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[Purpose of Nanosputnik is to support development of satellite control techniques, monitoring of satellite operations, and research on new attitude system sensors and other components.]

Also, space.com has an article mentioning it.

I'm surprised there isn't more coverage. It is a little reminiscent of the latter days of the Apollo program when there was little/no coverage on the press, or to a greater extent the latter days of SpaceLab.

-F

The hypothesis in question was explained here

Also here for the braver souls.

I submitted this story a couple of times yesterday, but it sadly wasn't accepted. Maybe it was too long or had too many links? In any case, here's a copy, which has a little additional info:

MSNBC, Space.com, and Wired report that NASA, in collaboration with the non-profit Spaceward Foundation, has announced its first two Centennial Challenges. The Centennial Challenges, inspired by the Ansari X Prize and DARPA Grand Challenge, are prize contests seeking to stimulate private industry development of technologies relevant to space exploration. One contest is the Tether Challenge, for building the sort of super-strong tether needed to make a space elevator feasible. The other is the Beam Power Challenge, for creating a wirelessly-powered ribbon-climbing robot capable of lifting as large a payload as possible within a limited timeframe. The initial set of challenges in 2005 will award $50K to the winners of each contest. A second set of challenges in 2006 will award first, second, and third place prizes worth $100K, $40K, and $10K. It's hoped that these contests will further space elevator technology and help eliminate the 'giggle factor' surrounding them. Additional contests will be announced in the coming weeks, although Congress currently restricts NASA from awarding prizes of more than $250K; the agency is lobbying to try to get this limit raised to $40 million for future prizes.

Photometry hasn't, AFAIK, been used to detect a planet, but it can tell us about a planet once we've found it.

Although there is certainly no debate about these two objects being extrasolar planets, it is not the case that they were DISCOVERED using infrared. They were known extrasolar planets that were imaged in the IR using the spitzer telescope. Incidentally, they are not even the first pictures of extrasolar planets, as there is a nice one here from September of last year, that was reported on slashdot.

If this were an engineered system, you would have a single point of failure with these type Ia supernovae observations.

You're quite right, and because it was a single technique, it is vulnerable to this problem. I found an article written by the head of one of the supernova search teams, and it does a much better job than my /. post:

http://www-supernova.lbl.gov/PhysicsTodayArticle.p df

Other methods that independently point towards the existence of a dark energy term include results from the WMAP explorer (looking at the microwave background from the Big Bang):

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/co smic_darknrg_020115-1.html

I was wrong in my last comment to you - dark energy can describe the observations we see, and it ties in neatly with other independent checks, but I'm not sure I can call it an 'observed phenomenon' in the sense of something I can point to and say 'there it is!'

As for the Pioneer craft, that anomaly is way too large to be caused by 'dark energy' acceleration. The dark energy term is directly proportional to separation of objects (and not inverse square like gravity) and it is only marginally apparent in measurements that look back over half the universe's current age! I suspect that in the Voyager case there will be something pretty mundane that explains it.

Dr Fish

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscien ce/brookhaven_destruction.html Scientists creat a state of matter that is more stable than all other matter in the universe, causing everything else to colapse into it. That would be a bad thing.

Why not dispense with the concrete and just make it inflatable? I doubt the concrete will make it all that much more permanent of a shelter than it would otherwise be. Besides, if it's good enough for space, it's good enough as a temporary shelter. Check out the inflatable space habitats

While I get a kick out of most of these missions, I'm *really* waiting for the next Titan mission. I want to see a nuclear powered helicopter or cryogenic-temperature blimp (two proposals thusfar) patrolling around Titan; it'd be able to visit pretty much the entire moon. Huygens definitely was a "pose 5 new questions for every one it answered" mission. And if anything, Titan now looks even more like Primordial-Earth-In-Deep-Freeze than ever before. ::digs up one of his old posts to sci.space.tech::

There were some concept studies done of an "Aerover" blimp for Titan exploration a few years back. I suspect we'll soon seen those ideas thrown around again.

Post-Cassini Exploration of Titan: Science Rationale and Mission Concepts (compares helicopters, blimps, etc.)
Titan orbiter Aerover mission
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature= 499
http://www.nasatech.com/Briefs/Mar03/NPO20609.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/ titan_blimp_020212.html

oh! you were talking about the opportunity rover! The same thing has happened to the Spirit rover a couple days ago, which is what my post was referring to.

