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http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

But I don't know for sure.

> True, Dark Matter, like Dark Energy, is just a placeholder name for something that we _think_ is there.

FTFY.

Probably will get modded down, but if you "knew" it, then you would be able to prove it exists. Since no one has seen it, touched it, tasted it, smelt it, or felt it, therefore it is a mathematical kludge, aka, the aether of the 1900s. (Yes, I'm aware of http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/aug/HQ_06297_CHANDRA_Dark_Matter.html )

Ergo, while said more politely, "it falls out of the math", which will allthough appear quite reasonable at first, given the current limitations of understanding gravity / light / mass & energy, it is still one a big hack-job based on one assumption after another, namely:
  a) that there is only one type of gravity and
  b) gravity is universal (which is a little preposterous / pretentious to base how the WHOLE universe works based on one tiny little planet.)
  c) redshift is accurate (ARP has interesting evidence that calls into question this assumption)

This prof. provides a half-decent summary though:
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/1999/ph123/lec08.html

200F surface temperature on Mars? Try 70F on a really hot day:

http://quest.nasa.gov/aero/planetary/mars.html
http://www.ehow.com/about_4610050_what-mars-highest-temperature.html
http://www.universetoday.com/35664/temperature-of-the-planets/

This page claims 90F but that is speculation, and is still way shy of 200F:

http://www.astronomy.com/en/sitecore/content/Home/News-Observing/Astronomy%20Kids/2008/03/Mars.aspx

when they're prolly going to announce that a water-ice meteorite had been discovered, that also brought extraterrestrial life with it.

NASA press release

I was looking at the photos and was thinking about the wing size. "That's because they fly very fast because they re-enter the asmosphere really fast." But then I thought "why do they need to re-enter that fast? Surely they could use the atmosphere to slow themselves down, and enter at a much slower, cooler and more relaxed pace." Then I thought "well maybe the gravity has a fair amount of time to act on the craft before the atmosphere really begins, therefore giving plenty of opportunity for speed, well before a viable way to slow down"

Am I right? Does someone have a better explaination?

Here's a link with the basics: Nasa's Landing 101

When the shuttle de-orbits, it fires it's engines in the opposite direction to it's orbit's travel to slow it's forward velocity, which is several magnitudes faster than ground speed (17239.2MPH for the ISS). At this point, the shuttle's inertia stops counteracting the pull of gravity, and the shuttle starts "Falling", like swinging a bucket full of water around on a string, then slowing down the rotation.

Given that there is no atmosphere at this height, the shuttle can accelerate (at 9.81m/s^2) to speeds well in excess of "terminal velocity" as there is no drag to slow it. It typically hits the atmosphere (80 miles up) after 30 minutes of freefall, travelling at speeds of at least twice the speed of sound.

The orbiter then uses it's aerodynamic profile to control its descent, making a series of sharply banking turns to brake it's speed as it descends through the atmosphere, the friction of the air moving against the underside of the orbiter heating the heatproof ceramic tiles up to white hot.

So, here's the answer to you question is "Because gravity has been pulling them down for half an hour before they even hit the atmosphere". In theory, they could use retro thrusters to brake their descent before they hit the atmosphere (Like the Apollo missions did with their lunar landers), but as that would take immense amounts of fuel (close to that required for blast-off) it would make the orbiter's payload capacity virtually nil. Therefore it is easier for them to take the descent into the atmosphere with the best high-speed aerodynamics they can, using the friction of wind resistance to slough off the excess speed, trading it for heat that can be dealt with as they aerodynamically slow their descent and approach the ground at a safe speed.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/08nov_iswi/

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/26oct_solarshield/

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/16jul_ilws/

etc..

When more than just programming glitches happen...

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/08nov_iswi/

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/26oct_solarshield/

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/16jul_ilws/

etc..

When more than just programming glitches happen...

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/08nov_iswi/

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/26oct_solarshield/

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/16jul_ilws/

etc..

When more than just programming glitches happen...

