Slashdot Mirror

You are probably talking about lightcraft. Gotta love Google.

No, but the parent was talking about retrofitting it so it would be a spacecraft. Most people don't realize this, but the Challenger was origionaly built as a test vehicle as well. Much like Enterprise. It was later retrofitted to become a full fledged orbiter. From the very site you cited:

"Rockwell's original $2.6 billion contract had authorized the building of a pair of static-test articles (MPTA-098 and STA-099 and two initial flight-test vehicles (OV-101 and OV-102. A decision in 1978 not to modify Enterprise from her Approach and Landing Test (ALT) configuration would have left Columbia as the only operational orbiter vehicle so on 1/29/79 NASA awarded Rockwell a supplemental contract to convert Challenger (STA-099) from a test vehicle into a space-rated Orbiter (OV-099)."

Also, although the Smithsonian now owns the Enterprise, it's not (yet) a museum piece. It's been sitting, in a hanger at Washington's Dulles International Airport, since... well, since the Smithsonian took delivery of the Enterprise in 1985.

There is good news though. The Smithsonian does have plans to display the Enterprise in it's new facility at the Dulles annex, when it opens (planned for December 2003).

So although converting the Enterprise probably won't happen, that doesn't mean it's technically impossible. It was done with Challenger.

Nice post. I'm sure you'll be protesting the launch of this , that is - if you're not going to try to convince us that Al Gore invented it.

While the initial investment of $7-10 billion may seem a bit steep, a space tether can lift payloads to orbit at about 1/100th the cost of current heavy lift rockets and shuttles.

I mourn the loss of our astronauts, and pray for their families hoping they find comfort in that their sacrifice was most noble and unselfish.

The Russian Progress ships routinely perform reboosts. Shuttles aren't required for this.

However you're right, without the shuttle, ISS is in grave danger. You're down to a point where a single failure could doom the station.

That's interesting news (and I don't doubt you, I just checked out your link). However, the original poster is technically right.

Columbia was built before we had the whole shuttle building technique down. It was actually the heaviest orbiter in the fleet and because of this, it could not carry a meaningful load to the ISS.

Perhaps there was another another planned refurbishment or that payload is just lighter than most ISS payloads?

Shuttle Columbia's Future Uncertain

And who the hell's going to trust NASA to build nuclear powered rockets now?

This is going to be me, rambling. I'll be accused of being a liberal, tree-hugging, deficit-loving bitch, but it needs to be said.

Bush has, from day one, been all about, or so he says, cutting budgets. Everything but Defense, he says, is spending far too much. Education. Health and Human Services. AIDS research (his "broad" plan announced in the State of the Union address was a joke). NASA.

Time and time again, he has harped on cutting NASA's budget. He has forced the agency to abandon most all other programs, except extending the life of the shuttles.

Democrats and others have pleaded for Bush to reconsider. He hasn't.

One year ago, CNN discussed Bush's plans to dramatically reduce NASA's budget, INCLUDING safety spending, in favour of learning more about nuclear technology in space.

This PDF from the House Democrats makes Bush's cuts clear, in terms of NASA and science in general.

Worse yet, a year and a half ago, people were warning that these cuts were leading to an inevitable disaster in the shuttle program. A freaking year and a half ago.

And through all of this, the best Bush can say is "May God continue to bless America."

Oh, and Saddam is an evil, evil man.

Growl.

jrbd

There are so many things to say, so many feelings. Firstly, I do believe that this is not just an American tragedy, it is one that affects mankind. NASA has been basically leading the way towards space exploration and if one is to believe the "Space, the final frontier" bit, I do feel that this is something that affects us all. Not to mention, there was an Indian American, an Isreali and an African American on board.

In fact, this is one of the many reasons why I feel that it was extra stupid of Saddam Hussein to call this catastrophe "God's punishment on America". If anything, he should have taken this opportunity to show some sympathy towards this event.

I also wonder if they will send a teacher up in space in the near future. They were just about to start interviewing over 4000 teachers but I really don't know if that is going to happen now.

Lastly, here are some links that I have found useful all day today that I haven't seen posted up yet - http://www.spacer.com, http://www.spaceref.com, http://www.spaceflightnow.com and of course http://www.space.com.

This article about mothballing the columbia seems sort of ironic in retrospect..

Senators Challenge Shuttle Safety Spending

WASHINGTON -- Raising the specter of another shuttle tragedy, senators and others warned Thursday that NASA's growing budget woes are putting astronauts' lives at risk.

