Slashdot Mirror

aldheorte writes: "The extolled virtues of polite multinational cooperation and goodwill allegedly exemplifed by Space Station Alpha are giving way to practical difficulties. CNN is carrying a story entitled "Life aboard the space station: long days, sarcasm and swearing" highlighted by ground controllers pleading with belligerent, swearing astronauts; certainly not the 'Gee shucks, darnit' family-values-and-apple-pie team image NASA likes to create." Well, at least they got the solar panels fixed.

Dr. Zowie writes "The Cassini probe, despite predictions of doom on launch and on its Earth flyby, appears to be working just fine as it wends its way outward toward Saturn. It's currently flying by Jupiter for an additional gravity assist. Today, the imaging team released their first high ('better than Hubble') resolution color images of Jupiter. I can't wait to write a Jovian screensaver..." Halfway down that last page is a sweet movie (GIF or QT) showing time-lapse clouds around the Great Red Spot on successive rotations of our largest planet.

Porfiry writes: "Remnants of organic matter in ancient soil more than 2.6 billion years old may be the earliest known evidence for terrestrial life, according to a team of Penn State astrobiologists. 'Our work shows that the organic matter in this soil very probably represents remnants of microbial mats that developed on the soil surface between 2.6 and 2.7 billion years ago,' says Dr. Hiroshi Ohmoto, professor of geochemistry and director of The Penn State Astrobiology Center. 'This places the development of terrestrial biomass more than 1.4 billion years earlier than previously reported.'"

Xzzy writes: "Over on NASA's space science page, they recently posted a link to a PDF file with a bunch of numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics, focusing on geekly-type jobs. Interesting numbers noted were ones pointing out that over the past ten or so years, degrees earned in electrical engineering have steadily declined.. while degrees focused on fitness studies and recreation have sharply increased."

Xzzy writes: "Over on NASA's space science page, they recently posted a link to a PDF file with a bunch of numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics, focusing on geekly-type jobs. Interesting numbers noted were ones pointing out that over the past ten or so years, degrees earned in electrical engineering have steadily declined.. while degrees focused on fitness studies and recreation have sharply increased."

Porfiry writes: "Astrobiologists have come to a number of interesting conclusions after observing the 1999 Leonids. "Last year's Leonid meteor storm yielded rich research results for NASA astrobiologists," said Dr. Peter Jenniskens. "Findings to date indicate that the chemical precursors to life -- found in comet dust -- may well have survived a plunge into early Earth's atmosphere. We discovered that most of the visible light of meteors comes from a warm wake just behind the meteor, not from the hot meteoroid's head," said Jenniskens. This warm wake has just the right temperature for the creation of life's chemical precursors." Note that this year's Leonids will be brightest on November 16 and 17.

Porfiry writes: "Astrobiologists have come to a number of interesting conclusions after observing the 1999 Leonids. "Last year's Leonid meteor storm yielded rich research results for NASA astrobiologists," said Dr. Peter Jenniskens. "Findings to date indicate that the chemical precursors to life -- found in comet dust -- may well have survived a plunge into early Earth's atmosphere. We discovered that most of the visible light of meteors comes from a warm wake just behind the meteor, not from the hot meteoroid's head," said Jenniskens. This warm wake has just the right temperature for the creation of life's chemical precursors." Note that this year's Leonids will be brightest on November 16 and 17.

Somewhere in the chorus, Bandwidth_ writes: "Time to start stockpiling those beans and working on your Y2K shelter again. Astronomers have confirmed that object 2000 SG344 has a 500-to-1 chance of hitting earth in the year 2030, a much higher probability of impact than any object before it. Scientists aren't certain what it is, but it's most likely a tiny asteroid or it could be a leftover Apollo rocket booster. It is not a major threat, damage would be contained to a localized area in the 1 to 3 megaton range if a collision were to ever happen." As jamie points out, this probably ought not worry you unduly, but it is the first nonzero-rated object on the Torino scale. N2UX points to an MSNBC article on the object which points out that the threat has now been downgraded to a more comforting level.

