Slashdot Mirror

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/news/stardust20110214d.html if you can't stand those damn add-infested pages. Also has better images.

Incidentally, I was just watching the remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and reading your post makes me think that probably a major 'Carrington Event' would probably do a good (?) lot more than just turning some gear into expensive junk.

It wouldn't burn the Earth or anything like that, but it'd certainly turn a lot of gear into expensive junk.

Granted, an event large enough to blow out transformers on the ground, as well as other infrastructure, would result in far more than a "little damage", but it wouldn't be an apocalypse.

NASA has an article on the Carrington Event that tries to put it into modern context. This is obviously something we should build our infrastructure to be able to handle (if possible), and I'm sure we will for at least 20 years after the next major event.

Yeah, just like we all died back in 2003.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/news20110111-corona-hole.html

more info...

Why print news about NASA missions as reported by somebody else?

Pretty picture here

Why print news about NASA missions as reported by somebody else?

Pretty picture here

"New View of Family Life in the North American Nebula"

2) Wouldn't the stable orbit ensure it is (almost) only catching objects with a similary orbit, hence similar speeds?

While that seems like a reasonable assumption at first thought, in fact it would only really be accurate if most of the junk was in the same orbit, and their orbits didn't cross the orbits of other junk in significantly different orbits. As these pictures show, this isn't the case - most of the stuff was launched at orbits with high inclinations to the equator. In other words, it doesn't zip around in nice straight lines... it literally zig-zags across the sky, in order to cover the largest possible amount of the earth's surface (e.g. real-time tracking showing the paths of satellites). That's good to have in a satellite, but bad to have in space trash. It's like a beehive up there.

Two objects moving at similar speeds can still have a pretty spectacular collision if they're moving at significantly large angles to each other.

This way, the ISS has an "emergency boat" or escape craft if something goes extremely wrong. Furthermore, as Apollo 13 showed us, it's good to have an extra "lifeboat" that the crew could evacuate to if there's a problem aboard the ISS that can't easily be fixed.

Amazingly enough, NASA has considered this problem.

Soyuz - better, faster, cheaper.

The press release was originally scheduled for Wednesday, so they'd have time to get the data down from the spacecraft, and generate the maps necessary for making the movies as if the camera were flying around the sun. Note at the bottom of the story:

http://geeked.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=5147

You'll be hearing much more about this from NASA and gogblog as we approach February 9.

Unfortunately, someone leaked to the press last week that the spacecraft would get 360 degree coverage, and so they moved up the press conference on Friday:

http://geeked.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=5321

NASA will release the new images at a press conference Sunday, Feb. 6, at 11 a.m. EST

The press release was originally scheduled for Wednesday, so they'd have time to get the data down from the spacecraft, and generate the maps necessary for making the movies as if the camera were flying around the sun. Note at the bottom of the story:

http://geeked.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=5147

You'll be hearing much more about this from NASA and gogblog as we approach February 9.

Unfortunately, someone leaked to the press last week that the spacecraft would get 360 degree coverage, and so they moved up the press conference on Friday:

http://geeked.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=5321

NASA will release the new images at a press conference Sunday, Feb. 6, at 11 a.m. EST

few links for you http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20030022661_2003025516.pdf http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/aerospike/compensation.shtml

This is the press release you are looking for: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/feb/HQ_11-030_Kepler_Update.html

5 Earth-sized *candidates* in the habitable zone. Not confirmed as planets, and not confirmed as habitable. But I seem to recall about 70% of the candidates are eventually confirmed as planets, so there is a good chance at least the 1st part will be true.

It would appear that the article linked to in TFS is actually a mashup of the press release you linked to and this one. Most of the numbers quoted in the article from TFS can be found in the press release at that link,

Hold up ... I've never heard anyone claim that it's the magnetic field which keeps hydrogen from escaping. AFAIK it's simple gravity which keeps our atmosphere in place. Given a large enough planetary body, I'm having a hard time imagining hydrogen atoms reaching escaping velocity, regardless of what kind of radiation they're being bombarded with. You got a source for that?