The link talks about Opportunity's power boost, but a few days ago Spirit also had the same thing happen to it.
Quite amazing stuff, if this keeps up the rovers should last a very long time!

Space.com article discusses that these satellites aren't in predicted trajectories.

... in Japan, China, and possibly openings soon in the European Union and India...

Odds are the Bigelow space prize will be won well before 2015. That means a private space shuttle will be available for purchase. The best thing nasa can do is focus on scientific missions and provide a market for the contestant in that prize-instead of trying to compete against them.

The closer you get to the planet, the more crap there is. Some of it is really interesting crap, but it's still deadly crap.

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/quantum_astrono my_041216.html/

Thawing out old bacteria is not a new discovery--what's interesting here is that it is older bacteria.

The more interesting question about possible unicellular organisms in Mars is whether they share a common ancestor with Earth's unicellular organisms or did they develop independently of each other. If there is a link/common ancestor, then the currently weak theory of panspermia (life exists and is distributed throughout the universe in the form of germs or spores) would have a big boost in support. Also see this article about possible space bugs written over 2 years ago.

Thawing out old bacteria is not a new discovery--what's interesting here is that it is older bacteria.

The more interesting question about possible unicellular organisms in Mars is whether they share a common ancestor with Earth's unicellular organisms or did they develop independently of each other. If there is a link/common ancestor, then the currently weak theory of panspermia (life exists and is distributed throughout the universe in the form of germs or spores) would have a big boost in support. Also see this article about possible space bugs written over 2 years ago.

This article describes studies of intergalactic gas 150 times hotter than the sun. Such gas is difficult to detect because it can only radiate at ultraviolet wavelengths:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/missing_matt er_030212.html/

• http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050223_dark_ galaxy.html
• http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7056
• http://www.physorg.com/news3154.html

How hard is it to build a spy/telescope satellite ?

I found this site about building a miniature

Miniature Space satellite

A canadian cheapy.
Canadian Satellite

I think it would be cool if someone could put a cheap one in space from off the shelf telescope parts . Don't you think these prices for these orbitting telescopes are a bit farfetched ?

That's still open to debate.

To say nothing of the mass hysteria that occurs when the words "life" and "mars" are randomly strung together in the same sentence, then repeated secondhand to an over-eager journalist.

"There are no magnetars close enough to worry about, however, Gaensler and two other astronomers told SPACE.com."

-S

Please prove that you can read beyond a 5th grade level by checking your claims before posting. Fact: 2004 was the 4th warmest year on record, 1998 is the warmest, 2002 second, and 2003 third. Seems rather interesting that the trend is down, exactly the same trend as solar output. (1998 was the strongest ElNino year in recorded history and is considered spurious, even by climatologists.)

So, research your claims, your intellect can only benefit...

They are already doing that: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /mars_plane_020612-1.html

You have based your criticism on an oversimplified understanding of the methane scenario on Mars. Here is the link supplied by the article which attempts to clarify the "methane signature" of interest to astrobiologists.

I do hope that this isn't another false alarm. This comes at about the same time as this odd lichen-like feature was photographed: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_life_05 0216.html >. Fascinating developments.

On a slight tangent, I wonder if Larry Lemke is related to the savant Leslie Lemke.

I'm proposing that the generator is somehow tapping into the realm of probabilities. That it is detecting when probabilities are narrowing at certain times, allowing major world-changing events to come together. This kind of links in with participatory/final anthropic principle, and multiple universes (whether they are tied together by string theory's yet unseen dimensions).

From those articles, it seems the existence of our consciousness threatens reality itself in its current form. Then again, this could all be like Kepler's "six planets" theories, or describing the sun as Zeus's son on a sky chariot.

I'm proposing that the generator is somehow tapping into the realm of probabilities. That it is detecting when probabilities are narrowing at certain times, allowing major world-changing events to come together. This kind of links in with participatory/final anthropic principle, and multiple universes (whether they are tied together by string theory's yet unseen dimensions).

From those articles, it seems the existence of our consciousness threatens reality itself in its current form. Then again, this could all be like Kepler's "six planets" theories, or describing the sun as Zeus's son on a sky chariot.

