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Ah yes those stupid southerners, like those in Huntsville, AL or Houston, TX or Cape Canavaral, FLA or Hampton, VA, or Bay St. Louis, MS or Wallops Island, VA, obviously haven't a clue regarding space flight.

Ah yes those stupid southerners, like those in Huntsville, AL or Houston, TX or Cape Canavaral, FLA or Hampton, VA, or Bay St. Louis, MS or Wallops Island, VA, obviously haven't a clue regarding space flight.

Ah yes those stupid southerners, like those in Huntsville, AL or Houston, TX or Cape Canavaral, FLA or Hampton, VA, or Bay St. Louis, MS or Wallops Island, VA, obviously haven't a clue regarding space flight.

Ah yes those stupid southerners, like those in Huntsville, AL or Houston, TX or Cape Canavaral, FLA or Hampton, VA, or Bay St. Louis, MS or Wallops Island, VA, obviously haven't a clue regarding space flight.

Ah yes those stupid southerners, like those in Huntsville, AL or Houston, TX or Cape Canavaral, FLA or Hampton, VA, or Bay St. Louis, MS or Wallops Island, VA, obviously haven't a clue regarding space flight.

More info about the DataGrid...

• Computing Power on tap - Economist - June 21, 2001.
• The Globus Toolkit:
• The Information Power Grid at NASA.
• The EU DataGrid

GENESIS LAUNCH RESCHEDULED The Genesis launch is rescheduled for approximately 12:30 p.m. EDT on July 31, 2001. Liftoff will occur aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket from Pad A at Launch Complex 17 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch will be broadcast live over the Internet on NASA TV via several Web sites, including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Webcast, Kennedy Space Center, and NASA. You can access links to these sites, and learn more about launch programming here.

GENESIS LAUNCH RESCHEDULED The Genesis launch is rescheduled for approximately 12:30 p.m. EDT on July 31, 2001. Liftoff will occur aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket from Pad A at Launch Complex 17 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch will be broadcast live over the Internet on NASA TV via several Web sites, including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Webcast, Kennedy Space Center, and NASA. You can access links to these sites, and learn more about launch programming here.

I'd imagine they'd use something similar to the Fulton "Skyhook" nose recovery system. Film from the first US spy satellites, the Corona series, returned to Earth in capsules that were retrieved by C-130s as they parachuted down.

Specially designated JC-130s were used to test the concept in the 1960s. The system was also used to pick people up from the ground in-flight. The Air Force retired the system on its MC-130 Combat Talons in 1996.

There are some pretty good photos of Fulton equipped C-130s on this page.

Should be: http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/

At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The real link is http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/.

-dair

Seeking: Funding for orbital assault vehicle

In-field Testing: Over 2 decades

Description: The "DFA" Orbital Assault Vehicle is a multi-purpose space-based weapon. It features vertical take-off, a heavy-duty tank-like assault vehicle (depicted at left), a retractable missile-crushing remote controlled arm, an army of robot droids, and the ability to lock onto and board large military craft. If you are a member of the Pentagon or an aspiring third-world nation, don't hesitate to contact us to find out about our wide array of military applications!

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Seeking: Funding for orbital assault vehicle

In-field Testing: Over 2 decades

Description: The "DFA" Orbital Assault Vehicle is a multi-purpose space-based weapon. It features vertical take-off, a heavy-duty tank-like assault vehicle (depicted at left), a retractable missile-crushing remote controlled arm, an army of robot droids, and the ability to lock onto and board large military craft. If you are a member of the Pentagon or an aspiring third-world nation, don't hesitate to contact us to find out about our wide array of military applications!

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Seeking: Funding for orbital assault vehicle

In-field Testing: Over 2 decades

Description: The "DFA" Orbital Assault Vehicle is a multi-purpose space-based weapon. It features vertical take-off, a heavy-duty tank-like assault vehicle (depicted at left), a retractable missile-crushing remote controlled arm, an army of robot droids, and the ability to lock onto and board large military craft. If you are a member of the Pentagon or an aspiring third-world nation, don't hesitate to contact us to find out about our wide array of military applications!

