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is to nuke or nudge.

The problem is that at some point the panels are not generating enough energy to keep the rovers hot over night, so the internal temperature of the components cannot be maintained at their operational level, and then NASA expects that they will start having component failures.

Indeed. The swing in tempuratures is estimated to be the biggest risk. Electronic components constantly expanding and contracting due to day-to-night-cycle tempurature changes eventually works things loose and cracks stuff.

The second biggest risk is probably dust getting into everything.

Note that the rovers do have small radioactive capsules that provide some warmth, but not enough. If you put too many of those in, then you have to use more expensive launch techniques to decrease launch failure risks of spreading the radioactive stuff.

The next generation of rovers are to exclusively use nuclear cells to generate power and maintain constant tempuratures to avoid such problems. However, I expect protesters to complain.

Such issues strangely reflect the need of mammals to have a constant body tempurature. The more complex the components/functions of an animal, the more a constant body tempurature seems to facilitate that. It is less variables the complex components have to deal with. But, it requires more energy. That is why reptiles can eat less per body weight. But the flipside is that they tend to be sluggish in the cold, or at least their performance is inconsistent as different chemicals are needed at different tempuratures, sometimes leaving gaps for certain tempurature ranges.

BTW, I'm not sure if you've heard this before, but it has been speculated that the military is already using stealth airships for cargo transport. More info on it here:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /black_triangle_020805.html

Interesting stuff. :-)

While the nano-replicators Stephenson envisions in Diamond Age are pretty cool the two things not well discussed were the source of raw materials (glossed over) and the power source (not discussed at all). We've still got a long way to go before these things can be worked out.

Au contraire, we're well on our way to developing cold fusion very soon! :) And here's where the world is going to get our raw materials from. We're right on schedule!

While the nano-replicators Stephenson envisions in Diamond Age are pretty cool the two things not well discussed were the source of raw materials (glossed over) and the power source (not discussed at all). We've still got a long way to go before these things can be worked out.

Au contraire, we're well on our way to developing cold fusion very soon! :) And here's where the world is going to get our raw materials from. We're right on schedule!

• The Bible does not say the ark landed on Mt. Ararat rather the "mountains of Ararat" (plural, implying somewhere in a mountain range). Genesis 8:4
  
  
• Mt. Ararat is a volcano. Volcanic activity likely is harmful to wooden boats (if it were there). Mt. Ararat, Turkey
  
  

> "Aerial photographs"?

Whether it is true or not remains to be seen (pardon the pun.) It would be great to get a confirmation on this photo:

Satellite Photo
According to press materials supplied by Shamrock -- The Trinity Corporation, this satellite view shows Noah's Ark jutting out from the snow on Mt. Ararat. Image Courtesy of Digital Globe

Oh, someone else posted a satellite image :)

Satellite photo Zoomed out

Pfft, doesn't really look like part of a boat to me, nor big enough to hold two of every animal...

Of course, not all Christians believe the Bible is so literal, but I find it amazing how many people actually believe that Noah built a boat large enough to hold two of every animal on the planet, collected them on the boat, kept them alive, and survived a flood that put the entire globe under water. And just 5(6?) thousand years later, there is absolutely no trace of the flood, the boat, the near mass extinctions, and the whole planet is thriving with life again.

To the parent poster to which I'm responding... What is your take on that?

Oh, someone else posted a satellite image :)

Satellite photo Zoomed out

Pfft, doesn't really look like part of a boat to me, nor big enough to hold two of every animal...

Of course, not all Christians believe the Bible is so literal, but I find it amazing how many people actually believe that Noah built a boat large enough to hold two of every animal on the planet, collected them on the boat, kept them alive, and survived a flood that put the entire globe under water. And just 5(6?) thousand years later, there is absolutely no trace of the flood, the boat, the near mass extinctions, and the whole planet is thriving with life again.

To the parent poster to which I'm responding... What is your take on that?

