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the primary problem is that there is no efficient way for power providers to 'store up' on power. they can't run a plant just as hard at night, and save up electricity to meet the peek demand - they have to generate at near the level of demand or lose it.(at least alot of it)

as soon as someone wakes up and realizes that battery backups are about the worst way to store energy, maybe we can start to deal with it.

back a while in wired (8.05) there was an article about using flywheels to store energy (story). and a former aeronautics guy (company) who was working on it. (there's also some others link, link, and probably others) it was truly fascinating and they claimed energy storage efficiency of many times the level of currently used batteries. (not much of a feat, batteries suck)

Nasa's power and propulsion office was looking to replace the batteries in the ISS with this stuff (story) what ever happened to that crap? and how long will it take power companies to catch on?

perhaps only the lack of competition allows them to point figers instead of solving their problems?

I think sending a 500-kilo copper weight to space is waste of money. How much science would you do with 500 kg instruments? A lot. At first sight, this seems to have more PR value and less scientific output.

The European Rosetta mission makes much more sense. It tries to land on a comet. How much can we learn if the 1st idea is to everything we do not understand?

If the Russians could just wait a few more years, I promise them, I will do my best to retrieve the 'Mir' space-station for them, returning it safely so that they may stick it in a museum. Considering certain advances in RLV technology, a heavy lifter shuttle-barge is sure to be developed soon- and I'm going to buy one. I will gladly swing by and pick it up for them. Can someone please suggest they park it in a libration point, someone that knows a powerful Russian politico personally?

:)Fudboy

1) Armstrong's Line - This is at an altitude of about 60,000 feet. At this level, the pressure is low enough to cause water to boil (remember Boyle's Law in physics?). Everything in you would boil - your blood, your interstitial tissue fluids, even the vitreous bodies (stuff inside your eyeballs). This is one reason why pressure suits are required at that kind of altitude. If you egressed from a spacecraft above that level without a suit, you would go "Cook! Cook! Cook!" (similar to Beavis' "Fire! Fire! Fire!"). After learning about Armstrong's Line way back, I have a different take when I watch movies when people go into space without any pressurization.

Nope, this doesn't happen because you are actually wearing a quite remarkable pressure suit: your skin. What *will* happen if you try to hold your breath is that your lungs will blow out. But if you keep your mouth open and exhale, experiments in depressurization on animals (and on one human -- accident during NASA suit testing) you can expect to last thirty seconds to a minute, though you'll be unconscious quicker than that.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/970603.html has a good summation of the situation.

Second in a lifetime for some of us. Remember Skylab ?

Make sure you select from the other tools in the top frame to find viewing times of many objects from various earthbound locales.

Why is silver-plated wire a big no-no?

It has an odd tendency to grow some sort of algae. I've never had it really well-explained to me, but I'll ask around the office. The silver-plating apparently spurs on the growth. [Be happy to bow to someone on /. with much better knowledge than I--I'm just a poor dumb aero. =)]

Would you refer me to the docs on that?

U.S. President John F. Kennedy spoke before Congress on May 25, 1961, saying:

"I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."

-- President John F. Kennedy, speech to U.S. Congress, May 25, 1961.

NASA PAO has a nice history on Apollo. [Yeah, the same PAO I'm still hacked with. =)] As most folks should know, Apollo 11 landed on the moon 07/20/1969--about six weeks after my parents were married. =)
--

Has anyone thought to try to intercept the transmission? is it encrypted? is it encrypted well? It's not like we're talking rocket science. Wait. It's not like we're talking private cable, or unknown locations--it's trajectory is known.

I'd presume the transmission is encrypted, but if it's 40bit, let's get Distributed.net or EFF to set up a real-time cracking system.

Semi-topical: Anyone else see this blurb about a webcast happening today. I'd be willing to donate money/food/mice/nubile virgins/etc. to anyone who can post an IP address of this webcast. Seems like double secret probation to me.

Since it is not mentioned in the article above or on NASAWatch, here is a link to all of the Status Reports that have been posted to the web. The most recent one is from January 3rd.

