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Girls(I hope)! Guys!

These videos are awesome. For once, don't bother with the article, just feast your eyes on extraordinary false-color footage of the source* of our life:

http://www.nasa.gov/mov/445831main_Alan-1-FirstSunImageandFootageH264.mov

http://www.nasa.gov/mov/445834main_Alan-4-Larger-activeRegion-H264.mov

Others are available here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/briefing-materials-20100421.html

These are some of the most beautiful works of art I've ever seen, and I studied Fine Art for over a decade. Ok, I've studied Physics for longer, but still!

What particularly struck me was the very "organic" looking cell structure (wikipedia suggests they're http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9nard_cells but I'm not a solar physicist, and I suspect it's just a _little_ bit more complicated than that, what with the vast EM energies at work and such). Call me a nerd, but my chest heaved as though I were looking into the eyes of a beautiful girl** ***.

* Yada yada

** Ok, so I've had a couple of large glasses of wine, and "life looks rosier through the bottom of a wine glass". But then, "in vino veritas". And anyway, it was white wine.

*** All girls are beautiful.

Girls(I hope)! Guys!

These videos are awesome. For once, don't bother with the article, just feast your eyes on extraordinary false-color footage of the source* of our life:

http://www.nasa.gov/mov/445831main_Alan-1-FirstSunImageandFootageH264.mov

http://www.nasa.gov/mov/445834main_Alan-4-Larger-activeRegion-H264.mov

Others are available here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/briefing-materials-20100421.html

These are some of the most beautiful works of art I've ever seen, and I studied Fine Art for over a decade. Ok, I've studied Physics for longer, but still!

What particularly struck me was the very "organic" looking cell structure (wikipedia suggests they're http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9nard_cells but I'm not a solar physicist, and I suspect it's just a _little_ bit more complicated than that, what with the vast EM energies at work and such). Call me a nerd, but my chest heaved as though I were looking into the eyes of a beautiful girl** ***.

* Yada yada

** Ok, so I've had a couple of large glasses of wine, and "life looks rosier through the bottom of a wine glass". But then, "in vino veritas". And anyway, it was white wine.

*** All girls are beautiful.

  Better article

  This is incredible stuff. The CNN author called it "Hubble for the sun" and that's exactly what it is.

SB

I'd love to see the infrastructure design document from whomever is working at Solar Dynamics Observatory on what they are using for an online disk and long-term storage solution. If they are doing MOC, ingest and data processing/control all in one central location with was mentioned ITFA:

Specifically, NASA says the SDO will beam back 1.5 terabytes of data every day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week

Annually, at it's rawest data form, they house ~548TB (0.5 petabytes)!! I work for a NASA funded land processing project, and with our MODIS ingest from GSFC and ASTER pan ingest from Japan, in 11 years, we've accumulated close to 1.5PB of data. Of course, this is trimmed down and anything we need to generate other data product levels is starting to get housed long-term, but that's a HELL of a long of volume to consume and do fantastic projects with. Hurray for science once again. At least this NASA function still is getting money, eh?

I believe NetworkWorld may have been less than prudent in failing to put a thumbnail in place of scaling a 4,096 x 4,096 image totaling 8.6 MB down to 300 x 400. Although I guess since they are sourcing it from nasa.gov this slashdotting is going to come at the taxpayer's expense? :-)

I didn't see a link in the article, but here's the original NASA press release.

• Spacecraft subsystems must be tested to all of their requirements before launch (this would have helped Hubble Space Telescope, too).
• Keep engineering model and flight spares operational throughout the mission.
• Documentation of Spacecraft Hardware and testing.
  "It is important to keep proper documentation of all tests so this information is available when something goes wrong."
• Never intentionally throw away data in a deep space mission.
  Spacecraft systems need to have an appropriate level of reconfigurability in flight. "This anomaly would have been easy to solve if there has been even a modest amount of reconfigurability in the PSA."