April 26

"Satellite photos of Mount Aratat, Turkey taken by commercial imaging satellite company Digital Globe released today are said to contain proof of the existence of the biblical Noah's Ark.

"The images, revealed at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. (see right), are said to reveal a man-made structure at the site where the Bible states the vessel came to rest.

"The claim was made by Daniel P. McGivern, president of Shamrock -- The Trinity Corporation, who according to a press release has been searching for the Ark for several years."

Space.com: Noah's Ark Found? Company Claims Commercial Satellite Has Picture Proof

The space.com have the satellite image of the object that they suspect the Noah Ark. The enlarge imagecan be seen here.

The space.com have the satellite image of the object that they suspect the Noah Ark. The enlarge imagecan be seen here.

The space.com have the satellite image of the object that they suspect the Noah Ark. The enlarge imagecan be seen here.

A lens designed for a 35mm film camera will project a focused image onto the film plane. The image will be circular. The rectangle of the 35mm film frame that you are exposing will barely fit within the circle (i.e. the corners of the film frame will just be touching the edge of the circle).

On a dSLR, like the Nikon D70 (referenced in the article), the sensor is smaller than the film frame of the 35 mm camera, and as a result the sensor fits more easily into the boundaries of the image circle formed by the lens.

Because of this, the effective field of view changes. The area of the D70's sensor is roughly 2/3 that of a 35mm film frame. As a result, the D70's "crop factor", or its "focal length multiplier", is around 1.5x. Attach a 50mm lens to the D70 and the field of view captured by its sensor will be roughly equal to that which a 35mm camera would capture using a 75mm lens, because the D70 is only capturing a smaller area of the image.

Clearly, there is less light hitting the D70's sensor with the same lens / same aperature as compared to a 35mm film frame. However, the density of the light falling on the D70's sensor with the same lens at the same aperature is exactly the same as the light falling on the film in a 35mm camera. The difference is that the D70's sensor is gathering less of the lens's total image. Take a shot at f2.8 on the D70 set to ISO 200, and you should get the same exposure as the same shot at f2.8 on the 35mm camera with ISO 200 film, since the density of the light striking the sensor / film is the same in both cases.

What is most interesting is that lenses tend to produce more distortion toward the boundary of the image circle (i.e., at the corners of a 35mm photo). On the D70, using a normal 35mm lense, the image is captured from the center of the image circle, resulting in less distortion from the lens.

At the same time, Nikon has produced lenses specifically designed for the D70's sensor size. These lenses are smaller than the equivelant lens for a 35mm camera. The reason? These lenses only need to produce a smaller image circle than a 35mm lens, one that barely encompasses the sensor size of the D70 (and would not fully encompass the 35mm film frame). They are only capturing the light necessary to create an image circle of that size. Therefore, the outer edges of the lens elements that would be needed if the lens were made for a 35mm camera can be discarded, resulting in a smaller, lighter lens.

Larger photo sites do require more light than a smaller photo site to achieve the same exposure. But again, it is the density of the light that evens the playing field. A photoreceptor site of 4 nm^2 will gather 4 times the light of a 1 nm^2 photoreceptor site. Suppose a maximum of 250,000 photons are collected by the 1 nm^2 photoreceptor, and the 4 nm^2 site collects a maximum 1,000,000. Now, suppose with current technology I can accurately count the number of photons collected by a photoreceptor to within +/- 1000. Obviously, 1000 is a larger percentage of the 1 nm^2 photoreceptor's 250,000 capacity than it is for the 4 nm^2 receptor's 1,000,000 capacity - hence the 4 nm^2 receptor's accuracy is much greater than the 1 nm^2's.

In any case, don't take my word for this, I'm not a rocket scientist or anything. But these guys are.

lenses are of course top priority, but at the same time your mars rover example also supports the article's contention. quating from link:

A Sony DSC-F717, with a street price of around $600, has 5.2 million sensors (or 5 megapixels) on a chip that is 8.8 by 6.6 millimeters (or .35 by .26 inches). The Pancam has just a million sensors spread across a chip that's 12 by 12 millimeters -- nearly a half-inch square.

