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Glaciers carve rounded "U"-shaped valleys while rivers make pointed "V"-shaped valleys.

This does not take account of the uniquely Martian process of sapping which also creates U shaped valleys in dendritic, presumably fluvial valley systems. We need to be carefull about infering process from morphology alone.

Very difficult to find-- I had to go to the Opportunity updates page and search for the first occurence of the word "power."

This is not a new result. It has long been observed that some valley deposits on Mars resemble glacial morains. By far the best evidence for glaciation on Mars is at its north pole and it is well documented.

The increasing power levels of the Mars rovers is explained by the lengthening daylight hours in the Mars northern hemisphere spring. What is surprising is that the solar panels may be being cleaned by wind action.

This was posted weeks ago...

Take this map of the United States at Night and superimpose it over a map of "Red/Blue" Counties

Notice anything?

Probably either NASA TV or behind the lens of a telescope or large telephoto camera lens.

--
My manual camera (Minolta X-370s or SRT-202 depending on my mood) should have a great view [260mm lens with 2x multiplier]

Wow, you're so amazingly stupid that you seem to have trouble with a basic statement like "unless relativity turns out to be completely and utterly wrong, ...".

And, no, I don't need to head down to NASA and explain it to them because NASA already knows.

Wow, you're so amazingly stupid that you seem to have trouble with a basic statement like "unless relativity turns out to be completely and utterly wrong, ...".

And, no, I don't need to head down to NASA and explain it to them because NASA already knows.

Wow, you're so amazingly stupid that you seem to have trouble with a basic statement like "unless relativity turns out to be completely and utterly wrong, ...".

And, no, I don't need to head down to NASA and explain it to them because NASA already knows.

Try 100 billion.

Actually, I believe the estimation was 125 billion. But according to this, there are only 3000 observed galaxies. Which means that it's great for those who push out into unknown space, but the rest of us are screwed.

Let me get this straight. You believe that accelerating a 5000 ton spaceship at 1 G for 25,000 years is more than the power output of the sun?

Ummm... yes. A few BOTE calculations shows that the entire sun puts out somewhere around 8.0e23 watts. From here, a 30,000 light year trip would take 62 tonnes of antimatter per kilogram. 62 tonnes of antimatter times 5000 tonnes of ship works out to 5.58e28 Joules of energy. (I'd work it out for exactly 25,000 lightyears, but it's late, and I'm lazy.)

Now if you could collect ALL of the Sun's output for 19 hours AND convert it to antimatter with 100% efficiecy, you could reach that amount of energy. Unfortunately, the later will never be the case, even if the former is. Converting Solar Energy to Antimatter can never be more than 50% efficient. Currently, it's about 0.0000001% or so. Best estimates put antimatter conversion at about 0.01% with current technology. At 0.01%, you'd need all of the Sun's output for 80 days to reach the necessary level of antimatter.

In short, outstripping our Sun's output is not that hard. If you were thinking that I was referring to extinguishing our Sun, then I apologize for the miscommunication.

How is your 5000 ton spaceship carrying the energy for 1 G acceleration? After all, it only has 5000 tons of mass to begin with.

Whenever ships are discussed, their mass is always referred to in terms of "dry mass" unless specified otherwise. Our ship would need a disposable stage or ten to carry the extra 620,000 tonnes of matter and antimatter. :-)

Regardless, it's a bizarre concept to discuss in the first place

No, I'm merely trying to point out the rediculous energy requirements for doing a little space population. My original point being that all energy in the universe is finite, and that we will eventually bump into that little snafu.

The solution is obvious: 1+ 1+ 1= 3

Here's the original image from NASA's collection of raw images. A related image is here.

Here's the original image from NASA's collection of raw images. A related image is here.

While I know you're joking, some of the folks at JPL might take issue about getting grief for screwing up missions.

While I know you're joking, some of the folks at JPL might take issue about getting grief for screwing up missions.

While I know you're joking, some of the folks at JPL might take issue about getting grief for screwing up missions.