After the disaster in 1986, everyone knew about the role of Utah's senators in the disaster - but as you say, it's hard to find now. Between the fact that much data from that era was never put online, and possibly some gaming of search results to steer searchers elsewhere, I don't see anything now. I imagine that certain rocket companies in Utah would prefer that no one knew about that.

Apocryphal. Here's the lowdown: Chapter VI: An Accident Rooted in History from the Report of the PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident.

Summary: Thiokol copied the successful Titan segmented design, won the contract due to the low cost, redesigned the seal in a way that eliminated the redundancy (now relying only on an o-ring and asbestos putty), told NASA to launch only at 53F and above, warned NASA again, got ignored by NASA, boom.

After the disaster in 1986, everyone knew about the role of Utah's senators in the disaster - but as you say, it's hard to find now. Between the fact that much data from that era was never put online, and possibly some gaming of search results to steer searchers elsewhere, I don't see anything now. I imagine that certain rocket companies in Utah would prefer that no one knew about that.

Apocryphal. Here's the lowdown: Chapter VI: An Accident Rooted in History from the Report of the PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident.

Summary: Thiokol copied the successful Titan segmented design, won the contract due to the low cost, redesigned the seal in a way that eliminated the redundancy (now relying only on an o-ring and asbestos putty), told NASA to launch only at 53F and above, warned NASA again, got ignored by NASA, boom.

Because there are dishes on the ground perfectly capable of doing that job that don't cost nearly as much.

Actually, there are not many antennas bigger than that one. It is roughly the size of one of these puppies. The only bigger antenna I know of would be the one at the Arecibo observatory.

On the other hand, you're probably right, as the space agencies would now use arrays of little antennas to look out into space.

(That monster must be sensitive as hell, those 70 metre antennas have been used to communicate with far away probes that had problems with their high gain antennas, imagine the sensitivity of one of those just 20000 KM away)

Well, we could have had the Ares V, which would have lifted 200 tons to LEO, but Obama canceled it. Of course, since Obama is the anointed one, we all have to pretend this is a good thing and spout rhetoric like, "Ares was expensive"

The Ares V was a bait-and-switch. You spend the big bucks for the Ares V and you get... the Ares I. There were numerous deep problems with the program, but this was one of the biggest. You didn't actually get development towards an Ares V until many years into development.

Second, the Ares I is a redundant rocket (which duplicates the Delta IV Heavy and near future Atlas V Heavy). This was the reason I opposed the Ares program almost from the day it was announced. NASA has a terrible record (mainly from the 70s through 90s) of killing competition when it's allowed to interfere or compete with commercial companies. It would be extremely unhealthy to allow NASA to compete with the 20-25 ton launch vehicles that we currently have. IMHO, the first competitive victim was the separate Delta and Atlas launch groups which were merged into the United Launch Alliance (ULA) at the end of 2006. If NASA had announced it were aggressively using the Delta IV and Atlas V for manned missions, then it is my belief that this merger wouldn't have occurred. As a final remark on this point, supposed through the beginning of 2010, NASA spent $9 billion on the Constellation program. That money would have been enough to pay for roughly 20 Delta IV Heavy launches. Of course, NASA would have needed to spend money on a crew vehicle and "man-rating" the Delta IV Heavy (my understanding is that they'd be about a billion dollars each to do), but they could have been a hell of a lot further along in a real space program, if they had chosen the Delta IV Heavy as the manned vehicle. The Atlas V Heavy was that far off either. They probably could have had two manned vehicles in the Ares I range by now for the money spent on Constellation development.

Third, the choice of the ATK (a brand of Alliant Techsystems) solid rocket motor (SRM) for the first stage led to numerous very serious engineering problems. First, there was the problem of thrust oscillation. The rocket had an oscillation mode close to the frequency of eddies in the rocket chamber in the SRM. The Shuttle also had to worry about this mode, but it had a clever mechanism (the way the solid rocket boosters were attached to the rest of the Shuttle "stack") that damped those vibrations. The Ares I couldn't use that mechanism because the SRM was in line with the rest of the rocket rather than attached tenuously on the side. The program was fixable, but only by adding mass to the rocket and cutting into the performance of the overall system.

