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The sublimation they noticed was subtle, not total. The ice the rover uncovered didn't sublimate completely away, it just diminished enough for them to notice it. In this case, they'll gather the sample and process it quickly enough that they'll still have a fair bit to work with.

No, actually we don't. The tooling's been long-since destroyed, and there are no blueprints for many of the parts because they were farmed out to contractors, let alone information on things like what precise alloys to use for said parts, and other methods of manufacture.

You are wrong. The blueprints for everything, down to the last nut and bolt, are on file at MSFC. Source.

There are a couple Saturn Vs left, yes, but they were left out to the elements for many years and may have been scavenged for parts.

You are wrong. There are three, but none of them is "one" rocket. The one at the Johnson space center, made up of three flight-rated stages from different rockets, was left out for 20+ years but has been restored to pristine (though obviously not flight-worthy) condition. The one at MSFC is all static test stages and has been similarly restored. The one at KSC is two flight stages and one test stage, and has been kept in perfect (but again, obviously not flight-worthy) condition since the day it was rolled in. NONE of the rockets were ever "scavenged" for parts--they're all property of the Smithsonian and are maintained in trust as artifacts by NASA.

Recreating a Saturn V isn't impossible because we don't have the plans--it's impossible because the blueprints call for standard parts and items that don't exist any more (like a left-handed widget with widget gauge #12, which was used by, say, Boeing in 1960, but not any more).

to put this in perspective it costs 1.3 billion PER MISSION for the shuttles, and it's predicted the shuttle program will have cost 173 billion when it wraps up in 2010. http://www.space.com/news/shuttle_cost_050211.html

well, I was using particle ambiguously as in pretty much anything, not specifically as a piece of dust, or something somewhat "large", but anything that isn't a vacuum (atoms, molecules, etc)

Black Hole Strikes Deepest Note

Astronomers have detected the deepest note ever generated in the cosmos, a B-flat flying through space like a ripple on an invisible pond. No human will actually hear the note, because it is 57 octaves below the keys in the middle of a piano.

Sound travels, there just isn't enough pressure for our ears to hear it at any distance, I would imagine that even screaming right next to eachother would probably only make it a few feet before becoming inaudible and dropping down like the "57 octaves below..." I doubt that the sound actually started that low, but who knows...

Try $600,000 in 2006 dollars.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/060906_sts115_launchscrub.html

-b

I hate ice and snow anyway - what a bloody mess it is. If you are a masochistic person who actually likes snow I suggest you move to a colder planet such as Mars or Pluto.

Mars, Pluto, and Jupiter are also warming.

I hate ice and snow anyway - what a bloody mess it is. If you are a masochistic person who actually likes snow I suggest you move to a colder planet such as Mars or Pluto.

Mars, Pluto, and Jupiter are also warming.

  of soil.
Or we could always build loads of factories there and start global warming.

  of soil.
Or we could always build loads of factories there and start global warming.

• Dilbert - do I need to describe this?
• Explosm.com - Cyanide and Happiness comic
• Fokke & Sukke - Dutch comic. Popular daily cartoon (yes, I'm dutch and the name is intentional)
• Little Gamers - gaming comic
• Penny Arcade - gaming comic
• FAIL blog - epic fail every day

Finance & Economy

• BusinessWeek Online -- Most Popular Stories
• Calculated Risk - general blog
• The Economist - News analysis and views
• NRC | EconomieDutch newspaper, economy section

Space

• Bad Astronomy - Phil Plait's blog about astronomy and skepticism
• Chris Lintott's Universe - Astronomer, Galaxy Zoo co-founder and co-host of BBC's The Sky at Night
• NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
• New Scientist, Space - Astronomy section of New Scientist
• Space.com - More space news...
• Starts With a Bang! - Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, tries to answer some common but very complex astronomy questions.
• Universe Today - One of the most well known astronomy blogs