While I know you're joking, some of the folks at JPL might take issue about getting grief for screwing up missions.

I wonder if they gave this one away free too?

Sorry to spoil the excitement for everybody but actually, Columbia far exceeds the Japanses system's memory capacity at 20 TByte. See this description for details of Columbia's config.

The ranger series of robots paved the way for Neil and Buzz.

they flew between 1961 and 1965

The ranger series of missions were pretty crude. they were cameras on legs which were mostly designed to test the radio controlled retro rocket system for a safe landing... heck the earliest rangers were actually tasked with hitting the moon at any speed to see if it could be done.

The future robots are many, many orders of magnitude more sophisticated, and will work to establishing an infrastructure (better maps, other needful things) for future astronauts, rather than just seeing if it is possible to go there.

By then the US had people on moon buggies driving around. Not that the US had other spacecraft touch down before then (although they didn't have wheels) http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/past/surveyor.htm l

I wonder if it will look like this

The Mars rovers continue to do an amazing job. Send in the robots!

The shuttles are nearly thirty years old, from the beginning of development to today. Each launch costs taxpayers nearly 1/2 billion dollars. Isn't there a better alternative? Can't we use technology to our advantage to design inexpensive machines similar to the shuttle? In my mind, the shuttle is comparable to bulky American 70's cars, while what it is really needed is the German Smart Car. Pardon the analogy.

In my opinion, the reason for the word taikonaut to exist is because it carries a Chinese background. You can say "Chinese astronaut", but it's too long and people don't like it when they can use one word. Also, "Chinese astronaut" could be confused with Chinese-American astronauts like Dr Leroy Chiaohttp://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/chiao.h tml.

As a Chinese speaker, I'm not satisfied with the word "taikonauts" either. It sounds wierd to a Chinese ear, especially when pronounced by a non-native English speaker like myself. But it is not possilbe to let the western people read Chinese characters. Even the original pinyin form "taikongren" would cause trouble to most English speakers. Since now people are using it more and more, I can only accept it. That's the way languages evolve.

Language is a living thing. An lively language like English can never be pure. If you want a pure language, there is Latin. But I'm afraid few nowadays know how to pronounce it. During the past centuries, English has absorbed words from Latin, Greek, Indian, Chinese, and many other languages to accommondate ideas from different cultures as well as the new things happening everyday. It can't be perfect in translating these ideas, but certainly it has so far done a good job.

Look at the Three Gorges Dam; no western nation would commit themselves to a project that economically makes the ISS look like a summer camp project.

space.com may have nice pictures, but it's a shame they can't get their facts right.

From page 9 of the article on it:

Totality -- when the Moon is completely immersed in shadow -- cannot run more than 1 hour and 40 minutes.

I saw one that lasted 7 minutes longer.

Aren't you confusing "learning curve" with "economy of scales" here?

Nope.

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15 minutes? More like 25 seconds!

And the Hulkster's personal favorite is when he takes a "bite outa the moon" in these lunar eclipse pictures

And the Hulkster's personal favorite is when he takes a "bite outa the moon" in these lunar eclipse pictures

This shot really makes you appreciate the lunar surface and appearance during eclipse.

And this timelapse video shows what can be done in that arena.

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APOD: 2002 October 16 - Oklo: Ancient African Nuclear Reactors

Thank you Ghost of Wernher von Braun!

Hmmm... I'm not sure Von Braun's ghost is the best entity to summon here. Von Braun had more than a little to do with putting the shuttle on NASA's technology roadmap. Mars Direct is called Direct partly because it deliberately abandons a big chunk of the Von Braun architecture, which is that you have a space station, serviced by shuttles, where you assemble your outward bound spaceships. Even when you take out the station, Von Braun's 1969/1970 Mars architecture relies on shuttles to cover the gap between LEO and the ground. This article entitled The Von Braun Master Plan: National Dream or National Nightmare? sums up the objections to Von Braun's architecture -- and NASA's long term adherence to it -- concisely.

