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A couple of months ago NASA posted some even better videos of the Martian dust devils, available here:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07139
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07140
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07138

There's also a rather neat video of Opportunity escaping from the sand trap.

A couple of months ago NASA posted some even better videos of the Martian dust devils, available here:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07139
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07140
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07138

There's also a rather neat video of Opportunity escaping from the sand trap.

A couple of months ago NASA posted some even better videos of the Martian dust devils, available here:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07139
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07140
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07138

There's also a rather neat video of Opportunity escaping from the sand trap.

A couple of months ago NASA posted some even better videos of the Martian dust devils, available here:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07139
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07140
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07138

There's also a rather neat video of Opportunity escaping from the sand trap.

No, they have no microphones. Mars Polar Lander, the one the crashed, had one but, uh... as would be apparent by its crashed state, we never got data back. I don't know if Phoenix is going to have a microphone or not, but if not, I doubt we'll have audio coming back from Mars any time soon.

Is this tug going to be reusable? I mean, will it come back to low earth orbit after it drops off its payload to pick up more propellant and another satellite?

NASA has looked at similar things, though none have been built yet. http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT2001/6000/6920verhey .html

How come when a project like this asks for donations they get tens of thousandths of dollars and hardware to boot, but when a project like NASA World Wind, that uses probably 100x the resources with at least 5x the user base asks for donations, we can barely make up a measly 300$ a month for the one community server. http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

Well, unless you get run over by a bus, we could directly observe a "terrestrial" planet in your lifetime. That's the whole point of the Terrestrial Planet Finder mission.

Nadaou talked about SRTM datas. Their resolution outside USA is 90 meters which is maybe not enough for you. You can try to get ASTER data (Digital Elevation Model of 30 meters resolution) to complete SRTM locally, however with less quality (there are no post-treatments on them), and a very very reduce coverage ...

Currently the coverage is of only seven DEM on Ghana.
But maybe it's the geographical position you are looking for ...

An article from John Childs presenting quickly ASTER format
John Childs also explains how to obtain data from the "EOS Data Gateway"
Homepage of ASTER

--

Cedric

More details here: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/news/7_13_images.h tml. Nice animations too.

A delightfully absentminded professor who is working on Kepler actually likened it standing in Los Angeles and seeing a mosquito in front of a streelight in New York City. Two miles is nothing. Space is big.

Nadaou is on the right train of thought. If I can offer the following:

Hardware
Stick with consumer Garmin, etrex units are small (easy to conceal), easy to use and affordable.

Software
Consider ESRI's free ArcExplorer. It supports MANY data format, very simply to use, and is cross platform.
http://esri.com/software/arcexplorer/index.html

Data
I highly recommend Landsat satellite imagery, specifically Landsat GeoCover 2000. It is free, global coverage at 30 metre resolution, compressed, yada yada, trust me, it is exceptional!
Get it here:
https://zulu.ssc.nasa.gov/mrsid/
http://glcf.umiacs.umd.edu/portal/geocover/earthsa t.shtml

These MrSID wavelet compressed images can also be viewed using a free geoviewer from LizardTech:
http://www.lizardtech.com/download/dl_options.php? page=viewers

Do as much prep work at home before going over there. I would suggest printing maps with UTM grid on them (this is the grid that the GPS can tell your position in) - I've always found this more useful then Lat-Long (how far away is 7 seconds?!?). Essentially build one map at a good logical scale like 1:10,000, then PAN & PRINT, PAN & PRINT, repeat as necessary.

Hardware:
Get a Garmin handheld GPS with a 12v adaptor & download cable, and probably a crate of AA batts.
Stick with consumer stuff. Buying a spare or 3 is cheaper than buying a Trimble survey grade and they all work well enough.

GPS Software:
Download GPStrans &/or GPSbabel.
http://gpstrans.sourceforge.net/
http://www.gpsbabel.org/
You can load the GPS waypoints/track/routes into a mapping format with GRASS GIS's v.in.garmin or gpsbabel+anything.

Mapping software:
Use QGIS. http://qgis.org/
Use GPS plugin.

Data:
Start by downloading SRTM elevation data and VMAP0 digital chart of the world data. Best there will be publicly available for Africa.

