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I guess not the rockets themselves, just the engines.

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And I'm sure Google has even more info on it. I haven't seen anything new on it, so I have no idea what has happened since then. I haven't seen any new complaints, but I also haven't seen anything to indicate people being happy it didn't pass, so...

Space.com has an article on this, and has an interesting view. The article can be found here.

Ok.. Sorry to do it, BUT... "Well, can you at least make it taste like chicken? Otherwise, I'm gonna shrivel up like a super model"

From the CNN article: "Polyakov told Interfax reporters that the 500 Days experiment will not include female volunteers."

I wonder if this is related to what happened last time they tried something like this. From space.com:

"Canadian physician, Dr. Judith Lapierre, tells a different tale. She was in the chamber for 110 days. "Somebody pulled me by my arm and tried to kiss me. Of course, we are not talking about [rape], but for me it was a high level of sexual harassment and if women don't stand up, the next thing that happens is usually that. I pushed the guy, but then I was told that in Russia I just should just give him a slap in the face. However, it is not my way of handling such things.""

If this (sexual harassment problems) is their reasoning behind the decision to exclude women, I think its a pretty poor reason. Why not rather exclude men?

hm,

I think something is wrong with that image!

Guys like Dennis Tito??

Anyway, I presume that would be the next space prize.

It is the next space prize.

NASA and the ESA have both studied it although NASA denies it.

Can't you take your useless left wing fingers and type some shit into google before spewing your garbage all over slashdot?

click

The system also touts a somewhat cleaner way to reach space. Its byproducts -- water vapor, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen -- are a bit more preferable than the waste produced by shuttle SRBs, which burn ammonium perchlorate and aluminum.

Just wait for the Space Tether then they'll be everywhere.

Now we know how those sneaky engineers got SpaceShipOne into orbit....

Here's a short article about that. He wasn't a test pilot then, afaik. That was when he was stationed in Germany. The film was shot later, while on the ground at Edwards AFB. He denies seeing any from space, however.

>>"apart from Americans and Russians, no one has tried it, yet."

Ummm.. don't forget China has also managed it.

...and Robert Bigelow's Bigelow Aerospace working on inflatable space structures. Robert Bigelow is also the owner of the Budget Suites of America Hotel Chain.

Bigelow has recently announced the logical follow-up to the X-Prize: America's Space Prize, a $50 million prize to build a vehicle capable of taking 7 people to an orbiting space habitat and back before the end of the decade.

Bigelow actually denies any plans for an orbital hotel, but with his background everyone keeps assuming that's his intention anyway.

Speaking of which, the space.com picture of Brian Binnie looks a lot like Ed Grimley.

Today is a great day for space afficionados. We've been rather fed up with NASA's castration for years... it's great that the doorway to space seems to be opening up again.

Next step: orbit.

Incidentally, those wacky Russians did a test of this thing's ability to survive reentry and it seemed to to pretty ok. Check it out.

Rutan revealed that SpaceShipOne carried the ashes of his mother, Irene Rutan. She passed away a few years ago.

"I only thought of doing this last night. We rounded up her ashes...she flew today," Rutan said, his eyes tearing as he spoke.

Well its not excatly a solid state engine.

Reaching for Space with Rubber Fuel

Robert Bigelow, chief of Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace, is apparently setting higher goals for private spaceflight endeavors with America's Space Prize, a $50 million race to build an orbital vehicle capable of carrying up to seven astronauts to an orbital outpost by the end of the decade, according to Aviation Week and Space Technology.

Am I the only one who saw the "35nm" at the bottom of the flight plan (http://space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_ display.php?pic=040927_ss1_flight_02.jpg&cap=The+f light+plan+for+SpaceShipOne.+Credit%3A+Scaled+Comp osites%2C+LLC)
and thought - Holy fsck! And they're promising to land within 35 nanometers of the launch location, talk about precision! ...I realize I probably am..

I would be interested to see if the Viking landers are still visible

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mgs_mpf_viki ng_040107.html

Not only that, but according to space.com, the mission is an orbiter, not a lander. The US sent Clementine to the moon for $75 million dollars ten years ago. Chandrayan will be more capable, and I'm all for it, but this isn't exactly a revolution in lunar exploration.

The simple fact is that job growth in the US is not happening as fast as immigration.

It isn't an issue of blaming immigrants-but a question of the policy involved(and the folks that created athat policy) _and_ the real economic effects of that policy. During most of its history, the US economy was a vehicle for job growth that outstripped the rate of immigration. That has changed--and any likely mechanisms to reverse that (i.e. opening a new frontier or a major change in tax policy) are going to take time to have their effects felt.

According to this (long) article, there's "evidence that there were habitable environments" on Mars, and recent research results "also suggest a possible search strategy for evidence that there might once have been life".

