.

But since you got real player installed you might enjoy this site.

http://www.unitedspacealliance.com/live/archive/
or http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/

All of these (and more, like European Space Broadcasts) are listed at:
http://www.hobbyspace.com/SpaceCasts/#NASATV

Thanks for asking though, now I got whole set of new bookmarks for launch day. If I don't go to the beach that is.

A cursory glance turned up these

http://countdown.ksc.nasa.gov/elv/public/
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/ksclive/kscv0 9.html
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/ksclive/kscv0 3.html
java, not quite streaming.

But since you got real player installed you might enjoy this site.

http://www.unitedspacealliance.com/live/archive/
or http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/

All of these (and more, like European Space Broadcasts) are listed at:
http://www.hobbyspace.com/SpaceCasts/#NASATV

Thanks for asking though, now I got whole set of new bookmarks for launch day. If I don't go to the beach that is.

A cursory glance turned up these

http://countdown.ksc.nasa.gov/elv/public/
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/ksclive/kscv0 9.html
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/ksclive/kscv0 3.html
java, not quite streaming.

But since you got real player installed you might enjoy this site.

http://www.unitedspacealliance.com/live/archive/
or http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/

All of these (and more, like European Space Broadcasts) are listed at:
http://www.hobbyspace.com/SpaceCasts/#NASATV

Thanks for asking though, now I got whole set of new bookmarks for launch day. If I don't go to the beach that is.

A cursory glance turned up these

http://countdown.ksc.nasa.gov/elv/public/
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/ksclive/kscv0 9.html
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/ksclive/kscv0 3.html
java, not quite streaming.

But since you got real player installed you might enjoy this site.

http://www.unitedspacealliance.com/live/archive/
or http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/

All of these (and more, like European Space Broadcasts) are listed at:
http://www.hobbyspace.com/SpaceCasts/#NASATV

Thanks for asking though, now I got whole set of new bookmarks for launch day. If I don't go to the beach that is.

Here's the details of the numerous scheduled holds in the countdown : http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/launch/countdow n101.html

Currently the clock is holding at 11:00 hours for a launch on tuesday.

No. DGPS can have an effect in eliminating some systematic errors, but that's all. It has no effect at all in improving random errors caused by noise in the system, like ionospheric scintillation. Scintillation is interesting because NASA uses GPS to measure scintillation. That is, they have a DGPS-like network of stations, and the errors in the measurements from those stations are used to determine the extent of scintillation. But those are random errors, they cannot be subtracted away.

Errors caused by noise vary from one measurement to the next in the same receiver, the only way to eliminate them is by doing several measurements. Want to reduce a random error by half? Measure four times and take the average. Not exactly practical for a moving vehicle.

For multipath errors, the best way to eliminate them is using multiple antennas, separated by several wavelengths. Works in a ship, but not so practical for a car either. And multipath is also a problem for the reference station in a DGPS system, because the satellites are moving with respect to the station and the satellite-to-station geometry keeps changing. Even if they did all the calculations needed to estimate the effects of the varying orbital geometry, how could their system account for the local variations, for instance the signal reflected by that 18-wheeler going down the street?

Cape seasonal weather variations certainly have a degree of predictability. STS-71 had similar conditions to contend with: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-7 1/mission-sts-71.html

Because the entire program is so beleagured and under the microscope at this point, it's easy to overlook that hold-ups due to weather have occurred quite frequently. Another important factor is wind monitoring, typically done by balloons. Simulations are done at regular intervals with the up to the minute winds available data to determine potential adverse loads on the vehicle. This could possibly hold up a launch as well, completely aside from cloud cover or thunderstorm activity.

The post 2010 Space program would optimally take Cape weather and the possibility of higher hurricane frequency into account as a cost factor. Alternate launch locations may be advisable, despite the existing infrastructure built up at the Cape. Would there be any possibility of government and commercial concerns sharing responsibility and building up a different launch facility? The Richard Branson/Virgin spaceport comes to mind, http://www.spacedaily.com/news/tourism-05zt.html. Other sites in New Mexico and west Texas could be considered.

