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Given how hungry many mid-range ISPs are right now, you probably could, assuming you were planning to spend sizable amounts of money. (If you're not planning to spend sizable amounts of money, you don't need this technology anyway.) There are ISPs that let you run any Linux program you want, and have enough security in place to make that work. There's no reason you couldn't use their compute power right now if you paid for it.

I have a medium-sized database application running at night on a commercial ISP. I'm only paying $14.95 per month, they know what I'm doing, and they approve. It can be done right now.

"Grid computing" has the flavor of another NASA boondoggle. NASA, having failed with their launcher product line, keeps trying to expand into other product areas, including nanotechnology, biotech, robotics, and now grid computing. The work is generally inferior to work supported by the National Science Foundation. Now NASA has the "NASA Information Power Grid", another money sink in search of a killer app. Your tax dollars at work.

Your entire comment makes the rather broad assumption that air density is the same at sea level, 10km and 150km. I'm kind of thinking it drops pretty quickly.

It saves quite a bit of fuel because there is significantly less drag at 10km than there is at sea level. 10km would be, what, pretty much 35 thousand feet, but the service ceiling of an unmodified 747 is 45,000 feet (google owns you).

Air density at 45,000 feet is .000460, air density at sea level is .002377, so air density at 45,000 feet is about 1/5 that of sea level (google rocks, chart 1).

So, if the 747 dropped the payload at 45,000 feet, and the payload gained altitude at a good rate, it would require significantly less rocket fuel than taking off from the ground. In addition, the payload could have smaller fuel tanks, which means smaller pipes, less structure and less insulation to fall off and ding a wing.

They use the Russian Progress M1 to ferry supplies and fuel, and to provide for reboosts when it's there. It's also used as a trash container, and is jetisoned to burn up in the atmosphere when it's full.

That said, the Progress carries something on the order of 2-3 tons tons of cargo, fuel, and water. Total Payload limit is 2230-3200 KG, which includes the fuel necessary to rendevous with the ISS; 1700 - 1950 KG, 185-250 of which are available as surplus fuel for the station. It has a maximum pressurized (dry) cargo capacity of 1800 KG, and up to 300 KG of water.

The Italian built (US owned) Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules, that fly on the space shuttle, and can be docked to any ISS port for an extended stay can carry up to 10 tons of cargo in 16 standard space station equipment racks. They can carry self-contained experiments or equipment upgrades in these racks and just float them into the ISS and plug them in. They are also capable of carrying refrigerated storage compartments to carry fresh food to the ISS.

Info on Progress M1

Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules Information

• Text Processing using LaTeX
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"Anyways, it sucks that this "space plane" still needs a big buttload of fuel tank and booster rockets to get off."

Based on how this rocket looks, I'd say that they could have just avoided the whole fuel issue if they had designed the ISS to look more vaginal.

Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/shared/news2003/OSP/O SP4.jpg

and the white dwarf will never explode as supernova.

Well, that depends. If the white dwarf is close enough to the Chandrasekhar limit, and somehow manages to accrete enough matter to actually pass it, it would go supernova. Becoming overwheight can be dangerous even for old, retired stars.
Marlon Brando should take notice :)

Actually a white dwarf can explode as a classical nova but it has to have a normal companion star. When this occurs, the white dwarf's gravity strips gas off the companion which builds up on the white dwarf's surface until it explodes.

Going slightly off-topic, this was a plot point in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Prof. Gold will, once the solar sail spacecraft flies and works, attempt to invoke the solar wind as an explanation for the observed effects. This assertion should be easy to discredit by calculating the expected pressure of the solar wind on a sail of X area and then comparing that to the actual observed forces acting on the sail but for some people will never believe thier dragon dosen't exist[credit to Carl Sagan].

Looks to perhaps accelerate a bit faster than you would suggest.

Ever heard of Solar Wind?