Tech

• Engadget - THE gadget blog
• Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories - making crazy electronic stuff (and drooling over niche market product catalogues)
• Gametrailers' ScrewAttack - funny gaming videos
• Kotaku - THE games blog
• Reuters Science
• Reuters Technology
• Slashdot
• The Brainy Gamer - in-depth articles about (the history of) games in general
• Tweakers.net - the dutch Slashdot

Misc

• Greggman - American gamedev'er who lived in Japan
• Jort Kelder - Dutch dandy. Ex-editor-in-chief of Quote, a magazine about entrepeneurs and the life of the nouveau rich. Co-host of the dutch Dragons Den.
• Scalzi's Whatever - Sciencefiction author.
• The Sartorialist - Fashion photographer. If you'd like to dress like a man with some class, instead of a fake tan metrosexual...look here for inspiration.

Yes, I feel sheepish--I did mean to say "mars" rather than "moon" rovers. And I thought for sure that I'd read that the rovers were nuclear powered. Perhaps I was thinking of this future rover: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/mars_science_lab_050105.html

Also, I thought I'd note--the Viking 2 mars lander was nuclear powered, though it also apparently had batteries, which failed and ended the mission.

I wonder if they'll connect it to the router in space? http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive04/ciscoarch_042104.html

That was my first thought too, but then the problem becomes "minimal collateral damage." When a plane gets hit with by the EMP it WILL go down. I suppose they could always give it some kind of inflatable protective airbag structure like they used for the Mars Exploration Rover, though I don't know I'd want to be a passenger in this scenario (I just imagined being flung all around the cabin while the plane bounces around).

Ok.

The theory that is commonly accepted as the one people are referring to when they say; "Jupiter is undergoing global warming as well"

However, the theory does not actually say Jupiter is undergoing global warming, it specifically says that the appearance of the new storms are a result of the equator warming, and not the poles. On Jupiter, there are what would be similar to jet streams on Earth, except there are between 10-15 of them. This is the mechanism which moves heat from the hotter regions to the cooler regions, just like on Earth. When this mechanism breaks down, the transfer of heat is impeded and regions of storms such as whats being observed, form. You can check with space.com if you would like to verify what Im saying

On Earth, the theory that what most accept to be 'global warming' is that the globe is on a whole getting warmer. Although, the polar regions are experiencing a faster rate of warming than the equatorial regions, which are warming more slowly.

So the word 'warming' is being used in both circumstances, the mechanisms that are occuring are very different

Try 12,000 years.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the incredibly rapid 2.5C temp increase in the last 50 years.

... that just happens to coincide with us digging up sequestered carbon and burning it by the megaton, pushing CO2 levels to ever increasing highs.

Nay, my good man, all is well. Continue whistling and dance that little jig you do so well.

using carbon nanotubes, some epoxy, a little bit of aluminum, and large quantities of lunar dust.

Heck, the first thing that came to my mind was "When did NASA hire MacGyver?" :-) Anyway, the process sounds quite reasonable. And Moon would make a wonderful observatory. I have been dreaming about lunar observatories since I was a kid quarter a century ago (at that time, I stumbled upon books written by a well-known local popular science writer).

No atmosphere, sixth the gravity, little need for compensating the structure deformations? Sounds good. The question is how heavy the manufacturing equipment would be. And there might more problems at least with optical telescopers - I recently stumbled upon a nice article on this topic.

JFK's advisors didn't suggest putting a man on the moon. They were quite resistant to the idea. On the other hand, Iraq was a "slam dunk" according to Bush's advisors...

How can you identify a "well informed" advisor if you have no knowledge on the subject yourself?

And bigger than a burning Uranus, call it a stanet, or a plar...