I'm proposing that the generator is somehow tapping into the realm of probabilities. That it is detecting when probabilities are narrowing at certain times, allowing major world-changing events to come together. This kind of links in with participatory/final anthropic principle, and multiple universes (whether they are tied together by string theory's yet unseen dimensions).

From those articles, it seems the existence of our consciousness threatens reality itself in its current form. Then again, this could all be like Kepler's "six planets" theories, or describing the sun as Zeus's son on a sky chariot.

I'm proposing that the generator is somehow tapping into the realm of probabilities. That it is detecting when probabilities are narrowing at certain times, allowing major world-changing events to come together. This kind of links in with participatory/final anthropic principle, and multiple universes (whether they are tied together by string theory's yet unseen dimensions).

From those articles, it seems the existence of our consciousness threatens reality itself in its current form. Then again, this could all be like Kepler's "six planets" theories, or describing the sun as Zeus's son on a sky chariot.

There is a rumour afoot that the plans were destroyed as part of the contract for the shuttle, but I wouldn't put money on it. This article, though, provides a summary of why the Saturn V wouldn't help either.

http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/saturn_five _000313.html

If we'd kept with large rockets, we'd still have all the infrastructure in place, and the tech would have slowly and continually modernised, but since the shuttle killed them off, it's necessary to start over.

Not true. Sirius uses a highly inclined elliptical orbit that scribes a sort of figure 8, with the fat part over North America. Each satellite spends about 16hrs/day over North America. When the sat crosses the equator going south, they turn off the transmitter. As it crosses back over the equator heading north, they turn it back on. And there are always two satellites over NA at all times.

Here's a couple links:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/proton/sirius3/00113 0sirius.html
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /satcom_radio_operations_031112.html

Indeed you are correct. As it turns out, the star is considerably further away than the Sun is. From the article I just linked:

The star is catalogued as SDSS J090745.0+24507. It is currently in the galactic outskirts, about 195,000 light-years from the center, and it's a similar distance from Earth. The path suggests it did not come from any other nearby galaxy nor is it headed toward one, Brown said in a telephone interview.

It is travelling at twice the speed needed to escape the gravitational clutches of the galaxy. About 80 million or 100 million years from now, Brown said, the star will exit the galaxy and become a lone wanderer of intergalactic space.

... is what Europe came up with, as an answer to your question.

http://www.esa.int/export/esaNA/galileo.html
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/gal ileo/index_en.htm

China seems to agree

...but the yanks are not happy....

If anything is capable of looking beyond the nose into the depths of the Universe, it is Hubble.

Granted, if you wait until the asteriod is close enough to Earth we're in trouble by any account. My argument is that the mass is already in orbit, and to affect ant real change you would need to accelerate that mass and exert a greater force on the asteroid. It would be much cheaper to move an orbital mass then to attempt to increase the force by ither means.

force = mass * acceleration

The easiest way to increase the force exerted is to increase the mass. Smarter people than I have used the same math to determine a possible defense. Space.com has an on a mission to study this exact defense.

Put simply, if we're going to move a rock by throwing rocks at it, we should use the biggest rocks we have. Deorbiting the HST shortsightedly takes that rock away.

But you could send several thousand rovers for the cost of sending one human, and the rovers can stay longer.

The combined cost of Spirit and Opportunity was $820 million dollars.

The potential cost of a manned mission to Mars, using off the shelf technology and launching today: $20 billion dollars.

Which means you can send 48 rovers similiar to Spirit and Opportunity to Mars, with the same payload.

The "rovers being able to stay longer" is a somewhat unqualified statement at the moment. Sure, they have each lasted a year on the surface. It's up in the air whether they will both last another year or not however.

Humans would be forced to stay on the surface of Mars for roughly 2 (Earth) years, until conditions to launch are optimal again.

Regardless, it is technically "cheaper" to send Rovers, but a human on the ground can do so much more.

(Then again, I might be saying this coming from a geology background. I want to be on the ground, physically looking at the rock, breaking it apart in my lab, creating thin sections and examining the mineral content. Right now, all we can do with the rovers is look at pictures and analyze spectrographs... and dig a few inches into the ground. Please, what is beneath all that sound? What is the bedrock composed of. Etc...).