This is pretty well known. Here is one reference of many: "Our neighboring planet, Mars, which has little or no magnetic field, is thought to have lost much of its former oceans and atmosphere to space. This loss was caused, at least in part, by the direct impact of the solar wind on Mars' upper atmosphere. Our other close planetary neighbor, Venus, has no appreciable magnetic field, either. Venus is also thought to have lost nearly all of its water to space, in large part owing to solar wind-powered ablation."

It's not NASA's fault, the actual press release says nothing of the sort.

The NASA press release described a system of at least 6 larger -than-earth planets, all much closer to their sun than Earth is. Late in the release, they mention that "Kepler will continue conducting science operations until at least November 2012, searching for planets as small as Earth, including those that orbit stars in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist on the surface of the planet. Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is predicted to take at least three years to locate and verify an Earth-size planet. "

Then Michael Cooney appears to have invented from whole cloth the title, "NASA Kepler finds family of habitable, Earth-size planets". I do have to admit that the Slashdot title is pretty close to the Cooney source, but the article is... not even close to what it claims to be its source material.

That's the basis for science fiction's (And NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Project's) Warp Drive. The theory is sound, but it may be a long time, if ever, before we are able to engineer something that does this. Generating some form of negative energy is the tricky part, at the moment it's only a term in the abstractions that are quantum equations.

The parent comment was marked insightful with very little research.

Exhibit A: http://science.slashdot.org/story/08/11/10/0641226/Drive-From-Sydney-Museum-Could-Unlock-NASA-Moon-Data

Some helpful Australians are using the drives found in Perth in attempt to recover the data on moon dust.

Exhibit B: http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/articles/la-times-article-features-newest-lunar-images

Nancy Evans recovering lunar images from the FR-900 Ampex tapes.

Myth Busted.

Apparently those tools still exist, just had to be found and restored.

I'll leave the orbital mechanics to the astrophysicists.

I'll take a shot at it.

While you are right in saying that their orbital speeds are very close, that doesn't necessarilly mean that their velocities will be that close together. Even when you are just working in 2 dimensions the difference in speed between 30 km/s and 31 km/s could lead to a difference in velocity from 1 to 61 km/sec.

In addition that just gives you the V-inifinite, or the velocity when the mechanics switch over to predominantly be a two body problem between the asteroid and the Earth instead of a two-body problem between the Asteroid and the sun. At this point the asteroid has maximum potential energy. As the asteroid approaches the Earth it will continue to speed up until it is as close as it is going to get, at which point the relative velocities will be at their highest. As the asteroid leaves Earth's influence it will once again reach the speed of V-inf with respect to Earth, although it's speed with respect to the rest of the solar system will have changed. That's the basis of a slingshot maneuver.

Anyways, the Impact Risk Summary that the Near Earth Orbit Program made back in October 2009 estimated a V-infinity of 5.87 km/s and an impact velocity of 12.59 km/sec. The latest estimates have V-inf at 5.84 km/sec and the maximum relative speed at 7.42 km/s.

Let's say that we need 5 km/s to capture Apophis in our desired orbit. With a specific impulse of 450 s (similar to the space shuttle main engines) we'd need more than 3 times the mass of Apophis in propellant. Apophis has a mass of 2.7E10kg. We'd need more than 3 million space shuttle missions to lift all the propellant into lower-earth orbit.

I'll leave the orbital mechanics to the astrophysicists.

I'll take a shot at it.

While you are right in saying that their orbital speeds are very close, that doesn't necessarilly mean that their velocities will be that close together. Even when you are just working in 2 dimensions the difference in speed between 30 km/s and 31 km/s could lead to a difference in velocity from 1 to 61 km/sec.

In addition that just gives you the V-inifinite, or the velocity when the mechanics switch over to predominantly be a two body problem between the asteroid and the Earth instead of a two-body problem between the Asteroid and the sun. At this point the asteroid has maximum potential energy. As the asteroid approaches the Earth it will continue to speed up until it is as close as it is going to get, at which point the relative velocities will be at their highest. As the asteroid leaves Earth's influence it will once again reach the speed of V-inf with respect to Earth, although it's speed with respect to the rest of the solar system will have changed. That's the basis of a slingshot maneuver.

Anyways, the Impact Risk Summary that the Near Earth Orbit Program made back in October 2009 estimated a V-infinity of 5.87 km/s and an impact velocity of 12.59 km/sec. The latest estimates have V-inf at 5.84 km/sec and the maximum relative speed at 7.42 km/s.