Actually, I was trying to be silly with Spoonerism, but, upon checking Google, sure enough, it has been done:

http://www.futuresoon.com/2008/04/six-for-science_11.html

And, done here, too:

http://uplink.space.com/printthread.php?Cat=&Board=sciastro&main=570057&type=thread

Hmm, I would assume that the parent to your reply was meaning that humanity staying on Earth alone is the lost cause.

http://www.space.com/news/060613_ap_hawking_space.html

Yes, the man that article references is truly only "pretending" to be intelligent.

Try again.

Yeah, that's secure. Try this one.

The lander is a $420 million dart.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070201_phoenix_update.html

The dart was thrown at a dartboard which is unmarked. There may or may not be a bullseye on the dartboard -- we're not sure, hence why we're throwing darts at it -- but we're not exactly sure what would consitute a bullseye.

The dart throwers, in our funny dart game, do not declare certain scores for outcomes in advance and then evaluate the dart based on the outcome of throwing it. Rather, they will get the results back and then score them, based on criteria which are based on caprice and whimsy cloaked in a thin veneer of "its scientific, if you criticize us you must be against science".

I'll spoil it for you: the conclusion will be, inevitably, that this $420 million dart was "a learning experience" (a wonderful phrase, because it is true by definition and means the dart can literally never fail, because we'd learn something even if the dart crash-landed into the dartboard as darts are wont to do), but that we need to throw more and more expensive darts. Why are we throwing darts? Well, there might be a bullseye out there... and you DO support science, right?

Personally I hope they hit the FSM's Noodly Appendage one of these times. That would be kind of cool. Granted, it doesn't exist, but I've got as much reason to believe in it as I do to believe in any of the things that could plausibly be called a bullseye.

Actually, we don't have that much plutonium on hand for NASA's use.
http://www.space.com/news/080306-nasa-plutonium-shortage-fin.html

Stuff in space gets beat up pretty bad also.

I may be the odd man out here by supporting space & NASA (I work Orion CEV, though not a civil servant) while also being a slashdot user, but I still stand by my beliefs.

I will first start by providing a handful of links to other advocate groups, spin-off pages, etc., then go into why I personally support it, and finally go into where I see room for improvements.

The Links
The Planetary Society
The Coalition for Space Exploration
Space.com
NASA Spin-off Library
NASA @ Home and City

Now on to why I personally support manned space: I will try to keep it short and high-level. (No particular order to the numbering)

1. Study of survival in harsh environments.
I both fear & assume that one day our planet will eventually become an extremely harsh environment to survive in. I feel that the more we know about biology and microbiology issues such as water & food purification (ISS, Shuttle Purification, Water and Food Analytical Laboratory (WAFAL)) within limited and harsh environments, the better off we could be when we reach that time in our existence. (There are also many other areas of study that go along with survival than life sciences, such as human physiology.)

2. Colonization of other moons and planets.
Essentially this goes along with #1. It would be nice to have some options and prior knowledge when Earth is nearing its end.

3. Origin of our Planets.
I believe the more we know and understand about the origin of our planets the better. If we can somehow "prove" our origin and debunk the majority of Religious views I feel we will be better off. I believe Religion to be the root cause of the majority of wars and violence on this planet. I also believe that people who are barley surviving often resort to violence to help themselves survive.

4. Costs vs Return.
Here I'm just going to sum-up this page. NASA's budget is 0.7 of 1% of the nations total. We spend about $9 Billion per month killing other humans. "In 2002, the commercial space industry contributed more than $95 billion in U.S. economic activity".

4.Spin-Offs.
While it may be a sub-set of the other advantages, I still believe the majority of Spin-offs benefit humans "down here".


Where can we improve?
(Again, no particular order)

1. Public Relations.
I believe the public needs more knowledge coming from the space community about both the benefits and obstacles of space exploration. I believe many of the reasons people have a negative attitude about it is because they are ill-informed. Stop playing with space food on TV and making everything look like a cake-walk, and show the real low-level experiments being ran up there. THIS is what will inspire people!