---

Seeking: Funding for orbital assault vehicle

In-field Testing: Over 2 decades

Description: The "DFA" Orbital Assault Vehicle is a multi-purpose space-based weapon. It features vertical take-off, a heavy-duty tank-like assault vehicle (depicted at left), a retractable missile-crushing remote controlled arm, an army of robot droids, and the ability to lock onto and board large military craft. If you are a member of the Pentagon or an aspiring third-world nation, don't hesitate to contact us to find out about our wide array of military applications!

---

Seeking: Funding for orbital assault vehicle

In-field Testing: Over 2 decades

Description: The "DFA" Orbital Assault Vehicle is a multi-purpose space-based weapon. It features vertical take-off, a heavy-duty tank-like assault vehicle (depicted at left), a retractable missile-crushing remote controlled arm, an army of robot droids, and the ability to lock onto and board large military craft. If you are a member of the Pentagon or an aspiring third-world nation, don't hesitate to contact us to find out about our wide array of military applications!

---

Seeking: Funding for orbital assault vehicle

In-field Testing: Over 2 decades

Description: The "DFA" Orbital Assault Vehicle is a multi-purpose space-based weapon. It features vertical take-off, a heavy-duty tank-like assault vehicle (depicted at left), a retractable missile-crushing remote controlled arm, an army of robot droids, and the ability to lock onto and board large military craft. If you are a member of the Pentagon or an aspiring third-world nation, don't hesitate to contact us to find out about our wide array of military applications!

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In this case possibly up to a coupla meters. However a cold rock dropped into an atmosphere with a extremely hot pressure gradient ahead of it ablates pretty fast, by the time it comes down to ground level we're talking a total mass of possibly a few tons and likely distributed amongst several objects. For numbers it's gonna hit the atmosphere at 10-70 km/second, at the bottom will be going a couple hundred kph, the same speed as if it had been dropped from a tall building.

You're right if it's city-block size or greater; it's gonna come down, come down hard & our atmosphere ain't gonna do much for us. But for things much smaller life is a lot rougher for them, better for us. For something under 50m the majority of it will burn up in the atmosphere & the local effects will be minimal.

For some more numbers a 3m diameter object of meteoric metals (x3.5 mass of generic terrestrial rock, a stony (chondrite) would be x1.5) could weigh up to 100 tons and upon impact would create a crater 3 - 5m in diameter. It's kinetic energy is the product of the mass and the square of the velocity. Impressive, but not hazardous outside of it's immediate vicinity & certianly of no danger to the county*.

Finally here's a MPEG of a stony coming in through the atmosphere & hitting a parked car in Peekskill NY on Oct. 9, 1992 - it was 12Kg when recovered.

* For non-US readers a "County" is a subsection of a State often encompassing several towns or perhaps a city, not all States have them & their application varies greatly.

For when this gets slashdotted, the gist of the story is that the petri dishes shows signs of activity for nine weeks, far too long to be explained by the chemical story. The bacteria's activity was cycling with the temperature, and we know today but didn't know then that that sort of cycle points to cellular activity (so say the reporters at the EurekaAlert!).

I heard them say that scientists were speculating that something called a bolus, I think, fell from space, broke up, and burned as it fell towards Earth. I almost choked at the stupidity of it. We just call those things in space meteors, and if they hit the planet surface they are meteorites.

the terms fireball and bolide are often confused -- even by professional astronomers. A fireball is a meteor at least as bright as the planet Venus (visual magnitude -3 or -4). A bolide is a fireball that explodes, often with sound effects.

From the link at the top of the slashdot article (which might have changed), it says: "At the heart of Monday's fireball, however, was a solitary object -- perhaps a small asteroid or a piece of a comet" ... "If this was a rocky asteroid, then it probably measured between 1 and 2 meters across and weighed 30 or so metric tons"

It seems as if the website Astronomy Picture of the Day at NASA might have a picture of it tommorow as they show tommorow's imaging being "Northeast Fireball"
Astronomy Picture of the Day

Water + sunlight + solar cells = oxygen and rocket fuel. Less to pack.

It's probably all meaningless anyway. There's likely never been any significant amount of water on Mars. Once Mars Surveyor gets there and fails to find anything this whole discussion will start to seem laughable.