Let's say that we need 5 km/s to capture Apophis in our desired orbit. With a specific impulse of 450 s (similar to the space shuttle main engines) we'd need more than 3 times the mass of Apophis in propellant. Apophis has a mass of 2.7E10kg. We'd need more than 3 million space shuttle missions to lift all the propellant into lower-earth orbit.

The U-2 is still active.

So is the SR-71.

You are a stupid fucktard.

Here's Richard Feynman's review of the Challenger disaster: http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/feynman.html
Here's the report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board: http://caib.nasa.gov/

The root causes are exactly the same. People in decision making roles totally unqualified to understand risks, no accountability. With sadly predictable effects.

With Challenger, the o-ring erosion was ignored despite the fact that they were never designed to erode.
With Columbia, the foam falling off was ignored despite the fact that it was never designed to fall off.

In both cases, it's the same fundamental problem.

So do yourself a favor and learn some critical thinking before making an ass of yourself.

the SRB were cast in pieces because it is impossible to cast and pour such a large amount of rocket propellant at once.

More likely, the preferred vendor (read Utah prok co.) found it impossible to cast such a large amount of propellant at once.
ref:


In the early 60's Aerojet and Thiokol both had test projects build a single monolithic (?) solid rocket motor for Saturn and follow on programs. Aerojet had some success in three tests. Thiokol blew theirs up.
The 260 - the Largest Solid Rocket Motor Tested
Space: Biggest Booster Yet" Time Magazine, Friday, Mar. 12, 1965

I think we live in a relatively large galaxy (at least, I heard it was in the process of swallowing up to smaller ones), so I don't think that would quickly be the case. Googled it:

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/001205a.html

Want to learn more about Arctic sea ice, look here.

Ah! Now that site is more what I'm talking about.

And, I note, a comparison of the images doesn't exactly hold up to the AGW claims, do they?

Plug in data from the North and South poles for both the Summer and Winter across the full time spectrum from 1979 to 2010.

The ice seems to morph and breathe. I note that in the Summer in the North, there appears to be a greater degree of melt than in 1979, but that in the Winter today, the ice sheets are actually more extensive in some areas than they were back then. Overall, however, ice sheet in square kilometers is certainly less extensive today.

But on the South pole, and here's where it gets interesting, nothing much seems to have changed.

So, is there climate change? Obviously. That's not in question, but those changes behave oddly. Why would green house gasses only affect the North pole?

Now, there are other theories which fit the observations, are less sound-bite simplistic, which are not politically motivated, which are far more compelling to people who know how to read and think objectively, -and which don't have anything to do with pollution.

And anyway, I still wanted to see some photographs! Graphics are okay, but they're still just graphics.

Should some scientist take the time to patch together multiple photos (assuming they even exist) just for you?

These satellites are flying on public funds, and Yes, of course those photos exist. That's what those satellites DO. They were put in orbit for the express purpose of taking pictures. You make it sound as though organizing those pictures is somehow considered by scientists to be too much trouble. That's silly.

And there are some spectacular images available!

I'd just like to see them organized by date so that I can look at them. That's all. It's not like these satellites don't fly over the same land masses every day as a basic function of their existence.

To be fair, there are some efforts to provide this information, though it is still frustrating to go through, (and that particular collection only documents one year).

-FL

Want to learn more about Arctic sea ice, look here.

Ah! Now that site is more what I'm talking about.

And, I note, a comparison of the images doesn't exactly hold up to the AGW claims, do they?

Plug in data from the North and South poles for both the Summer and Winter across the full time spectrum from 1979 to 2010.

The ice seems to morph and breathe. I note that in the Summer in the North, there appears to be a greater degree of melt than in 1979, but that in the Winter today, the ice sheets are actually more extensive in some areas than they were back then. Overall, however, ice sheet in square kilometers is certainly less extensive today.

But on the South pole, and here's where it gets interesting, nothing much seems to have changed.

So, is there climate change? Obviously. That's not in question, but those changes behave oddly. Why would green house gasses only affect the North pole?

Now, there are other theories which fit the observations, are less sound-bite simplistic, which are not politically motivated, which are far more compelling to people who know how to read and think objectively, -and which don't have anything to do with pollution.