2. Inspire our Youth.
Again, this goes along with #1. With politicians trying to get more math and science students just by cutting funds here, adding funds there (Obama, I'm looking at YOU), you still won't be motivating people to work hard and study these subjects. The one thing that actually got me (mentally) through college was my goal of working on the space program. With no motivation and inspiration, you will loose students in these subjects, not gain them!

3. Expand Robotic\Un-manned Space.
I believe that expanding our robotic side of space exploration will have an overall benefit, but needs to co-exist with the manned

Hillary: enhance American leadership in space, including:
Pursuing an ambitious 21st century Space Exploration Program, by implementing a balanced strategy of robust human spaceflight, expanded robotic spaceflight, and enhanced space science activities.
Developing a comprehensive space-based Earth Sciences agenda, Promoting American leadership in aeronautics by reversing funding cuts to NASA's and FAA's aeronautics R&D budget.

Barack: Obama's early education and K-12 plan package costs about $18 billion per year. He will maintain fiscal responsibility and prevent any increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue sources in other parts of the government. The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years

McCain: When asked about their candidates' positions on the moon-Mars project, a spokeswoman for Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) did not respond.

All of this can be found at Space dot com.

Silly me forgot the link........ http://www.space.com/news/070202_china_spacedebris.html

Why not search the net before blowing hot air out of your ass. http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive06/India_032706.html/

Looks like the Russians are using ISRO's services to launch their satellites.

Yes, I am familiar with that analogy.
According to common thinking, the speed of gravity is equal to C, the speed of light.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity
However, Isaac newton said that gravity acts instantaneously. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/gravity_speed_030116.html

I don't think anyone cares about what Isaac Newton said anymore (in the context of theoretical physics). It's been proven he was wrong about multiple things related to the subject. For example, he thought time moved at the same rate everywhere, but we've *experimentally proven* that time-dilation does happen if you travel fast or are affected by gravity, which is predicted by General Relativity. Have you considered that instantaneous gravity may violate causality by going faster than light (and thus offer the possibility of sending information backwards in time)?

Instant gravity violates Einstein's relativity, since in any frame of reference, gravity would be faster than C. This is supported by black holes.

[Citation Needed]. I've never heard/read any physicist claim this. (With all due respect,) I think you just misunderstand the physics.
Frankly, I think it's the opposite. Black holes were not discovered experimentally. We didn't find it then explain it. We predicted their existence using only General Relativity. If black holes & general relativity were in conflict, then how did we predict it on paper first, then find astronomical data that confirmed it? Did every physicist doing the calculations make the exact same mistake & still correctly predict their existence?

For the moment let me assume the idea of instant-gravity is correct. If so, then all matter in the universe is gravitating on all other matter in existence, all at the same time. Wouldn't all matter in the universe have a tendency to gravitate to a common-center? Consider the implications it may have on the universe's formation. It's not a simple thing to change the speed of gravity.

Since light is not fast enough to escape a black hole, yet the effects of that black hole's gravity can be felt anywhere near it.
If gravity followed Einstein's Laws than black holes would have no gravitational influence on any matter near them, since if Light can not escape them, then obviously gravity traveling at C, in EVERY frame of reference, would also not be able to influence anything.

I think you're trying to mix-&-match stuff from a General Relativity model & Quantum-Mechanics and tossing them recklessly into the same model thinking it'll make sense.

Under General Relativity, gravity isn't traveling through curved spacetime, it IS the curved spacetime.
When you mention the idea of gravity escaping anything, it implies gravity is a "thing" that moves away or is emitted from something, which says to me this model is using particles to describe the forces, BUT, that would be quantum-mechanics.

If you wanna go that route, we can:
You're basically saying "gravity shouldn't be able to escape gravity".
You think a graviton emitted by a black-hole should be able to hit a graviton it emitted a 3 nanoseconds ago? Wether the gravity's speed is instant or c, when 2 things going the same speed & in the same direction, they aren't going to touch eachother.

