Slashdot Mirror

jonerik writes "Following up on today's story on the Soviet Union's massive N1 rocket are these two articles on the latest US and Russian rocket designs. Space.com covers the American side of things, with a story on Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 and Boeing's Delta 4 boosters. The Associated Press has this article on the Russians' Rokot booster, originally built in the '70s as the SS-19 ICBM and converted to civilian use in the mid-'90s. The Rokot was in the news this past weekend when it successfully launched a pair of US-German satellites - dubbed Tom and Jerry - into orbit to map the Earth's gravitational field and 'chart large-scale movements of water around Earth.'"

jonerik writes "Following up on today's story on the Soviet Union's massive N1 rocket are these two articles on the latest US and Russian rocket designs. Space.com covers the American side of things, with a story on Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 and Boeing's Delta 4 boosters. The Associated Press has this article on the Russians' Rokot booster, originally built in the '70s as the SS-19 ICBM and converted to civilian use in the mid-'90s. The Rokot was in the news this past weekend when it successfully launched a pair of US-German satellites - dubbed Tom and Jerry - into orbit to map the Earth's gravitational field and 'chart large-scale movements of water around Earth.'"

jokrswild writes: "After 5 space walks and 172 million dollars, Hubble has been successfully redeployed. Hopefully it will be able to amaze us yet again in its abilities to capture the unimaginable." And Captn Pepe writes: "Space.com has a couple of articles regarding what the Congressional Research Service and what NASA's new chief administrator have to say about the space agency's future plans and prospects. The short version is, don't hold your breath for a Mars mission."

jokrswild writes: "After 5 space walks and 172 million dollars, Hubble has been successfully redeployed. Hopefully it will be able to amaze us yet again in its abilities to capture the unimaginable." And Captn Pepe writes: "Space.com has a couple of articles regarding what the Congressional Research Service and what NASA's new chief administrator have to say about the space agency's future plans and prospects. The short version is, don't hold your breath for a Mars mission."

jokrswild writes: "After 5 space walks and 172 million dollars, Hubble has been successfully redeployed. Hopefully it will be able to amaze us yet again in its abilities to capture the unimaginable." And Captn Pepe writes: "Space.com has a couple of articles regarding what the Congressional Research Service and what NASA's new chief administrator have to say about the space agency's future plans and prospects. The short version is, don't hold your breath for a Mars mission."

ChazeFroy writes: "The universe is actually beige, not turquoise. Researchers at John Hopkins University initially reported it was turquoise, but the software they used contained a flaw that implemented a non-standard white index to arrive at the mint chocolate chip green color." The other color was much nicer than this beige.

Bill Kendrick writes: "Space.com reports that a newly discovered comet is approaching the sun and earth. No, this one won't hit us, but it should make for a good show. It'll be closest to the sun on March18th. Here's a diagram of its orbit."

Bill Kendrick writes: "Space.com reports that a newly discovered comet is approaching the sun and earth. No, this one won't hit us, but it should make for a good show. It'll be closest to the sun on March18th. Here's a diagram of its orbit."

Metrollica writes: "Space.com features an article describing NASA's plans to prepare the Johnson Space Center that could one day house extraterrestrial life." An excerpt from the article: "It's human nature to clean for company more thoroughly than one would for oneself, but nowhere is this truth taken to greater extremes than at the Johnson Space Center. NASA's setting new standards of cleanliness in its labs that handle samples returning from space. And their efforts are laying the groundwork for samples that might some day contain evidence of extraterrestrial life from Mars, Europa, and other points little known."

FortKnox writes: "The two Jovians on the planet Jupiter have been 'arguing' for a while, and are about to collide. The article is descriptive and explains what happened the last time something like this happened, plus pictures. Time to get out your telescopes..."

JeremyYoung writes: "The National Academy of Science's National Research Council is conducting what is being called the Solar System Exploration Survey at NASA's request. In it they are including public opinion from a web-based survey on the direction of NASA through 2013. The survey itself can be found at this page on the Planetary Society website. The article with more detail in explaining this is here. The survey closes on January 31, so don't miss this chance to tell NASA what you think it should be doing. pssst ... Mars can be done cheaply."

spike hay writes: "According to this article at Space.com, we may send a sample-return probe to Mars in 2005 that will drill a few hundred feet into the Martian surface to look for liquid water. Scientists believe that great quantities of briny water could exist under the surface permafrost, warmed by volcanism. Finding liquid water on Mars would help sustain future colonists, and it even may open up the possibility that life might still exist on Mars."

