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I'm glad the gamma-ray bursts are directed into space.

Although the outward going flashes (first detected by CGRO a decade ago) are much stronger, there are also lighting-generated X-rays seen on the ground.

You bet they are. From the spaceflight website

1. Return to Flight test mission.
2. The Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, or MPLM, carries supplies and equipment to the station.
3. Delivers the External Stowage Platform to the station.
4. Remove and replace Control Moment Gyro.

Somebody replied to you implying that the ant experiment on Columbia was the highlight. I don't feel like making two posts, so I'll point out here that it was one of over 80 experiments carried by Columbia. That particular experiment was highlighted simply because it was from students.

You bet they are. From the spaceflight website

1. Return to Flight test mission.
2. The Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, or MPLM, carries supplies and equipment to the station.
3. Delivers the External Stowage Platform to the station.
4. Remove and replace Control Moment Gyro.

Somebody replied to you implying that the ant experiment on Columbia was the highlight. I don't feel like making two posts, so I'll point out here that it was one of over 80 experiments carried by Columbia. That particular experiment was highlighted simply because it was from students.

...stereoscopic images of Uranus.

And just what the Puck are you trying to insinuate?

All you Sierra Club and Greenpeace granola crunchers out there - stand up and take a bow. You and other environmental wackjobs like you incinerated 7 American astronauts like so much toast.

The article says that Atlantis is being prepped simultaneously for a possible rescue mission. I doubt it actually be on the other pad when Discovery launches, but how realistic is it for NASA to set up another launch on two weeks' notice?

One of the original goals with having four shuttles was to do a new mission every two weeks, and so turn around time of each shuttle was supposed to be every eight weeks. They never approached that rate of launches long-term, but they came close a few times. The ill-fated the 1986 Challenger launch was just 16 days after the launch of the previous mission:

http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/y ear1986.html

In the year before, 1985, there were nine Shuttle missions, more than in any other year:

http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/y ear1985.html

That's still an average of less than one a month, and after having lost not one but two shuttles, they're sure to 'try harder' to put safety above turnaround time. Now that may mean not launching one until the next one can reasonably be launched within two weeks.

The article says that Atlantis is being prepped simultaneously for a possible rescue mission. I doubt it actually be on the other pad when Discovery launches, but how realistic is it for NASA to set up another launch on two weeks' notice?

One of the original goals with having four shuttles was to do a new mission every two weeks, and so turn around time of each shuttle was supposed to be every eight weeks. They never approached that rate of launches long-term, but they came close a few times. The ill-fated the 1986 Challenger launch was just 16 days after the launch of the previous mission:

http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/y ear1986.html

In the year before, 1985, there were nine Shuttle missions, more than in any other year:

http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/y ear1985.html

That's still an average of less than one a month, and after having lost not one but two shuttles, they're sure to 'try harder' to put safety above turnaround time. Now that may mean not launching one until the next one can reasonably be launched within two weeks.

First of all, microgravity is an astonishingly useful thing to have when conducting experiments. For instance, imagine how much better one can grow crystals if everything is just floating and one doesn't have a dish to corrupt the crystal formation. Not interested in growing snowflakes? Crystals grown from organic seeds allow one to develop medical cures. So it's not a stetch to say that a microgravity experiment might be what cures AIDS or cancer.

Second, even if one doesn't care about microgravity, space has another feature: vacuum. Lots and lots of it. The Japanese science module is specifically designed to conduct experiments in the vacuum outside. They've got an exposed pallet and a bunch of waldos.

For lots more examples, see NASA's ISS science page.

Go to the Return to Flight page. Atlantis will be ready for a launch on July 12: that's not an emergency turnaround, but a full-fledged mission. I don't imagine that Discovery will be in a position to act as emergency rescue vehicle for that mission, though, as even July 26 (i.e., 2 weeks after the planned launch date for Atlantis) will be only 2 months after the shuttle's planned landing on May 27. Endeavour is in major modification mode.

Go to the Return to Flight page. Atlantis will be ready for a launch on July 12: that's not an emergency turnaround, but a full-fledged mission. I don't imagine that Discovery will be in a position to act as emergency rescue vehicle for that mission, though, as even July 26 (i.e., 2 weeks after the planned launch date for Atlantis) will be only 2 months after the shuttle's planned landing on May 27. Endeavour is in major modification mode.