"The experiment of exposing an unpressurized hand to near vacuum for a significant time while the pilot went about his business occurred in real life on Aug. 16, 1960. Joe Kittinger, during his ascent to 102,800 ft (19.5 miles) in an open gondola, lost pressurization of his right hand. He decided to continue the mission, and the hand became painful and useless as you would expect. However, once back to lower altitudes following his record-breaking parachute jump, the hand returned to normal."

I suppose, barring a complete depressurization of their suits, these guys should be fine.

Well, they're begging the question somewhat, but it seems true that globular clusters metal deficient. Jupiter's atmosphere is 82% hydrogen, 14% helium and only a trace of heavier elements. Who knows what goes on at the core, but that would seem to indicate that planets don't need rock to form.

Well, they're begging the question somewhat, but it seems true that globular clusters metal deficient. Jupiter's atmosphere is 82% hydrogen, 14% helium and only a trace of heavier elements. Who knows what goes on at the core, but that would seem to indicate that planets don't need rock to form.

After checking out their site for a while, I have come to the conclusion that this project is relying on a lot of luck. I work for NASA's Balloon Program Office, and we fly balloons of this size and bigger. For one, this project has their balloon being made by a manufacturer that doesnt make balloons. Balloons of this size are a QA nightmare. Having miles of load tape and polyethylene, they are very hard to manufacture and test. Polyethylene is the same stuff they make sandwich baggies out of, very delicate.

I really have no clue why they wouldn't order their balloon from the same place most people interested in this sort of thing do, Raven Industries. Maybe they didnt have the dough. We don't fly people on our balloons, just huge science payloads in the range of 5-7000 pounds. I wish these guys the best, but I really beleive they are insane.

nasa say that this would not happen and that you can survive for upto a half a minute without ill effects. "You do not explode and your blood does not boil because of the containing effect of your skin and circulatory system. You do not instantly freeze because, although the space environment is typically very cold, heat does not transfer away from a body quickly."

Estimating from the decay of Uranium has been used. However, it could give a different answer to that obtained by estimating the expansion, although there was some overlap in the numbers because neither were that accurate. The best results have been obtained from latest measurements of the cosmic microwave background.

The most accurate estimation of the age of the universe has been recently carried out by the WMAP mission, which measured the cosmic microwave background with 35 times the resolution of the previous COBE mission. The universe is 13.7 billion years old, plus or minus 200 million years.

My favourite FAQ from the UK site is:

Are we going to die?

Yes. We are all going to die some time. It is, however, very unlikely that the collision of a Near Earth Object will be responsible.

"so, in any case - ion wind or not, this technology is still not quite suitable for space just yet."

It is already in use in satalites (with some success and some problems). Nasa is using it to make cheap satallites. How do they do it? They carry some gas (Xenon) with them to use to make the ion wind. No it isn't the same design, but it is the same concept (ionized propellant).

Deep Space 1

People are better than robots at exploring a planet.

I'm not sure how valid of a claim that is. Certainly, right now our probes aren't that great, mainly because there is little actual autonomy. However, in the near future, probes will be built to handle major decisionmaking on their own. Our best hope for exploring the most of Mars is to send thousands of small autonomous probes that will do the looking around for us. This could be done for roughly the same cost as the manned mission, without the PR risk (yes, I hate it but it's very true) that manned missions currently represent.

I work at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and many of the robotics technologies that are currently being persued there should give us the capability to collect huge amounts of useful data on Mars in the next 20 years or so.

Is manned flight expensive? Well not really, but the price/performance ratio isn't that great compared to what will be done in the next 20 years with robotics probles (remember economy of scale, 1000 probes isn't much more expensive to build than 1).

People are better than robots at exploring a planet.

I'm not sure how valid of a claim that is. Certainly, right now our probes aren't that great, mainly because there is little actual autonomy. However, in the near future, probes will be built to handle major decisionmaking on their own. Our best hope for exploring the most of Mars is to send thousands of small autonomous probes that will do the looking around for us. This could be done for roughly the same cost as the manned mission, without the PR risk (yes, I hate it but it's very true) that manned missions currently represent.

I work at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and many of the robotics technologies that are currently being persued there should give us the capability to collect huge amounts of useful data on Mars in the next 20 years or so.