And anyway, I still wanted to see some photographs! Graphics are okay, but they're still just graphics.

Should some scientist take the time to patch together multiple photos (assuming they even exist) just for you?

These satellites are flying on public funds, and Yes, of course those photos exist. That's what those satellites DO. They were put in orbit for the express purpose of taking pictures. You make it sound as though organizing those pictures is somehow considered by scientists to be too much trouble. That's silly.

And there are some spectacular images available!

I'd just like to see them organized by date so that I can look at them. That's all. It's not like these satellites don't fly over the same land masses every day as a basic function of their existence.

To be fair, there are some efforts to provide this information, though it is still frustrating to go through, (and that particular collection only documents one year).

-FL

Not to detract from your post, as I suspect it changes little, but there is a naturally occurring source of anti matter.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/fermi-thunderstorms.html

We've already tried once. I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Well, just like our economists forgetting the economics lessons of the past 80 to 100 years, now NASA is faced with budget cuts after the resulting spectacular economic failures. So, how does NASA respond? By apparently forgetting the engineering lessons of the past 80 to 100 years. Keyword apparently.

I've designed build space electronics, from launch vehicles to earth science instrumentation for low earth orbit, to weather and comm satellites for GEO and even cameras for planetary science missions, and I can tell you with certainty that the iPhone will not operate reliably at orbits much higher than ISS, and even there won't operate for very long. Take them to a very rad hard environment, like Jovian orbit, and they won't function at all. NASA knows this. And I doubt they've forgotten it. (Here is a good introduction on radiation effects, and this is a very good site for diving deep into the topic.)

Rather than assuming that they're idiots, I suspect that either a) they have a very select subset of missions for which they're considering consumer grade mobile phones (e.g., short duration low-inclination LEO missions), or 2) they're intentionally proposing a noncompliant technology for a mission for a reason, such as demonstrating the impossibility of the mission for the proposed price, or perhaps simply in protest of budget cuts.

I'd put my money on 1) but would not be surprised if 2) were true. I've seen it before.

The Voyagers have been travelling for 33 years and are still within the sun's heliosphere; they are 0.000632514353 light years away. Betelgeuse is 650 light years away.

There is no "subspace" or "warp drive"; Star Trek is fantasy. There is no such thing as "faster RF technology"; RF is the same speed no matter what kind of radio you use. It's that darned physics getting in the way again!

Because Antarctic ice has been melting at an accelerating rate for the past decade.

There are a couple of satellites which travel regular orbits enabling perfect pictures of Greenland and its glaciers.

They are the Terra satellite and the Aqua satellite.

Terra has been in orbit since 1999 and Aqua since 2002. They have taken some excellent, high-resolution images of Greenland and her ice sheets.

They are both in a perfect situation to take comparative images of the extent of glaciers and ice pack over the approximately 10 year period of their service. It would be quite easy to see just how much ice is and is not there in that given time frame. However, there is a problem. I can't find any images which show these comparisons. Why? It ought to be an obvious course of research. "How much ice is there today verses ten years ago?"

But that question isn't answered with direct photographic evidence.

Instead, we are offered fudge FUDD articles like this one, (widely quoted), based on squishy, confusing math.

Why can't we see some simple photos? I am told over and over that the glaciers are retreating. The ice packs are melting. Polar bears are drowning because the ice is vanishing so quickly. (One wonders why the bears did not just walk away from the water's edge. Greenland didn't sink. So maybe something else was going on. Like creative hysterical journalism perhaps?) But okay, the claims are that the ice is vanishing. Fair enough. I'm open to that. I've been open to that for the whole enthusiastic several-year ride I took on the Al Gore bandwagon. But enough is enough. Show me the pictures. We have the satellites in place, they take excellent images on a regular basis. So show them to me. We could all benefit from this very simple demonstration.

But we don't have those photos. (We do have some curious items like which seem to stand in stark contrast to the AGW narrative.)

But really, I'd like to see those satellite images from then and now. Why has nobody provided them?

Here's one theory:

Global Warming is a giant scam. A one-world-government tax scheme and distraction from what is REALLY going on.

Yes, before you argue, climate change is certainly happening. There is no question about that. But the problem is a LOT more complicated than just CO2 emissions. Consider. . .