This is a series of emails that discuss the burst. Interesting posts include the following:

There were a series of small bursts observed before the big one, but no one seems to have realized that they were precursors until after the big one arrived. "During 21 December more than 30 SGR-like bursts were detected by Konus-Wind and Helicon-Coronas-F" satellites.

The burst was detected by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. "A very preliminary analysis indicates that the arrival time at Odyssey is indeed consistent with an arrival direction from SGR1806-20."

There is also discussion of an Earth-orbiting satellite that did not have a direct view of the flare; however, it picked up a faint echo 7.70 seconds after everyone else saw it. "This value corresponds exactly to burst travelling time from the Wind to the Moon and back to the Coronas-F."

Finally, serendipious observations were made by spacecraft whose primary mission is solar observation. "The SGR was 5 degrees from RHESSI's pointing axis which was directed toward the Sun."

Guess this page needs to be updated eh?

2002 headline "Scientists Measure the Most powerful Magnet Known"

But I would worry about nuclear war, pollution and overpopulation than anything from the stars! :)

http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/msusci.html

RELEASE: 05-052

NASA Statement on False Claim of Evidence of Life on Mars

News reports on February 16, 2005, that NASA scientists from Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., have found strong evidence that life may exist on Mars are incorrect.

NASA does not have any observational data from any current Mars missions that supports this claim. The work by the scientists mentioned in the reports cannot be used to directly infer anything about life on Mars, but may help formulate the strategy for how to search for martian life. Their research concerns extreme environments on Earth as analogs of possible environments on Mars. No research paper has been submitted by them to any scientific journal asserting martian life.

Sorry, wrong in your implications, and maybe your facts.

The ``animals'' that have the most impact on the global climate may well be the phytoplankton. Scroll down toward the bottom to see how they may be responsible for ice ages.

I'd say that salmon have a huge effect on my local climate, too. Thousands of tons of salmon become thousands of tons of bear-crap, and that, together with more thousands of tons of rotting salmon, fertillizes the forests all across the arctic and sub-arctic. It's a source of energy and nutrients that has changed the ecosystem here enormously. Resettlement of Alaska after the ice age seems to have followed the salmon streams.

Beavers and bush-stomping elepants may be the biggest things you notice, but the things we don't notice can be a lot bigger.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that damming a river or strip mining or clear-cutting forest can't be defined as "negative" to our surroundings, but I'd like to know. Positive to man's economy, sure.

Our human economy is part of our human environment, but I bet that's not what you meant.

How about this: we humans are plains apes, and a clear cut forest becomes a plain, then becomes either farmland or a brushland. Brushland and farmland are both far more productive of things to eat than the forest was, and that's good for deer, rabbits, and bear, and the things (like us) that eat them.

As for strip mining, it doesn't have to be a bad thing. The Usibelli family has been restoring the damage their strip mining has done for many years now, and hunters find that the old strip mined areas are the best habitat in the area. Yes, that link is to a coal mining company, but the folks who live around there will tell you that the page understates their success.

So, an overview of oceanography is both necessary and sufficent to make one an expert on climate dynamics? I hope you'll excuse me if I don't take the ``sufficient'' part of that very seriously. The necessary part is slightly more plausible: the oceans play a large part in the global climate, but we don't yet understand that part!.

Since you're into oceanography, you might find this interesting: "Give me half a tanker full of iron and I'll give you another ice age.", a modest proposal by John Martin.

"The most recent glaciation, 20,000 years ago, is called the Laurentide, and Earth is still recovering from it."

http://vathena.arc.nasa.gov/curric/land/global/cli mchng.html

Yes, the average global temperature is warming. But, it would be warming whether or not humans were even on the planet. Scientists used to all agree that the Earth was flat and that if people went too far to the edge, the world would tip over and we'd all fall off. Do you see how silly those scientists were?

No, it is very ordinary H2O. The same water that makes up 90% of your body.

You might be confused with "heavy water" that truly does weigh more, due to the fact that it is composed of deuterium and tritium, and for some nuclear research these heavier isotopes of hydrogen are used.

The problem with the water moderators of nuclear power plants is that water is a very corrosive substance, and will dissolve just about anything, including uranium and radioactive waste. Because of that, the water that is in containment areas of a nuclear power plant generally isn't flushed into the city sewer.

The water that is used in nuclear power plants is also of extraordinary purity, where it goes through a desalinzation process many time more exacting than what is needed for public drinking water or farming. Indeed, if you drink the water straight out of a power plant, it actually starts absorbing minerals from your body as you are drinking it... unhealthy because it is too pure to drink. This is done mainly to avoid calcification of the pipes and other mineral deposits, like what happens to the inside of a water heater in your home over time.