Instructions for converting into a usable format here:
http://grass.ibiblio.org/newsletter/GRASSNews_vol3 .pdf

Import and crop with GRASS GIS (r.in.srtm and v.in.ogr modules) and either use with QGIS directly or export into a secondary more popular format for use with other software.

GRASS works well on a Mac. http://grass.ibiblio.org/

GPS interface programs should work on a Mac, GPStrans is command line only so with some hacking and GPSbabel is well maintained so there should be a Mac port by now.

SRTM: http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/
VMAP0: http://www.mapability.com/info/vmap0_index.html

Congratulations on a great project. Mapping can really empower an isolated village to better understand their place in the country and the world. I'm just back from a trip to what could be called uncharted territories in the southern tip of Panama. I a 1:50,000 map, which was last checked on the field in 1961. Since not a lot of people live here it is not a high priority for the government's mapping agency. The result is that all the names of the rivers on the map are wrong, the villages just don't appear and a lot of what shows as forest has now been cleared. The big mistake I made was not to take a GPS, but in a way it forced me to do things the low-tech way, which is good to learn when you run out of batteries in a place with no electricity and no roads to take your car and plug things in the cigarrette lighter socket. So first thing: get some free satellite pictures, check both Google Earth and Nasa's World Wind (unfortunately you need Windows for these) because you may find better images in one or the other for the part of the world you are interested in. You can also check https://zulu.ssc.nasa.gov/mrsid/mrsid.pl and maybe you can find a MrSID reader for mac to look at the pictures and export tiffs. So print the images out in colour and have several copies because those bubble-jet printouts don't go well together with rainwater. Or laminate them. Then go to the country's mapping agency if there is one and get the most detailed map you can find of the area. It might very well be a 1:250,000 one or worse, but it is better than nothing. Again, more than one copy is a good idea, one to leave intact and one for making notes on. Fold your map. This is more important than you may think, as you can fold your map to have easy access to the part you will repeatedly check and you won't have to open the whole thing in pouring rain and be too obvious about what you are doing if you don't intend to. Take a digital camera with good battery life. Not a lot of options in the "all weather" category for digital cameras, so maybe get a good regular one and keep it protected. Pictures of places and features also keep a record of the time and date you were there and may provide very good information when you forget to note it down. Get plenty large thick zip-loc freezer bags before you go to Africa (might be cheaper in the US) to put your maps and papers and GPS and digital camera in. It is maybe not a good idea to take a laptop or a Palm on the field. Humidity will probably kill it. Take instead a good Moleskine : low tech, no batteries, very reliable. Another option is Rite in the Rain. And several pencils which you can sharpen with a knife. Talk to everybody, double- and triple-check the names of rivers and other features as well as the number of houses and the population of places. Be honest and open about what you are doing. Make sure you make the finished work available to the people in the villages so they can use it.

Ah, NASA may just have a real bad feeling about fuel sensors, the number 13, and things falling off and damaging the shuttle...

- Apollo 13

Personally, I believe any engineer at NASA involved with the shuttle should be able to hit the big STOP button if they find an anomaly, until it absolutely, positively can be corrected.

There are eight propellant-depletion sensors, four each for fuel and oxidizer. The fuel-depletion sensors are located in the bottom of the fuel tank. The oxidizer sensors are mounted in the orbiter liquid oxygen feed line manifold downstream of the feed line disconnect. During SSME thrusting, the orbiter general-purpose computers constantly compute the instantaneous mass of the vehicle due to the usage of the propellants. Normally, main engine cutoff is based on a predetermined velocity; however, if any two of the fuel or oxidizer sensors sense a dry condition, the engines will be shut down.

The locations of the liquid oxygen sensors allow the maximum amount of oxidizer to be consumed in the engines, while allowing sufficient time to shut down the engines before the oxidizer pumps cavitate (run dry). In addition, 1,100 pounds of liquid hydrogen are loaded over and above that required by the 6-1 oxidizer/fuel engine mixture ratio. This assures that MECO from the depletion sensors is fuel-rich; oxidizer-rich engine shutdowns can cause burning and severe erosion of engine components.

There are eight propellant-depletion sensors, four each for fuel and oxidizer. The fuel-depletion sensors are located in the bottom of the fuel tank. The oxidizer sensors are mounted in the orbiter liquid oxygen feed line manifold downstream of the feed line disconnect. During SSME thrusting, the orbiter general-purpose computers constantly compute the instantaneous mass of the vehicle due to the usage of the propellants. Normally, main engine cutoff is based on a predetermined velocity; however, if any two of the fuel or oxidizer sensors sense a dry condition, the engines will be shut down.

