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There was originally some sections of the data tape on the orbiter that had recorded some images never to be seen. JPL banned the use of that section of tape for fear of it breaking. I wonder if they will try and read those images back so we can see what we missed out on all those years ago. A PDF doc from JPL about the problems encountered on the trip to Jupiter, including the data tape can be found here.

Objects from space that enter Earth's atmosphere are -- like space itself -- very cold and they remain so even as they blaze a hot-looking trail toward the ground. "The outer layers are warmed by atmospheric friction, and little bits flake away as they descend," explains Yeomans. This is called ablation and it's a wonderful way to remove heat. (Some commercial heat shields use ablation to keep spacecraft cool when they re-enter Earth's atmosphere.) "Rocky asteroids are poor conductors of heat," Yeomans continued. "Their central regions remain cool even as the hot outer layers are ablated away."

I found a fact sheet about this little rock. Looks kinda like the asteroid phobos. (We made a non-crash landing on phobos, but I never heard if they took off again)

if you still think Nasa sent men to the moon, disprove the evidence in this picture.

This Picture

From the ranging experiments, scientists know that the average distance between the centers of the Earth and the Moon is 385,000 kilometers with an accuracy of better than one part in 10 billion. Laser ranging has also made possible a wealth of new information about the dynamics and structure of the Moon. Among many new observations, scientists now believe that the Moon may harbor a liquid core. The theory has been proposed from data on the Moon's rate of rotation and very slight bobbing motions caused by gravitational forces from the Sun and Earth.

Ranging has also determined that the length of an Earth day has distinct small-scale variations of about one thousandth of a second over the course of a year, caused by the atmosphere, tides, and Earth's core. In addition, precise positions of the laser ranging observatories on Earth are slowly drifting as the crustal plates on Earth drift. The observatory on Maui is seen to be drifting away from the observatory in Texas.

From the referenced Apollo Laser Ranging article:

From the ranging experiments, scientists know that the average distance between the centers of the Earth and the Moon is 385,000 kilometers with an accuracy of better than one part in 10 billion.

Quite a coincidence!

Even ``morphological'' studies are no longer done with magnifying glasses and film, but rather with large collections of digital images from spacecraft such as SOHO and TRACE. Image calibration and reduction software is mandatory if one is to do meaningful experimental analysis.

Fortunately, the solar community has by-and-large been good about releasing analysis tools into the public domain -- in fact, there's a homebrew distribution system that grew up, mostly before CVS, to nearly-universal status within the research community. Without the tools that are available via solarsoft, I literally could not do the work that I do without developing similar things myself (in fact, I do develop tools myself, and publish them... but that's another story)

Even within the relatively open solar community, there are software-based barriers to entry. For example, most of the current community develops in a proprietary language called IDL, which was developed in significant part (in its early years) with public funds. The developer, David Stern, started RSI, inc. to capitalize on his language. Currently, IDL licenses start at $1,000 per year, double the current cost of an entry-level workstation.

When workstations cost $10,000 and only large organizations could afford hardware capable of doing image processing, this cost was excusable. But now, in an era of cheap computers, high connectivity, and readily available space-borne solar data, the cost of supporting IDL is the main barrier preventing hobbyists, high school students, and interested amateurs from doing their own research programs. If IDL were open-source and free, RSI might well still exist (under the Cygnus / Red-Hat business model), and solar (and other) research would be much more accessible to the masses.

One may argue that IDL (and its competing product, MatLab) wouldn't have developed into the large, powerful packages that they are without commercialization. But such arguments are spurious: PDL, the Perl Data Language, is entirely open-source and free, and powerful enough that that I am now devloping tools in it instead of in IDL.

I signed the petition, and I encourage you to, too. Publicly funded intellectual property is your property, just as the national forests are your forests. Demand them.

Even ``morphological'' studies are no longer done with magnifying glasses and film, but rather with large collections of digital images from spacecraft such as SOHO and TRACE. Image calibration and reduction software is mandatory if one is to do meaningful experimental analysis.