Somewhere in the chorus, Bandwidth_ writes: "Time to start stockpiling those beans and working on your Y2K shelter again. Astronomers have confirmed that object 2000 SG344 has a 500-to-1 chance of hitting earth in the year 2030, a much higher probability of impact than any object before it. Scientists aren't certain what it is, but it's most likely a tiny asteroid or it could be a leftover Apollo rocket booster. It is not a major threat, damage would be contained to a localized area in the 1 to 3 megaton range if a collision were to ever happen." As jamie points out, this probably ought not worry you unduly, but it is the first nonzero-rated object on the Torino scale. N2UX points to an MSNBC article on the object which points out that the threat has now been downgraded to a more comforting level.

A reader writes: "According to Christian Science Monitor, tomorrow humans will begin their permanent lives off of earth. Starting with the Expedition 1 launch in Kazakhstan at 7:53 GMT, Oct. 31, NASA plans to always have a human on the ISS, which has a projected mission life of 10 to 25 years. So, it is quite possible, that for the rest of history, there will always be humans who are not living on earth. See this ISS Homepage for more information on the mission."

deglr6328 writes "New images of Jupiter's Moon Io, along with a false color image of the first isolated ammonia ice cloud discovered on Jupiter; were released yesterday on the Galileo Probe homepage. The probe is currently transmitting back (at it's maximum transmission rate of about 120 Bits per second!) data on previously recorded observations of Ganymede, Jupiter's main ring, Europa and the Jovian Aurorae. Magnetometer measurements that are now being taken in a 100 day survey of Jupiter's huge magnetosphere will be used in a joint investigation with the Cassini spacecraft, which will be making it's closest approach to Jupiter in about two months. After a broken antenna, 5 years in the Jovian environment, 2 extended missions and a total dosage of nearly 4 times the designed radiation exposure, Galileo is still doing spectacular science."

deglr6328 writes "New images of Jupiter's Moon Io, along with a false color image of the first isolated ammonia ice cloud discovered on Jupiter; were released yesterday on the Galileo Probe homepage. The probe is currently transmitting back (at it's maximum transmission rate of about 120 Bits per second!) data on previously recorded observations of Ganymede, Jupiter's main ring, Europa and the Jovian Aurorae. Magnetometer measurements that are now being taken in a 100 day survey of Jupiter's huge magnetosphere will be used in a joint investigation with the Cassini spacecraft, which will be making it's closest approach to Jupiter in about two months. After a broken antenna, 5 years in the Jovian environment, 2 extended missions and a total dosage of nearly 4 times the designed radiation exposure, Galileo is still doing spectacular science."

deglr6328 writes "New images of Jupiter's Moon Io, along with a false color image of the first isolated ammonia ice cloud discovered on Jupiter; were released yesterday on the Galileo Probe homepage. The probe is currently transmitting back (at it's maximum transmission rate of about 120 Bits per second!) data on previously recorded observations of Ganymede, Jupiter's main ring, Europa and the Jovian Aurorae. Magnetometer measurements that are now being taken in a 100 day survey of Jupiter's huge magnetosphere will be used in a joint investigation with the Cassini spacecraft, which will be making it's closest approach to Jupiter in about two months. After a broken antenna, 5 years in the Jovian environment, 2 extended missions and a total dosage of nearly 4 times the designed radiation exposure, Galileo is still doing spectacular science."

deglr6328 writes "New images of Jupiter's Moon Io, along with a false color image of the first isolated ammonia ice cloud discovered on Jupiter; were released yesterday on the Galileo Probe homepage. The probe is currently transmitting back (at it's maximum transmission rate of about 120 Bits per second!) data on previously recorded observations of Ganymede, Jupiter's main ring, Europa and the Jovian Aurorae. Magnetometer measurements that are now being taken in a 100 day survey of Jupiter's huge magnetosphere will be used in a joint investigation with the Cassini spacecraft, which will be making it's closest approach to Jupiter in about two months. After a broken antenna, 5 years in the Jovian environment, 2 extended missions and a total dosage of nearly 4 times the designed radiation exposure, Galileo is still doing spectacular science."

hubie writes "The NEAR spacecraft flew by the asteroid Eros at a closest approach of only 3 miles! Despite what the story says, that is much less than the altitude of a commuter aircraft. Stay tuned for some expected cool closeup shots."

owillis writes "Space.com is reporting that Titan (moon of Saturn)" (and also the setting of a classic sf trilogy) "has mountains, a sea, and rain showers." Details apparently in the latest issue of Science. Cassini will parachute a probe into its atmosphere in 2004, but unfortunately may not be able to retrieve all its data. Let's hope they figure out a fix in the next four years; Titan's on the short-list of plausible environments in our solar system that could harbor life.