The locations of the liquid oxygen sensors allow the maximum amount of oxidizer to be consumed in the engines, while allowing sufficient time to shut down the engines before the oxidizer pumps cavitate (run dry). In addition, 1,100 pounds of liquid hydrogen are loaded over and above that required by the 6-1 oxidizer/fuel engine mixture ratio. This assures that MECO from the depletion sensors is fuel-rich; oxidizer-rich engine shutdowns can cause burning and severe erosion of engine components.

Well, maybe back in the day the shuttle was super high quality. However when the space shuttle Discovery is 22 years old (made in 1983). Space Shuttle Discovery is getting old. For reference, Challenger's first flight was in 1983, Columbia's first flight was in 1981; both of which we lost the whole crew and shuttle (Source) The space shuttles are getting old and you have to expect that things are going to start to break. With budget cutbacks and the like, it doesn't look too good for NASA's people.

How high-tech things that were made in 1983 are still considered high-tech or even high quality. I know most consumer items made back then are sitting in the dump or in somebody's basement.

Well, maybe back in the day the shuttle was super high quality. However when the space shuttle Discovery is 22 years old (made in 1983). Space Shuttle Discovery is getting old. For reference, Challenger's first flight was in 1983, Columbia's first flight was in 1981; both of which we lost the whole crew and shuttle (Source) The space shuttles are getting old and you have to expect that things are going to start to break. With budget cutbacks and the like, it doesn't look too good for NASA's people.

How high-tech things that were made in 1983 are still considered high-tech or even high quality. I know most consumer items made back then are sitting in the dump or in somebody's basement.

The launch page (cited in the story) shows nothing different. "Today's countdown", however, continues.

It's true... http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/launch/launch-v lcc.html

It's 150 years. The page you most commonly see is wrong - it confuses days and years.

To be specific, it's 1/(Omega*sqrt(3*M_1/5*M_2)).

Omega is 2*pi/year (angular revolution rate of the Earth). M_1 is Earth, M_2 is the Sun, and Google says that when you add in the rest it's 150 years.

You can find a good derivation of it here.

For the visually-oriented minds:

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/ob_techorbit1.html
http://www.physics.montana.edu/faculty/cornish/lag range.html

For the mathametically inclined:

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/LagrangePo ints.html

Name something they brought down back from space that is worth all of the trouble we've gone through to glide back to Earth rather than parachute.

I agree that the Shuttle isn't all it was planned to be. (The designs of the '70s thought it wouldbe much cheaper per pound to orbit than it wound up being, for example.) What we need, besides a fancy space pickup truck is a crew vehicle and a heavy lift vehicle. As soon as we have those in place, we can spend some serious time contemplating other propulsion methods, because we'll only make space travel more frequent if we can also make it more economical. What percentage of your car's weight is fuel? (Hint: about 10% when full.) What percentage of the Shuttle's weight is fuel? (Hint: about 97%)

I watched a launch across the river from the launchpad when I was a kid. It was beautiful to see both the launch, and the reflection of the launch on the river. You can get plenty of additional information about the launch from Visitor Center's, local residents, and local radio stations.

Recommended viewing areas per NASA:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/view/vie w_shuttle.html

When the they designed the lunar lander, they had to have something that would work 100% to get off the moon, and they used... a solid fuel rocket.

No, the lunar lander used liquid-fueled engines, powered by nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, for both the ascent and descent stages.

More information on the lunar module and the fuels it used is widely available, as is information on thier development.

And, Lord knows, this was a slashdot-specific story, and you certainly couldn't have gotten details anywhere else before you opened your mouth.

Wrong. Both stages of the lunar lander used liquid fuel -- hypergolic (self-igniting) propellants. More on that here.

Van Allen Belt:The inner radiation belt extends over altitudes of 650-6,300 km (up to one Earth radius). This ring is most concentrated in the Earth's equatorial plane.... The outer radiation belt extends from an altitude of about 10,000-65,000 km and has its greatest intensity between 14,500-19,000 km.