Check out this link. It details a bit on how the spirit rover only has a 1 megapixel camera on board, yet delivers IMAX quality images.
From the article: "NASA's Spirit Rover is providing a lesson to aspiring digital photographers: Spend your money on the lens, not the pixels. Anyone who has ever agonized over whether to buy a 3-megapixel or 4-megapixel digital camera might be surprised to learn that Spirit's stunningly detailed images of Mars are made with a 1-megapixel model, a palm-sized 9-ounce marvel that would be coveted in any geek's shirt pocket. Spirit's images are IMAX quality, mission managers say. "

In 2002, one of the gyroscopes failed outright. Another gyroscope developed a vibration last year that perplexed mission controllers enough to rely on the Russian-built motion control system, which uses jets to change the station's position, for major orbital maneuvers. That gyroscope, however, is now in working order and one of the two still functioning aboard the ISS.

Hmm, if MARS IS EXPERIENCING GLOBAL WARMING RIGHT NOW AS WELL then perhaps it's that giant yellow ball in the sky that's causing global warming here as well??

Space.com also had an article about this yesterday. It gives a little better timeline to when it will be available to check low mass stars in the future, as well as doing a comparision on other extrasolar planetary detection techniques.

Space.com also had an article about this yesterday. It gives a little better timeline to when it will be available to check low mass stars in the future, as well as doing a comparision on other extrasolar planetary detection techniques.

Story also here
Small info:
* Sedna is about three-fourths the size of Pluto.
* It takes 10,000 years to orbit the Sun.
* Sedna spins on its axis once every 20 Earth-days.

Better sources for space related stuff:
spaceref.com
space.com
spaceflightnow.com
spacedaily.com
the rovers' homepage
and just for fascinating pics and educative descriptions: Astronomy Picture of the Day

They often carry the same stories, but usually one of them will have the scoop. There are more sites, but these ones are definately worthy of a daily visit, and some have plenty links to other interesting sites. Have fun :D

(Link to Article)

There are some images on RLV News . And there is also a story on space.com. Everybody in mojave must have seen and heard this.

If you can finish in 25 seconds, you can always rent out the Vomit Comet, an airliner built for weightlessness training that flies alternating climbs and dives.

I can't believe nobody else has made this connection yet.

And if you don't check out the following article, don't just laugh it off.

As reported again just yesterday in this article at Space.com, the earth's magnetic poles MAY be in the 7,000 year process of swapping ends. What is known for sure is that the strength of the earth's magnetic field has decreased 20% in the last 150 years. And whether we are in the process of swapping poles, or this is just a temporary anomaly, the appearance of LOCALIZED fluctuations in the orientation and strength of the magnetic field of earth IS PREDICTED. And besides the obvious inducement of current in locally stronger magnetic fields, it may also allow a small local window for the 'solar wind' to penetrate, both of which would cause EXACTLY the kinds of phenomenon being reported.

This could be happening in your or my backyard next year!!!

Forget large-scale chemical rocketships, use a Space Elevator.

Edwards told SPACE.com that he's been wrapped up in space elevator work for some three years, supported by grants from NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. "I'm convinced that the space elevator is practical and doable. In 12 years, we could be launching tons of payload every three days, at just a little over a couple hundred dollars a pound," he said.

As to the cost of getting the program off the ground,

"If budget estimates are correct, we could do it for under $10 billion."

Transfer the money that would be spent using chemical rockets to lift materials from Earth to designing better safety systems and living quarters, or wherever else it could be better spent.

If the base becomes profitable it doesn't need independence. I agree with you though that independence from supplies is definately desirable. With an initial nuclear reactor (however silly it seems with all that free sunlight out there) a lot can be done, and all in small steps. I think the lunar regolith is pretty versatile. The 2008 LRO (scroll down to April 2nd piece) will give us a lot of info we need about the resources available to us on the Moon's surface. It WILL happen.