If you jump over to the BBC there reporting something like enough water to cover the planet upto 25 centimeters. It's all trapped in ice just a few meters below the surface. I guess we really won't know until Odyssey reaches the planet to scan it with THEMIS

The Delta Aquarids go on for awhile (right now, for example). Showers have a span with a frequency distribution (like a bell curve for the mathematically inclined). What you are referring to is the peak of the shower, which is coming up this weekend. The 29th i think.

Anyways, if you're interested check out this calender up by NASA jet propulsion labs.

Personally i'm gonna go dig up my meteor-proof tarp to cover my truck with.

All communication to and from ISS, Shuttles, Hubble, and a number of other NASA vehicles is routed through the TDRS system of three massive satellites in geosynchornous orbit. Unlike the Russian system, Nasa doesn't have to wait for their missions to pass over their ground stations. The lag incurred by TDRS is identical to that you hear on a transoceanic telephone call.

>2) Repair. Can't fix the bot from the ground. You will have to train the crew to fix the bot (which you would have to do anyway).

I would imagine that a shuttle would bring up a half-dozen balls. This would allow you to bring several of them online during busy times. It would also allow you to discard ones that break (to be replaced by the next shuttle flight). After all, the goal is to relieve the astronauts of work, not burden them with more things to fix.
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If NASA would sell these as toys (modified for earth gravity, with lots of LEDs), maybe their funding problems would disappear.

I've never been clear on exactly how NASA does or does not make a profit on technology developed for the space program, but this is the kind of project that I would expect to have all kinds of spinoff technologies that will crop up in consumer goods down the road.

NASA has a couple of pages (here and here) describing some of the spinoffs that we've seen so far.

I can't say whether or not this is the most cost effective way to create new technology, but of all the things that my tax dollars go to support, NASA is one of the ones I resent the least.

If NASA would sell these as toys (modified for earth gravity, with lots of LEDs), maybe their funding problems would disappear.

I've never been clear on exactly how NASA does or does not make a profit on technology developed for the space program, but this is the kind of project that I would expect to have all kinds of spinoff technologies that will crop up in consumer goods down the road.

NASA has a couple of pages (here and here) describing some of the spinoffs that we've seen so far.

I can't say whether or not this is the most cost effective way to create new technology, but of all the things that my tax dollars go to support, NASA is one of the ones I resent the least.

Look at all the Mars stuff happening - Mars in the Media, and the immediately recent Mars opposition and new hubble shots, the killer success of the surveyor mission, the probes heading there right now, the rover mission and others.

NASA should be pimping the hell out of it. The existence of extraterrestrial life, even microbes, is a question of enormous magnitude. It is truly a question of biblical proportions. NASA's work on Mars could perhaps unravel one of the greatest mystery humans face. It will be very interesting to discover what is returned to Earth in the Mars soil samples returning to Earth in 2005. You can check out the strategy paper NASA issued on researching Mars exobiology.

The ultimate mystery!

Look at all the Mars stuff happening - Mars in the Media, and the immediately recent Mars opposition and new hubble shots, the killer success of the surveyor mission, the probes heading there right now, the rover mission and others.

NASA should be pimping the hell out of it. The existence of extraterrestrial life, even microbes, is a question of enormous magnitude. It is truly a question of biblical proportions. NASA's work on Mars could perhaps unravel one of the greatest mystery humans face. It will be very interesting to discover what is returned to Earth in the Mars soil samples returning to Earth in 2005. You can check out the strategy paper NASA issued on researching Mars exobiology.

The ultimate mystery!

Look at all the Mars stuff happening - Mars in the Media, and the immediately recent Mars opposition and new hubble shots, the killer success of the surveyor mission, the probes heading there right now, the rover mission and others.

NASA should be pimping the hell out of it. The existence of extraterrestrial life, even microbes, is a question of enormous magnitude. It is truly a question of biblical proportions. NASA's work on Mars could perhaps unravel one of the greatest mystery humans face. It will be very interesting to discover what is returned to Earth in the Mars soil samples returning to Earth in 2005. You can check out the strategy paper NASA issued on researching Mars exobiology.

The ultimate mystery!

Look at all the Mars stuff happening - Mars in the Media, and the immediately recent Mars opposition and new hubble shots, the killer success of the surveyor mission, the probes heading there right now, the rover mission and others.