Every thing that I mentioned and more is possible with just ordinary water, and it does indeed have many uses in space. To see an interesting book that describes this in more detail check out "The Return"> written by none other than Buzz Aldrin, the second astronaut to step foot on the moon. While this is fiction, Mr. Aldrin's credentials for having experienced real spaceflight are undisputed. In this book he describes an interesting threat to manned spaceflight that before hand I never even thought about, and in it the space shuttle had to be modified with water radiation bags to do a rescue mission to the ISS.

Really, ordinary water does offer a bunch of neat advantages and really is used for radiation shielding.

Moon colonies would also have another big issue: as a moon day is 28 earth days, i'm not sure crops would like that, even if they do, you have to store energy during the day for the night.
Actually an orbital space station with pseudo gravity is much more practical, there have several designs under study:
Torus
Cylinder
Sphere
And also some stuff from the NASA

Are you kidding??? Do you know what it would take for DNA to be transmitted to or from Mars? We're not talking about scraping your next-door neighbor's cheek for skin cells...

Besides, if you assume cross fertilization, you already assumed that life exists on mars exactly as it does here, which is more of an assumption than this article makes.

There isn't even evidence of liquid water currently on mars, since the atmosphere is too thin to sustain it.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast05jan_1 .htm

They tried. It crashed. They may try again. Meanwhile, the rovers have to go to the equatorial region of the planet because they're powered by solar cells that require strong sunlight. And, while there is probably no life on the surface now, exposed layers of rock might yield clues about past life, if it ever existed.

They tried. It crashed. They may try again. Meanwhile, the rovers have to go to the equatorial region of the planet because they're powered by solar cells that require strong sunlight. And, while there is probably no life on the surface now, exposed layers of rock might yield clues about past life, if it ever existed.

Evidence of methane and its coverage with water can be expained in at least one trivial way. Note Mars atmospheric composition:

C02: 95%
H2O: 0.03%

Now huge ultraviolet radiation breaks down H2O and CO2 to loose hydrogen/oxygen/carbon atoms (this process along with mars weak gravity is co-responsible for mars losing its once dense atmosphere). Additionally there is huge evidence of Electrical Discharge On The Martian Surface

Try simple high school science project: Load a container with water and CO2, add electrodes to create some discharge ('lightning') and you'll have your own PanGea in a bottle.

After some time all sorts of 'organic' chemicals will be present in the bottle along with most common methane (but also alcohols, higher carbohydrates and more complex molecules). I would think decent scientist would at least mention such possibility in reocurring articles on 'OH-OH methane is evidence of life on mars'

Oh no! There appears to be global warming on Mars! Won't somebody think of the Martian children and stop the evil industrialized nations from polluting Mars?! Send the Hollywood elite there immediately to protest!

Besides, this story is about WindRiver adding Linux to its lineup, not replacing VxWorks.

your American bullshit propaganda machine?

I'd just like to point out that NASA is in on this "propaganda machine". Assuming you can read a map and locate North and South Korea I suggest you take a look here. North Korea is a black hole. They have the third largets standing army on earth, and supporting that army devours about 30% of their entire gross national production. That is a STAGGERING percentage drain on any economy. And it explains why an appaling fraction of their population starved to death over the last several years. It's not propaganda. North Korea really is insanely isolationist and selfdelusional.

The really ugly part is that it's a really intractable situation. North Korea is a handgrenade and any attempt to deal with North Korea primarily involves tip-toeing around hoping it doesn't go off. I'm certainly not suggesting an invasion, that *would* immeadiately set off the handgrenade bigtime. Even without their nukes they have enough artillary to level the South Korean capital in a matter of minutes. They have the world's third largest army (behind China and the US) entrenched in one of the biggest and deepest tunnel systems in the world. They could sweep across South Korea faster than we could deploy even a single unit to the area.

We have a few thousand American soldiers deployed along that border. You want to know why? They certainly aren't there to fight. If North Korea decided to move across the border that handfull of American troops wouldn't do squat, they'd be killed by artillary in a matter of moments. So why are they there? They are deployed on a "tripwire" mission. A human tripwire. If North Korea were to attemt to cross the line and invade South Korea they would first be slaughtering thousands of Americans. Their purpose there is not to fight, their purpose there is to DIE if North Koerea attacks South Korea. And if North Korea slaughters thousands of Americans peacefully sitting on defensive duty that automatically warrants and commits the US to a full blown war against the agressor. A full blown war to defend South Korea.