BorgiaPope writes: "Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute's Project Phoenix writes a sad, elegiac piece in Slate about the apparent final silence of Pioneer 10, launched in 1972 and now more than 7 billion miles from Earth. For the past five years, SETI scientists at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have used the incredibly faint signals from Pioneer 10 to test the functionality of their noise filtering gear. Alas, Tarter reports that Pioneer 10 hasn't been heard from for several days now. The incredibly hardy, long-lived satellite, which long ago surpassed NASA's wildest expectations for its power supplies and other systems, may finally have drifted peacefully into eternal slumber . . . ." I think the Klingons got it.

ftyczka writes "NASA released Casssini's first image of Jupiter. The picture, and the caption is available online. "

SEWilco writes: "ABC News reports the head of the State Aerospace Bureau says China will explore the Moon. They've conducted an unmanned test of their first capsule, but not much else is known about their project. The comments were made at U.N. World Space Week, on the Sputnik 1 43rd anniversary."

TOTKChief writes "Aviation Now is reporting that NASA will use the Structural Test Article for the new Propulsion Module design for the International Space Station. NASA Watch is carrying a good rendering of the concept as well as a rendering of what the Prop Module would look like attached to ISS. FWIW, this is called the "Mickey Option" because of the resemblance to Mickey Mouse. Only the Feds would choose the Mickey Mouse route, right?"

TOTKChief writes "Aviation Now is reporting that NASA will use the Structural Test Article for the new Propulsion Module design for the International Space Station. NASA Watch is carrying a good rendering of the concept as well as a rendering of what the Prop Module would look like attached to ISS. FWIW, this is called the "Mickey Option" because of the resemblance to Mickey Mouse. Only the Feds would choose the Mickey Mouse route, right?"

SEWilco writes: "This AP story points out major problems with the X-33 prototype shuttle. It's out of money and the composite hydrogen tank came apart in a test. The aerospike engine test seems to be doing nicely, but it needs a ship attached. Congress is considering NASA's Space Launch Initiative Program, which apparently includes more X-33 funding along with considering other technologies. The Delta Clipper is my favorite, although the ET Scenario engine-only-return design is interesting."

SEWilco writes: "This AP story points out major problems with the X-33 prototype shuttle. It's out of money and the composite hydrogen tank came apart in a test. The aerospike engine test seems to be doing nicely, but it needs a ship attached. Congress is considering NASA's Space Launch Initiative Program, which apparently includes more X-33 funding along with considering other technologies. The Delta Clipper is my favorite, although the ET Scenario engine-only-return design is interesting."

mattorb writes: "From the press release: "Scientists have designed and succesfully tested a new type of X-ray telescope that, when fully developed and placed in orbit, may capture the first images of a black hole and resolve images of nearby stars as clearly as we can see our own Sun today. The report is published in the Sept. 14 issue of Nature."

Go here for more information on the project, which is known as the Micro Arcsecond X-ray Imaging Mission. Note that the proposed MAXIM mission would launch after 2010."

Erik Hovland writes: "The NEAT project at JPL found a nice big rock (about half a km). And it is going by earth at about 0.0317 AU, a close call by cosmic terms but definitely a miss. Still one of the closest encounters yet, glad someone is playing chicken little for us.Full story here." The chunk of rock has been dubbed 2000 QW7, and was spotted last weekend because of its speed and brightness. But rest easy, since "there is absolutely no danger of a collision." As if they'd tell us -- even now, I bet Bruce Willis and Liv Tyler are suiting up.