There was also the problem of no room to expand. The first stage was made as large as it possibly could. There was no way to make it longer or wider (the length was structurally as far as they could push it, the width was limited by how wide the booster could be and still squeeze through a particular train tunnel). These two issues, plus the inability to develop a cheap, disposable Space Shuttle main engine (SSME) meant that the rocket was over successive revisions experiencing a gradual decline in designed performance. This led to numerous redesigns of the Orion capsule. A big culprit of these redesigns was bad management. The Apollo program also had problems with people not meeting their specifications. They put it together seamlessly because the various managers and designers (particularly, Wernher von Braun and the Marshal Space Flight Center team) anticipated these problems and had the freedom to overengineer their systems. This chapter describes a key choice:

Rosen apparently took the lead in pressing for the fifth engine, consistent with his obstinate push for a "big rocket." The MSFC contingent during the meetings included Wi

Oh you mean the ozone that protects everyone here on earth is suddenly gone when flying?

No, the ozone isn't gone, but you are flying partly outside of its protection. At ground level, the entire atmosphere offers you maximum protection from cosmic radiation. The higher you go, the more you'll get, and aircraft aluminum has little to no shielding effect.

The "ozone layer" is not something like a Star Trek shield that offers 100% protection from everything until it suddenly vanishes. Protection from cosmic radiation is offered because the Earth has a very thick atmosphere and most (not all) cosmic radiation is absorbed into that atmosphere at various levels. While it is true that the actual ozone layer offers a lot of the protection, the rest of the atmosphere plays a significant role, and the higher up you go the more your exposure to radiation.

Fortunately, even at 50,000 feet, it's not a massive megadose of radiation, but if you fly a whole lot (like, say, a pilot), it's something you need to be aware of.

I have heard lots of people saying that but absolutely no science to back that statement up.

According to the EPA, radiation exposure on a cross-country flight is 2-5 millirem(1). The World Health Organization agrees with that number (2). The FAA has a web page dedicated to the levels of exposure for their pilots (3). NASA is even more concerned about the radiation exposure on polar flights, where protection is even weaker (4).

(1): http://www.epa.gov/radtown/cosmic.html
(2): http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/env/cosmic/en/
(3): http://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/aeromedical/radiobiology/reports/
(4): http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/AGU-NAIRAS.html

If you mistrust scientists and want to see the science for yourself, carry a radiation dosimeter on your next flight (provided you buy one that measures in millirem or lower) and test it for yourself.

When we look at faults around the world, we see them storing up that energy. So when we first put markers in the ground and measured the position of the Midwestern fault lines we were surprised that we didn’t see any motion at New Madrid. We concluded that there’s no sign that a big earthquake is on the way.

I'm not a geologist so I'm very confused, if something is 'storing up energy' how does moving around equate to that? I mean, if the moving of the ground in violent ways is the releasing of that 'stored energy' then how is small movements indications that it's storing up energy? I would assume that the worse earthquake areas are those when there's a lot of movement going on deep underground but nothing on the surface releasing that energy until a very devastating movement.

So from the Wikipedia article:

The lack of apparent land movement along the New Madrid fault system has long puzzled scientists. In 2009 two studies based on eight years of GPS measurements indicated that the faults were moving at no more than 0.2 millimetres (0.0079 in) a year. This contrasts to the rate of slippage on the San Andreas Fault which averages up to 37 millimetres (1.5 in) a year across California.

Can somebody who knows a lot about this stuff explain to me why we are so sure that a lack of movement in GPS measurements indicate no potential earthquake? My intuition would guess that no movement is not a good indicator either way unless we've figured out how to drive GPS receivers down into the faults themselves and retrieve that information. I think they're just ground stations that are taking these GPS measurements, right?

What about the northern earthquakes? Do GPS stations up there report tiny movements in the crusts leading up to those earthquakes? I'm just curious if it's possible that you're dealing with different kinds of faults when comparing the San Andreas fault line versus the Ramapo fault line versus the New Madrid fault line.