Doppler Shift? What is this Doppler Shift thing you speak of? :-)

NASA also has a very thorough and interesting report from their DC8's encounter with a diffuse ash cloud in 2000. Its pretty insidious stuff - building up in the turbine blade cooling channels - stuff that wouldnt even be detected without a major engine inspection like NASA undertook. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/88751main_H-2511.pdf

The shuttle landed safely.

Ground track maps (easy way to see where it's going). These are updated for the opportunities tomorrow. Let's hope it's Orbit 237 or 238 to Kennedy.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts131/news/landing.html

NASA TV - listen to see if they are landing on a particular orbit.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html?param=public

Applet for viewing data. Put in your location, then on Input tab under Satellite, select orbit and destination you're expecting, KSC237 (ENTRY) for example. It tells you times, directions to look, elevation in degrees above horizon. The higher the elevation and the lower the range the better for viewing and listening obviously.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/JavaSSOP.html

Ground track maps (easy way to see where it's going). These are updated for the opportunities tomorrow. Let's hope it's Orbit 237 or 238 to Kennedy.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts131/news/landing.html

NASA TV - listen to see if they are landing on a particular orbit.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html?param=public

Applet for viewing data. Put in your location, then on Input tab under Satellite, select orbit and destination you're expecting, KSC237 (ENTRY) for example. It tells you times, directions to look, elevation in degrees above horizon. The higher the elevation and the lower the range the better for viewing and listening obviously.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/JavaSSOP.html

Ground track maps (easy way to see where it's going). These are updated for the opportunities tomorrow. Let's hope it's Orbit 237 or 238 to Kennedy.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts131/news/landing.html

NASA TV - listen to see if they are landing on a particular orbit.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html?param=public

Applet for viewing data. Put in your location, then on Input tab under Satellite, select orbit and destination you're expecting, KSC237 (ENTRY) for example. It tells you times, directions to look, elevation in degrees above horizon. The higher the elevation and the lower the range the better for viewing and listening obviously.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/JavaSSOP.html

So we're now looking at orbits 237 or 238, I assume?

Here's a great calculator from NASA to determine where to look in the sky and at what time, based on your location:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/JavaSSOP.html

Here in central IL USA, it looks like:

orbit 237: it'll be at a distance of 136 miles at an elevation of 15deg (not bad!) 06:17 local time.
orbit 238: a bust for where I live, never gets more than 2deg elevation.

Landing postponed until tomorrow due to weather at the landing site.

Another problem is that the cooling air channels in the turbine blades get clogged:
Engine Damage to a NASA DC-8-72 Airplane From a High-Altitude Encounter With a Diffuse Volcanic Ash Cloud

Yep here it is, orbital calculator. Punch in your zip code and tell it to show you pass 222 of the shuttle. It will give a set of times. (in eastern standard time)

My set peaks at 10 deg above the horizon, so ya, probably not going to happen. Maybe if I went out in the country, but it'd be so far away, that's a shame. I'd like to say "maybe next time", but that's not likely... :(

There is satellite imagery however. Both NASA and ESA traces the ash cloud based on satellite data, ESA even compiled an informative animation.

Good news, everyone! It's not Iceland. It shows Svalbard (left) and Scandinavia (right). Look at the keymap (the globe icon on the left side). Actually, I'm not sure what your concern is. It's just a storm system. They're all over the place.

This image shows Iceland (in the upper left corner). Another way to look at the Terra/MODIS images is via the daily Arctic mosaic. Iceland is the the bottom of the mosaic, and then you can click on it and get a more detailed view, where the ash plume is visible as an eastward-directed brownish-grey plume of cloud near the southern coast of the island, partially hidden beneath the white, normal clouds. They also have a cropped-down view of Iceland. The 250m view is detailed enough to see the plume easily.

Good news, everyone! It's not Iceland. It shows Svalbard (left) and Scandinavia (right). Look at the keymap (the globe icon on the left side). Actually, I'm not sure what your concern is. It's just a storm system. They're all over the place.