A journey of more than 34.65 million miles starts with a single step. For a trip that long, the Moon seems like a good first step to me.

Rubbish. Everyone who isn't a Tool or an Idiot knows that the world is built on a mis-named heptagon, creating seven simultaneous days. They call them "week-days" for a reason, bub.

Shuttleworth and Tito may have been essentially tourists

This is incorrect. I'm not sure about Tito, but Shuttleworth was definitely not just a tourist, he performed experiments on the ISS.

Fortunately, JPL has been working on the MSL for quite some time. "Long-term" implies years; MSL - in addition to solar power - will utilize two small nuclear cores, which are currently under design. And "long-term" leads to a need for a WELL-DESIGNED software infrastructure. For this reason, the work on the Mission Data System has been intense. The decision on which of the competing MDS implementations to use is scheduled for 2005. One of the possible implementations is real-time Java.

You don't need to be nuclear to do damage in orbit-- or anywhere else, for that matter. You just need velocity.
Considering the thickness of the shells on satellites, or of the solar panels, or whatever else, and the fact that these little bits are nuclear is irrelevant.

Orbital junk is already a concern.

Let's not whip our over-active imaginations into a frenzy over what is, essentially, a meaningless addition to the current threat. It's like being concerned about the .45 bullet sitting top of the stack of nuclear bombs.

And just as junk emails cause a threat to network connectivity, space junk can potentially damage future space missions. NASA constantly keeps its eye on the movements of these bits of space trash.

space.com has a comprehensive list of space junk items, and who put them there.

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Russia are involved in a lot of ESA work (and have been for 15 years apparently), as well as working with their Soyuz launch vehicle for many European probes. ESA are currently planning a Soyuz launch pad at Europe's launch site in Kourou, French Guiana.

The article also made no mention of SMART-1, the 'ion-drive' probe heading to the moon. It will be taking various readings and photos - in of course, higher detail than some previous endeavours. Wonder if they'll photograph the US moon landing sites? (Even apart from satisfying the skeptics - it'd be kinda cool to see new aerial shots of the sites!)

Russia are not (yet) members of the ESA. In the last week, Greece and Luxembourg were granted membership - the effort is growing. Members contribute an amount based on GNP, with a corresponding proportion of contracts and research being offered to that member.

Efforts are widely distributed - even my own (relatively small) University in Ireland has a number of researchers working on ESA stuff!

Australian

Someone has pointed out the short half-life of methane in the martian atmosphere (~300 years). I still like this theory, however, because a significant amount of gaseous material from the impact of a comet would have been incorporated into the ice caps, either in bubbles or even as a methane hydrate. In case folks weren't aware, there's evidence that Mars is experiencing a form of global warming, so perennial ice is currently melting and releasing whatever load of gases was contained in it. The methane spike over Meridiani Planum would be an argument against this, but their data seems to be noisy.

If this turns out to be what it seems to be it is a dream come true. I wonder how this might affect future missions. Hopefully they will start digging at last and not only look for indirect signs of life such as water.

There were some experiments onboard the Viking landers that showed some odd results but weren't invested any further.

The fact that the fine rovers are unable to detect life is a shame I think. They were designed to search for water only, I know. But they should at least have been equipped with minimal biological experiments too, just in case. I can't wait for a samplereturn mission...

And we already have evidence of belching martians too:

From cnn It is the first time a supersonic-combustion ramjet, or scramjet, which uses air for fuel, had traveled so fast, flight engineer Lawrence Huebner told reporters. The University of Queensland Launched the HYSHOT in July 2002. It Hit Mach 7.6. The first people who did this

Because it's a stupid idea. A 1-km asteroid weighs a few trillion kg. If you get your rocket data from NASA rather than Niven, you can run numbers on your idea instead of saying 'it's simple' out of your ass. If a VASIMR drive can hypothetically get 20 tonnes to Mars in 40 days, how long does it take to move 10^9 tonnes? Think about it. (Put a few dozen engines up there, be creative. Be optimistic about the delta-V required. Any luck moving that rock in less than a century?)