Or that India's cryogenic engine came of age on April 18, 2001 when India bustled into the exclusive GSL club?

And finally, when the heck were space programs within on close to their budget? 88 million? More like 500-900 million $.

• India's cryogenic engine comes of age
• US acknowledges India's technical prowess
• India Launches Satellite Three Weeks After Abort

So it is amoral and shortsighted to invest in developing local technology so that local industry thrive and help catch a pie of the multi-billion dollar satellite launch market by proving their capabilities, so they get foreign business, creating thousands of jobs in the process, and bringing in billions of foreign capital to grow their economy?

So it is amoral and shortsighted to invest in communications systems to help boost education levels in poor rural areas?

A space program isn't a pissing contest - all countries depend on space technology in one way or another. For a country with more than a sixth of the worlds population it would be lunacy to depend on other countries for things like military surveillance, communications, weather monitoring, etc. It would also be lunacy to let other nations cement their technical superiority and hold onto their grip on a market that is growing extremely rapidly, and will be a vital revenue source in a few decades.

I'm no expert but surely Metric vs. Imperial is not the big issue in US Competiveness. China, India and other Asian countries are not outcompeting the US because of Metric adoption surely?

Now there is the question of Metric adoption at NASA and failed Mars missions which might relate this a bit more to the "real" world. Let's spice it up please Metric fans!

My brother tells me about radioactive batteries used in space, specifically the Pluto probe due to go up in 2006 and arrive 2015.
More battery details here and here and here.
There's less and less solar power available as you move away from the Sun (which was abundant on the Mercury trip). Plus, you need power for 10+ years. Where do I get that battery? From nuclear material, of course. The battery is the last thing to go into the spaceship, and you do lots of testing without it. And you make sure all the materials in the spacecraft can function with a reasonably radioactive source (near the top, as I recall).
He told me all this because I didn't know that the pilot light in a gas heater heats a piece of metal which provides enough voltage to drive the thermostat (hey bro, why doesn't the water heater have an electric plug?) Radioactive materials are mixed with ceramics to keep a reasonably constant amount of heat. The voltage comes from the heat. Wow, appliance technology moved into the space program.

Obviusly, is not the first time it happens. Not so obvius, is not the first time this has been studied, either.

By the way, there's a slighty more detailed article in space.com., some other useful links in the article, also.

Excerpt from space.com:

The smaller cluster most likely contained about 300 galaxies, while its larger neighbor about 1,000 galaxies, researchers said. But when the two clusters collided with one another, they formed a still unsettled super cluster about 1 million light-years across that should take another billion years to settle down completely, researchers said.

Obviusly, is not the first time it happens. Not so obvius, is not the first time this has been studied, either.

By the way, there's a slighty more detailed article in space.com., some other useful links in the article, also.

Excerpt from space.com:

The smaller cluster most likely contained about 300 galaxies, while its larger neighbor about 1,000 galaxies, researchers said. But when the two clusters collided with one another, they formed a still unsettled super cluster about 1 million light-years across that should take another billion years to settle down completely, researchers said.

There's the annual X Prize Cup which will hopefully give a number of teams motivation to keep working on what they're doing. Anyways, I doubt that many of the teams would quit just because the prize was won... I mean, I think they all just want to get into space, and they're closer now than they've ever been (even if they're still a ways off).

To Bush: As part of your Vision for Space Exploration that you laid out earlier this year, do you intend to direct NASA in the direction of human settlement of space, or just scientific research.

To Kerry: As president, would you direct NASA to continue with human space exploration of planetary bodies or would you contract it's focus to Earth and near-Earth subjects? (Please provide specifics as previous answers to this have been very vague.)

Nah, then they would have found it parked on Mount Ararat.

There was a proposal to disperse the Van Allen radiation belts from Mr. Big Ideas himself, Robert L. Forward. Doing this would require a highly charged 100 km conducting tether -- a simple feat of engineering compared to a space elevator.

requirement to avoid ... the South Atlantic Anomaly

Fascinating. But on the subject, if Earth's magnetic polarity flips, would that create a North Atlantic Anomaly? Or, how about removing the Van Allen belts altogether?

What's even worse:

It got nominated for a nebula award

Flying The Vomit Comet Has Its Ups And Downs. NOTE: article deserves props for it's title alone, but it's also very revealing about what getting to Zero G is like. Not sure if I'd want to do it, but it must be a crazy feeling.

CB(whr=1)

What has not yet been mentioned in this /. discussion is briefly, though not directly, mentioned in the aforementioned space.com article. The changes to the engine were made at least partly to offset the previous glitch encountered during the previous flight. "...the increased liquid nitrous oxide should delay that drop off and provide more thrust earlier in the flight, when SpaceShipOne's control surfaces can still bite into the Earth's atmosphere for steering." They hope this will allow them to reach their target altitude this time (almost missed the space altitude last time) without having to resort to secondary guidance systems.