This image shows Iceland (in the upper left corner). Another way to look at the Terra/MODIS images is via the daily Arctic mosaic. Iceland is the the bottom of the mosaic, and then you can click on it and get a more detailed view, where the ash plume is visible as an eastward-directed brownish-grey plume of cloud near the southern coast of the island, partially hidden beneath the white, normal clouds. They also have a cropped-down view of Iceland. The 250m view is detailed enough to see the plume easily.

Good news, everyone! It's not Iceland. It shows Svalbard (left) and Scandinavia (right). Look at the keymap (the globe icon on the left side). Actually, I'm not sure what your concern is. It's just a storm system. They're all over the place.

This image shows Iceland (in the upper left corner). Another way to look at the Terra/MODIS images is via the daily Arctic mosaic. Iceland is the the bottom of the mosaic, and then you can click on it and get a more detailed view, where the ash plume is visible as an eastward-directed brownish-grey plume of cloud near the southern coast of the island, partially hidden beneath the white, normal clouds. They also have a cropped-down view of Iceland. The 250m view is detailed enough to see the plume easily.

Good news, everyone! It's not Iceland. It shows Svalbard (left) and Scandinavia (right). Look at the keymap (the globe icon on the left side). Actually, I'm not sure what your concern is. It's just a storm system. They're all over the place.

This image shows Iceland (in the upper left corner). Another way to look at the Terra/MODIS images is via the daily Arctic mosaic. Iceland is the the bottom of the mosaic, and then you can click on it and get a more detailed view, where the ash plume is visible as an eastward-directed brownish-grey plume of cloud near the southern coast of the island, partially hidden beneath the white, normal clouds. They also have a cropped-down view of Iceland. The 250m view is detailed enough to see the plume easily.

Good news, everyone! It's not Iceland. It shows Svalbard (left) and Scandinavia (right). Look at the keymap (the globe icon on the left side). Actually, I'm not sure what your concern is. It's just a storm system. They're all over the place.

This image shows Iceland (in the upper left corner). Another way to look at the Terra/MODIS images is via the daily Arctic mosaic. Iceland is the the bottom of the mosaic, and then you can click on it and get a more detailed view, where the ash plume is visible as an eastward-directed brownish-grey plume of cloud near the southern coast of the island, partially hidden beneath the white, normal clouds. They also have a cropped-down view of Iceland. The 250m view is detailed enough to see the plume easily.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=43670

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?T101061035

So is this a near-current image of Iceland then?

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?T101061035

http://lance.nasa.gov/
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://satepsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/OMI/OMISO2/index.html

http://lance.nasa.gov/
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://satepsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/OMI/OMISO2/index.html

A nice picture here: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/iceland-volcano-plume.html Check also the official UK advisory with 'affected area' maps http://metoffice.com/aviation/vaac/vaacuk_vag.html

"Hitting" the Moon isn't the real challenge. We did that spectacularly last year.

One day we'll be able to predict events like this. You'll see something in the sky, go to a website, or pull up an app on your smart phone, and it'll have a designation based on when it was first detected and the flight path that object took to hit the atmosphere. Maybe the website will look something like this, but hopefully not ;) Tracking small rocks like this might seem like a waste of time, until we predict one that is going to hit a major populated area - lives could be saved. This would be a side-benefit of the real purpose of the program - detecting planet killer sized hazards and preparing for the day when we need to divert one. The economic benefits of capturing asteroids in orbit and utilizing the materials should also be considerable.

Check out the satellite imagery. The ash plume can easily reach into Europe.

It dissipates as it goes, but does anybody know the "critical density" before it's a problem?

Ever heard of the DMSP and LANL satellites?

No, I hadn't heard of them, but these are DoD projects. It's no surprise to me that they're using the same, relatively commonsense approach that they use for the rest of the DoD realm in space. They have their act together and have always been more savvy economically than NASA.