Maybe I'm just naïve (I hardly think so), but I think if you're getting your information about the Shuttle launch and in-flight status solely from news media, you're most certainly not getting the whole story. Last year, there was a news conference after another chunk of foam came off the shuttle (after all the precautions that they went through to prevent it), with all the experts showing the evidence and explaining it. As usual, they opened it up to questions at the end. The question was along the lines of, "Are the remaining missions grounded until this is resolved?" The response was similar to, "Of course the remaining missions are delayed until we figure out what went wrong here again." Despite all of the content of the news conference (which I personally watched in its entirety), the headlines in the newspapers in the next day were, "Shuttle Fleet Grounded". All of the media made it into a much bigger deal than it actually was. Of course they're not going to send more shuttles into space after a reoccurance of what they thought they fixed without reanalyzing the situation (again).

Before you make any comments about the operations of NASA, I suggest you actually follow the status of the mission. NASA TV and Spaceflight Now should be your primary sources. NASA has a multitude of experts, each focussing on a particular area of expertise. Each one gives their opinion on "go/no-go" at various stages of the mission. Today's scrub was based solely on the weather.

The details in the Slashdot posting are slightly incorrect. Todays/yesterdays launch (the scheduled on on the 1st of July) was postponed at T-9minutes after a 40 minute scheduled hold (if it's scheduled, why didn't they add it into the count down?) and approximately 3 minutes of 5 into an "extended hold" (after they "polled" all the various sections of the launch team). Then the decision was made the "scrub" (abort) the launch due the weather being too unpredictable and there being storm clouds (anvil clouds) within 20 miles of the emergency landing strip (although they have got backup landing strips in France and Spain). They will retry the launch tomorrow, and can abort for any reason up to 31 seconds before main ignition.

At the moment, they are still "go" for the launch tomorrow.

BTW: You learn a lot from watching the live stream on nasa.gov!

I found that the total cost for Hubble from conception to present, is about 4.5 billion. The new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/ (Hubble's replacement) has a estimated cost of 4.5 billion.

It was actually 1.5 billion, and 100 million is a low ball figure for the cost of a shuttle launch.

Being a purely politically funded venture, nailing down the cost is difficult, but varies.

$300 million
$600 million
$500 million
$55 million incremental, $1.3 billion when you include facilities, research, engineering, etc...

If you take a rough midpoint and say $500 million per maintenance, the break even point would be three missions. Now, a huge portion of a satellite's cost is the R&D just to design the thing. If you produce multiple ones, the cost drops substantially. Produce multiple hubbles and soon they'd cost under a billion each. Meanwhile you can still do a great deal of updating on the ground.

I'll admit that I'd prefer to scrap the shuttle entirely, replacing it with boosters, dedicated personal carriers, and source maintenance missions from a space station. This would hopefully drastically reduce the cost of maintaining it, and might change the equations again.

The last I heard the landing gear release was a simple manual switch with no connection to the flight control system. TFA describes the new cable as a "Data Cable" so there must also be a new connection between a computer system and the landing gear switch.

Its strange that this was not mentioned in the article. Perhaps this change was made earlier?

Oh and BTW I am still reading the apollo 17 ALSJ and much is made of the exploding foam incidents on apollo 16 and 17. The stuff was literally rocketing up into the sky around the LM during both missions. You would think that somebody would think (foam == bad) as a part of the lessons learnt from apollo. Drilling holes in the stuff is clearly not enough.

The Shuttle Orbiter already has automatic landing capabilities. Although the system has never been used all the way to touchdown, the Orbiter does make most of its trip back to the ground on autopilot until the commander takes over of the controls as it nears landing.

If only we could do that.

Hundreds of millions of people will be affected by the rising sea levels. On top of that, precipitation patterns are changing, which will affect people inland, as well as those on the coasts. This doesn't even go into the problems caused by the current conveyer belt.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/05mar_arct ic.htm

Given that the most reasonable "something-other-than-humans-caused" global warming hypothesis I've heard so far is that the sun's energy output is increasing, (incindentally, this would also explain Martian global warming, which by some evidence matches terrestrial warming), this seems like exactly the way to go.

Actually, I am pretty sure that Martian global warming is caused by those two little SUVs we have driving around up there.

Would you happen to have the name of a reputable scientist that claims solar output variation is responsible for global warming, by any chance? Note that even over the 14-year sunspot cycle the variation is less than 1%.

The 26 hour turnaround was for the DC-X.