Thousands of Americans who's sole mission is pure sacrificial death, for the purpose of ensuring the defence of South Korea against invasion.

If you think any comments painting North Korea as ugly or insane is just propaganda then you don't know anything about North Korea. And if you think there is any way to handle North Korea other than doing nothing and praying the problem goes away on it's own then you're either a fool or far more intelligent than me.

-

Maybe one like this

No, it really is made of green cheese.

You can see the expiration date inside one of the craters in this photo: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020401.html/

Another free and previously /.'d program is Worldwind. Which not only gives you the USGS 1m b&w images, but high res ortho 30cm resolution images in the US and worldwide Landsat imagery in 3D!
Oh, and version 1.2e has just been released!

Actually, yes they most certainly do.

You do realize that Africa is a CONTINENT, right?. It makes up 23% of the total land mass of the earth, and has 13% of it's population (source: Encarta).

The poverty levels are much higher there, and average income much lower, but they don't all live in caves and huts or whatever you have it in your head that they do over there.

Want more proof, click here. Sure africa is dark compared to other places around the world, but there's still plenty of artificial light to be seen.

When's the last time you visited Africa? And if you did, did you visit just one point, or all of it? If you were visiting Iraq, would you come home and be like "Asia is a dump, and it's so violent over there!" Because obviously Iraq and Japan are exactly the same, both being part of Asia and all, right?

Well...

As someone else pointed out. The doppler data we got on Earth depended on the working ultra-stable oscilator on Huygens. However, there are some good reasons why it would have been nice for it's twin to be working on Cassini.

1: The two USOs were designed and calibrated to operate on the same frequency with a high degree of precision. The lack of a similarly calibrated USO on Earth adds a bit of error to the measurements.

2: Signal strength and doppler shifts measured by Cassini would have been larger, probably resulting in greater precision.

3: 20 minutes of the Earth-based observation must be provided by different telescopes. Any time you change insturments, you add more error.

Of course, something is better than nothing. But it looks like the Earth-based doppler measurements are less precise by about three orders of magnitude. (1km vs. 1m error in position.) That's a heck of a loss if you wanted to know more about the winds and atmosphere.

I mostly agree with you, but there was most definitely both a period of national mourning and an extensive (some would say overzealous) Congressional investigation after the 204 fire.

http://history.nasa.gov/Apollo204/inv.html

--riney

No

Or does it just mean the stars mass is greater than it was before..?

Yes, but only very slightly... since it's traveling at about 1/500th the speed of light, it did gain some mass, but very, very little relative to its original mass

If its neither of these, why has the star suddenly broken away from the galaxy

It all has to do with the angle and distance at which the star approached the black hole.

If it passes by a long distance away or at a slow speed (I don't know the equation to show you the threshold of speed/distance/mass), the chance is that it will enter some form of orbit, if irregular.

If it is nearly tangent to the object (but doesn't strike it), and it is already moving at a high enough velocity, then it will use the black hole as a slingshot and will gain velocity. You can check out the Cassini satellite's mission trajectory to see how it used Venus and Earth to gain velocity (relative to the sun)

Actually they did.

From the site: The heat shield protects the lander and rover from the intense heat from entry into the Martian atmosphere and aerodynamically acts as the first "brake" for the spacecraft.

Better believe it. I've read the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal where one of the astronauts mentions that the skin of the lander was so thin that when they decompressed it to commence an EVA it would make popping noises like a jerry can. That's not much protection between you and vacuum.

You want direct evidence?

Sent a powerful laser beam to the moon, aimed at the landing sites of either Apollo 11, 14 or 15.

It will be reflected back.

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEhelp/Apoll oLaser.html
http://ilrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/satellite_missions/list_ of_satellites/lunar.html
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/Apollo15/A15_Exper iments_LRRR.html

You want direct evidence?

Sent a powerful laser beam to the moon, aimed at the landing sites of either Apollo 11, 14 or 15.

It will be reflected back.

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEhelp/Apoll oLaser.html
http://ilrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/satellite_missions/list_ of_satellites/lunar.html
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/Apollo15/A15_Exper iments_LRRR.html

I dispute your unique orbit criterion. It wouldn't be impossible for two substantial planets to form at L4/L5 points. Note: the masses have to differ by at least 25x or random perturbation will eventually collide them. That leaves plenty of room for pairings, e.g. a Saturn-size gas giant and a rocky world 3x the mass of earth could share an orbit.