Even in NASA, they occasionally do economically smart stuff like reuse of important systems (Mars Exploration Rovers used a modification of the Pathfinder mission's entry system). But a glance at NASA and the ESA's space science missions indicates a bunch of high development cost missions (the ESA seems to have a better approach, I like the looks of Cross-Section, PLATO, and LISA, for example, due to their use of multiple spacecraft, the only comparable NASA mission is the ILN, a proposed communication network for the Moon, everything else is more or less a gamble on a single spacecraft).

So unless you are an actual expert in space science and instrument design, I would be very careful about who you insult.

I won't be careful, but your concern is noted.

Finally, perhaps you should look through some of the videos on Youtube of Apollo astronauts working on the Moon. My favorite is the "orange soil" clips from Apollo 17. This is a series of clips that show two astronauts (Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt) looking around some volcanic activity (a fumarole, I believe). Schmitt (IIRC) sees some orange soil and collects it. That soil turns out to be titanium rich and probably one of the bigger finds of the mission. I gather it is now thought to be a last remnant of some ancient volcanic activity. Since that phase of activity is a common means of ore genesis on Earth, it also gives us an idea of where to look for possible elements that concentrate in that sort of formation (for example, I toured a mine in New Mexico where beryllium, lithium, and tantalum had been concentrated considerably by a similar process on Earth).

When I looked through the video, I thought to myself, what would it take to duplicate the efforts of these two men with unmanned systems? First, they're riding in a rover, which I believe they drove around for 36 km (and the rover had a range of almost 100 km in theory). Second, they spotted an interesting science target as they were tooling around. Schmitt quickly took several samples, each in its own numbered bag. The speed with which they did these activities is worth noting. The rover moves 12 km/hr, roughly, and the decision to check out the orange soil was made on the spot. The clips I mention are collectively somewhere around 35 minutes in length. I doubt we're capable of repeating that feat (it's arguble, of course, whether you'd want to) on the Moon now with current unmanned technology, though it's more likely to be in place by the time humans fly back to the Moon.

Now consider a much more remote location like Mars or the surface of a Jovian moon or asteroid. Teleoperations no longer works very well. Operations which could take minutes on the Moon, now take far longer. The current unmanned space science theory is that we'll develop AI sop

NASA does a lot more earth-oriented stuff than it does space exploration.

Check out their list of current missions.

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html

It seems silly to think we wouldn't benefit from some other country's space program

So, their space program is going to employ American citizens, whom spend their wages in American communities and generate tax revenue for American Government? They will let their space program benefit our military, in the form of communications and recon capabilities? They will share all technologies developed for their space program without charging us for them?

so why not let them foot the research bill while we work on coming up with a sensible financial strategy

The 2009 Federal Budget included $3,100,000,000,000 of spending. NASA's 2009 fiscal year budget was $17,614,200,000. That amounts to 0.5682% of Federal spending. In reality it's considerably less than that, when you account for appropriations that weren't part of the budget (war spending, bailouts, stimulus, etc.)

I repeat my statement from another thread: Gutting the manned space program to save money is shortsighted and idiotic policy. NASA is not the reason that Federal red ink is spiraling out of control.

From:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/428439main_Space_technology.pdf

"The return on investment with prizes is exceptionally high as NASA expends no funds unless the
accomplishment is demonstrated."

Am I the only one thinking that perhaps they should structure more government contracts like this?
With a focus on "expends no funds unless the accomplishment is demonstrated".

Which I would have thought should be a requirement for all government contracts but sadly is not.

It increases the risk to the companies involved but that just means you need to make the winnings pot a decent size.

Stop fucking around with these tiny little prizes of 1 or 2 million dollars and offer pots that would make a venture capitalist salivate( like 500 million dollars for the bellow)

"put at least one human being on the moon and bring him back to earth safely and collect *list of samples* and place *list of scientific equipment* on the lunar surface"

For comparison:
the space shuttle: 115 missions (as of 6 August 2006) - total cost $150 billion

at the moment prize pots seem to always be trivial quantities of money compared to the rest of the budget.