And please think again about why you're doing it. Why exactly is an asteroid at L4 "a great place to harvest solar power"? (it's not.) What sort of astronomical observatories are you putting there, and why is it better to have a big rocky base than a free-flyer? And, of course, why are "the costs ... very small"??

I'm sorry, I don't want to pick on your post in particular, but there are several posts saying similar things. Any space scheme is practicable when you pull enough technology/economics/orbital mechanics out of your ass. In the real world, EVEN WITH A SPACE ELEVATOR, interplanetary space is distant, hostile, and generally cost-ineffective.

I'm very proud of the things that humans can accomplish in space and on Earth. I hate to see half-baked schemes like yours floated, since I feel like you're 'disappointed' that we don't follow through. Dammit, let's be proud of real ideas like Con-X and LISA (and fund them, Mr. Bush!) instead of moaning about or failure build Mars bases and warp drives.

No, Cruithne is projected to be in our neighborhood for thousands of years.

"Earth has a second moon, of sorts, and could have many others, according to three astronomers who did calculations to describe orbital motions at gravitational balance points in space that temporarily pull asteroids into bizarre orbits near our planet.

"The 3-mile-wide (5-km) satellite, which takes 770 years to complete a horseshoe-shaped orbit around Earth, is called Cruithne and will remain in a suspended state around Earth for at least 5,000 years."

Space.com: More Moons Around Earth? It's Not So Loony

How does this relate to the run of HyShot back in August? The X-43A won't be the first successful scramjet-powered flight....and HyShot was designed to go Mach 7.6, which I think is hypersonic. Is NASA implying that HyShot didn't really work?

I'm starting to think we'll never see any real space development until a new, radical propulsion technology comes along.

Oddly enough, NASA is pulling out of its involvement in prototype craft and engine research of the X-43 hypersonic demonstrator and RS-84 reusable rocket engine, directly as a result of the new prioritization of space exploration.

Myself, I think we should skip that and work on antimatter production, storage, and propulsion concepts. Sure, it's a good 3 or 4 manhattan projects away from being useful, but it's the stuff we'll get to the stars with. Maybe if someone were to tell the current administration it's also end-all of weaponizable materials they'd throw a few billions dollars at a new accelerator to make it in usable quantities.

You can find more information here.

Isn't it about time they switched from assembly to C ?

Yes, as long as it's Shuttle C.

Here's another recent article. The Shuttle C concept was based on the idea of replacing the orbiter with a third-stage rocket, forming a highly effective heavy-lift launch vehicle. Great for humans to mars, among other things.

The Natural History Museum didn't include pluto as a planet. That's good enough for me.

-Colin

Nor is there module capable of 'grabbing' the telescope, and has no airlock so even if they did they wouldn't be able to leave the module.

In fact, it turns out the Russians were the first to spacewalk. They've had the technology longer than us!

For an interesting history, see space.com.

As time passes, especially after a SNAFU or a poorly executed Let's Go To Mars! speech, the public's perceived value of NASA falls. Everyone's talkin' trash, saying "Why do we need to spend billions to develop a pen that can write upside down when people are starving?" and the like.

However, if the government, unprovoked, says "Hey everybody, we're going to disintigrate the Hubble and how do you like that" then the people apparently have the opposite reaction. Most people do not know anything about the Hubble other than it's a Good Thing. What a shame it would be to destroy it! So, by announcing plans to toss the Hubble in the garbage, NASA effectively primed the public to be willing to spend more dollars on space-related stuff.

Just read the CNN article, which is actually from Space.com. I didn't see anything up there that Hoagland didn't open himself up for by attacking NASA's credibility. The assault on his credentials is not even by by Plait, but by Ralph Greenberg from the University of Washington, and Hoagland's rebuttal is included. So, basically, both sides of the issue got airtime, which, from where I'm sitting, is more than Hoagland's claims warrant.

-Carolyn