Cally writes: "Space.com reports that Mars Odyssey has completed aerobraking and is ready to begin its main science mission. As the spacecraft has already produced exciting results before the start of the science mission proper, interesting data on the quantities of water in the Martian crust may be expected soon - not to mention that Odyssey provides another datapoint in the study of Gamma Ray bursts."

james was one of a number of people that submitted the news that the earth has had another near miss, this time with an asteroid. This particular one is thought to be about 300 meters in length, meaning that if it had struck the earth, it would have destroyed an area of say...South Africa. Not to mention the fall out. But we don't need a better system for watching the stars. Nope. Obviously not.

james was one of a number of people that submitted the news that the earth has had another near miss, this time with an asteroid. This particular one is thought to be about 300 meters in length, meaning that if it had struck the earth, it would have destroyed an area of say...South Africa. Not to mention the fall out. But we don't need a better system for watching the stars. Nope. Obviously not.

tanveer1979 writes: "Space.com is running a story about a new star in the sky created by humans to study astronomy better. To improve the usefulness of the Keck II telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, engineers created a virtual star to aid in a complex process that adjusts for the turbulence in Earth's atmosphere in order to create better images of distant objects."

Ant writes "The collective upward human gaze yields numerous special images of space every year. Being a curious lot with a certain mastery of technology, we keep looking deeper and with greater resolution at the most remarkable features of the universe, near and far." Eye candy, desktop source material, and it'll make ya feel insignificant too!

CBNobi writes: "An article over at space.com reports of sugar-like substances contained in meteorite found on earth. This discovery may support the theory that life on earth was seeded from outer space."

Two different articles about building lasers (well, lasers and a maser perhaps) on the moon. Reuters has a story about a potential lunar power plant, creating electricity with solar panels and beaming it to Earth with microwaves. Space.com has a piece about building a sort of super-sized Star Wars program on the Moon, giant lasers set up to blast incoming space debris and not, of course, anyone here on Earth.

EccentricAnomaly writes: "Adrian Lark and Olivier de Goursac have made some spectacular 3D renderings of the Valles Marineris of Mars from Mars Global Surveyor data. That site is in French, but space.com has a write-up in English. Some of the images are from the bottom of Melas Chasma, which is a possible landing site for the MER rovers in 2003. Adrian Lark has software that you can use to generate your own images with data from MGS's MOLA instrument."

destructor writes "Thanks to these guys, I found this little robotic article. Aided by NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts, flying insect robots are looking at a life on our "little red planet", Mars in order to procure some atmospheric information and samples. Since conventional aircraft are unable to precisely navigate the Mars surface due to very thin air qualities, the robots actually have the ability to "move only their wings rapidly - while the body flies slowly", to ease sample collections." Space.com is carrying a piece on this.

Helmholtz writes: "Soon body powered devices may be a reality thanks to work being done at the Center for Space Power and Advanced Electronics, a NASA commercial center in Alabama. The article talks mostly about military and space applications, but I think it'd be really slick to make still suits, not to mention portable audio players, PDA, and even laptops that are powered by energy that we are generating anyway."

DarkKnightRadick writes: "In this day and age, data sharing, data mining and distributed computing are words most of us know well enough, but until recently, those phrases were connected with such projects as DNET, and more recently with SETI@Home. Now we should all welcome the newcomer, Virtual Astronomy. With the framework being developed by three different groups (one in the UK, one in the US, and one in Australia), one would expect this to be a very competitive field, but alas, this is not the case. The three groups are working together so that they can have it all up in running the in the projected 15 years that it will take to put all this data into an electronic format."

Space.Com, Astronomy Magazine and The American Meteor Society all have tons of information, viewing guides and historical perspectives for you to peruse in anticipation of tonight Lonid meteor shower. Many are predicting a once in a lifetime event, as the Earth is expected to swing through 3 debris trails laid down by Comet 55p/Temple-Tuttle. One article mentions that up to 10,000 events per hour could be in the offing. So if you feel like staying up till 2am pst (10 ut) you'll be able to check it out. I know we've been hyping this event, but, well, we are okay with this.