1. It's happening not just on earth. (Notice the brand new giant spot on Jupiter? What convenient timing.)

2. Animals are freezing to death in places where this doesn't normally happen. Vietnamese cows. Fish in many parts of the world are dying because they find the water too cold. Even people in India are being hit with weird cold snaps. It is suggested that we are entering another ice-age.

3. Magnetic north is rapidly sliding out of the norm. The airport in Tampa FL just repainted its runway markers to catch up with the change.

4. Greenland experienced its first sunrise after the longest night two days too early. [..]on january 13th (13 minutes before 13:00) of each year, the people of Ilulissat go to welcome back the sun after months of darkness." It's clocked to the exact same minute every year. This year it was off by two days. That's odd. --And of course, the AGW people have quickly leaped to blame the melting ice sheets, saying that with the ice sheets melted down, the sun would of course be seen earlier. But there is a problem with that theory. The Sun's appearance isn't measured over something as changeable as ice. It is measured over rock and ocean. So what might be the real reason? Well, here's an idea which doesn't requ

There are a couple of satellites which travel regular orbits enabling perfect pictures of Greenland and its glaciers.

They are the Terra satellite and the Aqua satellite.

Terra has been in orbit since 1999 and Aqua since 2002. They have taken some excellent, high-resolution images of Greenland and her ice sheets.

They are both in a perfect situation to take comparative images of the extent of glaciers and ice pack over the approximately 10 year period of their service. It would be quite easy to see just how much ice is and is not there in that given time frame. However, there is a problem. I can't find any images which show these comparisons. Why? It ought to be an obvious course of research. "How much ice is there today verses ten years ago?"

But that question isn't answered with direct photographic evidence.

Instead, we are offered fudge FUDD articles like this one, (widely quoted), based on squishy, confusing math.

Why can't we see some simple photos? I am told over and over that the glaciers are retreating. The ice packs are melting. Polar bears are drowning because the ice is vanishing so quickly. (One wonders why the bears did not just walk away from the water's edge. Greenland didn't sink. So maybe something else was going on. Like creative hysterical journalism perhaps?) But okay, the claims are that the ice is vanishing. Fair enough. I'm open to that. I've been open to that for the whole enthusiastic several-year ride I took on the Al Gore bandwagon. But enough is enough. Show me the pictures. We have the satellites in place, they take excellent images on a regular basis. So show them to me. We could all benefit from this very simple demonstration.

But we don't have those photos. (We do have some curious items like which seem to stand in stark contrast to the AGW narrative.)

But really, I'd like to see those satellite images from then and now. Why has nobody provided them?

Here's one theory:

Global Warming is a giant scam. A one-world-government tax scheme and distraction from what is REALLY going on.

Yes, before you argue, climate change is certainly happening. There is no question about that. But the problem is a LOT more complicated than just CO2 emissions. Consider. . .

1. It's happening not just on earth. (Notice the brand new giant spot on Jupiter? What convenient timing.)

2. Animals are freezing to death in places where this doesn't normally happen. Vietnamese cows. Fish in many parts of the world are dying because they find the water too cold. Even people in India are being hit with weird cold snaps. It is suggested that we are entering another ice-age.

3. Magnetic north is rapidly sliding out of the norm. The airport in Tampa FL just repainted its runway markers to catch up with the change.

4. Greenland experienced its first sunrise after the longest night two days too early. [..]on january 13th (13 minutes before 13:00) of each year, the people of Ilulissat go to welcome back the sun after months of darkness." It's clocked to the exact same minute every year. This year it was off by two days. That's odd. --And of course, the AGW people have quickly leaped to blame the melting ice sheets, saying that with the ice sheets melted down, the sun would of course be seen earlier. But there is a problem with that theory. The Sun's appearance isn't measured over something as changeable as ice. It is measured over rock and ocean. So what might be the real reason? Well, here's an idea which doesn't requ

Just some clarifications... (and no, I'm not the AC)

...I submit to you that the angle from the ground to cockpit at that distance is probably in the 10 degree range.

I'm just being nit-picky. I looked up KSEA's approaches. The glidepath (depending on the runway) varies from 2.75 degrees to 3.00 degrees. Not quite 10 degrees.