PapaZit writes: "Government Computer News is reporting that the DOD isn't willing to adopt Linux...yet. They're eager enough to do so, however, that they're considering relaxing the requirements for POSIX compliance and Motif." That may be true, but the article only mentions folks from VA Linux and Red Hat as advocating this idea. After all, those wacky Linux people favor "letting anyone have a crack at modifying it, which could represent a security compromise for military systems for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence." Not to worry -- you're probably aware that Free software has long been at work and play in serious government applications; reader sdriver points out a few of them below.

sdriver writes: "As someone who works in the Space/Science/Military field (as a contractor) I thought I'd share some links to how much Linux really is being used. This one is the U.S. Military using Linux. This is another. This one is about realtime Linux stuff for the U.S. Military. Then there are some general arguments about Open source here and here. For those of us who have hardcopies of this magazine will notice most advertisments feature Linux along with VxWorks as a typical target platform. Not the "other" guys."

It's no surprise or secret that for all its tripwire maze of requirements, the U.S. government uses plenty of Free software already. Still, a re-examination of the POSIX requirement would seem in order. Or perhaps the Feds would like to save money by funding the development of an add-on POSIX implementation layer for Linux -- after all, that sounds "good enough for government work." ;)

ackthpt writes: "NASA has a feature on the growing visibility of the International Space Station, along with naked-eye Visibility Data when and where to look to see it streaking throught the night sky for US and Non-US cities. Will there be a point where corporate sponsorship hangs an ad in space? Already appearing "as the third brightest star in the nighttime sky", it will eventually be second only to Venus. Will we look up and see a Nike swoosh some day?"

ackthpt writes: "NASA has a feature on the growing visibility of the International Space Station, along with naked-eye Visibility Data when and where to look to see it streaking throught the night sky for US and Non-US cities. Will there be a point where corporate sponsorship hangs an ad in space? Already appearing "as the third brightest star in the nighttime sky", it will eventually be second only to Venus. Will we look up and see a Nike swoosh some day?"

TOTKChief writes "In reference to the /. story about radiation safety at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, MSFC Center Director Art Stephenson has replied to those safety allegations outlined by The Huntsville Times. It's funny to note that the actions that Stephenson has taken are exactly those recommended by Jim Bult, who was fired for whistle blowing by the NASA contractor that he worked for. Depressing."

Andy_R writes: "The BBC is reporting that NASA is to build a laser "broom" that is designed to sweep debris in space away from the path of the International Space Station." It's being tested - the plan is to destroy debris between one to ten centimeters in length.

Imran Ghory writes "The NASA spacecraft, Deep Space 1 which is based upon an ion drive has achieved the longest operating time for a propulsion system in space. So far it has travelled 332 million kilometers(206 million miles), daily logs are available here."

Imran Ghory writes "The NASA spacecraft, Deep Space 1 which is based upon an ion drive has achieved the longest operating time for a propulsion system in space. So far it has travelled 332 million kilometers(206 million miles), daily logs are available here."

TOTKChief writes "NASA Watch reported on this the other day, but now the Huntsville Times has dug into the firing of a NASA contractor charged with radiation safety at Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA is so serious about safety and redundancy that they're sending two probes nearly simultaneously to Mars, but it's apparent here that they don't give a rip about the safety of their employees."

Spudley writes "Space.com is reporting that NASA are likely to scrap a number of planned missions, due to increasing mission costs. The cost rise is attributed to more failsafes being used, after the recent failures of a number of 'cheap' missions."

jedibfa writes: "Zvezda and Zaraya docked successfully tonight around 8:45 EDT. Check out the report at space.com. This sets the stage for a crew later this year! I for one have been holding my breath since 1998. Upward and onward. Bring on NASA's missions." Now all we need is a couple of rolls of duct tape to get a good seal, and we're all set.