Anyway, for those who haven't read it, I highly recommend Dr. Zubrin's book, The Case For Mars

Bush has effectivly killed Prometheus/JIMO.

Also has cut major NASA projects as a way to fund the Moon

NSF looks to take it in the shorts as well.

The servicing of the 80's debt and now, the GWB debts, is killing us.

I've been reading something over at space.com today that's a panel discussion regarding terraforming Mars. Topics include could we, can we and should we?

It's like a cow's opinion. It just doesn't matter. It's moo.

Uhm... http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /webb_ngst_030108.html

In fact, nearly all the stories in I, Robot are parables about the dangers of blind adherence to dogma, using the three laws as an allegory.

Somewhere I read an essay by Asimov where he said that he came to avoid writing about aliens because his main editor, John Campbell could only think about human-alien relations in a white man's burden" model. This problem also motivated some of his stories about robots, since it allowed him to slip an anti-racism message beneath Campbell's radar.

My favorite robot story has always been "Reason", in which a robot on a space station "proves" that humans are inferior, delusional beings, and that their fabulous stories about a planet called Earth with billions of ihabitants are pure mythology. The Second Law is not mentioned in this story, probably because Asimov hadn't invented it yet. There is a statement that robots are supposed to be obedient, but this robot is able to transfer his obedience to the deity of the religion he invents.

When I read this story as a teenager, I thought it was the most ground-breaking bits of philosophizing in human history. Since then, I've read some more thoughtful writers on similar topics, and the story seems rather less insighful. Which is not to say that I'm not grateful to Asimov for giving me some thought-provoking entertainment. But I've outgrown my hero-worship of the dude, and it pains me to see how people continue to treat his every idea as gospel.

I tried submitting a story on SpaceX a couple of weeks ago, but it was sadly rejected. Here's the text of the submission, along with some other interesting info:

Spaceflight Now has an article on SpaceX, a low-cost space launch company started by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk (he is no longer with PayPal). The article describes SpaceX's small-size Falcon I rocket, scheduled to launch a military imaging satellite on its maiden flight in March, and their medium-size Falcon V rocket, scheduled to lift a prototype Bigelow inflatable space habitat next year. Interestingly, the Falcon V has enough capacity to lift a Gemini-style capsule with 5-6 people to orbit. Both rockets have per-pound launch costs approximately one-fifth that of comparable rockets. Long-term plans call for evolving the basic design to heavy-lift and super-heavy lift rockets, assuming SpaceX survives its legal battles with defense giants like Northrup Grumman. Musk believes that ultimately a launch cost of '$500 per pound or less is very achievable' (compared to $10,000 per pound for the Space Shuttle). Elon Musk is a member of the Mars Society, and started SpaceX after he realized that current launch costs would be a large barrier to his plans for a philanthropic mission to put an experimental greenhouse with food crops on Mars.

This radio interview with Elon Musk from 2001 is pretty neat, and has some information I haven't seen elsewhere.

I just get the impression they are bored and want a challenge, like a daring rescue of an invaluable and popular satellite, so they can send up another IMAX camera team to catch the action in zero-G.

NASA's main problem is they are completely inept at implementing the effects of Moore's Law to space technology. Every year they seem less and less efficient. It has been a quarter-century now since the Shuttle program started, and the only launch-relevant upgrades I've seen on that system are new O-rings and an improved fuel tank hull, now far less likely to shred big chunks that smack into the shuttle during launch. I don't know about the rest of you, but covering the outside of anything traveling at supersonic speeds with something as flimsy as styrofoam sounds moronic at best, and the redesign did nothing to prevent the peeling of the styrofoam in the first place. And that was to do what, prevent ice from forming on the tank's exterior, which might flake off and hit the wings of the Shuttle?

Hey NASA, here are some ideas worth a go:

• Move the shuttle up top.
• Most thermos designs put some sort of shell around the insular layer, for durability. Try the vacuum-walled design, you might save mass.
• Work a little harder on the physics and figure out how to make a tank which doesn't depressurize as it empties.
• How about a smaller fuel tank used later in the flight, when there is no moisture in the atmosphere? You could put another solid booster in its place.

You damn litter-bug

Except for the fact that NASA has repeatedly stated if they can't afford to fix Hubble, they'll at least make sure it gets safely de-orbited.

You damn litter-bug

Here