What we’re learning is that faults switch on and off. They will be active for a thousand years or so, and then inactive for several thousand years. And then other faults may become active. From a scientific standpoint, that’s the really exciting thing we’ve learned from New Madrid. It has been the key to the door that opened up a whole new understanding about how faults inside continents work.

This sounds, at best, questionable or highly fitted to very recent events that we've had the privilege to watch. It's difficult to look over long swaths of time historically when our precision instruments for measuring are a very recent thing compared to the age of the crust. I'm not arguing for the spending of billions in the mid-west but I'm not sold on a single expert's opinion, is this consensus in the geological community?

NASA's page is good, see the last 3 paragraphs under the title "surface of last scattering"

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_cmb.html

then could read the whole page from the beginning, good stuff.

here is a hi-res photo of the "dark matter" lensing.

Thanks, that picture is much better. I can see the dark matter up there in the corner now. ;-)

But seriously, since we can't see dark matter why would they post a picture of, well, non-dark matter?

TFA is firewalled off, but I found a better FA -- straight from NASA's JPL. here is a hi-res photo of the "dark matter" lensing.

TFA is firewalled off, but I found a better FA -- straight from NASA's JPL. here is a hi-res photo of the "dark matter" lensing.

Uhh, don't forget Genesis:

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

Sure, it had a hairy reentry/recovery, but it certainly recovered samples from the inner Solar System. These were likely attributable to the Sun or were of interstellar origin.

--joe.

Now they are sure, making this the first time a sample has been collected from the surface of an asteroid (and only the second time a sample has been returned from a celestial object, the first being the Moon missions).

Not exactly. Unless you don't consider comets "celestial objects."

If you look at the nasa mars airplane web page: http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/, there is no mention of 'hunting for life'. The whole search for life on mars story is just for the proles and the media.

I remember reading about something this in Aviation Week long, long ago.

[Engage google drive... grognard factor two...]

Aha, here we go. Aerovironment, Inc., actually tested a concept model of a drone glider for use in Martian conditions in 1999.. And according to that link, previous work had been done as early as 1996, but I didn't read it closely enough to note who built that one.

Considering that even if we could provide Mars settlers a completely self-sufficient and regenerating biosphere, there's still the issue of our bodies being very poorly adapted for Mars's low gravity. IMNAEB (I Am Not An Evolutionary Biologist), but I really doubt we could live for many years (and reproduce) will such an abrupt change in gravity. Considering the harsh effects micro-gravity has on human physiology (see http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast02aug_1/ ), I don't think we'd make it.

I'm betting with the Singularitians; wait another 3-4 decades and it'll be easy to go there "in silico."

With a European Ariane 5 rocket. http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/launch.html

This one's on APOD: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap101110.html

The first X-15 flight was an unpowered test flight by Scott Crossfield, on 8 June 1959; he also piloted the first powered flight, on 17 September 1959, with his first XLR-99 flight on 15 November 1960. Twelve test pilots flew the X-15; among them were Neil Armstrong (first man to walk on the moon) and Joe Engle (a space shuttle commander). In July and August 1963, pilot Joe Walker crossed the 100 km altitude mark, joining the NASA astronauts and Soviet Cosmonauts as the only humans to have crossed the barrier into outer space (Soviet Yuri Gagarin was the first person in space, reaching 327 km in apogee of his orbital flight, while Alan Shepard was the first American in space, reaching 187 km during suborbital flight) and becoming the first to exceed this threshold twice.

Yet the Soviets had a man in space in 1961, and had launched a satellite in 1957.

Here's around the same time in IR, but for a longer duration (~900 KB gif). Quite a bit easier to see.

Source: http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/goeswest-lzw/california/ir5/ 1011081645G11I05.tif 08-Nov-2010 12:02 to 1011090100G11I05.tif 08-Nov-2010 20:24

I'd be modding you up if I hadn't already posted above.

People like ThePhish and DrugCheese are so certain that they can trust their eyes. But they're wrong. Our visual cortex is wired to parse perspective for things on a much smaller scale. Things on the scale of this object confuse the eye, and the mind. You can't trust your eyes in this situation.