What has not yet been mentioned in this /. discussion is briefly, though not directly, mentioned in the aforementioned space.com article. The changes to the engine were made at least partly to offset the previous glitch encountered during the previous flight. "...the increased liquid nitrous oxide should delay that drop off and provide more thrust earlier in the flight, when SpaceShipOne's control surfaces can still bite into the Earth's atmosphere for steering." They hope this will allow them to reach their target altitude this time (almost missed the space altitude last time) without having to resort to secondary guidance systems.

• SpaceShipOne burns ... HTPB, a common ingredient in tire rubber.

• In conventional rockets, propellant can be pre-mixed -- as in the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) used NASA space shuttle -- or sit in tanks that are filled just prior to launch, like liquid oxygen and hydrogen rockets. In both engine configurations, the are highly volatile and can be toxic to handle.

  "The fact that the oxidizer and fuel are not molecularly mixed in these [hybrid] engines, makes them non-explosive," explained Greg Zilliac, a hybrid engine researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "We've actually shipped fuel grains by UPS in the past."

The WWW will eventually die, along with other common Internet technologies!

PlanetLab? Not RTFA, I suppose that's to make a new planet for us?

Thanks, Intel!

The only thing Nazi Germany wanted to do was build new technical devices to kill people

Antropomorphisms like this are dangerous. It's so tempting to say "Russia wants to conquer Tschetschenya" or "USA want to justify Guantanamo to the public opinion", but you should always remember there is no such person as Uncle Sam or Mother Russia. Whatever George W. Bush wants or needs, it's not necessarily what every American or even majority of Americans want or need. It's also dangerous when you talk about dictatorship, as there was more in Third Reich than just Hitler and his crazy followers. What we know about Werner von Braun is that he was interested in rocket science "as such" - his lifelong dream was a manned mission to Mars. He worked for Hitler not because he loved him, but simply because for a German rocket scientist in 1940's there weren't really any other options. When you say "That was their ethos" you should consider who do you mean by "they". Them-Nazis? Sure, you're right. Them-German scientitst? You are obviously wrong.

When I went to put the date on my calendar (not like I'll make it, but I can dream), I noticed that September 29 is also the date that earth-crossing asteroid Toutatis is scheduled to make its closest approach to Earth. The bizarrely-shaped object is the size of a "small city" (whatever that means), and is due to get no closer than four times the earth-moon distance.

According to the wsu.edu page: 'Toutatis (also called Teutates) was an ancient Celtic god of war, fertility and wealth worshipped in Gaul. His name means "the god of the tribe".' His name is invoked regularly by the French cartoon character Asterix, who also fears that the sky will fall on his head.

Certainly an auspicious day for anyone interested in the heavens. Let's hope what's already up stays up, and what goes up comes down safely.

Considering what happened to Carmack's shuttle, you will be more likely riding into the other world than riding into space. I think it would be safer to wait 10 more years after they announce the winner before plopping down money to fly into space.

This announcement was premature, at best. It is not responsible science.

The planet is not yet confirmed as such. It could very easily be a background star. This has happenned before, and the scientists got an awful lot of egg on their faces. Another unconfirmed "planet" image can be seen here, this one around a white dwarf.

The responsible thing to do is wait a few years to determine if the objects have common proper-motions--if they move through the sky together, they are probably physically linked, and one can determine that the companion object really is a planet. Without this confirmation, the simplest explanation is not that it is a planet.

Many teams of astronomers have images of planet candidates like this one. The responsible astronomers are the ones you aren't hearing from yet--the ones waiting to verify they have planets.

The press-release title should be "A dim spot imaged near a brown dwarf." Any further conclusions have no basis.

There's a good article here about what exactly makes up a moon. I can tell you its not about gravity since basically every object with mass has gravity.

Isreali Goverment already controls the shutter on US spacecraft. Why can't the US government have the same rights over AMERICAN spacecraft?

link for more info here

Shutter control: Still there are issues that concern the remote-sensing industry. When applying a concept called shutter control, U.S.-issued licenses also contain provisions for the control of sensitive areas where space imaging might be limited. Shutter control restrictions on the space photography of Israel were inserted into a Senate bill in 1997. Drafted by Rep. John Kyle (R-Arizona) and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico), the law imposes restrictions on imaging Israeli territory during certain periods invoked by the Israel government. The imposition of restrictions was unpopular with U.S. industry, which saw foreign partners without these limits as more competitive internationally. Still, U.S. providers worked around the matter. "The whole issue of shutter control was a short-term issue," Gabrynowicz said. "It wasn't a major issue, such as ownership control, monitoring or compliance," she said. Wooldridge agreed. "Any imposition of the [shuttle control] provision will be for the smallest area and the shortest period necessary," he said. "There can't be any permanent blackouts."