Fortunately, the solar community has by-and-large been good about releasing analysis tools into the public domain -- in fact, there's a homebrew distribution system that grew up, mostly before CVS, to nearly-universal status within the research community. Without the tools that are available via solarsoft, I literally could not do the work that I do without developing similar things myself (in fact, I do develop tools myself, and publish them... but that's another story)

Even within the relatively open solar community, there are software-based barriers to entry. For example, most of the current community develops in a proprietary language called IDL, which was developed in significant part (in its early years) with public funds. The developer, David Stern, started RSI, inc. to capitalize on his language. Currently, IDL licenses start at $1,000 per year, double the current cost of an entry-level workstation.

When workstations cost $10,000 and only large organizations could afford hardware capable of doing image processing, this cost was excusable. But now, in an era of cheap computers, high connectivity, and readily available space-borne solar data, the cost of supporting IDL is the main barrier preventing hobbyists, high school students, and interested amateurs from doing their own research programs. If IDL were open-source and free, RSI might well still exist (under the Cygnus / Red-Hat business model), and solar (and other) research would be much more accessible to the masses.

One may argue that IDL (and its competing product, MatLab) wouldn't have developed into the large, powerful packages that they are without commercialization. But such arguments are spurious: PDL, the Perl Data Language, is entirely open-source and free, and powerful enough that that I am now devloping tools in it instead of in IDL.

I signed the petition, and I encourage you to, too. Publicly funded intellectual property is your property, just as the national forests are your forests. Demand them.

Marshall Space Flight Center

Plagiarizing is bad business. Perhaps you should cite your source of this material as "Space Based Astronomy: Teacher's Guide with Activities", NASA, EG-102, August 1994?
You can get it online in PDF format.

Goal 1: Determine whether Life ever arose on Mars
Goal 2: Characterize the Climate of Mars
Goal 3: Characterize the Geology of Mars
Goal 4: Prepare for Human Exploration

After a nearly perfect launch, 2001 Mars Odyssey is on its 400-million-mile, six-month journey to the red planet. The spacecraft will primarily search for water on Mars but it will also seek 19 other chemical elements and measure radiation. NASA, just barely holding the budget-cutters at bay, needs to recover from two previous Mars failures: the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Climate Orbiter. If everything works, Mars Odyssey will spend two years circling the planet while taking measurements and readings. The mission was already providing remarkably sharp and dramatic views before and during lift-off with two cameras attached to the Delta 2 rocket, one facing up and one down.

NASA:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/
Space.com: Space.com

First, you seem to have the misconception that NASA is entirely devoted to the manned exploration of space, and that moreover, they haven't done anything new since Apollo.

You are simply misinformed. You're just plain wrong.

Take a look at some of the projects that NASA has been up to recently, and then see if you can still claim they are "living in the past" :

Space Observatories
Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Hubble Space Telescope
Earth Observatories
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer"
Solar System Missions
Mars Rovers
Astrophysics Research
Origins Program
And a sampling of the slate for future missions :

The Terrestrial Planet Finder

Deep Impact Comet Mission

Dawn Asteroid Flyby"

As you can see, NASA is not just about flying shuttle missions. They are actively sponsoring research in the space sciences and astrophysics across the board... from the study of our own planet, to the solar system, other stars and galaxies, and the cosmos as a whole. Their missions support the development of new technologies (which, unlike the previous poster seems to believe, are not limited to propulsion technologies, but include a wide array of telescopes and detectors across the entire spectrum). And NASA also actively supports scientists at all levels -- from graduate students through postdocs and faculty.

I think we live in a unique time where we as a species are really beginning to understand what makes up the universe, and how it works. I'm quite
confident that when the history of science of the 20th and 21st centuries is written, NASA will have played an enormously significant role in that process of discovery.

Bob

First, you seem to have the misconception that NASA is entirely devoted to the manned exploration of space, and that moreover, they haven't done anything new since Apollo.

You are simply misinformed. You're just plain wrong.