BTW, Here's Von Braun's 1950's vision

The Shuttles we have now are pretty much ancient. They're not cutting-edge technology anymore, not by a long shot.

Well, not all of it is 70's era equipment:

Here is the original 1974 shuttle cockpit

Here it is again in 2000.

Here's a wide-angle shot.

For the most part I agree, as long as the shuttle program continues, its going to be very difficult to develope a replacement. I say we sell the shuttles to private industry, buy some of that stuff the Russians use to move people to the ISS to use in the meantime, and focus on a space elevator and the technology that will be used with it to put stuff into orbit.

After all, the carbon fibers are nearly there now, and once we've got the space elevator, we won't need rockets anymore.

http://oea.larc.nasa.gov/news_rels/2000/GCTHUMBN AI LS.HTML

The Shuttles we have now are pretty much ancient. They're not cutting-edge technology anymore, not by a long shot.

Well, not all of it is 70's era equipment:

Here is the original 1974 shuttle cockpit

Here it is again in 2000.

Here's a wide-angle shot.

For the most part I agree, as long as the shuttle program continues, its going to be very difficult to develope a replacement. I say we sell the shuttles to private industry, buy some of that stuff the Russians use to move people to the ISS to use in the meantime, and focus on a space elevator and the technology that will be used with it to put stuff into orbit.

After all, the carbon fibers are nearly there now, and once we've got the space elevator, we won't need rockets anymore.

http://oea.larc.nasa.gov/news_rels/2000/GCTHUMBN AI LS.HTML

The Shuttles we have now are pretty much ancient. They're not cutting-edge technology anymore, not by a long shot.

Well, not all of it is 70's era equipment:

Here is the original 1974 shuttle cockpit

Here it is again in 2000.

Here's a wide-angle shot.

For the most part I agree, as long as the shuttle program continues, its going to be very difficult to develope a replacement. I say we sell the shuttles to private industry, buy some of that stuff the Russians use to move people to the ISS to use in the meantime, and focus on a space elevator and the technology that will be used with it to put stuff into orbit.

After all, the carbon fibers are nearly there now, and once we've got the space elevator, we won't need rockets anymore.

http://oea.larc.nasa.gov/news_rels/2000/GCTHUMBN AI LS.HTML

That really isn't a fair comparison between the Cassini program and shuttle program.

A much more accurate comparison would have been between the Apollo program and the Shuttle program, both of which involved manned spaceflight.

The Apollo program achieved an incredible goal, namely that of putting a crew of two on the moon, and was both an incredible engineering accomplishment as well as accomplishing some very useful science that is still being sorted through to this day.

While you can cite some very good references to useful science that was produced on the shuttle, there is another very important comparison that needs to be made:

Skylab vs. The ISS

Skylab + Apollo did an incredible amount of pure scientific research, and the internal volume of useable lab space was almost identical to what is now available on the ISS.

The Shuttle + ISS program is incredibly expensive, and while they have proven the ability to do major space construction projects with the ISS (needed if we ever get L-5 going), there has been comparatively little actual science.

That really isn't a fair comparison between the Cassini program and shuttle program.

A much more accurate comparison would have been between the Apollo program and the Shuttle program, both of which involved manned spaceflight.

The Apollo program achieved an incredible goal, namely that of putting a crew of two on the moon, and was both an incredible engineering accomplishment as well as accomplishing some very useful science that is still being sorted through to this day.

While you can cite some very good references to useful science that was produced on the shuttle, there is another very important comparison that needs to be made:

Skylab vs. The ISS

Skylab + Apollo did an incredible amount of pure scientific research, and the internal volume of useable lab space was almost identical to what is now available on the ISS.

The Shuttle + ISS program is incredibly expensive, and while they have proven the ability to do major space construction projects with the ISS (needed if we ever get L-5 going), there has been comparatively little actual science.

That really isn't a fair comparison between the Cassini program and shuttle program.