Many laser incidents, according to ASRS, have occured during the landing phase when the aircraft is "inside" the Final Approach Fix--generally less than five nautical miles from the runway threshold. This is typically a point where the aircraft is approximately 1,500 feet above ground traveling at approximately 130 to 150 knots. Y'all are smart, you can figure out the MPH. It's only a matter of moments before ground contact if directional control is compromised.

...maintain contact with the runway lighting system...

Well, sort of. 14 CFR 91.175 gives the instrument-rated pilot a laundry list of options, but to over-simplify it, if you can't see something that defines the runway, you can't land there.

Remember we are in the plane with you, and we have just as much interest in going home to our families as you do.

I've used that same response when asked, "Where are the parachutes?" by our most skittish infrequent fliers.

Oh, I didn't read them all, but I didn't notice a report of a red laser in the cockpit. The majority of them are reported as being green.

Now, on a personal note, I have never seen a laser cross my cockpit. However, I have been struck by lightning twice (each time during the day) and it is incredibly blinding if you happen to be looking straight at the discharge. I realize this is apples and oranges in terms of candlepower, but the point is that it is surprising, and it will "reset" your night vision if the intensity is enough to adjust the iris. I could easily see the flying pilot being forced to transfer control of the aircraft to the non-flying pilot--a potentially reportable incident to the NTSB.

except at night when most of those plants *produce* CO2 to respire just like everything else.

While growing its still a net CO2 sequestration. Sort of on topic but also interesting:
"A new NASA computer modeling effort has found that additional growth of plants and trees in a world with doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide levels would create a new negative feedback – a cooling effect – in the Earth's climate system that could work to reduce future global warming."
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/cooling-plant-growth.html

Only plants which tie the CO2 up in wood or which get burried and turned into oil take more out of the atmostphere than they put back.

I believe plants have some direct uses beyond wood and there is also the potential for things like plastic precursors (eliminating another need for petroleum).
"Now, in a first step toward achieving industrial-scale green production, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energys (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators at Dow AgroSciences report engineering a plant that produces industrially relevant levels of compounds that could potentially be used to make plastics."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101108140638.htm

So just "plants" isn't good enough. it has to be the right plants.

In general I think it is plants that are in a growth phase, not necessarily particular species.

According to this: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats/nanosaild.html the beacons they asked amateur radio operators to listen for have been received and the satellite appears to be operating normally.

You have an artificial guilt complex like so many that follow religions.

No, I have an understanding of science, the ability to read and analyse for myself, and the capacity to think beyond my own selfish ends - both in the present and extrapolated to mine, and my descendents' futures.

The hard facts

Oh dear, here we go again...

that the arctic summer holes are now closing

Are you talking about ozone? Because that has absolutely nothing to do with climate.

If you're talking about arctic sea ice, you're completely wrong.

the south pole overall has been cooling for over 30 years

Wrong. On average, antarctic monitoring stations on land have seen warming. The ocean temperatures around antarctica are absolutely clear.

You may be confused because antarctic ice is thickening. That's entirely consistent with predictions, though. A warmer planet does not mean everywhere changes in the same way. Warm air causes more evaporation from oceans, and more precipitation in places (in the case of the antarctic, more snow makes thicker ice). However, that gain is nothing compared to losses elsewhere.

You simply cannot extrapolate from individual local phenomena to the global climate, you have to look at the entire picture, which is very clear.

This article explains the science well:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Why-is-Antarctic-sea-ice-increasing.html

that sea level rise has been going on for thousands of years since the last ice age

That's a logical fallacy. One cause (the end of an ice age) having resulted in sea level rise in the past does not discount another cause (anthropogenic emissions) resulting in sea level rise now.

If you're actually interested in educating yourself (which I'm starting to doubt) the NYT ran an accessible feature that got the science right last November:

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/science/earth/14ice.html

that more glaciers are growing than retreating

Categorically wrong. There are always localised fluctuations, but globally, we're losing glacier mass at an astonishing rate.

that mount killimanjaro's ice shrinkage is entirely a local phenomenon driven by land use

Remember what I said about local fluctuations? Look at the global picture and open your eyes. Possible localised causes around KMJ do nothing to change the extremely clear pattern of global glacier loss due to temperature rise.

are lost on you because you have a self-destructive and society-destructive false belief, fueled by hucksters with an agenda for money and power, in the "sin" of man using his mind to better his life.