I'm surprised that with all the recent news of NASA being marginalized that they can still have competitions like this? Or have I just got the wrong impression of the state of NASA's future?

As QuantumG said, you should probably read better news sources. ;) NASA's budget is actually being increased under the FY2011 budget, which you can read here:

http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html

Although all of NASA is getting an overall boost, the Centennial Challenges prize competitions like the ones in the summary are getting a particularly large boost. I believe they only got $4 million in FY09 and $0 in FY10 (yay for Ares cost overruns eating everything else in the budget), but from FY2011-FY2015 Centennial Challenges is getting a whopping $10 million per year ($50 million total). You can do some pretty amazing things with that. From the NASA budget:

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/428439main_Space_technology.pdf

The Centennial Challenges program seeks innovative solutions to technical problems that can drive
progress in aerospace technology of value to NASA's missions in space operations, science,
exploration and aeronautics. Beginning in FY 2011, Centennial Challenge activities associated with
the Innovative Partnerships Program are transferred to the Space Technology Program. Centennial
Challenges encourage the participation of independent teams, individual inventors, student groups
and private companies of all sizes in aerospace research and development, and seek to find the
most innovative solutions to technical challenges through competition and cooperation. NASA's
original seven prize challenges have been successful in encouraging broad participation by
innovators across our nation and across generations. Many of these technical challenges also have
direct relevance to national and global needs such as energy and transportation.

Prize programs encourage diverse participation and multiple solution paths. A measure of diversity is seen in the geographic distribution of participants (from Hawaii to Maine) that reaches far beyond the locales of the NASA Centers and major aerospace industries. The participating teams have included
individual inventors, small startup companies, and university students and professors. An example of multiple solution paths was seen in the 2009 Regolith Excavation Challenge. NASA can typically
afford one or two working prototypes in a development program but at this Challenge event, over
twenty different working prototypes were demonstrated for the NASA technologists. All of these
prototypes were developed at no cost to the government. For three years of competitions with
dozens of teams investing tens of thousands of hours, NASA spent only $750,000 in prize money.

The return on investment with prizes is exceptionally high as NASA expends no funds unless the
accomplishment is demonstrated. NASA provides only the prize money and the administration of the
competitions is done at no cost to NASA by non-profit allied organizations. For the Lunar Lander
Challenge, twelve private teams spent nearly 70,000 hours and the equivalent of $12 million trying to win $2 million in prize money. Prizes also focus public attention on NASA programs and generate
interest in science and engineering. Live webcasts of Centennial Challenge competitions attract
thousands of viewers across the nation and around the world. The 2009 Power Beaming completion
resulted in over 100 news articles and web features. Prizes also create new businesses and new
partners for NASA. The winner of the 2007 Astronaut Glove Challenge started a new business to
manufacture pressure suit gloves. Armadillo Aerospace began a partnership with NASA related to
the reusable rocket engine that they developed for the Lunar Lander Challenge, and they

I'm surprised that with all the recent news of NASA being marginalized that they can still have competitions like this? Or have I just got the wrong impression of the state of NASA's future?

As QuantumG said, you should probably read better news sources. ;) NASA's budget is actually being increased under the FY2011 budget, which you can read here:

http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html

Although all of NASA is getting an overall boost, the Centennial Challenges prize competitions like the ones in the summary are getting a particularly large boost. I believe they only got $4 million in FY09 and $0 in FY10 (yay for Ares cost overruns eating everything else in the budget), but from FY2011-FY2015 Centennial Challenges is getting a whopping $10 million per year ($50 million total). You can do some pretty amazing things with that. From the NASA budget:

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/428439main_Space_technology.pdf

The Centennial Challenges program seeks innovative solutions to technical problems that can drive
progress in aerospace technology of value to NASA's missions in space operations, science,
exploration and aeronautics. Beginning in FY 2011, Centennial Challenge activities associated with
the Innovative Partnerships Program are transferred to the Space Technology Program. Centennial
Challenges encourage the participation of independent teams, individual inventors, student groups
and private companies of all sizes in aerospace research and development, and seek to find the
most innovative solutions to technical challenges through competition and cooperation. NASA's
original seven prize challenges have been successful in encouraging broad participation by
innovators across our nation and across generations. Many of these technical challenges also have
direct relevance to national and global needs such as energy and transportation.