A much more accurate comparison would have been between the Apollo program and the Shuttle program, both of which involved manned spaceflight.

The Apollo program achieved an incredible goal, namely that of putting a crew of two on the moon, and was both an incredible engineering accomplishment as well as accomplishing some very useful science that is still being sorted through to this day.

While you can cite some very good references to useful science that was produced on the shuttle, there is another very important comparison that needs to be made:

Skylab vs. The ISS

Skylab + Apollo did an incredible amount of pure scientific research, and the internal volume of useable lab space was almost identical to what is now available on the ISS.

The Shuttle + ISS program is incredibly expensive, and while they have proven the ability to do major space construction projects with the ISS (needed if we ever get L-5 going), there has been comparatively little actual science.

That really isn't a fair comparison between the Cassini program and shuttle program.

A much more accurate comparison would have been between the Apollo program and the Shuttle program, both of which involved manned spaceflight.

The Apollo program achieved an incredible goal, namely that of putting a crew of two on the moon, and was both an incredible engineering accomplishment as well as accomplishing some very useful science that is still being sorted through to this day.

While you can cite some very good references to useful science that was produced on the shuttle, there is another very important comparison that needs to be made:

Skylab vs. The ISS

Skylab + Apollo did an incredible amount of pure scientific research, and the internal volume of useable lab space was almost identical to what is now available on the ISS.

The Shuttle + ISS program is incredibly expensive, and while they have proven the ability to do major space construction projects with the ISS (needed if we ever get L-5 going), there has been comparatively little actual science.

This is cool. It costs about $3.26 billion total and yields amazing scientific results

This is not. It costs about $2.4 billion / year and kills a few people occasionally.

This is cool. It costs about $3.26 billion total and yields amazing scientific results

This is not. It costs about $2.4 billion / year and kills a few people occasionally.

Why rely on several decades old tech for long term dependancies? Some R&D never hurt anyone

Ask and ye shall receive. WRT the acronym "CEV" (Crew Exploration Vehicle) in the article, more detail is here.

Why rely on several decades old tech for long term dependancies? Some R&D never hurt anyone

Ask and ye shall receive. WRT the acronym "CEV" (Crew Exploration Vehicle) in the article, more detail is here.

"Named after the patterns that stars form in the night sky, Constellation Systems is responsible for developing the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) and related exploration architecture systems. Constellation Systems is the combination of large and small systems that will provide humans the capabilities necessary to travel and explore the solar system. Constellation Systems will be made up of Earth-to-orbit, in-space and surface transportation systems, surface and space-based infrastructures, power generation, communications systems, maintenance and science instrumentation, and robotic investigators and assistants." (source)

This is true - but - do these other moons have an atmosphere which is 10 times the density of earths? The atmosphere again would help to eliminate asteroids hitting the surface unlike other moons with not atmosphere or very little atmosphere. Further, the atmosphere is filled with (according to the article) particles similar to those found in cigarette smoke. (Not to be confused with the particles ACTUALLY being the same as cigarette smoke.) If Titan has atmosphere, then that means that it also probably has air currents. Therefore, think of it like this:

In the desert, when a sandstorm comes along it can kill and both humans and animals hide from it. This is not only because the storm makes it hard to breath, but because of the sand blast effect. The flesh can be literally stripped from the bones by the force of the sand hitting you.

Again, it may take millions of years, but if the atmosphere is doing this it will slowly but surely reduce mountains to hills and fill valleys. This is also true of any impact craters which were formed. The real question becomes - when was the last time something actually slammed into Titan's surface? Not that we watch it day and night 24/7/365 - but I suspect it is about as long ago as when our planet was last smacked into by a fairly large asteroid. Which, if I recall correctly, was a few million years ago. Without a lot of geologic upheavel it is quite possible that everything has just been worn down. :-)

This is a good write-up on Titan, its atmosphere, and several other things. :-)

According to the site, it is actually 10 times denser than Earth's atmosphere. :-)