Take a look at some of the projects that NASA has been up to recently, and then see if you can still claim they are "living in the past" :

Space Observatories
Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Hubble Space Telescope
Earth Observatories
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer"
Solar System Missions
Mars Rovers
Astrophysics Research
Origins Program
And a sampling of the slate for future missions :

The Terrestrial Planet Finder

Deep Impact Comet Mission

Dawn Asteroid Flyby"

As you can see, NASA is not just about flying shuttle missions. They are actively sponsoring research in the space sciences and astrophysics across the board... from the study of our own planet, to the solar system, other stars and galaxies, and the cosmos as a whole. Their missions support the development of new technologies (which, unlike the previous poster seems to believe, are not limited to propulsion technologies, but include a wide array of telescopes and detectors across the entire spectrum). And NASA also actively supports scientists at all levels -- from graduate students through postdocs and faculty.

I think we live in a unique time where we as a species are really beginning to understand what makes up the universe, and how it works. I'm quite
confident that when the history of science of the 20th and 21st centuries is written, NASA will have played an enormously significant role in that process of discovery.

Bob

First, you seem to have the misconception that NASA is entirely devoted to the manned exploration of space, and that moreover, they haven't done anything new since Apollo.

You are simply misinformed. You're just plain wrong.

Take a look at some of the projects that NASA has been up to recently, and then see if you can still claim they are "living in the past" :

Space Observatories
Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Hubble Space Telescope
Earth Observatories
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer"
Solar System Missions
Mars Rovers
Astrophysics Research
Origins Program
And a sampling of the slate for future missions :

The Terrestrial Planet Finder

Deep Impact Comet Mission

Dawn Asteroid Flyby"

As you can see, NASA is not just about flying shuttle missions. They are actively sponsoring research in the space sciences and astrophysics across the board... from the study of our own planet, to the solar system, other stars and galaxies, and the cosmos as a whole. Their missions support the development of new technologies (which, unlike the previous poster seems to believe, are not limited to propulsion technologies, but include a wide array of telescopes and detectors across the entire spectrum). And NASA also actively supports scientists at all levels -- from graduate students through postdocs and faculty.

I think we live in a unique time where we as a species are really beginning to understand what makes up the universe, and how it works. I'm quite
confident that when the history of science of the 20th and 21st centuries is written, NASA will have played an enormously significant role in that process of discovery.

Bob

First, you seem to have the misconception that NASA is entirely devoted to the manned exploration of space, and that moreover, they haven't done anything new since Apollo.

You are simply misinformed. You're just plain wrong.

Take a look at some of the projects that NASA has been up to recently, and then see if you can still claim they are "living in the past" :

Space Observatories
Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Hubble Space Telescope
Earth Observatories
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer"
Solar System Missions
Mars Rovers
Astrophysics Research
Origins Program
And a sampling of the slate for future missions :

The Terrestrial Planet Finder

Deep Impact Comet Mission

Dawn Asteroid Flyby"

As you can see, NASA is not just about flying shuttle missions. They are actively sponsoring research in the space sciences and astrophysics across the board... from the study of our own planet, to the solar system, other stars and galaxies, and the cosmos as a whole. Their missions support the development of new technologies (which, unlike the previous poster seems to believe, are not limited to propulsion technologies, but include a wide array of telescopes and detectors across the entire spectrum). And NASA also actively supports scientists at all levels -- from graduate students through postdocs and faculty.

I think we live in a unique time where we as a species are really beginning to understand what makes up the universe, and how it works. I'm quite
confident that when the history of science of the 20th and 21st centuries is written, NASA will have played an enormously significant role in that process of discovery.

Bob

First, you seem to have the misconception that NASA is entirely devoted to the manned exploration of space, and that moreover, they haven't done anything new since Apollo.

You are simply misinformed. You're just plain wrong.