Way to open and close with an ad-hominem.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/multimedia/images/kepler10_1.html Has gotta be the NASA version of photoshop On the other hand, for all the gazillions of dollars going into this project, they seem to have outsourced web design and layout to some undergrads, so maybe the same people did the image

Agreed!
It's natural to imagine that we are the end product of some grand plan, but if you stand back a little, it's hard to believe this whole thing was constructed for our 'benefit'.

After all, we live in the 30 per-cent dry part of the crust of a small planet, going around a medium-small star in the suburbs of our galaxy, which is just one of billions.

We're made of a type of matter which only constitutes 4.6 per-cent of the matter/energy in the universe; the rest of which we can't understand or even see.

We breath the corrosive waste gas of plants and can only live in a narrow range of temperatures. We can't even drink the salt water that covers most of our planet.

While the fact that we are here is a 100% probability (since we're here) we're an afterthought of a fluke.

A black hole does not have a larger volume inside than out.

Wrong.

It is extremely dense. Infinitely dense, in fact.

Given that black holes have finite mass, yet "almost infinite" volume according to the link, one would actually have very low density. However, that's a matter of semantics, and it might be more meaningful to define a black hole's density as the volume of space cut out by the event horizon and imagined to be flat. In that case the density would be high, but still finite. Or you could define density as the density of the singularity, which we are sadly yet unable to calculate, not having a theory that combines General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics.

We can easily see its effects through gravitational lensing. We know much about its characteristics.

You can see a black hole through gravitational lensing if there happens to be something suitable behind it to lense and if the hole is big enough, relative to its distance.

Dark matter also produces such lensing, but it is observably different because dark matter is not dense and point-like, as are black holes.

Black holes are not point-like. Their singularities may be, but that's unlikely; in any case, that doesn't affect their gravitational lensing effects.

Black holes are not inconsistent with quantum mechanics and relativity.

Seeing how General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are inconsistent with each other (GR assuming a flat spacetime and QM making one impossible due to the Uncertainty Principle), it is impossible for black holes to be consistent with both. In fact, what happens in a black holes singularity is one of the questions beyond current physics ability to explain.

This inconsistency is what String Theory and other quantum gravity theories are trying to bridge.

Your understanding of physics and black holes is deeply flawed.

There's something to say about pots and kettles here :).

In my experience neither GRID nor Cloud computing is a good fit for these things, mostly because the data handling is very bandwidth/storage intensive and requires usually a very specialized software stack.

On a generic GRID or Cloud solution these are usually not available or easy to install/run/debug.

It doesn't have to be that way.
http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://nebula.nasa.gov/

In my experience neither GRID nor Cloud computing is a good fit for these things, mostly because the data handling is very bandwidth/storage intensive and requires usually a very specialized software stack.

On a generic GRID or Cloud solution these are usually not available or easy to install/run/debug.

It doesn't have to be that way.
http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://nebula.nasa.gov/

Meant to use this link to mention about the Moon having a liquid core.

Aside from the fact that I've never seen evidence of a galaxy without a dark matter halo, the Bullet Cluster has two opposing lobes of dark matter, indicating that each galaxy in the collision had a dark matter halo that flew right through the other dark matter halo. Another similar collision also has opposing two lobes of dark matter. If a collision is ever observed with only a single lobe of dark matter, that would be consistent with our hypothesis. (Though the other objections I raised would still apply.)

What is the form of the dark matter?

Assuming it exists at all. There is much circumstantial evidence but some argue no direct proof yet (though NASA believe the have proof). Still this excerpt from NASA seems to imply that dark matter does not interact with matter except through gravity.

"The hot gas in this collision was slowed by a drag force, similar to air resistance. In contrast, the dark matter was not slowed by the impact, because it does not interact directly with itself or the gas except through gravity. "

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/aug/HQ_06297_CHANDRA_Dark_Matter.html

No, I guess the consensus view then was that the globe was uncontrollably cooling due to man's pollution.

In the face of predictions of global cooling, scientists predicted that CO2 would become the driving factor in global temperatures. It looks like they were right.

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere behave much like the glass panes in a greenhouse. That was easy.