Prize programs encourage diverse participation and multiple solution paths. A measure of diversity is seen in the geographic distribution of participants (from Hawaii to Maine) that reaches far beyond the locales of the NASA Centers and major aerospace industries. The participating teams have included
individual inventors, small startup companies, and university students and professors. An example of multiple solution paths was seen in the 2009 Regolith Excavation Challenge. NASA can typically
afford one or two working prototypes in a development program but at this Challenge event, over
twenty different working prototypes were demonstrated for the NASA technologists. All of these
prototypes were developed at no cost to the government. For three years of competitions with
dozens of teams investing tens of thousands of hours, NASA spent only $750,000 in prize money.

The return on investment with prizes is exceptionally high as NASA expends no funds unless the
accomplishment is demonstrated. NASA provides only the prize money and the administration of the
competitions is done at no cost to NASA by non-profit allied organizations. For the Lunar Lander
Challenge, twelve private teams spent nearly 70,000 hours and the equivalent of $12 million trying to win $2 million in prize money. Prizes also focus public attention on NASA programs and generate
interest in science and engineering. Live webcasts of Centennial Challenge competitions attract
thousands of viewers across the nation and around the world. The 2009 Power Beaming completion
resulted in over 100 news articles and web features. Prizes also create new businesses and new
partners for NASA. The winner of the 2007 Astronaut Glove Challenge started a new business to
manufacture pressure suit gloves. Armadillo Aerospace began a partnership with NASA related to
the reusable rocket engine that they developed for the Lunar Lander Challenge, and they

Similar arguments were made by the Ptolemaic churches attempting to discredit Aristotle.

The UK acknowledges the phenomenon: Ministry of Defense
So does Mexico
oh, and so does the FBI
and the CIA.

UFO's are not just some hoojum bullshit. There is a serious phenomena of unexplained activity/objects, and rigorous scientific endeavor would get much more credibility if this area was at least explored from a rational and logical standpoint in educational institutions without all the hooting and hollering, even if what we discover is against our rational and logical assumptions.

and if your really interested, check out the NASA video of the STS-75 incident. Watch the video, and then read what NASA conveniently doesn't discuss.

Honestly, insightful?

From a quick google search on NASA inventions:

Ten NASA inventions you use every day

Top 15 NASA inventions

Polimide Foam

NASA Inventions benefiting our daily lives

Highlights from those links include kidney dialysis, CAT scans, various types of insulation, efficient water purification tech, cordless tools, modern designs of microchips, satellite tech (you know, it deleives a great deal of your communications....), scratch resistant lenses... And there's a *lot* more, a great deal of modern tech comes from NASA is one way or another.

Even if you have a problem with exploration and a search for knowledge and understanding of the universe, you have to admit the space program and its SCIENCE have yielded *massive* results on earth in technology. I'm also pretty sure there were luddites like you when the first ships were being built, the first submarines, the first plans, hell, the first time someone said "I'm going to wander 50 miles that way and see what's there".

And how is this power produced. I'm going to guess what is happening is that it comes up and warms up till it's core temperature is at the ambient surface temperature. Then it drops like a rock, and uses the heat differential between the core and the cold water to drive some thermo electric engine in reverse. perhaps they toss in some phase change material to extend the thermal capacity.

or is it something different?