A graviton moving through curved-spacetime is a tad redundant.

Pick a General Relativity model or a Quantum Mechanics model, but don't mix & match parts. We don't have a quantum-theory of gravity yet.

Also the analogy of the bed sheet implies that gravity also acts instantaneously, since the dimple is always there.

Not true!
That dimple can only reshape as quickly as the speed-of-light allows it to. The rubber-sheet is made of atoms which can't go faster than C. If you disagree, show me your magical rubber-sheet with faster-than-light-atoms,

Yes, I am familiar with that analogy.

According to common thinking, the speed of gravity is equal to C, the speed of light.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity

However, Isaac newton said that gravity acts instantaneously. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/gravity_speed_030116.html

Instant gravity violates Einstein's relativity, since in any frame of reference, gravity would be faster than C. This is supported by black holes. Since light is not fast enough to escape a black hole, yet the effects of that black hole's gravity can be felt anywhere near it.

If gravity followed Einstein's Laws than black holes would have no gravitational influence on any matter near them, since if Light can not escape them, then obviously gravity traveling at C, in EVERY frame of reference, would also not be able to influence anything.

I think Eintsein is incorrect here.

Also the analogy of the bed sheet implies that gravity also acts instantaneously, since the dimple is always there. If one were to say travel faster than C and encounter the dimple, there would not have been enough time for gravity to travel to you in your spacecraft at C, but I am willing to but a pretty penny that gravity would still be felt.

This would confirm that it is faster than c.

Just what we need, more ofthis.

I guess it would be more difficult to shoot down a self-healing mesh of small satellites(as opposed to shooting down one big one).

Meet you Syrtis Minor! http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age_031208.html

On a serious note, anyone think this might be Blackswift we're seeing? Of course, Blackswift, AFAIK, wasn't supposed to be orbital. I'm noticing that it looks awfully similar to parts of their Space Launch Initiative proposal. Long, fat fuselage, so it's probably burning hydrogen, whatever it is.

Anyone know what exactly we're looking at here?

I always like to point to this article: Terraforming: Human Destiny or Hubris

It argues Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's vision: that we should learn how to grow plants in Space first, and stay the hell away from all gravity sinks (such as moons, such as planets,) for a very long time.

That said, if we can grow plants on the moon, that's great!

(older article)

Ref

A research site in Florida fires rockets trailing a wire into thunderstorms to stimulate lightning strikes: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/rocket_lightning_030130.html Video on this page: http://skydiary.com/gallery/chase2002/2002lightmovie.html

According to the article, the proto-planet is 100,000 years old. It MIGHT be around 2,000 years old but there is no way to confirm that. It is more likely that the age of the proto-planet is more in line with the age of the star at 100,000 years. Space.com also reports that this planet is 100,000 years old. -- "The group, led by Jane Greaves of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, found the 100,000-year-old fetal planet about 520 light-years away in the constellation Taurus "The new object, designated HL Tau b, is the youngest planetary object ever seen," said Anita Richards, an astronomer at the U.K. Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics. Richards, who worked with Greaves' team to describe the infant planet, said it's just 1 percent as old as the young planet found in orbit around the star TW Hydrae last year."

• XCOR isn't just some random wannabe company which recently hopped onto the "space tourism" bandwagon. They're a small (30-person) but well-respected private company noted for their expertise in building reusable liquid-fueled rocket engines.
  
• In 2001 they first flew their XCOR EZ-Rocket, which made regular demonstration flights at air shows for a few years and in 2005 set the distance record for a point-to-point rocket powered takeoff and landing.
  
• XCOR has a reputation for not tooting its own horn, instead working quietly and being rather conservative about its announcements.
  
• Their first version will go up to 61km, and they're planning on making incremental improvements to produce a second version that goes to 110km.
  