Lagrange Point: There are actually five Lagrange points in the Earth-Sun system, which I'm assuming the parent article refers to.*

L1 and L2 are 1,500,000 km from the Earth, well outside both Van Allen Belts. L3 through L5 are even further away! Currently, NASA's SOHO observation satellite is at L1, and WMAP is at L2. (Source)

*There's five Lagrange points for any two bodies in direct orbit, including the Earth-Moon, Mars-Phobos, etc.

Van Allen Belt:The inner radiation belt extends over altitudes of 650-6,300 km (up to one Earth radius). This ring is most concentrated in the Earth's equatorial plane.... The outer radiation belt extends from an altitude of about 10,000-65,000 km and has its greatest intensity between 14,500-19,000 km.

Lagrange Point: There are actually five Lagrange points in the Earth-Sun system, which I'm assuming the parent article refers to.*

L1 and L2 are 1,500,000 km from the Earth, well outside both Van Allen Belts. L3 through L5 are even further away! Currently, NASA's SOHO observation satellite is at L1, and WMAP is at L2. (Source)

*There's five Lagrange points for any two bodies in direct orbit, including the Earth-Moon, Mars-Phobos, etc.

SOHO, a (joint US/EU project) is in a halo orbit around L1 (http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/mission/page1.html ) and WMAP, a US satellite, is in a halo orbit around L2 - according to their official explanation (http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/ob_techorbit1.html)

The WMAP page also explains that the L1 and L2 points aren't as stable as the article implies...

SOHO, a (joint US/EU project) is in a halo orbit around L1 (http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/mission/page1.html ) and WMAP, a US satellite, is in a halo orbit around L2 - according to their official explanation (http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/ob_techorbit1.html)

The WMAP page also explains that the L1 and L2 points aren't as stable as the article implies...

And for the serious overclockers, we have low powered cryogenics coming down the pipeline. It turns out that Intel is considering the possibility of using Pulse Tube Coolers for the next generation of thermal management. (Hey Intel, you think that over 100 watts might be just a *smidge* much for a processor?)

While there's something to be said for this step being rather extreme, it might lead to the development of cryogenic computers. These futuristic processors could utilize super-conducting transistors and wires to improve performance and eliminate waste heat.

Kind of a weird thought, but there you have it. :-)

Personally, I'd like to see Stirling or Pulse Tube Coolers replacing existing phase-change air conditioners. In the name of "energy efficiency", you can't buy a decent apartment AC and are forced to deal with putting one in every room. Stirling engines could provide better cooling for less energy! Now if we could just get the buggers mass produced to bring down the cost...

If the point of your trip is to see it take off--i.e., watch it sit on the ground, then lift off--then you have little choice but to go all the way out there and sit in traffic and/or sit around for hours waiting for traffic to clear. (I once spent about 3 hours coming home from a 1am launch and it's usually an hour trip.)

If I were to try to see tomorrow's launch from anywhere close, I'd probably leave Orlando at noon, sit in traffic the whole time, then get home at 8. And remember two things: 1) there might be so much traffic that you wind up just pulling over to see it, and 2) if the launch doesn't happen, you've gotta sit through all that traffic for nothing.

OTOH, if you just happen to be in the state at the time of launch and are happy to see it go up from anywhere, you can see it from miles away. I live in Orlando (~50 miles away) and if you're anywhere in town with a clear view of the eastern sky you can spend a solid minute or more watching this bright flare come into view and then disappear. (It's not like looking at a planet or comet--you won't miss it, even in the middle of the day.) You won't see the vehicle but you'll see a very bright spot in the sky and it'll show up fine in pics on or video.

Summary: unless you're really, really into this and willing to dedicate a day to it, just look in the direction of KSC at the time of launch.

http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/main/index.html

• Residents of Mobile, Alabama
• Manufacturers of movable housing
• Mobil oil company
• Snowmobile & Automobile manufacturers
• Molecular Orbital Bond Index information
• Mobius Management Sytstems, Inc. (their ticker)
• Mothers Overcoming Breastfeeding Issues
• Mobi Comics
• Microgravity Observations of Bubble Interactions
• Mobi Online Dating
• Promotions of bisexual materials to residents of Missouri

The shuttle's engineering design also specified no foam loss as a requirement. Over time, foam loss became tolerated, with a pervasive management attitude of "well it hasn't caused any problems, yet". Damage to the shuttles' carbon panels was documented on numerous missions, and was ultimately treated by management as a post-flight maintenance issue, rather than as a safety issue.