Pressure to deal with a projected $4.8 billion cost overrun on the International Space Station project and other factors have caused National Aeronautics and Space Administration managers to treat space shuttle safety upgrades as optional, officials said Thursday. Numerous pending safety improvements to the orbiter vehicles and their ground-support infrastructure have been targeted for cancellation or deferral.

"I fear that if we don't provide the space shuttle program with the resources it needs for safety upgrades, our country is going to pay a price we can't bear," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

[...]

"We're starving NASA's shuttle budget and thus greatly increasing the chance of a catastrophic loss," Nelson said.

The lone NASA official to testify, William Readdy, deputy associate administrator for the Office of Space Flight, did not dispute Nelson's assessment.

I believe the US government prosecutes for theft of US Space Shuttle wreckage, theres no 'finders-keepers' rule here. So if you're a 'finder' its best to be a 'helper' and alert the authorities.

Space.com has a series of pictures put together with captions that were taken during the past 2 weeks on board the shuttle.

You can also find a copy of the mission patch and an explanation at spaceflight.nasa.gov (don't remember the direct link, sorry).

here click on the watch nasatv logo in the upper left corner.

http://www.space.com/shuttlemissions/
http://www.msnbc.com/news/857733.asp?0cv=CA00

And apple has already changed their homepage.. How long till our President blames this on a certian Middle Eastern country? My thoughts go to NASA and the families of the crew.

Already being done, sort of. Although the launch doesn't seem to have occurred yet.

Most likely the propulsion system will be based on NERVA technology developed in the 50s and 60s. The vehicle has been in discussion for some time.

There have been a number of nuclear propulsion ideas over the years, i.e. ORION (using nuclear explosions) and the like, but NERVA is, imho, the best. To bad it's not practical to scale up the Ion propulsion system used on DS-1.

NASA spokesman Glenn Mahone acknowledged that O'Keefe did talk generally about the upcoming State of the Union but did not make a prediction that Bush would use it to make any NASA-related announcements."

So don't start packing your bags, yet. There is also the question of how to keep the people making the journey alive and healthy. Even on relatively short space missions, there is a significant (~20%) muscle loss, and measurable bone loss.

I hope it works.

Man Gets 70mpg in Homemade Car-Made from a Mainframe Computer

7% of the exoplanets listed at this table are greater than 10 Jupiter masses. Deuterium burning occurs at 10-12 Jupiter masses and greater, but doesn't help us categorize objects that have burned up their deuterium. 2-3 Jupiter masses might be a good dividing line, as it marks the transition from the object's radius increasing with mass to the radius actually decreasing with mass (which I won't go into as it leads to discussions of things like electron degeneracy pressure). Other definitions of planets and brown dwarfs make a distinction between the method of formation of the object, but this makes the mass much less important than the object's history, which is much harder to deduce. For instance, Jupiter was long regarded as having formed from runaway accretion starting with a small rocky core, but recent computer models suggest it (and the other gas giants) formed directly from gravitational collapse, just like a star. Also consider the 55-78 Jupiter mass object found orbiting at a distance roughly equivalent to Saturn's orbit around a sun-like star, a distance much too close for many astronomers' comfort.

7% of the exoplanets listed at this table are greater than 10 Jupiter masses. Deuterium burning occurs at 10-12 Jupiter masses and greater, but doesn't help us categorize objects that have burned up their deuterium. 2-3 Jupiter masses might be a good dividing line, as it marks the transition from the object's radius increasing with mass to the radius actually decreasing with mass (which I won't go into as it leads to discussions of things like electron degeneracy pressure). Other definitions of planets and brown dwarfs make a distinction between the method of formation of the object, but this makes the mass much less important than the object's history, which is much harder to deduce. For instance, Jupiter was long regarded as having formed from runaway accretion starting with a small rocky core, but recent computer models suggest it (and the other gas giants) formed directly from gravitational collapse, just like a star. Also consider the 55-78 Jupiter mass object found orbiting at a distance roughly equivalent to Saturn's orbit around a sun-like star, a distance much too close for many astronomers' comfort.

The Rosetta launch would have required the rocket to enter Earth orbit and then re-fire (a.k.a. a ballistic coast phase). This would have been the first time this maneuver was attempted with an Ariane 5. This particular Ariane 5 also had significant changes made to its equipment bay and electrical system. (paraphrasing from this linkand other sources)

The linked article doesn't have a pic of the impact they're talking about.
Here's one I found over at space.com.