"Hard work, no pay, eternal glory." The Mars Society needs volunteers to simulate Mars exploration, so we're better-prepared for the problems the (hopefully) real astronauts will face. If you have a month free next summer and you'd like to spend it freezing your ass off, read on.

The Mars Society is looking for "anyone in good physical condition between 18 and 60 years of age... Scientific, engineering, practical mechanical, wilderness, and literary skills are all considered a plus." Only the passionate need apply: "conditions are likely to be tough and the job will be very trying." And that's before the robot switches into hunter-killer mode.

If you prefer roasting to freezing, there's a mission somewhere in the Australian Outback next year as well. Either way, go visit the Mars Society homepage and check it out.

I spoke with a friend of mine, Daniel Slosberg, who coordinated Mission Support for the Michigan Mars Society during two similar, less-audacious experiments this year. His was the easy job of sitting at home, coordinating communications (chiefly email, with simulated 20-minute round-trip delay), answering questions from the field, and giving advice.

Daniel happens to be working on an idea for distributed mission support; if you're interested in being part of the ground crew, drop him a line.

For the team that actually goes into the wilderness and lives in the "hab," you'll be simulating Mars isolation as accurately as possible. You'll be brutally far north, for one thing. You'll wear a mock-spacesuit every time you go outside, which will help identify where the problems are in e.g. mobility or hygiene. You'll also spend an hour in the airlock when you enter or leave, which will help remind you not to forget your hammer.

The excursions get more sophisticated each year: next year will be the first with an already-completed hab and the first with more than one mock-suit. Your chance to be part of history.

In related news, Odyssey continues aerobraking, and its mission looks good -- if you've read Robinson's Red Mars series, you know how delicate orbital insertion is. Great work, JPL.

And just for kicks, here's a New Scientist article about synthesizing fuel from the Martian atmosphere to power a "hopper"-lander. If you find the practical chemistry of planetary travel interesting, go read Robert Zubrin who is just all about using whatever resources already exist outside Earth's gravity well.

IronClad writes: "By some reports, the annual Leonid meteor shower should be the best show in decades, and possibly until 2099. With meteors peaking November 17-18, and particularly over the Pacific, now is the time to check the predicted local meteor flux and buy chips for those star parties. Anyone adding a wireless hub and laptops for a star+lan party?"

Insitus writes: "NASA releases the first images from the Mars Odyssey." Not very exciting, but I guess with the dust storm this is as good as they get.

ksp0704 writes: "According to this article at space.com, scientists have finally measured the approximately 90% of the universe we can't see (the dark matter)." I'm sure it will continue to be a topic of debate for years, but two independent measurements agreeing is a good sign.

maddmike writes "Nasa's Mars explorer Odyssey is scheduled to brake and orbit about Mars today at 7:30PDT. Among the mission's objectives are to understand Mars' climate and geological history and to search for signs of life sustaining environments including water. Main web site is at the JPL website." Update: 10/24 13:12 GMT by T : The BrownFury writes cites a Space.com summary which says "The Mars Odyssey spacecraft appears to have succeeded Tuesday night in one of the most tricky and critical parts of its missions by slipping into orbit around the Red Planet."

dragoness.ai points to this story at space.com about some exciting news for black hole enthusiasts, writing "The scientists had a chance for the first time in history to observe energy coming out of a black hole."

BLAMM! writes: "Space.com has an article explaining how the increase in asteroid detection has outstripped our ability to examine the data. And the problem is only going to get worse. A distributed workload is mentioned as a solution, but only among a few other "astereroid hunter" organizations. It's clear that an abundance of data isn't the only problem, but perhaps an @home type distributed solution would help? Anyone have a contact inside Seti@home? Looking for aliens is cool, but checking asteroids for NEOs is a real-world, in-your-face kind of problem."

dlkf writes: "There is an article on Space.com that talks about some of the benefits, costs and current research relevant to using satellites to generate and store power. This surplus of power could then be beamed via laser or microwave to earth or other satellites."

dlkf writes: "There is an article on Space.com that talks about some of the benefits, costs and current research relevant to using satellites to generate and store power. This surplus of power could then be beamed via laser or microwave to earth or other satellites."