Is manned flight expensive? Well not really, but the price/performance ratio isn't that great compared to what will be done in the next 20 years with robotics probles (remember economy of scale, 1000 probes isn't much more expensive to build than 1).

People are better than robots at exploring a planet.

I'm not sure how valid of a claim that is. Certainly, right now our probes aren't that great, mainly because there is little actual autonomy. However, in the near future, probes will be built to handle major decisionmaking on their own. Our best hope for exploring the most of Mars is to send thousands of small autonomous probes that will do the looking around for us. This could be done for roughly the same cost as the manned mission, without the PR risk (yes, I hate it but it's very true) that manned missions currently represent.

I work at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and many of the robotics technologies that are currently being persued there should give us the capability to collect huge amounts of useful data on Mars in the next 20 years or so.

Is manned flight expensive? Well not really, but the price/performance ratio isn't that great compared to what will be done in the next 20 years with robotics probles (remember economy of scale, 1000 probes isn't much more expensive to build than 1).

People are better than robots at exploring a planet.

I'm not sure how valid of a claim that is. Certainly, right now our probes aren't that great, mainly because there is little actual autonomy. However, in the near future, probes will be built to handle major decisionmaking on their own. Our best hope for exploring the most of Mars is to send thousands of small autonomous probes that will do the looking around for us. This could be done for roughly the same cost as the manned mission, without the PR risk (yes, I hate it but it's very true) that manned missions currently represent.

I work at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and many of the robotics technologies that are currently being persued there should give us the capability to collect huge amounts of useful data on Mars in the next 20 years or so.

Is manned flight expensive? Well not really, but the price/performance ratio isn't that great compared to what will be done in the next 20 years with robotics probles (remember economy of scale, 1000 probes isn't much more expensive to build than 1).

realized the astronomical amounts of power it would take to [propel such ships and their cargos out of a gravity well] (not to mention interstellar travel)

Out of curiousity, what numbers did you come up with?

I ask because we're already sending craft into interstellar space (well, they're on their way), and presumably it didn't take an astronimcal amount of power. Of course, there's a big difference between a space probe and a tanker full of dark matter.

It's been anticipated, and DSN is being upgraded and expanded to meet the crunch:

Bracing for an interplanetary traffic jam

There are Venus missions under study now. The leading one is called the Venus In-Situ Explorer.

See http://spacescience.nasa.gov/missions/concepts.htm

On the 7th of August there will we a Webcast on "Mars Exploration".

One of the biggest uses would have to be travel. Buy an electric car and never pay for fuel again. Start using propeller based planes or switch to super-fast electric trains. Maybe we could even have jets with ION propulsion. Ten times the propulsion for the same amount of fuel. Now we're talking about economical space travel. The cost of a trip to orbit could become affordable to about everyone. We could take the time to get to mars down from nine months to under 1.

Jet fighter pilots can pull 4-5 G's momentarily before blacking out.

They can go a fair bit higher than that. I saw a show on Discovery Wings not long ago that said Deke Slayton used to pull 9 Gs without a G-suit. (The "without a G-suit" part is a bit extreme, but the "9 Gs" part is kinda on the edge where some people will black out and some won't.) You might want to have a look at this page.

FYI: The orbit of the ISS is inclined at 51.6 degrees. The inclination is in large part determined by the latitude of the launch site. (Source: Ed Lu's Space Blog, recently mentioned on Slashdot.)

In this case, though, STS-87 did fly before STS-91.

In order to develop scramjets, NASA needs to ressurect the X-15 program. Hypersonic flight . With newer materials and newer rockets, they could go higher and faster than ever before. The X-15 reached 62.5 miles and the pilots even got their Astronaut wings. If that 62.5 mi altitude sounds familiar, it should. That's what you need to win the X-prize. It did close to 200 missions in 9 years and nowhere near the cost of the shuttle program. The X-15 would make a perfect platform to test designs. As a matter of fact it flew one mission with a mock scramjet aboard.