For instance, these lines are all parallel lines, but they certainly don't look like it, and if you saw them in person you'd swear they were all originating from a point on the horizon... as if God were standing over there in all his glory. But they aren't.

I'm sorely disappointed that so many smart people on /. are failing to question the assumption that the object is a missile.

http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/goeswest-lzw/california/vis/ [nasa.gov]

Start at
1011081945G11I01.tif 08-Nov-2010 15:03 506K
and watch the contrail south across the coast through
1011082200G11I01.tif 08-Nov-2010 17:23 484K

I think I found it:

http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/goeswest-lzw/california/vis/

Start at
1011081945G11I01.tif 08-Nov-2010 15:03 506K
and watch the contrail go south across the coast through
1011082200G11I01.tif 08-Nov-2010 17:23 484K

JPL's new Eyes on the Solar System has a 3D+time simulation of most current spacecraft including the approach of Deep Impact (EPOXI) to Hartley 2.

JPL's new Eyes on the Solar System has a 3D+time simulation of most current spacecraft including the approach of Deep Impact (EPOXI) to Hartley 2.

You forgot about R2. This *IS* the droid you're looking for:
http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/default.asp

When assembly is complete with STS-134 and the addition of the AMS experiment, the validity of the question will be equivalent to asking if the Alaska purchase was worth it.

Again, no disrespect, this is honest curiosity. Would you care to list the names of some of those JAVA GUI programs that you used that you thought were great and that were not compromising on performance?

Sure, but it depends on what you mean by "compromising on performance" which is an imprecise and marketing type phrase. I prefer applications that are fast enough to get the job for which it was designed to do done, with responsiveness being one of the factors.

The applications I use are in house, but I can refer you to some elements that form the basis of some of the apps I use. Unfortunately thats the nature of the business, but hopefully you may find the following illustrations of things similar to mine helpful:

NASA's WorldWind is a good example. It uses OpenGL and has a very responsive GUI, well at least on my Mac and on my Linux workstation at work. I play with it at times, but the data I must present has no GIS element to it at the moment (well the end user has no desire for it yet) so I haven't used it for a project. I've seen some neat plugins for it though.

Here's a showcase of some other specialized applications used in my industry: Netbeans showcase. I personally don't use the Netbeans platforms, but the showcase does illustrate programs similar to the ones I create and use. Needless to say that my showing this link in no way is an endorsement of the products or the netbeans platform.

Again, my afforementioned speed issues when trying to use Java IDES. Maybe your users don't have to interact with the GUI component as much as a programmer using a GUI IDE does.

If you are having issues running Eclipse or Netbeans on your machine, then maybe you need to look at your machine. What is this GUI IDE that you speak of? My users abuse the hell out of the strip charts, and other graphical presentation windows and tables that are provided by the GUI. The data arrives in large quantities and in realtime. Experiment command decisions are based on what is being presented on the screen. I think this surpasses any requirements a home user may have with something like Open Office.

For clarification, if I need to do a lot of data transformations it's done prior to being sent to a user workstation. That being said, my personal experience has been that when I needed to have the same data presented on both a Windows machine and a Unix machine, I'll use Java for the presentation layer. I hesitantly use the term "presentation layer" since the users will often treat the Java app as a stand alone application to edit and interpret data stored locally on their machine. But architecturally speaking when compared with the entire data path, it's the presentation layer.

As for Open Office, I think a lot of poor choices were made in its design. Why Sun kept them after they acquired StarOffice probably has more to do with the money and time required to make major changes than the language that the application runs on.

So what is your suggestion for GUI Apps? Keep in mind it needs to be able to run on different platforms, preferably without having to require the end user to install third party libraries or depend on a particular version of a library already being installed. Third party support for libraries outside the scope of GUI is a plus but not required. In my case, be able to run unchanged on a PowerPC based machine and a Intel based machine. Not having to cross compile for a machine you may not have on site is a huge advantage (some of my workstations are not at my office). Even better if you only have to compile once.