HobbySpacer writes: "XCOR announced the success of the first phase of flight tests for the EZ-Rocket. In the most recent flight, Dick Rutan fired both of its rocket engines to take off and reach a speed of 160knots and an altitude of 6200 feet. The vehicle is a Long-EZ kit plane modified to hold twin 400 lb thrust rocket engines fueled by isopropyl alcohol and liquid oxygen. The project is not aimed at a homebuilt EZ-Rocket but will demonstrate safe and reliable rocket propulsion. The primary goal is development of reusable launch technology that leads next to a high altitude sub-orbital rocket vehicle for space tourism, rocket racing (e.g. vertical drag racing at air shows) and the X-Prize competition."

dlkf writes: "Space.com has an excellent article discussing current technologies in light sources for growing plants in space. ".. .the high-tech lighting systems here have been used to grow potatoes, sweet potatoes, lettuce, spinach, radishes, wheat onion and a whole plethora of herbs such as marjoram and parsley." The main problems for the lighting sources were energy usage, lifetime of light source and heat generation. To address these issues researchers are using both LED and microwave technology." The electrical advantages of LED growlamps may soon become manifest here on Earth, too.

Slashback brings you some follow-ups tonight about Gartner's recommendation to dump IIS, Charles Connell vs. Eric S. Raymond on Open Source project management, xStore and the GPL, and (yes) the results of Deep Space 1's latest Final Mission.

Microsoft is just as secure as the competition, says Microsoft. Jon_E writes: "According to this article Microsoft is responding to the Gartner Report which recommends that enterprises drop IIS by claiming unfair targeting due to their popularity."

Whether because of better-trained or more vigilant administrators, or some other factors, the Apache servers running many web sites certainly haven't seen the devastating outages in the past month (Code Red, Nimda) as certain large IIS installations have.

If animated, this might make a really good Saturday cartoon. cconnell writes "Last September, slashdot published my critique of Eric Raymond's essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar. There was a lively (and sometimes scorching) discussion that followed. Here is Eric's reply to my critique, which Slashdot readers might enjoy. And here is my reply to Eric."

This was not faked in the same studio as the "lunar landings." mrsmalkav writes "Deep Space 1 has passed by Comet Borrelly within 1400 miles and took some very pretty pictures of the comet's core, all while collecting lots of data about said comet. NASA's press release discusses some of the details and findings of the flyby.

This is actually really impressive given that there was very little hope for this mission. From the Mission Logs on DS1's site, '[T]o be honest, DS1's visit with the comet simply is unlikely to work as well as we hope. Many mission logs have described the difficulty of keeping this aged and wounded bird aloft, and the encounter with Borrelly will present Deep Space 1 with the greatest challenge yet in its historic trek through the solar system.'"

Saint Aardvark writes "Space.com has an article about the images taken by DS-1, and they're stunning." And eldurbarn points to the NASA Images of comet Borrelly online at JPL.

How to satisfy customers with license objections, Part II brtb writes: "Soon after Slashdot posted my DiscZerver-GPL writeup last week, xStore added a link in their Download section for information about the use of GPL software in their products. Below is the e-mail I received in response (address changed to protect the spamless). Congratulations to xStore for supporting Free Software and bringing the DiscZervers into compliance with the GPL.

From: "Support" [support@xstoreonline.com]
To: "brtb" [slashdot@brtb.org]
Subject: "RE: GPL SOURCE CODE"

xStore is committed to complying to the full letter and spirit of the GPL. We are currently investigating the allegations of non-GPL compliance and communicating with the GNU.ORG and Free Software Foundation on this issue. We will produce a response to your request that is mutually acceptable to the copyright holders of the programs we have used that fall under the GPL and xStore itself. Due to the recent acquisition of this product, we are still in the process of preparing the required source code for distribution. xStore is commited to bring the DiscZerver product into GPL compliance, if it is indeed found to be not in compliance.

In the meantime, please provide xStore with information so that we can send you, the user of this product, the package that you are entitled to. Please provide the serial number of your DiscZerver product and the 'system page' with your response. The 'system page' is located at [http://your_Zerver_name_or_IP_address/admin-cgi/s ystem]. In addition, please send us a self addressed stamped envelope suitable for mailing a CD-ROM along with $14.95 to:

xStore, Inc.
Federal Highway Center
1200 North Federal Highway
Suite 200
Boca Raton, FL 33432

After we receive your written request along with the above items, we will process it and promptly send you the disc when it becomes available.

This thanks to the mostly behind-the-scenes work of people at the FSF. Congratulations to xStore for respecting the intent of the programmers whose work they're consolidating and packaging.