Have you seen many, um, photos of the leonids? How, er, about time lapse videos of them? There are some really cool vvideos here (realplayer, hopefully cool st-stuff from helix will , uh, emerge soon) and here.

Have you seen many, um, photos of the leonids? How, er, about time lapse videos of them? There are some really cool vvideos here (realplayer, hopefully cool st-stuff from helix will , uh, emerge soon) and here.

How does this even begin to address Fermi's Paradox?

Fermis' Paradox states, basically, that our sun is a rather new kid on the block. In fact, given the age of the universe, there has been more than enough time for some other civilization to colonize the entire galaxy.

So Fermi's question was: Where are they all? The question appears to still stand.

In short, the intended effect on drivers' habits can be tuned in a much more fine grained way.

Just implant the GPS so you can get fine grained control over the citizen at all times. Much more efficient, don't you think?

The Russians have the only space tourism business going right now, based on very old (and reliable) Soyuz technology. The Chinese design is apparently an improvement - they mention better heat shields for one thing. Note also that the Russian Soyuz capsules are only rated for 6 months in space and haven't gone beyond low Earth orbit; the Chinese have stated plans to to a bit more than that...

Do not worry, that will not happen anytime soon. Moon's current escape rate is some 38 mm per year and the other smaller "moon" of earth is "safe" for the next 5000 years, too.

There is also the J002E3, already though of as another moon of earth, but turned out to be space junk from the apollo program. Usually, natural moons do not have the spectral characteristics of titaniumoxide.

Earth has one natural moon, and many thousand artificial satellites.
this is debatable, as astronomers have yet to agree on what a moon is.

As for where the other satellites came from....

The discovery of the last eleven of them is discussed here (39);

the eleven before those are discussed here (28);

the one before those is discussed here (17);

... and the first sixteen you obviously already knew about.

As for where the other satellites came from....

The discovery of the last eleven of them is discussed here (39);

the eleven before those are discussed here (28);

the one before those is discussed here (17);

... and the first sixteen you obviously already knew about.

I've been busy on IRC pointing out to everyone that Christmas is a fascist holiday hijacked by the Christians from the pagan's celebration of Saturnalia so they (the Christians) wouldn't get gacked in ancient Rome.

The article I pulled this from is here

For those not interested in visiting the site, here's the relevent text:

"The Bible says nothing about the calendar date of the Nativity, but does refer to historical personages and events, such as the reign of King Herod. Modern historical research suggests that Herod may have died sometime between 4 BC and 1 BC by our present calendar. The Magi are said to have visited Herod just before he died, and presumably the birth of Christ and appearance of the Star came sometime before that.

And it is very doubtful that Jesus was born in late December. For one thing, the Biblical passage in St. Luke, "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night," indicates that spring is the likely season; that was when the shepherds in Judea were tending the newborn lambs.

In ancient times, Dec. 25 was the date of the lavish Roman festival of Saturnalia. It was a time when gifts were exchanged; homes, streets and buildings were decorated; people came home for the holidays and everybody was in a happy, party mood. It has been said that early Christians chose the date of the Saturnalia in order to avoid attention and thus escape persecution.

When the Roman emperor Constantine officially adopted Christianity in the 4th century, the date of Christmas remained Dec. 25."

So Happy Saturnalia to everyone everywhere!

(And yes, I AM Pagan myself)

(Reposted from my blog, but I couldn't say it any better.)

Trust me: Don't blindly install everything that Apple provides via Software Update.

Specifically, you need to read the instructions for all updates before you begin any update.

I've been reading lots of readers caught in gotchas caused by the Power Mac G4 Mirrored Drive Doors Firmware Update, the Mac OS X 10.2.2. update, and other installations. For many of these users, the problem comes down to neglecting to think about what you're doing. Hell, even I've been guilty of doing this a few weeks ago when I updated my MDD Power Mac to 10.2.2, knowing that it would hose my computer due to a bug with the HP printing software that causes its drivers to hog processing time until your Mac slows to a crawl or kernel panics.