Now if I don't need to worry about the code running on different platforms, or don't mind recompiling the source on the target machine, then I use C/C++. Mainly because dealing with pack and unpack on structured data can be a pain in the arse at times. But usually in t

Before you judge ISS please take some time to browse the list of experiments that have been performed onboard her to date.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/Expedition.html

I am not sure what AGW stands for (I tried to google with the "define: AGW" but I doubt you meant American Glass Works) but based on the context, I think that it has something to do with the climage change (perhaps... [Something] Global Warming]). Anyways, we really don't need integrals for that.

Anyone who looks at Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index (or data from meteorological stations or any other relevant climate graph) can clearly see that temperatures are going up, they weren't doing so over a century ago and they're certainly doing so faster than some 80 years ago. And that they're doing that despite the fact that there is occasionally (like now) some 2-3 years during which the temperature stays stable (or even drops very slightly).

I don't think that one can make any argument against the fact that a rapid climate change is happening. Rather, those who used to deny it now tend to claim "Oh, but there have been other times in history, during which temperatures have gone up without us"... Which is, of course, irrelevant. If we deem significant climate change to be catastrophic and can scientifically show that something we do at least contributes to it, we should probably try to do less of that.

I am not sure what AGW stands for (I tried to google with the "define: AGW" but I doubt you meant American Glass Works) but based on the context, I think that it has something to do with the climage change (perhaps... [Something] Global Warming]). Anyways, we really don't need integrals for that.

Anyone who looks at Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index (or data from meteorological stations or any other relevant climate graph) can clearly see that temperatures are going up, they weren't doing so over a century ago and they're certainly doing so faster than some 80 years ago. And that they're doing that despite the fact that there is occasionally (like now) some 2-3 years during which the temperature stays stable (or even drops very slightly).

I don't think that one can make any argument against the fact that a rapid climate change is happening. Rather, those who used to deny it now tend to claim "Oh, but there have been other times in history, during which temperatures have gone up without us"... Which is, of course, irrelevant. If we deem significant climate change to be catastrophic and can scientifically show that something we do at least contributes to it, we should probably try to do less of that.

Never heard of the voyager probes?

You are right, CO2 is both a forcing and a feedback but it's feedback characteristics generally operate over far longer time periods than we are considering so CO2 feedback is not currently a significant factor in global warming. The main source of feedback CO2 is the oceans which release it when they warm. Ironically though the oceans are warming they are continuing to absorb CO2 because we've increased the partial pressure of it in the atmosphere enough that the oceans are not completely saturated with it yet. That situation won't last forever.

I probably should have said CO2 is the main driver of the current warming. The main driver of the glacial/interglacial cycles of the ice age we are currently in is Milankovich cycles (orbital variations) which operate on scales of thousands of years. CO2 is then a feedback which gives an extra kick to the warmth of the interglacials.

Water vapor and clouds, being strictly a feedback, can not sustain the levels they currently have without the support of the greenhouse warming from CO2 (and other minor GHG's) in the atmosphere. If you were to take CO2 levels in the atmosphere back to 190 ppm, the level it is at the height of glaciations, the greenhouse effect would immediately be reduced and water vapor (and the clouds dependent on atmospheric water vapor) would start dropping too. It would plunge us into a new glacial period. So again despite the fact that water vapor and clouds account for about 75% of the total greenhouse effect they are totally dependent on the level of non-condensing greenhouse gases, primarily CO2.

Regarding the fact that natural emissions of CO2 are larger than human emissions there is this thing called the carbon cycle. Every year the level of CO2 in the atmosphere varies up and down around 10 ppmv around a base level that usually changes only slowly. The fact that we are adding around 3 ppmv per year of CO2 from carbon that has been sequestered from the carbon cycle for hundreds of millions of years by burning fossil fuels just bumps up that base level of CO2 in the atmosphere by adding to the total amount of carbon in the active carbon cycle.

One interesting tidbit in the paper I referenced in my previous post is that the greenhouse forcing of CO2 remains about 20% of the total regardless of the magnitude of the greenhouse effect. In other words, if you change the level of CO2 in the atmosphere the level of water vapor and clouds automatically adjust so CO2 remains about 20% of the greenhouse effect. That fact in itself pretty much proves that the level of water vapor and clouds are completely dependent on CO2 levels.