Gwernol is wrong. Unless you'd care to debate NASA's own reports on this?

Nice try. Actually, they began using HCFC-141b with STS-86. Here's some relevant info on Columbia's damage after STS-87 in 1997.

Note the source.

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/F-15B/

Go down to the section of photographs of shuttle foam tests.

Now, the press release contains the lines "The experiment was part of an effort to determine why small particles of spray-on foam insulation flaked off of the inter-tank section of the external fuel tank on Space Shuttle mission STS-87 as the Shuttle ascended. The new lightweight insulation material was developed to comply with an EPA mandate to reduce ozone-depleting chemicals released into the atmosphere."

However, that is contradicted by a quote from an EPA official that appeared in the Houston Chronicle within a few days of the disaster -- he claimed that NASA and in particular craft carrying humans were exempted, but that NASA wanted to comply anyway.

We will never know whether it was mandated or not. The issue will simply not be investigated or talked about. However the larger picture is clear: you cannot trust human safety to an organization that is essentially an endless publicity stunt factory. If we want to do things in space we have to toss NASA and setup an organization that will rationally attack the problem, and not be a press release mill.

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/F-15B/

Go down to the section of photographs of shuttle foam tests.

Now, the press release contains the lines "The experiment was part of an effort to determine why small particles of spray-on foam insulation flaked off of the inter-tank section of the external fuel tank on Space Shuttle mission STS-87 as the Shuttle ascended. The new lightweight insulation material was developed to comply with an EPA mandate to reduce ozone-depleting chemicals released into the atmosphere."

However, that is contradicted by a quote from an EPA official that appeared in the Houston Chronicle within a few days of the disaster -- he claimed that NASA and in particular craft carrying humans were exempted, but that NASA wanted to comply anyway.

We will never know whether it was mandated or not. The issue will simply not be investigated or talked about. However the larger picture is clear: you cannot trust human safety to an organization that is essentially an endless publicity stunt factory. If we want to do things in space we have to toss NASA and setup an organization that will rationally attack the problem, and not be a press release mill.

Tm

While NASA may well be polishing their image up (doesn't it need some shining?), Ed wasn't the first one doing this sort of thing. Don Pettit, Science Officer on Expedition Six) did something similar, called Space Chronicles before Columbia was lost. He also did Saturday Morning Science basically in his own free time and of his own volition.

While NASA may well be polishing their image up (doesn't it need some shining?), Ed wasn't the first one doing this sort of thing. Don Pettit, Science Officer on Expedition Six) did something similar, called Space Chronicles before Columbia was lost. He also did Saturday Morning Science basically in his own free time and of his own volition.

While NASA may well be polishing their image up (doesn't it need some shining?), Ed wasn't the first one doing this sort of thing. Don Pettit, Science Officer on Expedition Six) did something similar, called Space Chronicles before Columbia was lost. He also did Saturday Morning Science basically in his own free time and of his own volition.

While NASA may well be polishing their image up (doesn't it need some shining?), Ed wasn't the first one doing this sort of thing. Don Pettit, Science Officer on Expedition Six) did something similar, called Space Chronicles before Columbia was lost. He also did Saturday Morning Science basically in his own free time and of his own volition.

You complain about my optimism and guessing but you guess yourself when you assume that standing board feet numbers would prove your position right. You are responsible for gathering actual data to support your side of the debate.

I assume that I would be proven right for an obvious reason: The average age of trees felled by the lumber industry is considerably greater than the average age of trees that they have planted. I also am not blind and can see satellite images. Here's evidence to support my contention:

NASA EOS web page.

You made the statement: "But you ignore that the US has more trees now than when the Indians had exclusive run of the place." And I explained why I ignored it in clear, rational terms.

This is how proper policy is done, not with assumptions and whining when your opponents don't do your research for you.

There is a difference between not doing research and purposely publishing misleading numbers as the logging industry has done.

Imagine if your logic was applied to drug companies. They would be allowed to sell anything that they wanted and would be allowed to suppress research that showed that their products were harmful. It would be the responsibility of the consumer to prove that a drug was harmful before it was removed from the market. Insane.