And people forget that the DC-X was a concept vehicle, to prove that the technology existed and could be adapted to VTOL rockets. It was Pete Conrad's dream to take the DC-X and expand it, and make it a viable competitor for space commerce, a dream he saw dashed when the DC-X crashed during a test in July 1995.

Here is a big cheer for the fact that the object is re-usable. This is fast becoming one of the more considered aspects of shuttle design, and given taht there is a "The Carbon Trust" campaign going on in the uk [and the world!] a reuable shuttle is a big bonus.

The DC-X and space shuttle are not at all comparable. The DC-X has about 1/100th the performance of the shuttle. The use of decent engines if frivolously wasteful. I am not surprised Bezos is attracted to it. The weight penalty imposed on the space shuttle for reusability, wings, wheels, thermal protection is huge. Strip all of that away and use a simple aerodynamic shape and you have the NASA CEV.

What does "Carbon Trust" have anything to do with vehicles that use LOX and LH2 for fuel and are built out of Li-Al?

CME's produce some incredible video when they hit our sun-pointed satellites. If you haven't seen them I highly recommend checking out NASA's "Best Of SOHO Movies" for a better idea of what these things are capable of.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/bestofsoho/Movies/m ovies2.html
--
Northern Virginia? Forums and Arrest/Ticket Database. Seeking additions to the (new) wiki

Just build the homes out of concrete for Christ sake. It worked here, where over 95% of structures are concrete. There were only 3 deaths (which weren't even verified as directly related) and almost no structural damage among concrete structures (aside from windows without storm shutters) despite gusts approaching 200MPH. On the other hand, the majority of wood structures are gone. Yeah, concrete is more expensive, but not as expensive as building your home twice. They also happen to stand up very well in earthquakes too, which we tend to get every once in a while.

Not that they don't do stupid things here too.. the utility lines are all still above ground.

now that's big!

Measurements indicate that Mars is definitely getting warmer also.

Gee, too bad the Bush administration cancelled all maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope, dooming it to a slow death.

The Hubble Project site says differently.

Of course this whole science thing is overrated, right? In all honesty though, there simply is not enough money to take care of all of the costs given that the Bush administration wants to send men to Mars to the detriment of many, many science missions at NASA.

Hubble is in the 16th year of a 10 year mission. It replacement, the James Webb Telescope will be launched in 2013. The Hubble mission cannot last forever. I have read that there are 51 active NASA missions total. JPL alone has 11. Planetary science has flourished while US manned launch capability has stagnated. Allowing some active missions to end in the next few years should free up money for exciting new projects like Project Constellation. The Bush Administration deserves credit for reenergising the moribund US manned program.

Gee, too bad the Bush administration cancelled all maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope, dooming it to a slow death.

The Hubble Project site says differently.

Of course this whole science thing is overrated, right? In all honesty though, there simply is not enough money to take care of all of the costs given that the Bush administration wants to send men to Mars to the detriment of many, many science missions at NASA.

Hubble is in the 16th year of a 10 year mission. It replacement, the James Webb Telescope will be launched in 2013. The Hubble mission cannot last forever. I have read that there are 51 active NASA missions total. JPL alone has 11. Planetary science has flourished while US manned launch capability has stagnated. Allowing some active missions to end in the next few years should free up money for exciting new projects like Project Constellation. The Bush Administration deserves credit for reenergising the moribund US manned program.

Gee, too bad the Bush administration cancelled all maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope, dooming it to a slow death.

The Hubble Project site says differently.

Of course this whole science thing is overrated, right? In all honesty though, there simply is not enough money to take care of all of the costs given that the Bush administration wants to send men to Mars to the detriment of many, many science missions at NASA.

Hubble is in the 16th year of a 10 year mission. It replacement, the James Webb Telescope will be launched in 2013. The Hubble mission cannot last forever. I have read that there are 51 active NASA missions total. JPL alone has 11. Planetary science has flourished while US manned launch capability has stagnated. Allowing some active missions to end in the next few years should free up money for exciting new projects like Project Constellation. The Bush Administration deserves credit for reenergising the moribund US manned program.

Gee, too bad the Bush administration cancelled all maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope, dooming it to a slow death.

The Hubble Project site says differently.