I got my figures from a 2010 paper on "The attribution of the present-day total greenhouse effect"

With a straightforward scheme for allocating overlaps, we find that water vapour is the dominant contributor (~50% of the effect), followed by clouds (~25%) and then CO2 with ~20%. All other absorbers play only minor roles.

They say that overlaps are accounted for in their attribution. But the real point is that water vapor and clouds, which again are two distinct things, are only feedbacks because their levels in the atmosphere are dependent on atmospheric conditions. CO2 levels on the other hand are independent of atmospheric conditions. Water vapor and clouds depend on the greenhouse warming of CO2 (and the other minor GHG's) for their levels. CO2 is the main driver.

These are not imaginary threats. They are very real.

There is the solar storm of 1859 which caused fires that burned down multiple telegraph offices.

Remember the blackout of 2003? The link is to a report straight from NERC, the power grid regulatory commission responsible for the area involved in the blackout.

Then let's not forget about stuxnet worm.

It is painfully obvious that these are not just crazy fears. As someone who has intimate knowledge of IT systems within a major U.S. power company conglomerate, and is very close to someone who designs/tests/commissions power plant generator hardware, I can assure you that these threats are very real.

First, you are wrong.
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/08/03/new-study-clinches-it-the-earth-is-warming-up/

I dislike the power grab by governments, but... http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/09/im-skeptical-of-denialism/

Don't claim it's not true, point out alternative solutions. Unless you have been doing the research and have access to some data no-one else does that casts these claims into any REAL doubt.

Here is a much better article from the horse's mouth:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/26oct_solarshield/

I was feeling a little dismal about the situation until I read this report. Simply brilliant! Advanced warning so that we can unplug giant transformers and other vital and hard to replace portions of the grid before we're hit.

This general permission does not include the NASA insignia logo (the blue "meatball" insignia), the NASA logotype (the red "worm" logo) and the NASA seal. These images may not be used by persons who are not NASA employees or on products (including Web pages) that are not NASA sponsored.

What do you call that?

The thing about million-dollar missiles is they get cheaper once you stop developing them and start using them. That is, unless you cocked up the contract negotiations, but it's illegal to do such a thing any more. Ever since TINA, the government pays the cost and a little vig.

Now the profit is in selling things that need lots and lots of development, or have no plan to ever leave development.

I couldn't tell from the parts I read or the photos provided with the report, that the crane had driven all the way to the fence in question, those people weren't "in the flight path", the danger was brought to them

Vol 1
Page 40 - "Key Event 39: At about PET=105 sec, the launch vehicle arrived at the perimeter fence and stopped. The LD realized that the mission would have to be aborted, but because spectators were in the flight path, did not order an abort. After several seconds at the fence, the LD ordered the vehicle to be backed away from the fence. Spectator locations during this event are shown in Figure 21."

Even better, just go to NASA's site: www.nasa.gov, search LCROSS, and the first hit you get is a link to a page which gave you the option to dial into a telecon discussing the LCROSS results:

So to the parent bitching about non-free, tax funded results, perhaps you should just try finding the information for yourself if you are really all that interested. Rather than complaining because Slashdot, a news aggregator, linked you to the wrong source.

I have to wonder how much of that gold was debris from the spacecraft - plating for connections, etc. Once the thing hit, I would imagine (and I am just guessing) that the plume that resulted was pretty well mixed with well-blended spacecraft.

Oh well, with the article behind a paywall, I'm not about to find out. Nice to pay for the science - NASA - out of the taxpayers pocket, then charge us again for the results, eh?

Thanks to google, I can find it all by myself.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/oct_21_media_telecon.html
-Taylor

In a way it is. Everything is. The cosmic background radiation simply has so much redshift it's shifted to microwave (redshift of over 1000). WMAP has made a picture.
Note that this glow isn't from the Big Bang itself. The universe was so hot (over a billion K) it wasn't transparent yet. There were no protons and neutrons, only a superheated quark soup. The signal WMAP captured was from about 400.000.000 years later: when the universe expanded and cooled enough to get transparent.