Why not ask the people who built it? From http://solo-trec.jpl.nasa.gov/SOLO-TREC/ :

Special Phase Change Materials (PCMs) on-board the SOLO-TREC expand about 13% when heated above 10 degree Celsius and then correspondingly contract when cooled below 10 degree Celsius. This expansion/contraction produces a high pressure oil that can be collected and periodically released to drive a hydraulic motor for electricity generation and battery recharging. Since its deployment, SOLO-TREC has been making 3~4 dives per day between the surface and 500 meters depth, producing about 1.6 Watt-hours of power each dive to operate the on-board sensors, GPS receiver and communication device.

I'd like to add that JPL is of course the place to go to if you need to run gizmos for a long time on almost-no-energy input, reliably, in rather hostile environments. I mean - the Voyagers are still sending data home, 30+ years later , 100+ AU away and with a transmitter not much better than a modern cell phone...

We are pretty much doing this already with the OSTM Jason 2 weather satellite, which measures the height of the ocean surface to an accuracy of 1 inch.

http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ostm.html

Of course, this is not being being done with a laser, but rather radar.

It's probably just to pay for the fancy NASA space pens. We all know the Russian technology of pencils break American health and safety regulations and they probably refuse to fly without them.

Actually; (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen)
There exists a common urban legend claiming that the Americans spent millions of dollars developing the Space Pen, and the Russians used a pencil.[1] In fact, NASA programs have used pencils (for example a 1965 order of mechanical pencils[1]) but because of the danger that a broken-off pencil tip poses in zero gravity and the flammable nature of the wood present in pencils[1] a better solution was needed.

NASA never approached Paul Fisher to develop a pen, nor did Fisher receive any government funding for the pen's development. Fisher invented it independently, and then asked NASA to try it. After the introduction of the AG7 Space Pen, both the American and Soviet (later Russian) space agencies adopted it. Previously both the Russian and American astronauts used grease pencils and plastic slates.[2]

[1] http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=9CF01C5C-E7F2-99DF-3EEFFCD06138AEC4
[2] http://history.nasa.gov/spacepen.html

I also note that extremely conductive/flammable graphite powder is not what you want floating around in side any spacecraft...

That was more true in the 60s, but now putting people in space is hardly NASA's core competence now. They do much more unmanned stuff. They run over 100 scientific satellites and a bunch of interplanetary probes, along with the rovers on Mars.

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html.

Also, apparently the Helios aircraft managed to make it up to 96,863ft / 18.3 miles

the USSR built a ground based laser and played it over the shuttle's window

I have never heard about this, and it would be fascinating if true, but I can't find any official cite of this incident. I see a one liner on Wikipedia about it copied from another non-official source, but the NASA mission report for STS-41G does not mention anything about it: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19920075377_1992075377.pdf

A figured I'd better google some numbers. Wikipedia says $60 million or $1.3 billion per launch, depending on how you calculate it. Nasa says $450 million per launch. NASA's figure is more expensive than Soyuz for 6 astronauts. Wikipedia's low end figure is obviously a lot cheaper (and kind of hard to believe).

That $450MM is paid to American companies and individuals, which then pay taxes on some of the money and then spend most of the rest of it in America. When they spend it, there is more tax, and again most of the untaxed amount goes to another American company or individual.

Some leaks out, but a very large chunk of the $450MM the government spends per launch comes right back in the form of taxes.

A figured I'd better google some numbers. Wikipedia says $60 million or $1.3 billion per launch, depending on how you calculate it. Nasa says $450 million per launch. NASA's figure is more expensive than Soyuz for 6 astronauts. Wikipedia's low end figure is obviously a lot cheaper (and kind of hard to believe).

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/information/shuttle_faq.html

Funny how it was cheaper to fly as a paid passenger than astronaut.

About $75 Million ($450 Million per launch)

This represents the first solar-powered flights ever.

And we're still working on them.

There's a little more beyond that. Helios eventually crashed, but not before making it to 96,863 feet.