NASA should be pimping the hell out of it. The existence of extraterrestrial life, even microbes, is a question of enormous magnitude. It is truly a question of biblical proportions. NASA's work on Mars could perhaps unravel one of the greatest mystery humans face. It will be very interesting to discover what is returned to Earth in the Mars soil samples returning to Earth in 2005. You can check out the strategy paper NASA issued on researching Mars exobiology.

The ultimate mystery!

Look at all the Mars stuff happening - Mars in the Media, and the immediately recent Mars opposition and new hubble shots, the killer success of the surveyor mission, the probes heading there right now, the rover mission and others.

NASA should be pimping the hell out of it. The existence of extraterrestrial life, even microbes, is a question of enormous magnitude. It is truly a question of biblical proportions. NASA's work on Mars could perhaps unravel one of the greatest mystery humans face. It will be very interesting to discover what is returned to Earth in the Mars soil samples returning to Earth in 2005. You can check out the strategy paper NASA issued on researching Mars exobiology.

The ultimate mystery!

Look at all the Mars stuff happening - Mars in the Media, and the immediately recent Mars opposition and new hubble shots, the killer success of the surveyor mission, the probes heading there right now, the rover mission and others.

NASA should be pimping the hell out of it. The existence of extraterrestrial life, even microbes, is a question of enormous magnitude. It is truly a question of biblical proportions. NASA's work on Mars could perhaps unravel one of the greatest mystery humans face. It will be very interesting to discover what is returned to Earth in the Mars soil samples returning to Earth in 2005. You can check out the strategy paper NASA issued on researching Mars exobiology.

The ultimate mystery!

Of course, it's still a massively controversial subject and they must have been hoping that it would be good for their funding. The press release was dated August 1996, which is certainly a good time for NASA to have been feeling a bit poor. In fact, looking at the 2000 NASA budget testimony, if the 1996 release was a bid for funding, it really didn't work very well.

Of course, it's still a massively controversial subject and they must have been hoping that it would be good for their funding. The press release was dated August 1996, which is certainly a good time for NASA to have been feeling a bit poor. In fact, looking at the 2000 NASA budget testimony, if the 1996 release was a bid for funding, it really didn't work very well.

Your imagination lags far behind reality. This is exactly how the first really widely spread virus, the Internet Worm spread in 1988.

I'm not a Java programmer (IANAJP), but how is Bandera different than Java Pathfinder?

From the Java Pathfinder page: "In keeping with this philosophy we have developed a verification and testing environment for Java which integrates model checking, program analysis and testing. Part of this work has consisted of building a new Java Virtual Machine that interprets Java bytecode. JPF is the second Java Model Checker developed by the Automated Software Engineering group at NASA Ames - JPF1 used a translation from Java to PROMELA in order to do model checking with the SPIN model checker."

While your enthusiam is great, I do not think it will revolutionize software development. The tool would have to be amazing. And yes, I do mean amazing. If it was amazing right now, which it is not, you'd have a chance to change the software development world. It also seems very academic and not truly practical. I could be totally wrong about this -- remember, IANAJP!

Bottom line: It is a good idea and sounds interesting so keep your chin up. But, try to be a bit more realistic.

i've been watching this Helios story for a couple of months now. the company that designed & built Helios (w/ NASA) is AeroVironment, founded by Paul McCready (of Gossamer Albatross fame). there are some pretty cool commercial applications intended for this program.

Actually, it's a combination of Bernoulli's Principle and the angle of attack. Here is a nice program you can use to model airfoils and see exactly how it works.

Sorry to burst Your bubble, but there is ice at the poles. The most recent modeled estimates put the quantity at 6.6 billion tons.

This link has information on such ice, including where it came from, why it's important, and how it can survive.

According to Greg Chamitoff during a seminar he had at the , he mentioned that Duct Tape is in ample supply at the ISS Alpha.

Well, actually, the space station has mainly lables in Russian on the Russian made components (and they are always augmented by English lables). Also, the main language for this space station is English, but US astronauts are taught Russian during their training time in Russia.