This submission just came in:

flufffy writes: "Another module, the Russian Zvezda ("Star"), has just joined the two existing ISS modules up in orbit. The station is now plenty big enough to be seen from the Earth's surface. But where exactly should you look? NASA's SkyWatch, available here, shows you. After you've download the small 300k app., it asks you for your Lat/Long and the satellite you're interested in (including shuttle re-entries), before calculating when and where you can see it next. You can print out the data as a sky chart, with constellations marked! As the ISS seems to be around the equator at the moment, it's low in the southern sky for U.S. skywatchers. Still, the program showed me where to look to the south of Sagitarrius, at about 1 a.m. on the morning of July 26th. This is really cool, and will only get more fun as the ISS gets larger and more visible."

BigTed writes: "This story found at bottomquark says 1.9 million images from the most thorough space survey ever made - The Two-Micron All Sky Survey - have been released by astronomers. Sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation, they have been made publicly available. This site over at NASA has more information and links to all those pictures."

BigTed writes: "This story found at bottomquark says 1.9 million images from the most thorough space survey ever made - The Two-Micron All Sky Survey - have been released by astronomers. Sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation, they have been made publicly available. This site over at NASA has more information and links to all those pictures."

bigweenie asks: "With the frozen mud on the Moon's pole and the springlike seepage of water out of the lowest valley walls of Valles Marinaris, everyone seems to have a heightened urgency and hope to find life on the Red Planet (past or current). My question is, what is the link between water and life? What exactly is the biochemical, environmental, evolutionary, physiological and, God forbid, logical evidence that water is suggestive of life? All the Mars 'search for life' experts have spent the last 20 years proving life can exist anywhere under almost any conditions; no oxygen, no H2O, etc. I wish to know the real hard data and analyses that defines the relationship between water and life, and how optimistic should we be about life on Mars just because it is there in abundance." Assuming that other life exists, it is possibility of extra-terrestrial life similar to earth-life that provide a good deal of momentum to our collective interest. Since water is an absolute necessity for Earth based life, it is assumed that the presence of it elsewhere may mean the presence of lifeforms closer to what we know and understand.

fence writes: "The Russian Aviation and Space agency successfully launched the International Space Station's Zvezda service module. The Zvezda module was launched from the Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan aboard a Proton rocket. Check out NASA Spaceflight web for live updates on Zvezda's progress."

dlgree1 writes "Nasa has anounced here that the Zvezda Service Module is ready to launch tomarrow on a modified proton rocket. The Zvezda Service Module is the ISS's life support and early living quarters aboard. Zvezda should dock with the ISS on July 26 at 00:44 GMT. Nasa has set the launch of the first ISS crew for October 30, 2000 which will begin the perminant habbitation of the space station."

dlgree1 writes "Nasa has anounced here that the Zvezda Service Module is ready to launch tomarrow on a modified proton rocket. The Zvezda Service Module is the ISS's life support and early living quarters aboard. Zvezda should dock with the ISS on July 26 at 00:44 GMT. Nasa has set the launch of the first ISS crew for October 30, 2000 which will begin the perminant habbitation of the space station."

dlgree1 writes "Nasa has anounced here that the Zvezda Service Module is ready to launch tomarrow on a modified proton rocket. The Zvezda Service Module is the ISS's life support and early living quarters aboard. Zvezda should dock with the ISS on July 26 at 00:44 GMT. Nasa has set the launch of the first ISS crew for October 30, 2000 which will begin the perminant habbitation of the space station."

dlgree1 writes "Nasa has anounced here that the Zvezda Service Module is ready to launch tomarrow on a modified proton rocket. The Zvezda Service Module is the ISS's life support and early living quarters aboard. Zvezda should dock with the ISS on July 26 at 00:44 GMT. Nasa has set the launch of the first ISS crew for October 30, 2000 which will begin the perminant habbitation of the space station."

caelumcrux writes: "Once again, technology repeats itself. NASA's jet propulsion laboratory released information on their latest testing: the use of lightweight sails and beamed-energy propulsion for space travel. It's only a matter of time before kids are flying photon kites." The laser sails have been covered here before but the microwave experiments seem like a greater success. Thankfully, this has a few more details than many NASA releases, and even features a link to a (not very good, artists-conception type) picture of the thing.

caelumcrux writes: "Once again, technology repeats itself. NASA's jet propulsion laboratory released information on their latest testing: the use of lightweight sails and beamed-energy propulsion for space travel. It's only a matter of time before kids are flying photon kites." The laser sails have been covered here before but the microwave experiments seem like a greater success. Thankfully, this has a few more details than many NASA releases, and even features a link to a (not very good, artists-conception type) picture of the thing.