Take a look at some of the projects that NASA has been up to recently, and then see if you can still claim they are "living in the past" :

Space Observatories
Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Hubble Space Telescope
Earth Observatories
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer"
Solar System Missions
Mars Rovers
Astrophysics Research
Origins Program
And a sampling of the slate for future missions :

The Terrestrial Planet Finder

Deep Impact Comet Mission

Dawn Asteroid Flyby"

As you can see, NASA is not just about flying shuttle missions. They are actively sponsoring research in the space sciences and astrophysics across the board... from the study of our own planet, to the solar system, other stars and galaxies, and the cosmos as a whole. Their missions support the development of new technologies (which, unlike the previous poster seems to believe, are not limited to propulsion technologies, but include a wide array of telescopes and detectors across the entire spectrum). And NASA also actively supports scientists at all levels -- from graduate students through postdocs and faculty.

I think we live in a unique time where we as a species are really beginning to understand what makes up the universe, and how it works. I'm quite
confident that when the history of science of the 20th and 21st centuries is written, NASA will have played an enormously significant role in that process of discovery.

Bob

First, you seem to have the misconception that NASA is entirely devoted to the manned exploration of space, and that moreover, they haven't done anything new since Apollo.

You are simply misinformed. You're just plain wrong.

Take a look at some of the projects that NASA has been up to recently, and then see if you can still claim they are "living in the past" :

Space Observatories
Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Hubble Space Telescope
Earth Observatories
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer"
Solar System Missions
Mars Rovers
Astrophysics Research
Origins Program
And a sampling of the slate for future missions :

The Terrestrial Planet Finder

Deep Impact Comet Mission

Dawn Asteroid Flyby"

As you can see, NASA is not just about flying shuttle missions. They are actively sponsoring research in the space sciences and astrophysics across the board... from the study of our own planet, to the solar system, other stars and galaxies, and the cosmos as a whole. Their missions support the development of new technologies (which, unlike the previous poster seems to believe, are not limited to propulsion technologies, but include a wide array of telescopes and detectors across the entire spectrum). And NASA also actively supports scientists at all levels -- from graduate students through postdocs and faculty.

I think we live in a unique time where we as a species are really beginning to understand what makes up the universe, and how it works. I'm quite
confident that when the history of science of the 20th and 21st centuries is written, NASA will have played an enormously significant role in that process of discovery.

Bob

First, you seem to have the misconception that NASA is entirely devoted to the manned exploration of space, and that moreover, they haven't done anything new since Apollo.

You are simply misinformed. You're just plain wrong.

Take a look at some of the projects that NASA has been up to recently, and then see if you can still claim they are "living in the past" :

Space Observatories
Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Hubble Space Telescope
Earth Observatories
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer"
Solar System Missions
Mars Rovers
Astrophysics Research
Origins Program
And a sampling of the slate for future missions :

The Terrestrial Planet Finder

Deep Impact Comet Mission

Dawn Asteroid Flyby"

As you can see, NASA is not just about flying shuttle missions. They are actively sponsoring research in the space sciences and astrophysics across the board... from the study of our own planet, to the solar system, other stars and galaxies, and the cosmos as a whole. Their missions support the development of new technologies (which, unlike the previous poster seems to believe, are not limited to propulsion technologies, but include a wide array of telescopes and detectors across the entire spectrum). And NASA also actively supports scientists at all levels -- from graduate students through postdocs and faculty.

I think we live in a unique time where we as a species are really beginning to understand what makes up the universe, and how it works. I'm quite
confident that when the history of science of the 20th and 21st centuries is written, NASA will have played an enormously significant role in that process of discovery.

Bob

First, you seem to have the misconception that NASA is entirely devoted to the manned exploration of space, and that moreover, they haven't done anything new since Apollo.

You are simply misinformed. You're just plain wrong.