This sort of complacency is what killed Columbia, and is well documented in the extremely interesting Accident Investigation Board report.

Look here

Hrm... I guess the number 107 wasn't chosen without a hidden meaning.

"Unfortunately, certain critical problems aren't identified until failure occurs."

untrue. NASA management knew about the oring and debris stike problems long before they took out the vehicles.

in both cases, the problems were originally considered critical enough to stop flying. however, NASA kept ignoring the data and figured "well, if they haven't blown up yet, they probably won't".

Read the CAIB. In many ways, it's a scathing criticism of NASA's management practices.

Reading between the lines, you can pretty much trace both shuttle losses directly to arrogant, powerhungry managers who simply didn't want to hear about the problems.

they *knew* an oring leak toward the cryo tank would kill the vehicle, they knew the rings were burning, they knew it was worse on cold mornings, still, they overrode objections and launched Challenger.

they *knew* the tiles were failing from debris strikes, far worse than anything the designers anticipated, on several occasions causing the plasma to come within millimeters of the aluminum frame, and they knew Columbia has the worst problems with it, as Columbia was heavier than the other shuttles...once again, they overrode objections and launched Columbia.

http://caib.nasa.gov/

"...not to worry about an issue of which you have absolutely no control over."

No control over? As in, they did not know debris strikes were ocurring, or o-rings were failing?

NASA was aware of both issues significantly before the accidents yet kept right on flying, in the face of their own internal guidelines stating they must not do so (IE; oring blowouts and debris strikes became increasingly acceptable over time, but were initially cause to stop flying).

All the cameras in the world won't help if management ignores the images they receive.

Read the CAIB report. It's a scathing criticism of NASA's lackadaisical managment practices :

http://caib.nasa.gov/

The first, RTLS (Return To Launch Site Abort Mode) can be initiated upto T+4mintues20 and involves an early ET (External Tank) seperation followed by a powered phase to bleed of excess fuel and a glide phase which see's the orbiter return to KSC at approximately T+25minutes.

The second is the TAL (Transatlantic Abort Landing). This can be initiated in the event of critical failure after T+4minutes20. The orbiter continues in a balistic trajectory downrange across the Atlantic to land at a runway in Spain, Gambia or Morocco. Landing occurs T+45minutes.

The first, RTLS (Return To Launch Site Abort Mode) can be initiated upto T+4mintues20 and involves an early ET (External Tank) seperation followed by a powered phase to bleed of excess fuel and a glide phase which see's the orbiter return to KSC at approximately T+25minutes.

The second is the TAL (Transatlantic Abort Landing). This can be initiated in the event of critical failure after T+4minutes20. The orbiter continues in a balistic trajectory downrange across the Atlantic to land at a runway in Spain, Gambia or Morocco. Landing occurs T+45minutes.

The Space Camp movie was working from facts. The runway at White Sands missile range was used to land the Columbia at the conclusion of STS-3. Later on White Sands was named the White Sands Space Harbor. This is also a location for shuttle return training in the modified Gulfstream.

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/index.html

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-3 /mission-sts-3.html

The Space Camp movie was working from facts. The runway at White Sands missile range was used to land the Columbia at the conclusion of STS-3. Later on White Sands was named the White Sands Space Harbor. This is also a location for shuttle return training in the modified Gulfstream.

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/index.html

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-3 /mission-sts-3.html

Found some info for you.

yb.

Here's a quick nitpick about the linked Countdown 101 from the summary - the clock in the picture reads +00:00:05, yet the caption says it was taken "before a Space Shuttle launch."

I enjoy bloopers, and hopefully somebody else will too. :)

Strange, at nasa's nasatv page they list links for flash, realplayer, wmp, and quicktime. I can't see any use for the quicktime, as the nasatv appears to only be on realplayer and wmp. Is there really a quicktime link buried somewhere, or is that quicktime download link irrelevent?

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Assistant: Sir, the TV ratings for the launch are the highest in ten years.

Everyone: Yay!

Controller: And how's the spacecraft doing?
Assistant: I dunno. All this equipment is just used to measure TV ratings.

Linkeh.

Information about tuning in to NASA TV can be found here as well.

Linkeh.

Information about tuning in to NASA TV can be found here as well.