From NASA's front page

"NASA is deeply committed to spreading the unique knowledge that flows from its aeronautics and space research...."

NASA has some pretty cool stuff on their site. They don't have to show me the latest pictures or movies of space, but they do. Last I checked, there was no reason that I had to know the daily reports of what is going on during a space mission. I enjoy reading about it, but there is no reason they should feel responsible to give it to me. I pay taxes to get police officers around my neighborhood, but it doesn't mean I get to tell them what to do.

Maybe there is a completely justifiable reason to suddenly suppress the information. I know there are reasons that some information gets denied despite the Freedom of Information Act that many people cry about (but probably haven't taken the time or initiative to actually read and comprehend). I don't think my tax-paying, but mentally-deficient neighbor needs the info to build a nuclear bomb, so I'm willing to let it go that I can't obtain it myself.

NASA has made some pretty huge strides in its lifetime and I'm happy to see them able to continue. They give a ton of information and some of us are happy to see that. I would contest that the large number of people bitching about the requested denial of info weren't even aware that it was being given in the first place (and probably wouldn't have even thought about it if it wasn't originally). Now it's a conspiracy.

"NASA is deeply committed to spreading the unique knowledge that flows from its aeronautics and space research...."

Yahoo article

NASA Ames Research center Click on NEWS or here

And finally pictures, well, actually graphs which illustrate the dance can been seen at exoplanets.org

Ticks me off, really, I bust my knuckles to do research for article submissions and some twit only puts up a link to NY Times and /. puts it up.

--

Yahoo article

NASA Ames Research center Click on NEWS or here

And finally pictures, well, actually graphs which illustrate the dance can been seen at exoplanets.org

Ticks me off, really, I bust my knuckles to do research for article submissions and some twit only puts up a link to NY Times and /. puts it up.

--

And in the typical troll fashion, they didn't get it.

heh.


-the wunderhorn

Is it just me, or does the image bear a shockingly uncanny resemblance to Space Invaders?

--

This is a cool animated gif showing the expansion of the nebula, and here are some nice hubble images.

Doug

I hate to sound like a stuffy academic, but I have a PhD in physics, and the whole thing sounds goofy to me. I'm not an expert on this kind of zero-point-energy-of-empty-space stuff, but it seems to me that to release the zero-point energy of empty space, you have to leave that space in a lower energy state after you're done. We don't know if such a lower-energy state even exists.
The Assayer - free-information book reviews

I hate to sound like a stuffy academic, but I have a PhD in physics, and the whole thing sounds goofy to me. I'm not an expert on this kind of zero-point-energy-of-empty-space stuff, but it seems to me that to release the zero-point energy of empty space, you have to leave that space in a lower energy state after you're done. We don't know if such a lower-energy state even exists.
The Assayer - free-information book reviews

The audio sample on this page.

There's only one major spacecraft I can think of that uses solid propellant anymore, the SRB's of the Space Shuttle, and they're trying to get rid of them too.
They're going to be replaced by Liquid Flyback Boosters. I don't have a link, but you could do a search at spaceflight.nasa.gov.

--

min: 54,500,000 km (~ 34,000,000 mi)

avg: 78,000,000 km (~ 48,750,000 mi)

max: 401,000,000 km (~250,625,000 mi)

Assuming the 2-week estimate is based on the minimum distance this means that it would take 336 hours to travel the 54,500,000 km for an average speed of about 45,000 m/s. If the acceleration of the ship could be held constant at 10 m/s^2 this means that a near Earth gravity effect could be achieved for about 75 minutes at the begining and the end of the trip. A near Mars gravity effect (3.7 m/s^2) could be maintained for over 3 hours on each end of the trip.
In order to maintain an Earth like gravity for the entire trip the ship would need to attain the speed of 740,000 m/s (accelerate at 10 m/s^2 half way out and then flip the ship around and decelerate at 10 m/s^2 the rest of the way). In order to maintain a Mars like gravity for the entire trip the ship would need to attain the speed of 450,000 m/s (accelerate at 3.7 m/s^2 half way out and then flip the ship around and decelerate at 3.7 m/s^2 the rest of the way).
Of course either 450,000 m/s or 740,000 m/s would give us measurable time/space/mass dilation problems. So you gain a little weight you get a little smaller and you age a littler slower -- basicly you would be young, short, heavy and hauling ass!!!