I don't think the EPA has done you any favours by dumbing it down like this. Greenhouses work by preventing convective heat transfer. The greenhouse effect works because the atmosphere is partly opaque to ultraviolet and infrared while it is transparent to visible light. It was shown in 1906 that the greenhouse effect is not primarily responsible for heating greenhouses. Based on your misunderstanding, I can see why you were skeptical.

Greenhouse effect is a unproven theory that lies at the heart of AGW. I'm telling you it's just a theory just like AGW is, and you should avoid calling it fact when it is not.

There are technologies based on the radiative properties of CO2. The theory has not been successfully challenged for 180 years. You will need to show that the theory is flawed and that giants like Fourier were wrong. Simply repeating "there is no such thing" is not sufficient given the mountains of evidence supporting it. You have shown that you don't understand what 'it' is by assuming that it is responsible for heating greenhouses. You are a long way from understanding it let alone proving it false.

You actually quoted me and then went on to not answer the question? You cannot falsify it, can you? Doesn't that make you question the theory? Why not answer that simple question?

If temperatures had gone down instead of up then the scientists in the 1970's who said that CO2 would become the driving factor in global climate would have been provably wrong. It turns out they were not.

The 70's were 0.03C wamer than the 60's. The 80's 0.18C warmer than the 70's. The 90's 0.12C warmer than the 80's. The 2000's 0.24C warmer than the 90's. This is exactly consistent with the theory.

Citation please.

Sure thing. I see by the link you provided that you are confused between US temperatures and global temperatures. For global temperatures you will need to go here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt. You will need to sum the monthly anomalies for each decade and divide by 120. Warming didn't stop in the last decade. The last decade was 0.24C warmer than the one before it.

But really, you need to provide links to the sources of your information, I'm not going to just take your word for it. If you can't do that than this is sort of pointless.

The data is available. I encourage you to leverage it. There are certain special interest groups on both sides that would cherry pick in order to present a picture that confirms their preconceptions. You seem to be vilifying the special interest groups on one side and accepting the other. My advise would be to ignore them both and go straight to the data. Don't listen to the WWF or the think tanks, listen to the science. The truth is in the middle.

NASA's goals for a 2030-era aircraft, compared with an aircraft entering service today, are:

A 71-decibel reduction below current Federal Aviation Administration noise standards, which aim to contain objectionable noise within airport boundaries.

A greater than 75 percent reduction on the International Civil Aviation Organization's Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection Sixth Meeting, or CAEP/6, standard for nitrogen oxide emissions, which aims to improve air quality around airports.

A greater than 70 percent reduction in fuel burn performance, which could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the cost of air travel. The ability to exploit metroplex concepts that enable optimal use of runways at multiple airports within metropolitan areas, as a means of reducing air traffic congestion and delays.

There's also an image gallery link for more concept art and some PDF-converted presentations from Boeing, GE, MIT and Northrop Grumman.

Actually it looks like the Lockheed proposal is two-engined. I posted this comment downthread, but there's a pretty good chance it'll just get buried down there, so I thought I'd post it here too.

Here's a larger picture. Notice how the engine is mounted on a fin that does not emerge vertically from the tail of the aircraft. The engine mount comes out of the fuselage at an angle, and then curves up towards the vertical through the space occupied by the engine. If you look at the bottom of the fuselage, you can just make out the edge of a second engine's bluish cowling. It's mounted on the other side, also angled out from the aircraft, but almost completely obscured by the fuselage because of the point of view of the image.

I don't think they chose a very good camera angle for showing off the concept.

Actually, I don't think it does.

Here's a larger picture. Notice how the engine is mounted on a fin that does not emerge vertically from the tail of the aircraft. The engine mount comes out of the fuselage at an angle, and then curves up towards the vertical through the space occupied by the engine. If you look at the bottom of the fuselage, you can just make out the edge of a second engine's bluish cowling. It's mounted on the other side, also angled out from the aircraft, but largely obscured by the point of view of the image.

I don't think they chose a very good camera angle for showing off the concept.

Those are them nutjobs thinking that the climate is changing, and that it's our fault. Now they want us to fly "energy efficient" airplanes. That's code for socialist airplanes! And they'll probably be serving vegan food on them as well. Don't fall for it!