I gave ground on standing board feet (and asked for evidence, which doesn't seem to be available), where's your similar flexibility? Be fair.

I have never questioned the value of a space elevator. I would like nothing more than to see one in action and would have preferred that Bush had invested money in that rather than in a war justified by apparently invisible "Weapons of Mass Destruction. If I've left you with the impression that I don't believe that a space elevator would be valuable, then I have done a disservice to our debate.

The reality is that the greenhouse effects that Kyoto is aimed at, even in the current worst case scenarios, are going to show up over the very long term, 50 years out. That's way past where chaos takes over and makes a complete hash of any predictions.

Chaos theory does not overrule long-term trends. Chaos theory makes it impossible to predict the exact temperature on January 12th of next year, but we can still predict that the average temperature then will be lower then than it is now.

The bet that the free market faithful is putting is that human inventiveness will find us a solution for the environmental problems coming down the road and we need to unleash that creative force by maximizing growth and incenting people to work hard and create as much capital as possible.

That's not my bet. Look at Canada. In order to be more competitive in the logging industry, they have no legislative equivalent to our Endangered Species Act. They also have less environmental legislation that impacts their logging industry. Their stumpage fees are much lower than those in the U.S. There will always be countries that have near-term needs for revenue that will override environmental concerns.

I happen to think that the grow quick and innovate out of our troubles will end up with us wealthier, wiser, and happier. You seem to disagree and want a slower growth world where Malthus has a much wider role in planning.

I would characterize it as me being cautious and skeptical and you being willing to risk far too much on unproven theory. It's that "faith" thing again. I don't go on spending sprees because I believe I will get a high-paying contract -- even if I am almost sure. I wait until I get the contract and then adjust my spending accordingly. I'm the same way with social programs, the environment, taxes, etc. I'm not about to yank the social program rug out from under millions of Americans based on the unproven assertion that private charities will be able and willing to take up the slack.

A good blog, agree. But it's strange to read here the following:

We launched a little over 2 weeks ago from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a Russian spaceship called a Soyuz TMA. It is the latest in a series of spacecraft based on the design of the spacecraft that the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, first flew into space over 40 years ago.

Soyuz is a completely new design, quite different from Vostok. It has its origins in the Soviet manned lunar program...

They have a Godzilla toy onboard the ISS.

The desks of geeks are all very similar... even in space. I'm glad they're allowed to keep a sense of humor even though they're in space - despite what it would have cost to loft that toy into orbit. :)

..how much this photo resembles goatse.cx.

I just wonder whether Hubble can zoom in on the spacecraft constructed for NASA Stardust Project to rendezvous with comet Wild 2. I hope hubble will be positioned to capture the event, when the spacecraft collects dust samples and bring 'em back to earth.

If anyone asks why I'm so interested, I have my name inscribed on One of the two microchips embedded on board the spacecraft. So is the names of my brother and sister! ;-)

Let's hope they reach the comet safely and back! Yeah, and Hubble to be available to capture the event!

I just wonder whether Hubble can zoom in on the spacecraft constructed for NASA Stardust Project to rendezvous with comet Wild 2. I hope hubble will be positioned to capture the event, when the spacecraft collects dust samples and bring 'em back to earth.

If anyone asks why I'm so interested, I have my name inscribed on One of the two microchips embedded on board the spacecraft. So is the names of my brother and sister! ;-)

Let's hope they reach the comet safely and back! Yeah, and Hubble to be available to capture the event!

I just wonder whether Hubble can zoom in on the spacecraft constructed for NASA Stardust Project to rendezvous with comet Wild 2. I hope hubble will be positioned to capture the event, when the spacecraft collects dust samples and bring 'em back to earth.

If anyone asks why I'm so interested, I have my name inscribed on One of the two microchips embedded on board the spacecraft. So is the names of my brother and sister! ;-)

Let's hope they reach the comet safely and back! Yeah, and Hubble to be available to capture the event!