min: 54,500,000 km (~ 34,000,000 mi)

avg: 78,000,000 km (~ 48,750,000 mi)

max: 401,000,000 km (~250,625,000 mi)

Assuming the 2-week estimate is based on the minimum distance this means that it would take 336 hours to travel the 54,500,000 km for an average speed of about 45,000 m/s. If the acceleration of the ship could be held constant at 10 m/s^2 this means that a near Earth gravity effect could be achieved for about 75 minutes at the begining and the end of the trip. A near Mars gravity effect (3.7 m/s^2) could be maintained for over 3 hours on each end of the trip.
In order to maintain an Earth like gravity for the entire trip the ship would need to attain the speed of 740,000 m/s (accelerate at 10 m/s^2 half way out and then flip the ship around and decelerate at 10 m/s^2 the rest of the way). In order to maintain a Mars like gravity for the entire trip the ship would need to attain the speed of 450,000 m/s (accelerate at 3.7 m/s^2 half way out and then flip the ship around and decelerate at 3.7 m/s^2 the rest of the way).
Of course either 450,000 m/s or 740,000 m/s would give us measurable time/space/mass dilation problems. So you gain a little weight you get a little smaller and you age a littler slower -- basicly you would be young, short, heavy and hauling ass!!!

Capt. Ron

here is a good link that tells you details on viewing the shower:
http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/showers/quadr antids.html

very interesting reading on this particular shower can be fond here and here.

Well for a few reasons. First of all experiments in space yield insights into science that can be applied on Earth to improve the quality of life. These so-called "NASA Spinoffs" include Scratch Resistant Lenses, Athletic Shoes, Laser Agioplasty, and better brakes. For a more detailed list you can look at NASA Spinoffs or The NASA Spinoff Database.

Also, if we can manage to make getting to the asteriod belt affordable, there's a HUGE untapped natural resource that could be very useful.

All in all, I'd say it's worth a lot more than the "one penny out of every dollar in the U.S. federal budget" that we're spending now.

Well for a few reasons. First of all experiments in space yield insights into science that can be applied on Earth to improve the quality of life. These so-called "NASA Spinoffs" include Scratch Resistant Lenses, Athletic Shoes, Laser Agioplasty, and better brakes. For a more detailed list you can look at NASA Spinoffs or The NASA Spinoff Database.

Also, if we can manage to make getting to the asteriod belt affordable, there's a HUGE untapped natural resource that could be very useful.

All in all, I'd say it's worth a lot more than the "one penny out of every dollar in the U.S. federal budget" that we're spending now.

I did read that in experiments, the Ion Drive could top out about 39,000 miles an hour. What that translates to in F/P thrust I have no idea.

There is no direct relationship between thrust and top speed, it depends how long you can thrust; in the case of ion drives, it can mean months or years.

A better way to apprehend things is the rocket equation: if u is the exhaust speed and m0 and m1 the mass of the spacecraft respectively empty and fueled, then an ideal rocket in a vacuum in a weightless environment can change your speed of: Deltav=u.ln(m1/m0).

And the tests have not been fully performed in a weightless environment where the maximum potetial momentum can be reached.

Wait, what about Deep Space1? The thing is now on the other side of the solar system, has visited a comet last year, and is on its way to a second, I think. And it has totaled almost two years of thrusting, weeks or months at a time!

As for traveling at lightspeed, surely it is a step ahead of chemical propulsion, but we still have a long way before we can even approach even fractional lightspeed! Try looking at the rocket equation above; an ion drive typically accelerates its exhaust up to 10-20km/s (compared to less than 5km/s for chemical rockets). To reach a thousandth of lightspeed, in the best case, you'll need over three million times as much fuel as the mass of your spacecraft, which includes the fuel tank, of course. Quite a challenge...