At a seminar by one of the US astronauts who was my lecturer when I was at uni, which I attended a few months ago, he (Greg Chamitoff) mentioned the interaction between cultures on the ISS. He said that during training, they (American astronauts) spend time in Star City, Russia training with the Russian cosmonauts and equipment, and practicing Russian as well.

The good thing is, the astronauts know it is still a station in development (appropriate name, alpha :-), and they also know that there will be a lot of interaction problems with other nationalities on this, but they see it as a learning exercise, and a challenge not an obstacle.

I've got a plastic space shuttle that was one of my more cherished toys when I was 3 (22 years ago).

That's very interesting, especially since the shuttle didn't start flying until 21 years ago.

January 2000, I'm speaking with a couple of people I know. One of these people is an astronaut on STS-101. The two non-astronauts in the conversation (myself and Jim) were commenting on how incredible it was, and how exciting it must be. Our Austronaut friend responded with "It's just my job. Sure the launch is exciting, but the rest of it is just my job, It's not a big deal"

I was floored. "Just my job"?? I didn't know what to say. If the astronauts aren't excited about their job, I think they should be.

It's not surprising that NASA is having fiscal problems when space travel has become not something of marvel, but of everyday import.

If you recall Apollo 13, that was kind of the prevailing attitude among the American public before the oxygen tank explosion that aborted the mission and placed the astronauts' lives in jeopardy. (NASA guy's line: "The networks say we make going to the moon seem about as exciting as a trip to Pittsburgh.")

I don't care what anyone says, though, there's nothing "routine" about going into space. Not yet, anyway. Some of us would love to see the day it does become routine...that day will come, maybe not in our lifetimes, but one day, because the human race needs to get off this rock!

Yes, I'm a fan of space travel. I've got a signed picture of Buzz Aldrin hanging on the wall of my computer room. These days, I generally pay attention to the exploits of one astronaut in particular, the one I and some of my relatives refer to as "Cousin Kenny," Kenneth Bowersox. (No, he's not a close relative, but he's probably related somehow.) He's flown four missions (including the Hubble repair missions, the first of which was a "must win" for NASA; that speaks volumes about his capabilities), and is due to command an ISS expedition at some point. (He was backup commander for the first ISS crew.) He's also noted for his appearances on Home Improvement, where Tim Allen made fun of his last name (which I didn't take too personally :-) ).

God knows, if I had the kind of money Dennis Tito gave the Russians, I couldn't think of anything better to spend it on than going up myself. My only problem is that, at 6'3", I'm too tall to fit in a Soyuz...

Eric
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Actually, we're not sure. Europa is the Jupiter moon that may have liquid water: its surface is icy but has cracks. This leads us to conclude that there may be liquid water underneath that is cause the crust to move and crack much like the tectonic plates on earth. We won't be positive until Europa Orbiter and Europa Lander get there:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/europaorbiter/.

At the risk of flaming, I ask everyone to please take a look at this diagram if you really think the Space Shuttle wings are "large," or that they could conceivably weigh anything remotely close to half of the vehicle's weight. The fuel, on the other hand, weighs many times more than the entire ship plus payload. There's just no comparison between a passive lifting body and fuel. To quote Pulp Fiction, "it aint the same ball park and it aint the same league, it aint even the same fuckin' sport!"

Speaking of flames, we haven't even considered what happens to objects sitting around near a rocket launch or landing site. Vertical landing does not mean rockets can take off and land in "any old parking lot" !!?? Can you say, "Dude, where's my car?" There's no way a giant flamethrower is going to be allowed to come down over any heavily populated area. Rockets would need their own special takeoff and landing facilities, and if they didn't land right next to the fueling site (yikes!) they would have to be hauled there, carefully.

The Shuttle has these problems too, but it's not supposed to be the Ultimate Answer to the question of Life, the Universe and Everything. The Shuttle is only the first working example of a vehicle going to orbit and landing repeatedly without fuel. It's particular shortcomings are not arguments for using fuel instead of lift. The goal is to use a regular airport, which rockets will not do.

Has anyone noticed that the X-33 looks remarkably like a penguin when sitting in the vertical takeoff position?

Interestingly enough, the X33 is now dead. I'd be willing to bet that Microsoft had something to do with its demise. That would have been a helluvan advertisement for Linux!
official X-33 site with no penguin-like images.