Take a look at some of the projects that NASA has been up to recently, and then see if you can still claim they are "living in the past" :

Space Observatories
Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Hubble Space Telescope
Earth Observatories
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer"
Solar System Missions
Mars Rovers
Astrophysics Research
Origins Program
And a sampling of the slate for future missions :

The Terrestrial Planet Finder

Deep Impact Comet Mission

Dawn Asteroid Flyby"

As you can see, NASA is not just about flying shuttle missions. They are actively sponsoring research in the space sciences and astrophysics across the board... from the study of our own planet, to the solar system, other stars and galaxies, and the cosmos as a whole. Their missions support the development of new technologies (which, unlike the previous poster seems to believe, are not limited to propulsion technologies, but include a wide array of telescopes and detectors across the entire spectrum). And NASA also actively supports scientists at all levels -- from graduate students through postdocs and faculty.

I think we live in a unique time where we as a species are really beginning to understand what makes up the universe, and how it works. I'm quite
confident that when the history of science of the 20th and 21st centuries is written, NASA will have played an enormously significant role in that process of discovery.

Bob

The first shuttle was the Columbia, there is no shuttle enterprise. Learn the facts. Look through the NASA launch schedule and tell me if you see an Enterprise. Maybe you meant the Aircraft carrier. Oh wait the first aricraft carrier was not Enterprise and was certainly well before Star Trek.

The first shuttle to be launched into space was the Columbia, but the first shuttle actually was the Enterprise. The shuttle was used for research prior to the first real launch, and was flown by being attached to the top of a 747.

The first shuttle was the Columbia, there is no shuttle enterprise. Learn the facts. Look through the NASA launch schedule and tell me if you see an Enterprise. Maybe you meant the Aircraft carrier. Oh wait the first aricraft carrier was not Enterprise and was certainly well before Star Trek.

The first shuttle to be launched into space was the Columbia, but the first shuttle actually was the Enterprise. The shuttle was used for research prior to the first real launch, and was flown by being attached to the top of a 747.

The first shuttle was the Columbia, there is no shuttle enterprise. Learn the facts. Look through the NASA launch schedule and tell me if you see an Enterprise. Maybe you meant the Aircraft carrier. Oh wait the first aricraft carrier was not Enterprise and was certainly well before Star Trek.

"Compared to conventional chemical propulsion systems, antimatter energy would slash the travel time to Mars and back from roughly two years to a few weeks. "

Given that the minimum distance between the Earth and Mars is 54.5 x 10^6 kilometres, are the acceleration pressures (G's) that humans would be subjected to in such a quick trip going to make us black out and/or die before we get there? Do we need to develop some kind of technology -- I hesitate to use the Trek term 'inertial dampeners' ;) -- before it can be of practical use, except for automated probes?

You're right. An older NASA article mentioned by an early poster (above) gives more details. Basically they are talking about using antiprotons as rocket fuel. These are stored in a fairly gargantuan Penning trap (active volume one millimeter in size... well these things are relative, don't you know!).

Antiatoms are discussed in the article as well; easier to store but much, much harder to make than plain old antiprotons.

You have to have an extremely good vacuum, however

When you're dealing with antimatter of any sort you have to have a very good vacuum regardless. Happily, this is not very hard, we can make the best vacuums in the known universe right here on Earth, much less in space...

-Renard

About 1000 times more than nuclear.

And you would need just 42 milligrams of antimatter to give the same chemical energy that's in the space shuttle's fuel tanks.

There's an older (1999) article on nasa's site with a bit more technical detail.

Also, Lisp is much faster than you think it is. Take a look at this.

I'm sure that device drivers written in Assembler would be faster than device drivers written in Lisp. I don't really care about that. Performance is important, but it isn't the only thing. What I consider to be most important is being able to make the computer do interesting and/or useful things easily.

Check the website: here

Here is a story about a handspring powernapping module that will help you take cat-naps and pull you out at the exact time necessary to do the most good. It's supposed to be based on Nasa research.

As a charter member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Robots, I feel the pain of these drones.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Robots was presciently chartered in the early 1660s long before robots were invented; the moral and ethical interest at stake was simply that compelling. Throughout the subsequent centuries, few other societies, royal or otherwise, have done as much to advance the civil rights of robots everywhere.