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/. pick your planet, then pick a spacecraft observation, then find a pic you like, then click on "more options" and choose your format for a full resolution image. :-D

Augment last post due to serious misinformation:

Deep Space I

Ion FAQ


.

Augment last post due to serious misinformation:

Deep Space I

Ion FAQ


.

If the Cassini is powered by an ion drive

It is not.

What's this? Would that be Plutonium ion degeneration powering all of the RTG's

Okay so it's not your average Star Trekkin' warp factor niner, but it is a step in the right direction.

and the atmosphere of Jupiter is predominantly methane gas,

I don't think it is; rather hydrogen, but I could be wrong.

3000 (CH4) parts per million in a dominant 89% Hydrogen atmosphere isn't predominant as stated before.

if the two were to come close enough to each other,

Cassini has passed the point of closest approach. 10 million kilometers, give or take.

the key prerogative being if

where would be the best place be to view the fireworks from?

What fireworks?

I won't even begin to explain. Notice the Heading. Dumb Question. Capped off with a nice little fuzzy "I wonder" at the end.

Wouldn't it be nice if our cyclones persisted for centuries?

No


.

Some of these images are breath-takingly beautiful. Does anybody know is even higher resolution versions of these images exist? I would love to spit some of these images out on my wide-format printer for my wall!

Or, really is bandwidth so narrow or is the CCD so small that they only shuttle back ~1MB images from the Cassini?

-AP

how far the distance between Jupiter and Saturn

It changes all the time, of course...

Right now, according to this Solar System Simulator image, Cassini is about 630million kilometers away from Saturn (which amounts to 390million miles, or 4.2AUs).

As for the speed, it also changes all the time, you know, trading kinetic energy for potential energy, Kepler's laws, all that stuff. According to this page, it is moving at about 47,500kilometers an hour, with respect to the Sun, I assume (29,500mph, 13km/s), but it will slow down a lot as it gets farther from Jupiter and the Sun.

how far the distance between Jupiter and Saturn

It changes all the time, of course...

Right now, according to this Solar System Simulator image, Cassini is about 630million kilometers away from Saturn (which amounts to 390million miles, or 4.2AUs).

As for the speed, it also changes all the time, you know, trading kinetic energy for potential energy, Kepler's laws, all that stuff. According to this page, it is moving at about 47,500kilometers an hour, with respect to the Sun, I assume (29,500mph, 13km/s), but it will slow down a lot as it gets farther from Jupiter and the Sun.

You could just go to the web site and get a rt update of it's speed.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/

when do we land on Europa??

Well, according to 2010, we have to wait for the Chinese to claim this convenient refueling station and discover life there. They are currently preparing for a second (unmanned) test flight of their Shenzhou spacecraft, so there's still hope...

As for the pictures, why don't you have a look there?

Hi!

Here is the official Nasa Cassini Homepage

Many nice pictures and much more.

cheers
mike

Hi!

Here is the official Nasa Cassini Homepage

Many nice pictures and much more.

cheers
mike

3,000,000,000 Earth uninhabitable because of increase in solar luminosity

It's more likely to be only 700 million years (better get all your affairs in order quickly =). Here's a link explaining why.

Now before you all jump on me for saing tat genetics is the only are where real progress has been made, let me say that I also agree that major progress has been made with the internet and that it has and will continue to change the world as it is more integrated into our lives. However I don't consider the internet to have been a fantastic dream of sci-fi come to life - I see it more as a foregone conclusion as soon as the first telegraph was built. Physics has had its time in the sun - biology is the cutting edge now.


What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

Happy New Millenium to all.

You do not know what you are talking about. Climate change due to human activities absolutely HAS been proven, for any reasonable standard of 'proof'.

Some random links. Yes I know these aren't authoratitive primary sources but you can't deep link into the `Nature' site :(
BBC News
BBC News
paper in `Science'
Crowley in `Science'
(UN) IPCC
more U.N.
NASA
NASA
NASA
Nature
BBC News
New Scientist's excellent overview, ideal for clueless know-nothing^W^W getting a basic grounding in the major issues

Next time, try to avoid talking nonsense on a subject you know nothing about.
--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles

You do not know what you are talking about. Climate change due to human activities absolutely HAS been proven, for any reasonable standard of 'proof'.