And why did I do it? Because I wasn't thinking. I was caught in that Macintosh mode of thinking where we expect the moon and the stars from anything that Apple provides to us, especially if it's a freebie. It's a different psychology than what some PC users may understand, where caution is much stronger than in the Macintosh world. When most Mac users buy software, we rip the CD from the case, install the software, and damn any manuals or instructions that come with the program. In the earlier years of the Macintosh, this wasn't as much of a problem because of the simpler design. However, this ain't your dad's Mac. It's your Mac, and it's running not only a different Mac OS, but likely has a dramatically different hardware design that requires a little more care.

Professionals and home users need to use some common sense steps for any software update or install:

1) READ the instructions about any software installation or update.
2) UNDERSTAND what the update or install is supposed to do. If you don't understand the purpose of a particular update, don't install it until you find someone that knows and can explain it to you.
3) WAIT several days after an update is introduced before you even THINK about installing an update. If there are real problems with the software itself, this problem will show itself from the many trouble reports you'l see on the Internet. In other words, let other more careless people "beta-test" the updates for you in advance.

Two good places to visit for trouble reports are MacFixit or Apple's Discussion Boards on their Support Page.

4) READ the instructions for the update again.
5) PRINT a copy of the instructions BEFORE you begin.
6) DETERMINE A PLAN to revert the change (if the update allows it)
7) DECIDE if the update is really worth installing.

Remember that users who have tweaked their Mac OS X installation dramatically (read: against Apple's recommended configuration) may experience a bad time. If you have hacked an old Mac (read: not an original G3 or G4) to run Mac OS X, you should already know that you're running the bleeding edge of compatibility.

It's a good thing that we have BSD underneath our Mac OS GUI. It leaves many more possibilities for repairs or changes, unlike in the old Mac OS 9 days where we'd have to wait for Apple to get with the problem and provide a fix. A good example: after the HP printer software problem appeared with the 10.2.2 update, several enterprising people developed several workarounds and temporary fixes while Apple and HP slowly find an official solution.
[Update: The fix is part of the 10.2.3 update.]

Your mileage may vary with any update. Don't experience "Go Fever" with your Macintosh, or things could blow up real good.

Apart from all the moronic comments about sturdy computers (Nice going Irishman, trolling in the story), Isn't this a clue about the silence in space? You know, the Drake equation? How strong must a signal be, to be heard? Pioneer is only 2x orbit of Pluto away from the Sun, and already impossible to listen to. Nearest star is 4.2 light years away, and nearest galaxy is "just" 75,000 light years away. How strong signal would be needed to communicate these distances. I know the Pioneer signal is only a few milli (micro?) watts, but still...
J.

About Galileo, some tales from several years ago, mentioning the current tape problem.

I would like to hear what exactly the engineers did. I have a feeling it was the interplanetary version of whacking your TV set to stop the whine.

Not all twiddle-the-computer exercises work out well. NASA is not one to dwell on failure, but they'll hand-deliver a press release to your door for great news. E.g., I read that contact with one of the Viking landers was lost years ago after someone sent bad data to its antenna tracking system. The lander was very late in its lifespan, but would you like to have been the guy who did it? We've found reasons to keep in touch with even the Voyagers (or should I say V'gers?), as well as the nearly 4x too old Galileo.

The Web is so cool: Galileo's current position

And Galileo tour guide -- the Galileo stuff at the NASA site is a little dusty. :)

Should we have a moment of silence with spunky Galileo burns up? Do you think the Jovians will retaliate?

And consider the other countries getting caught in the crossfire: the Canadians contributed a cool robot arm, the ESA is putting up a whole module . The really sucky part is other countries that took part in good faith are gonna lose their research time because the station won't be operating at peak performance.

-AD

And consider the other countries getting caught in the crossfire: the Canadians contributed a cool robot arm, the ESA is putting up a whole module . The really sucky part is other countries that took part in good faith are gonna lose their research time because the station won't be operating at peak performance.

-AD

we celebrate 40th anniversary of first dog in space.

speculative analysis of failure:

fact 1: Cooling pressure in the first (cryogenic) stage was nominal until T+00:01:36 (96 sec) as per BBC report

fact 2: Overall thrust by stage 1 and control of trajectory is dominated by the strap-on solid boosters until solids separate. This happens at about T+00:02:00

fact 3: further stage 1 (cryogenic) core engine problems developed at T+00:03:16. The bird was no longer in a nominal trajectory. per Arianespace This is well after solids separation. The nature of the engine problems were not specified right away. "flight control difficulties" were cited later by Arianespace. (No Kidding!)