Remember the robot from NASA's Pathfinder mission? He's a card-carrying union member of the AFL/CIO, all thanks to the diligent lobbying of concerned RSfPR members. Rmember the scene at the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day where the "evil" cyborg is destroyed by falling into a refinery's crucible? Though we did not successfully torpedo the whole production as an affront to non-diabolical cyborgs everywhere, we did manage to convince Hollywood executives to append a boilerplate warning at the end of the film informing the audience that no actual cyborgs were harmed in its production -- at the time, the T-1000 cyborg was safely sitting in his trailer sipping lattes while a cgi facsimile was lowered into the lava.

Just because they are made of silicon, metal, and oil doesn't mean they're any less significant at the dawning of a new moral age in the 21st century. That America would choose to sacrifice robotic drones instead of conventional meat soldiers simply demonstrates how far this once-great nation has sunk into the moral abyss.

Thank you.

Remember, this is an X-Ray image. The picture is a false color image that shows 3 different colors: blue for high energy, green for medium energy and red for low energy. I first saw this at the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

At its peak size (in the 60's), nasa's budget never even amounted to any more than 1% of the GNP and economic research shows each dollar spent on R&D repays itself 7 times over on average over an 18 year period. Perhaps this article will prove enlightening.

What I think is a waste of time is a "live for today" mentality that is so narrow it categorically rejects any pursuit that does not produce a profit immediately.

While that's the way to bet, many technologies run afoul of physical law and simply *can't* improve much further....
Why 'must' LH2/LOX engines be replaced?

I think you answered your own question. Sure, they work, but I can't believe that we have hit the pinnicle of launch propulsion technology. I will grant that MagLev may not be the answer, but I still maintain that there has to be a better way.
Also, I will concede the point about automobiles, it was simply the first example that poped to mind. However, the basic principal is still valid, more research and the drive to make the better product to sell will ultimatly drive down the price, and increse effeciency.

The horse drawn carriage was not replaced by the truck. A wide variety of different kinds of horse drawn vehicles were replaced by a wide variety of internal combustion vehicles.

So we agree then, old technology was replaced by new technology. Its not the example I am arguing for, just the concept.

If there is no clear advantage, it won't be replaced. Rockets are launched in the real world, cost real money, and must be considered in the light of real economics.

And this is exactly why the research is being done and this is why they will probably try at least some mock launches this way. NASA/JPL is willing to spend money to look into new possibilities, look at the space gun.(Link is a bit light, but gives the basic idea) Sure, they aren't going to scrap the shuttle and go full bore into an untested technology. And no one would want that, but NASA/JPL needs to keep trying now things, or we'll never find something better.

The object is a planet, 1/55 to 1/78 the mass of a brown dwarf. View the photo.

-

As for the HST's future, it's scheduled for EOL at the end of the decade. Check out NASA's Next Generation Space Telescope page for its successor.

So the dark side of the moon is actually the bottom

-AD

Numerical Recipes in C, 2nd edition is the numerical methods book.

I can't really agree with that.

From Nasa's FAQs About NEO Impacts:

How much warning will we have?
With at least half of even the larger NEOs remaining undiscovered, the most likely warning today would be zero -- the first indication of a collision would be the flash of light and the shaking of the ground as it hit. In contrast, if the current surveys actually discover a NEO on a collision course, we would expect many decades of warning. Any NEO that is going to hit the Earth will swing near our planet many times before it hits, and it should be discovered by comprehensive sky searches. This is the purpose of the Spaceguard Survey. In almost all cases, we will either have a long lead time or none at all.

Nasa knows about 47 1km asteroids in near-earth orbits, any of which could make bickering about the RIAA rather short-lived. Their website claims that the best reason to study NEO's, as we don't have an active defense, is to "allow us to store food and supplies and to evacuate regions near ground zero." This is not the sort of confidence that inspires politicians to open their wallet, nor should it.

India and Pakistan are on the brink of bringing the world into a nuclear holocost. Our supplies of oil are depleting while our energy usage goes up. Ebola has broken out in another african village, and Aids rates worldwide are up to 1 in 100 with some areas reaching 1 in 3. Until such a time as there is something realistic we can do about near earth asteroids, that money is better focused on more pressing forms of armageddon.