• Estimated total project cost is $10 million, with a passenger ticket price of ~$100K (half of Virgin Galactic). XCOR isn't planning on selling tickets directly to customers though, instead selling to ride operators who will deal with customer themselves.
  
• They already have a deal with a private research lab to fly multiple research flights for them each year.
  
• This quote from XCOR chief Jeff Greason explains their philosophy quite nicely: Lynx is seen by XCOR Aerospace as one piece of a larger roadmap of vehicles -- a start small and then add performance approach -- eventually culminating in a piloted orbital system, Greason said. "We've selected the basket of technologies ... technologies that we believe position us very well for the suborbital market, but also put us on the road for later, higher-performance systems," he explained.
  

• XCOR isn't just some random wannabe company which recently hopped onto the "space tourism" bandwagon. They're a small (30-person) but well-respected private company noted for their expertise in building reusable liquid-fueled rocket engines.
  
• In 2001 they first flew their XCOR EZ-Rocket, which made regular demonstration flights at air shows for a few years and in 2005 set the distance record for a point-to-point rocket powered takeoff and landing.
  
• XCOR has a reputation for not tooting its own horn, instead working quietly and being rather conservative about its announcements.
  
• Their first version will go up to 61km, and they're planning on making incremental improvements to produce a second version that goes to 110km.
  
• Estimated total project cost is $10 million, with a passenger ticket price of ~$100K (half of Virgin Galactic). XCOR isn't planning on selling tickets directly to customers though, instead selling to ride operators who will deal with customer themselves.
  
• They already have a deal with a private research lab to fly multiple research flights for them each year.
  
• This quote from XCOR chief Jeff Greason explains their philosophy quite nicely: Lynx is seen by XCOR Aerospace as one piece of a larger roadmap of vehicles -- a start small and then add performance approach -- eventually culminating in a piloted orbital system, Greason said. "We've selected the basket of technologies ... technologies that we believe position us very well for the suborbital market, but also put us on the road for later, higher-performance systems," he explained.
  

This Will Be Newsworthy... When they have more than "Artist's Conception" drawings.

I want very badly to be excited about the private space race, but with only three serious "New Space" firms with hardware in the sky (Bigelow, SpaceX, and Scaled Composites), I'm still not sure I'll ride a spaceship before I'm dead, at least not at a price I can afford.

Technically speaking, XCOR has had "hardware in the sky" since 2001, when they first flew the XCOR EZ-Rocket rocketplane. A couple years ago the EZ-Rocket set the point-to-point distance record for a rocket-powered take-off and landing. XCOR is basically building on the experience they gained from the EZ-Rocket and their currently Rocket Racing League efforts to create the suborbital spacecraft the current article is talking about. XCOR has historically been incredibly conservative in their predictions, and I wouldn't be surprised if they actually have new hardware flying faster than their predicted timescale.

The Universe is, in fact, at least 156 billion light years wide:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040524.html

Here..
Note the date... article is from 2003, and technology hasn't advanced at all since then. (Or prove me wrong, provide links)

Because it could end up like this. http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=080221-satellite-kill

For craft that pursue a path mostly symmetrical with respect to the equator, the effect is minimal. For craft that pursue a more unsymmetrical path, the effect is larger.

An article on Space.com, explains that the measurements were made "... using radio waves bounced off the craft" as they flew past the Earth. So they weren't really that far away - relatively :-)

coupled with the recent success of a satellite refueling another satellite in space.
Can see a satellite change its capability in space from one job function to another and get a boost in fuel to stay up there long term.

I'd say it definitely happens, and not just because of diamond dust--pretty much all the dust in space would do it. That said, "prevalent" is a relative term. Space is still pretty incomprehensibly empty, even in the really "dirty" parts. See http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/dust_storm_030814.html where a "dust storm" is described as being the impact of 12 particles of dust per square meter per day.

I mean, sure, the sun "looks" larger but is it really?

I've got 10 industry funded studies that says it's an optical illusion.