Back for more already? Good. Today's early dinner of information includes humble pie baked by NASA, quantities of penguins rescued from roiling in oil, a morsel about sex discrimination in the computer world, and a take-out order of XF86 for the diners in our Slackware booth.

Absolutely no danger whatsoever at all. Contradicting the BBC story reported last week on Slashdot, NASA officials deny that a 1997 shuttle mission was ever in danger because of communication interruptions. Signal 11 writes: "NASA has a press release out which refuses a previous story from the BBC stating that an unknown 'hacker' was able to disrupt communications between mission control and the shuttle." Aardwolf64 pointed to MSNBC coverage of the NASA denial.

The NASA release reads, in part:

"NASA's Inspector General's office found that during the STS-86 mission in September of 1997, the transmission of routine medical information was slightly delayed due to a computer hacker. However, the transmission was successfully completed.

At no time was communication between NASA and the astronauts compromised. The communication interruption occurred between internal ground-based computer systems."

Fly away little birdies! Fly away! Errr, swim away, little birdies! Swim away! Errr ... come back later! An unnamed correspondent writes: "follow up on recent story about penguins caught in oil spill. After being cleaned, the penguins were flown to Port Elizabeth and released to swim the +/- 800 km's back to Cape Town. This will give enviromnetal cleaners a short space of time to clean the oil from the beaches where they live. Two of the penguins are being tracked. This site tracks their progress via satellite. Can't someone novelize this rescue attempt under the title "Penguin's Progress"?

Sir, please stop hitting me with the 'No Discrimination' sign. fegg writes: "Emmett recently posted a story in which there was a reference to an AP article which discussed gender bias as regards women and computer science. This was put -- I thought cavalierly --i nto the "this-has-nothing-to-do-with-gender-dammit dept." Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that it has everything to do with gender or, at least, how the world is presented to young boys and girls.

This is a rather important topic to me, especially now that I have two daughters (not to mention a wife who is a professional computer scientist). I view this as a must read for anyone who wants to develop a reasonable understanding of why there is such an imbalance of men and women in computing.

The gender bias situation is real, and it has been known for quite a while by many in education and technology circles. I would like to refer the Slashdot community to Ellen Spertus, who, in 1991, wrote "Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?" Particularly compelling, IMHO, is the piece therein on stereotyping.

Spertus's "Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering" provides an excellent set of pointers for people interested in this topic."

Isn't this what killed John Belushi? strredwolf writes "If you haven't heard, XFree86 4.0.1 is out in full force, with binaries and docs online. Slackware users can get the "Slackballs" via the Linux Mafia, along with other goodies." (Here's the direct link to the 4.0.1 files, but linuxmafia.org is worth exploring anyhow. Warning: it is an unabashed Pro-Slack Zone.)

This would be worth more than my car. Dredd13 writes "Empeg, Ltd., a UK company, shipped the first of its Mark 2 MP3 car-stereo to customers this past week. This is the same stereo that runs Linux and has won awards. The Mark2 is expected to be a full production run, (as opposed to the initial Mark1, which only had about 300 units) with enough to satisfy ample demand. As a former MkI owner (and one of the guys who got a Mark2 today from Mr. FedEx), I can say its worth every penny!" Slashdot's been following the Empeg saga for a while now; check out this item Rob posted in 1998. I hope they can bring the price down a bit, to better compete with the various mainstream MP3 players now emerging.

Phrogman writes: "There is some great information on the Mar's Society's Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station which is being set up in the 20km diamater Haughton meteorite crater on Devon Island in Canada's high arctic. They will be assembling a complete simulation of a manned Mars lander there and conducting research leading towards a human mission to Mars. The lander was built in Denver, and is currently undergoing final checks before being flown up to the crater by the U.S. Marine Corps. There is detailed information on the lander itself here.