Of course this whole science thing is overrated, right? In all honesty though, there simply is not enough money to take care of all of the costs given that the Bush administration wants to send men to Mars to the detriment of many, many science missions at NASA.

Hubble is in the 16th year of a 10 year mission. It replacement, the James Webb Telescope will be launched in 2013. The Hubble mission cannot last forever. I have read that there are 51 active NASA missions total. JPL alone has 11. Planetary science has flourished while US manned launch capability has stagnated. Allowing some active missions to end in the next few years should free up money for exciting new projects like Project Constellation. The Bush Administration deserves credit for reenergising the moribund US manned program.

No one talks about the pictures the Hubble just took...

That's why I have this on my personalized Google. Granted they're not all Hubble images, but there's certainly a significant number of photos for your perusal.

Maybe this is like my 1973 Pinto. I'll only put so much in to it because I know it's going to be replaced.

See - http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

Budget cuts and safety concerns were the reasons given for cancellation of the 2006 repair mission, and any future such missions are currently speculative possibilities "under consideration." http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/future/ has more on this, as does http://hubble.nasa.gov/.

But don't let actual facts get in the way of your ignorant, uninformed and nonsensical attacking of someone else for actually knowing them.

NASA has been reallocating a lot of funding from science and aeronautics to "exploration". The official goal is a manned moon landing (by 2018).

That being said, the Hubble servicing mission is still in the cards and long lead work is being performed to support it. It's almost certain it will be flown. In fact, the NASA web page for servicing mission 4 was updated just a little over a week ago.

Popular Science had an article on a supersonic airliner with a scissor wing (one wing tip forward and the other back) in the 1970's. It was a very interesting idea and it is also known as an oblique wing, and you can find a lot of NASA references to it as oblique.
Here are some pictures of the flying prototypes:
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AD-1/
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AD-1/Medium /index.html

It even inspired an Estes model rocket design where the wing would deployafter boost and glide back to Earth.

http://www.acsupplyco.com/estes/estes_scissorwing. htm

Popular Science had an article on a supersonic airliner with a scissor wing (one wing tip forward and the other back) in the 1970's. It was a very interesting idea and it is also known as an oblique wing, and you can find a lot of NASA references to it as oblique.
Here are some pictures of the flying prototypes:
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AD-1/
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AD-1/Medium /index.html

It even inspired an Estes model rocket design where the wing would deployafter boost and glide back to Earth.

http://www.acsupplyco.com/estes/estes_scissorwing. htm

You are correct, this is a sixty-two year old idea: http://www.luft46.com/bv/bvp202.html And NASA had the Oblique Wing aircraft they flight tested in the 1970's: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AD-1/

NASA AD-1 - from 19-frigg'n-80 - and *that* aircraft was predated by an RPV from 1976!

Hey, I've got a great idea for a plane that combines forward thrust with a rotary wing that increases lift and reduces fuel consumption. I call it... "the autogyro". I wonder how many the Pentagon will want...

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AD-1/Medium /ECN-13302B.jpg

...with photo:

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AD-1/Medium /ECN-13302B.jpg

There doesn't seem to be any. Nasa flew a test plane using this type of wing back in 1979.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets /FS-019-DFRC.html
Not really a new or untried idea at all.

Here is a link to the NASA page on the AD-1

http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/report_sets/ped.pdf

While none of these are scientific and none can be proven that it was actually the cause of the cell phone, above are some interesting scenarios. If aircraft captains complain of interference from cell phones it seems like it should at least pass your "smell test". I still think it has to be a pretty unique situation and combination of events to have an effect, but you have to admit it is at least a reasonable idea.

Given that vineyards used to grow all over the UK during the Roman period - it doesn't seem exactly credible that these people can claim that the World is now far warmer than it has been for millenia. (Vineyards most defintely do not grow all across the UK today; during the Summer, the climate is still too cold to support this crop - except in the southern part of England). Perhaps rather than pushing an unsound eco-agenda, these people should pick up a history book and discover that it was the Romans who first suggested using records of patterns of plant growth as a way of calibrating flunctuations in planetary temperature over long periods.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAle rts/2004/2004052717073.html

If the Roman theory is right, then the Earth has a bit to go, before the average global temperature climbs back to where it was in Medieval times, let alone Roman times.