Saint Aardvark writes: "All right...Space.com is reporting here that NASA's Deep Space 1 probe successfully made it through Comet Borrelly -- pretty good for a spacecraft using up the last of its fuel, 'way past its expected lifetime, doing something it wasn't designed to do'. About 30 pix are being downloaded right now, and there's a press conference planned for Tuesday. In the meantime, read NASA's press release here. Way to go, DS-1 and NASA!"

Saint Aardvark writes: "All right...Space.com is reporting here that NASA's Deep Space 1 probe successfully made it through Comet Borrelly -- pretty good for a spacecraft using up the last of its fuel, 'way past its expected lifetime, doing something it wasn't designed to do'. About 30 pix are being downloaded right now, and there's a press conference planned for Tuesday. In the meantime, read NASA's press release here. Way to go, DS-1 and NASA!"

dlkf writes: "The Kodiak Launch Complex on the Alaskan coast, run by the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation is scheduled, weather permitting, to send an Athena-1 booster with 4 NASA and Air Force science experiments into orbit tonight. If successful, Alaska will become just the fourth state (California, Florida and Virginia are the others) to send rockets into earth orbit. For more info, read this."

A reader writes "According to this article at space.com, researchers at the University of Toronto have designed and built a working ornithopter. Their design will (hopefully) lift off solely powered by the motion of its articulated wings. First envisaged by Leonardo da Vinci, many will recall ornithopers' prominent role in Frank Herbert's Dune books. The U. Toronto Ornithopter project page is is found at ornithopter.net." "Usul ^? , Base of the Pillar"

A reader writes "According to this article at space.com, researchers at the University of Toronto have designed and built a working ornithopter. Their design will (hopefully) lift off solely powered by the motion of its articulated wings. First envisaged by Leonardo da Vinci, many will recall ornithopers' prominent role in Frank Herbert's Dune books. The U. Toronto Ornithopter project page is is found at ornithopter.net." "Usul ^? , Base of the Pillar"

An anonymous reader writes: "Honeybee Robotics, a firm in New York's Little Italy, has designed a probe that can inchworm deep into the Martian crust or Europan ice shell without a cable to the surface for power or data. Totally autonomous. It's based on a system the company designed to weld steampipes below Manhattan. It's also just really cool."

Nick Davison writes: "This weekend promises another good meteor display with the Perseids expected to be falling at up to one a minute at around 6am PST Sunday morning. The big show of the year, however, is expected to be the Leonids that peak November 18th - they are expected to briefly peak at around 15,000/hour."

Nick Davison writes: "This weekend promises another good meteor display with the Perseids expected to be falling at up to one a minute at around 6am PST Sunday morning. The big show of the year, however, is expected to be the Leonids that peak November 18th - they are expected to briefly peak at around 15,000/hour."

Ghengis writes: "An update to this article posted back in March, the mission to send a probe to Pluto gets a reprieve from Congress. Timing is critical for studying Pluto's atmosphere, as it is about to ungergo a 200 year freeze when Pluto enters its long winter. There still isn't enough money to send a probe to Pluto, but the money could keep the mission alive long enough to get more money."

Ghengis writes: "An update to this article posted back in March, the mission to send a probe to Pluto gets a reprieve from Congress. Timing is critical for studying Pluto's atmosphere, as it is about to ungergo a 200 year freeze when Pluto enters its long winter. There still isn't enough money to send a probe to Pluto, but the money could keep the mission alive long enough to get more money."

Mr. Eradicator writes "The Voyager probes are continuing their journey away from the Solar System at a pace of 10 AU per year. They won't reach the heliopause until 2017, but they could arrive at a preliminary boundary called the termination shock as early as 2005. The termination shock, nearly 4 billion miles inside the heliopause, is where the solar wind first starts to slow down and reverse due to its first encounters with pressure from interstellar space."

jhittner writes "Space.com is reporting a reusable rocket plane designed by XCOR Aerospace to carry future travelers to space has succeeded in its first piloted flight test"

jhittner writes "Space.com is reporting a reusable rocket plane designed by XCOR Aerospace to carry future travelers to space has succeeded in its first piloted flight test"

Jared writes: "A story at space.com reports that new research indicates that black hole formation is tied directly to the amount of mass in a galaxy's central bulge, an ancient and dense sphere of stars that populates the central regions of many galaxies, including our own Milky Way."