I dispute your unique orbit criterion. It wouldn't be impossible for two substantial planets to form at L4/L5 points. Note: the masses have to differ by at least 25x or random perturbation will eventually collide them. That leaves plenty of room for pairings, e.g. a Saturn-size gas giant and a rocky world 3x the mass of earth could share an orbit.

And lest we forget:

http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/Kepler/kepler_inde x.html
http://herschel.jpl.nasa.gov/
http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/SIM/sim_index.html (Probably delayed a couple years due to new budget)

And for that matter, ground-based interferometry (http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/techno logy_index.html) is very promising as well.

And lest we forget:

http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/Kepler/kepler_inde x.html
http://herschel.jpl.nasa.gov/
http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/SIM/sim_index.html (Probably delayed a couple years due to new budget)

And for that matter, ground-based interferometry (http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/techno logy_index.html) is very promising as well.

And lest we forget:

http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/Kepler/kepler_inde x.html
http://herschel.jpl.nasa.gov/
http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/SIM/sim_index.html (Probably delayed a couple years due to new budget)

And for that matter, ground-based interferometry (http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/techno logy_index.html) is very promising as well.

And lest we forget:

http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/Kepler/kepler_inde x.html
http://herschel.jpl.nasa.gov/
http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/SIM/sim_index.html (Probably delayed a couple years due to new budget)

And for that matter, ground-based interferometry (http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/techno logy_index.html) is very promising as well.

I still can't believe that back in 1972 we could just launch from the Earth, land on the Moon and start driving around in a jeep. It was normal back then.

We have completely lost the ability to do anything like that.

This old footage even looks like science-fiction to us.

That's only in the current equilibrium, which is a highly simplified version of the general case.
That's why I said 'average distance'.

A flyby of a massive body (like Mars) could certainly affect Earth's orbit.
You'd think so, wouldn't you (I know I would). However, there are a couple of problems. The biggest one, of course, is arranging the fly-by. See previous comment involving unfeasible quantities of nuclear explosive.
More interesting is whether Mars counts as a 'massive body', and what it's effect on Earth would be.(All figures from NASA's Mars Fact Sheet). Let's do the maths :)

Mars has an orbital velocity of 24.13 km/s.
Earth's is 29.78 km/s.
Assuming we are trying to accelerate Mars, it can gain 5.65 km/s, which translates into a KE gain of c. 1E31 J.
Because energy is conserved, Earth must lose the same amount of KE, which, of course, will reduce its orbital velocity - but by how much?
Well, by the ancient formula, E=1/2mv^2, Earth has 5.9736E24kg/2*29780m/s^2 = 2.6488E33 J of KE.
Subtracting the KE 'stolen' by our wayward Martians, we are left with 'only' 2.6388E33 J, ie this transfer has cost Earth .01% of our total KE, giving a 0.1% reduction in orbital velocity.
What this would do to the length of a year I'm not sure (maybe somebody whose orbital mechanics is better than mine can tell us), but I doubt it would do more than annoy a few 'perpetual calendar' manufacturers.

This possibility falsifies your claim in general, since the Earth's behavior would, for a while at least, be affected by something other than its orbital velocity.
ITYM 'something changing its orbital velocity'. And changes in velocity are permanent, unless something else acts to change it back. Newton, see?

As for whether we "couldn't affect the orbit of Mars", I think you mean that we're highly unlikely to affect it accidentally while actually trying to give it an atmosphere. I agree, but that misses the point.
If you really mean that we aren't capable of ever affect the orbit of a planet like Mars, then you'll need to refute the paper "Astronomical Engineering: A Strategy For Modifying Planetary Orbits". A plausible economic argument might be made against it...
The paper you cite is interesting (got a link to the full version? I don't feel like paying '$33.93 plus tax' for it:), but assumes Mankind to be far more forward-thinking and philanthropic than it currently appears to be :(
Ergo, we can't do it, accidentally or not.

The NASA James Webb Space Telescope" is "on the way". I've heard the
images it can obtain will make the Hubble images look like
junk. Let's move on to the future rather than dwell on the past!

The replacement for Hubble is well underway. The James Webb Space Telescope is set for launch in 2011.

It's a pity to lose such an excellent scientific tool without a replacement either in train or already deployed

It sure is.