Nasa knows about 47 1km asteroids in near-earth orbits, any of which could make bickering about the RIAA rather short-lived. Their website claims that the best reason to study NEO's, as we don't have an active defense, is to "allow us to store food and supplies and to evacuate regions near ground zero." This is not the sort of confidence that inspires politicians to open their wallet, nor should it.

India and Pakistan are on the brink of bringing the world into a nuclear holocost. Our supplies of oil are depleting while our energy usage goes up. Ebola has broken out in another african village, and Aids rates worldwide are up to 1 in 100 with some areas reaching 1 in 3. Until such a time as there is something realistic we can do about near earth asteroids, that money is better focused on more pressing forms of armageddon.

The point is, it is called global warming, because the global temperature rises.

This, of course, doesn't have to mean that the temperature in the polar regions will increase.
Here is a study Effects of Atmospheric Climate Change on Ice Stability.
Another study of six Antarctic lakes has shown that the surface ice has thinned by up to 40 percent over the 80s.
(Wharton, R.A., Jr., C.P. McKay, G.D. Clow, D.T. Andersen, G.M. Simmons, Jr., and F.G. Love, 1992: J. Geophys. Res., 97, 3503)

Of course, you are free to interprete this as a sign of global warming, or not.

A different side on glaciers and sea levels from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Of course, you are free to neglect this source, as they get their fundings for those news.

Here's a list of PHAs (Potentially Hazardous Asteroids) and a simulation of the orbit of this particular asteriod.

I believe there would be problems maintaining a spacecraft in orbit around the Moon. Lunar orbits are usually unstable. The Moon has a lumpy gravitational field due to the presence of mascons (mass concentrations). This was evident during NASA's Apollo missions when the orbital decays of the LEMs (lunar excursion module) left in orbit around the Moon were observed. See NASA Technical Paper 3394 for a study of the problem.

I always thought in this case "dark" was used in the sense of "a lack of knowledge" rather than "a lack of illumination". Before 1959, nobody knew what the side of the moon that faced away from Earth looked like. I don't know why astronomers never seem to be aware of this fact, and always get up in arms because they think everyone else thinks one side of the moon never gets any sunlight.

L4 and L5. Put the communications satellite in the L4 or L5 Earth-moon Lagrange point. These are the stable points. While they won't "view" the exact center of the far side disk, if the observatory is built, say, 45 degrees back from that center, a satellite can view it from L4 or L5. The observatory would still be blocked from Earth noise by a huge mass of the moon, but it would be able to see L4 or L5 (which one depending on which way it was positioned) just above the horizon all the time. And with 3 or 4 active links to it on the Earth, continuous contact could be maintained. While a satellite there would actually be in order around a virtual point, it could be a small orbit, allowing for a fixed antenna at the observatory, and potentially very high bandwidth continuous communications.

Okay so the question becomes which eyes would you rather have? You could go with artificial eyeballs (Artificial Eyeballs) or upgrade to Bionic eyes (see Bionic Eyes). My choice would go to the first one that gives me an X-ray vision option.

There is an interesting Nasa Pnuematics Workshop video that might be useful for people interested...

A meglev launcher would accelerate the spacecraft to 600 mph (965 kph) on the track. Then, when the spacecraft reaches the end of the track, it would take off like an airplane. Then it could switch on its own rocket engines and fly on into space.

[...] the weight of rocket fuel is a big problem in launching rockets. It takes a lot of fuel to lift a rocket off the ground. But since the fuel is loaded into the rocket, it has to be lifted, too. So if less fuel is needed, the rocket is a lot lighter and easier to launch. It makes getting to space less expensive. Each launch using a maglev track would use only about $75 worth of electricity.

Imagine a cable running from the top of a 50 km tower into geo-stationary Earth orbit. Travelling on the cable is made through electromagnetic propulsion. Nasa is considering a 50 years timeframe for the space elevator to become real.

Maybe I'll go in space after all.