The project is a joint venture with NASA, and is sponsored by the Mars Society, Discovery Channel, and of course flashline.com (thus the name). There is also excellent 360 degree Quicktime(tm) photos of the entire region on the official website for the Haughton-Mars project. Marc Boucher of spaceref.com is actually onsite at the base camp and will be reporting on events there over the next few months."

The attitude seems to be pragmatic -- if we want to go to Mars, we need to start building the infrastructure, make the public aware of the possibilities, demo Mars vehicles, etc.

Dr. DSP writes: "One of the primary Russian components of the International Space Station, the Zvezda module, is being scheduled for launch on July 12, and rendevous with the station on the 26th. The Zvezda module will serve as early living quarters for astro/cosmonauts. It contains the life support, electrical power distribution, data processing, flight control, and propulsion systems. The fact that the Russians have been late to launch this module is one of the largest problems NASA, and the space agencies of the other partner nations, has had to deal with since the project started. The fact that Zvezda is launching will be a sigh of relief for the international aerospace community. Read the press release at NASA's website."

IntelliTubbie writes: "In an 'unorthodox form of brand sponsorship,' RadioShack is teaming up with LunaCorp, a Virginia-based space exploration startup. The goal: put a robotic rover on the moon featuring the RadioShack logo. Artist's renderings of the monstrosity can be seen at LunaCorp's web site. We're one step closer to the eerie predictions in 'Fight Club': The IBM Stellar Sphere. Planet Starbucks. Yikes." Unfortunately the robot will be powered by a TRS-80 ModelII, requiring 14 extra tons of propellant (grin). More coverage can be found at Yahoo! and discovery.com; CMU is creating the H₂O-seeking robot for the mission. (More.)

And on a related note for anyone interested in going to the moon in the relatively near future, MrScience writes: "I just received a link for this job in my mailbox from Guru.com, a pretty decent headhunter website. They are looking for a Financial Analyst to evaluate the NASA Academy, and "The end result will be a recommendation that the program either *is* or *is not* beneficial, and the specific reasons to justify such a conclusion. This report will then go before the NASA Administrator to justify the existence (or removal) of the program." I grew up dreaming of going to this, who wouldn't after seeing SpaceCamp?" Pound foolish, anyone?

Thanks to all of the fine folks who contributed these updates, you are in for another illuminating, invigorating, inspiring round of fruity nuggets picked from the tree of wisdom, irradiated, waxed, polished, chilled, packaged and shipped (metaphorically) to your browser. Swallow two of these a week, call if symptoms recur.

Who needs an atmosphere? Xibalba writes "As a follow up story to the orbiting Web server, NASA already has an ftp server installed on UoSat-12 and has been sucessfully transferring images for the past week." Soon there should be no shortage of IP-addressable tin cans floating around space.

World domination, increment 00000003707391: xaniamud writes "NVidia have released version 0.93 of their OpenGL XFree86 drivers, check it out." Hopefully, nVidia is interested enough in selling video cards to the faithful to wipe it's nose clean of GPL violations, too.

This time, let's help DivX succeed ... Mike Hicks writes "An update to a previous story. FlashingYellow has combined with OpenCodex, and they now have a $10,000 prize along with an iMac DV for the first individual or group to produce an open source DivX ;-) plugin for Quicktime." Added to which, I will supply the second individual or group with a letterboxed DVD of Carlito's Way, Heat or The Godfather.

You may already be a winner! You may recall that Dr. Günter Bechly recently offered a $3000 incentive to the developers of KDE if the license under which KDE is released were amended such that it could be distributed with Debian's main (free) distribution.

Dr. Bechly has now withdrawn the offer, for the reasons he outlines below. He writes:

"Hello, I just wanted to let everybody know that KDE did not bother to send an official answer to my offer of a donation of $3000 in case that they fix their licence problems that currently prohibits an inclusion of KDE in Debian GNU/Linux. Just two people of the KDE camp answered at all, and both basically said that the licence change is impossible to do since there is too much code of third parties (including those who sent patches) involved who can hardly be traced. This is quite interesting, since in the past most KDE representatives claimed that the licence issue is moot since the requested exception clause in the licence is implicitly given due to the fact that the KDE programmers coded KDE-software for the QT-toolkit. Now they admit that they use a lot of GPL'ed code of non-KDE programmers which have never given such an implicit permission to link their GPL'ed code to QPL'ed libraries.