My conclusion:

The cryogenic coolant circuit in the Vulcan-2 nozzle seems to have developed a leak, dropping the cooling system pressure.

The uncooled nozzle section in the immediate vicinity of the leak was immediately subjected to excess thermal shock. The coolant is rocket fuel (LH2 or LO2). If injected into the nozzle (as opposed to dumping outside the nozzle) then nozzle pressures and temperatures spike locally. In addition, the exhaust turbulence increases, along with acoustic loads. These factors could easily lead to burn-through of the nozzle wall near the coolant leak location. Burn-through leads to increasingly asymmetric thrust, which the control software does not figure in with its control laws. Unpredictable results (ie trajectory) follow.

Note that the US Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) have a similar cooling design, which had frequent cracking problems. The problems were sometimes discovered after flight, since the engines were thoroughly inspected post-flight. Static ground tests did not seem to uncover all failure modes. The Vulcan-2 is well tested, but no engines can be inspected post-flight since the booster burns up in re-entry.

The problems of extreme thermal shock, extreme thermal gradients, and enormous loads and vibrations make for a brutally unforgiving environment. Good Luck, folks!

Bullshit. Tapes are intended as a short-term backup medium. Google for NASA magnetic tapes, and you will find a lot of interesting stories. Like e.g. this one:

Right now, ACRES is updating storage of 120,000 gigabytes of data collected since 1979, primarily from remote-sensing Landsat satellites passing over Australia. Landsat images are among the most voluminous of space-based data, making ACRES one of the largest data repositories of its kind in the world, Trezise said.

The data now are housed on optical tape, having been rescued from disintegration in the early 1990s from aging high-density magnetic tapes. That first rescue operation occurred just in the nick of time, Trezise said, since the magnetic tapes were starting to get sticky on their spools.

Wake me when I can get on of these that works with T-rays

Earth had large amounts of liquid water at least 3.85 billion years, possibly 4.3 billion years ago. Zircon samples have been found dating back that far that could only have crystallized in an aqueous medium.

And what medium do you suppose we should use?

"Since a DVD player could never survive impact, diagrams explaining how to build one from scratch will be engraved on the surface of several dozen of the disks".

of course it was Russia that cancelled the module which would have allowed 6 astronauts to be up there conducting experiments 24/7

Things like this?

Well, STS113 is up in space now, so they launched around 113 shuttles, of which one catastrophic failure. So I'd say they're getting more than 99% right now. Better than all except the soyuz, but AFAIK those aren't launched with people on board each time.

...Doesn't work. Ask NASA .

Space.com is now reporting that the entire launch was a success. It made it through the last 37 minutes and deployed the satellite.

"This is the first black hole found to be moving fast through the plane of our galaxy," said Felix Mirabel, a researcher at the French Atomic Energy Commission who led the work.

A black hole shot from a spectacular cosmic explosion is racing across the Milky Way four times faster than the stars around it, astronomers announced today. The discovery is among the best evidence that black holes are indeed the invisible offspring of supernova, the catastrophic and explosive deaths of massive stars.

The object is at least 6,000 light years away and is headed roughly in our direction but poses no immediate threat.

The matter-slurping monster was detected because it has a visible companion star from which it feeds. The visible star orbits the black hole once every 2.6 days as they race around the main plain of the galaxy in a looping, off-kilter orbit.

How close will it come to Earth?

"Not closer than 1,000 light-years in the next 230 million years," Mirabel told SPACE.com.

The phenomenon is one of about one million wayward black holes zooming through our galaxy, said Mirabel.

"This is the first black hole found to be moving fast through the plane of our galaxy," said Felix Mirabel, a researcher at the French Atomic Energy Commission who led the work.

A black hole shot from a spectacular cosmic explosion is racing across the Milky Way four times faster than the stars around it, astronomers announced today. The discovery is among the best evidence that black holes are indeed the invisible offspring of supernova, the catastrophic and explosive deaths of massive stars.

The object is at least 6,000 light years away and is headed roughly in our direction but poses no immediate threat.

The matter-slurping monster was detected because it has a visible companion star from which it feeds. The visible star orbits the black hole once every 2.6 days as they race around the main plain of the galaxy in a looping, off-kilter orbit.

How close will it come to Earth?

"Not closer than 1,000 light-years in the next 230 million years," Mirabel told SPACE.com.

The phenomenon is one of about one million wayward black holes zooming through our galaxy, said Mirabel.