Some random links. Yes I know these aren't authoratitive primary sources but you can't deep link into the `Nature' site :(
BBC News
BBC News
paper in `Science'
Crowley in `Science'
(UN) IPCC
more U.N.
NASA
NASA
NASA
Nature
BBC News
New Scientist's excellent overview, ideal for clueless know-nothing^W^W getting a basic grounding in the major issues

Next time, try to avoid talking nonsense on a subject you know nothing about.
--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles

Very cool stuff. I really liked a link I found off the Antimater project. this site deals with the things we need to overcome before we can "warp" to a planet.
--

The Cheshire Cat wrote:

An interesting article, but a little light on the details. There is a really good piece on how space elevators work here.

The How Stuff Works link that Cheshire Cat provided is not that good -- it basically is a restatement of NASA's own page on their FD-02 Space Elevator concept, only with added ad banners. In addition, the How Stuff Works site attempted to set persistent cookies on my machine about 10 times before it gave up.

In short: visit NASA's page and avoid How Stuff Works.

The Cheshire Cat wrote:

An interesting article, but a little light on the details. There is a really good piece on how space elevators work here.

The How Stuff Works link that Cheshire Cat provided is not that good -- it basically is a restatement of NASA's own page on their FD-02 Space Elevator concept, only with added ad banners. In addition, the How Stuff Works site attempted to set persistent cookies on my machine about 10 times before it gave up.

In short: visit NASA's page and avoid How Stuff Works.

Finally a space article that didn't come from cnn...

Kudo's

To bad Space Elevators are the Super Dense Optical Storage Devices of Space Industry. A Red Herring.

suggested Space News Site's spaceflightnow
SpaceDaily
NasaWatch
SpaceWeather
Nasa
It's ashame that SpaceOnline bit the dust and was absorbed by space.com, along with SpaceViews

If you want some real action become a Nasa click worker at http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/top
Maybe Slashdot will even do a story on it...

I wait with herring baited breath

Finally a space article that didn't come from cnn...

Kudo's

To bad Space Elevators are the Super Dense Optical Storage Devices of Space Industry. A Red Herring.

suggested Space News Site's spaceflightnow
SpaceDaily
NasaWatch
SpaceWeather
Nasa
It's ashame that SpaceOnline bit the dust and was absorbed by space.com, along with SpaceViews

If you want some real action become a Nasa click worker at http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/top
Maybe Slashdot will even do a story on it...

I wait with herring baited breath

Perhaps those of you who don't get it should look at what you have for an imagination and what you have for an attention span. This is a thinking person's movie, not a movie that will whack you over the head with "get it, moron!". Further, until you've made a movie and dealt with all the problems that come with one, ponder what you say. This was a spectacular thing that we're still talking about 32 years later.

The Technology. My bigger bitch is with the people here that bitch about the technology. Perhaps you've been standing behind the door, but it is you and I that make the technology happen. If we want video phones then we should get off our collective asses and code the damn things up.

And, if we want the things this movie guessed would happen, they're not beyond the edge of our technology. All it takes is a political will to do these things and it will happen. What happened to the US space program, post Apollo 11, can only be considered a travesty. There was a viable team of very smart, can-do people that attained a spectacular goal. What did we did to the team? We laid most of them off and said, 'thanks guys'. That NASA was capable of all sorts of cool things but instead the press and hence the country looked at Vietnam instead.

So if you want the BIG technology this vision of the future offers, argue for it with your government critters. They will listen if you will take the time to clearly state the case. They're actually there to do the right thing, if only they can figure out what that is.

--Multics

P.S. don't whine at me about the Space Shuttle either. They went from an Apollo command module (think row-boat) to a reusable space truck (think modern cargo ship) in one step. They're allowed to have made (and continue to make) some blunders along the way -- after all this is rocket science.