Just as a reminder: The issue is not how to use KDE with Debian (e.g. by adding the link site to apt-sources), but how to legally include KDE as free software in Debian main. The issue is also neither that KDE is indeed free software nor that QT is indeed free software, but the issue is that the two involved free licences (GPL versus QPL) are mutually incompatible, which makes any distribution of binaries of GPL'ed software that is linked to QT simply illegal! The KDE project obviously does not care at all that it violates the GPL licence of other peoples code. This is not only rude behaviour but simply unacceptable. I hoped that my offer would help to solve the problem, but the reaction or rather the non-reaction of KDE shows that this attempt failed, just like any other attempts to solve this issue before. Apparently KDE and the distributions that include KDE are relying on the mean consideration that private authors of free software will not take the finacial risk to sue them for their licence violation. Maybe the only hope for the final solution of the problem could be that one of these authors proves this consideration to be ill-founded!

Allegations that Debian is just using the licence issue as camouflage for their general dislike of KDE are absolutely unwarranted, since I got only very positive responses from the Debian camp including the Debian leadership. There is no doubt that Debian would happily include KDE as soon as the licence problems are solved. Anyway, it does not look like that is ever going to happen. KDE unfortunately has a long tradition in violating the free software spirit:

1.) It was founded by Matthias Ettrich who developed the very fine program Lyx, but then used the non-free toolkit xforms for its GUI, instead of e.g. using a free alternative like TCL/TK.

2.) When the KDE project was started, it was built on a non-free toolkit, too, since QT1.x was not under QPL or any other free (open source) licence. KDE attempted from the very beginning to become the standard desktop of Linux by using a non-free toolkit. They could not know that QT would later be forced by the outcry in free software community and the attempt to develop a free replacement (Harmony) to release QT2.x under an open source licence (which unfortunately is still not compatabile with GPL).

3.) When the free QT replacement Harmony was still in development (it achieved a rather advanced state!) the KDE project refused to agree to switch to this toolkit in the future and they even announced that they will incorporate any useful new features of future versions of QT, which made it impossible for Harmony to ever reach compatability.

4.) KDE had no problems in the change of the licence of kisdn, which was developed under GPL, and as soon as it was accomplished was transformed into shareware. I am quite certain that they did not ask all people who sent patches for their permission for this licence change!

5.) Finally, KDE is blatantly ignoring their constant violation of the GPL of other peoples software that is used in KDE (e.g. in kflopppy). To sum up: There is no other volunteer project in the Linux world that has shown so much disrespect and ignorance of the free software movement than KDE (just for the record: this is said by someone who used KDE since beta4 and once in a flamewar with Bruce Perens even strongly defended the KDE-project; sorry Bruce, I did you wrong!). Therefore, even though KDE is very nice and usable software, I will say goodbye to all KDE stuff and will now only use Gnome which is rapidly evolving into a comparably mature desktop environment (current Helix-Gnome is certainly as good as KDE 1.1, and forthcoming Gnome 2.0 with Nautilus will be on a level with KDE2 and konqueror). Even koffice will soon be made superflous by The Gimp, Sketch, Sodipodi, Gnumeric, Abiword, gcalender, etc. I hope that many will follow this migration from KDE to Gnome.

My offer of 3000,- $ will not be lost for free software and will now be given to Debian for an improvement of the Debian installer. Further details will be discussed with the Debian project.

With kind regards,
Dr. Günter Bechly

Dontcha love it when life imitates pundits? styopa writes "It seems that TurboLinux and Compaq Computing have announced an Alliance. Compaq will support TurboLinux on all of their platforms. Could this be the beginning of the end of TRU64?" Of course, this was carefully arranged to follow the recent story on Linux mergers, which now seems a bit more relevant. Of course, ZDNet had Compaq pegged for a date with Mandrake, but close enough.