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Article on Space.com
Image of the rocket

Article on Space.com
Image of the rocket

Seems that the C-21 is the Russian Entry to the X-Prize.
Also, they have built two of the M-55 carrier craft. They are a updated 'research' version of the M-17, which was the Russian version of America's U2 spy plane.
This page on HTOL TSTO (Horizontal take off & landing, two stage to orbit) has a few pictures of various launch systems. There is a nice picture of the M-17 in flight at the end of that page. (The M-55 in this picutre seems to have additional wing mounted engines.
According to the cutaway model, the cabin is relativly roomy, but there dosn't seem much room for fuel. Most of the equipment at the rear of the craft seems to be life support and other equipment, not presurised fuel tanks. Perhaps they are using solid rocket motors (aka Big Firework), but russians tend to prefer, and endeed excell, at liquid fueled rockets. Besides, this schematic seems to show a rather different type of spacecraft. (note the wings, and overall length) Therefore, I suspect that this is a plywood mockup, for the benifit of potential investors, in the tradition of most space enterprises over the past 5 years.

Here is a link to that : here

Anyway, nuclear rockets are a great idea. A better one, you may have heard me harp on this before, is VASIMR. It is a plama rocket with a nuke power source. It will be around ten times as efficient as the nuke rockers. However, the VASIMR, unlike the nuclear rocket, it does not have enough thrust to launch from earth. It is more a slow and steady engine that runs for weeks instead of minutes. But the burnout velocity of a VASIMR can be vastly higher than a chemical rocket.
The nuclear rocket can provide cheap, efficient space launches with not too much radioactive fallout. In fact, if a nuclear rocket using helium as a propelent will produce no fallout at all. Since a nuclear rocket is about twice or three times as efficient as a chemical rocket, the amount of fuel you'd need would be slashed dramatically. A nuke rocket launch might only use 10% or less of the fuel that a conventional booster would.

It's under R&D.

It ionizes hydrogen with microwaves an then accelerates them with magnetic fields. While it doen't provide thrust like a chemical rocket, it certainly has many, many times more thrust than a ion engine. It has some oomph to it. For cheap launches, you really need somthing like the x-42 scramjet spaceplane. That would cut costs of launching by a factor of 10 with no giant lasers.

VASIMR will get a specific impulse of 30,000 seconds compared to 500 seconds for the shuttle's engines. A specific impulse is the number of seconds 1 kg. of fuel could produce 1 kg. of thrust. The specific impulse of the VASIMR is 60 times better than the shuttle. That is many times better than the ~1500 seconds you'd get with the nuclear rockets.

That would allow cheap interplanetary voyages anywhere in the solar system, using very little fuel. Using these engines, you could get to Saturn in less than a year. It would also allow slow intersteller trips of around 1% the speed of light.
Also, VASIMRs could be easily, cheaply, and quickly refueled for more missions.Interplanetary travel could become cheap. I bet each ship would cost around 5 billion dollars initialy. After that, it's cheap. After each trip, an X-42 could come and restock the ship with fuel and supplies. That would only cost around 50 million. We could send tens of thousands to colonize Mars.

BTW: On this article, it says the VASIMR gets 10,000 seconds. It can reach 30,000 with further development.
Read about the VASIMR here
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Now the 2df galaxy cluster mapping project which are giving us maps of our galaxy's position out to about 1B light-years -- /that's/ interesting AND news. hell,

Now the 2df galaxy cluster mapping project which are giving us maps of our galaxy's position out to about 1B light-years -- /that's/ interesting AND news. hell,

A better engine than this one is the VASIMR. It is a plasma engine that is under development. It ionizes hydrogen with microwaves an then accelerates them with magnetic fields. While it doen't provide thrust like a chemical rocket, it certainly has many, many times more thrust than a ion engine. It has some oomph to it. I really don't think that the ablative engine that this article was about would be good to launch vehicles into space. You would need a fscking huge laser to propel the ablative rocket into space. The cost of the giant laser would outweigh the cost savings of not using a huge amount of rocket fuel.
For cheap launches, you really need somthing like the x-42 scramjet spaceplane. That would cut costs of launching by a factor of 10 with no giant lasers.

VASIMR will get a specific impulse of 30,000 seconds compared to 500 seconds for the shuttle's engines. A specific impulse is the number of seconds 1 kg. of fuel could produce 1 kg. of thrust. The specific impulse of the VASIMR is 60 times better than the shuttle. That's even better than this ablative engine.
That would allow cheap interplanetary voyages anywhere in the solar system, using very little fuel. Using these engines, you could get to Saturn in less than a year. It would also allow slow intersteller trips of around 1% the speed of light.
Also, VASIMRs could be easily, cheaply, and quickly refueled for more missions.Interplanetary travel could become cheap. I bet each ship would cost around 5 billion dollars initialy. After that, it's cheap. After each trip, an X-42 could come and restock the ship with fuel and supplies. That would only cost around 50 million. We could send tens of thousands to colonize Mars.

BTW: On this article, it says the VASIMR gets 10,000 seconds. It can reach 30,000 with further development.
Read about the VASIMR here

Here's what we do to get to Mars:

1. We need an inexpensive space plane. To get research dollars, stop the ISS and shuttle progranm. Right now, they arent' doing anything usefull, and the shuttle costs $500 million a flight.

2. Use the money we saved to fund the X-42 program. This is a spaceplane that uses a scramjet engine to reach about mach 15, then uses a rocket engine for the rest. It will reduce lauch costs to under $1000 dollars a pound. Which is a factor of 10 improvement over the shuttle.

3. Now that we got our spaceplane, research the mars mission. Research a good engine suitable for the mission. Like the VASIMR hydrogen plasma engine, which is under development. It will get a specific impulse of 30,000 seconds compared to 500 seconds for the shuttle's engines. That would allow cheap interplanetary voyages anywhere in the solar system, using very little fuel. Using these engines, you could get to Saturn in less than a year. It would also allow slow intersteller trips of around 1% the speed of light.

4. Anyway, now that we have the suitable tech to get to Mars, we can do it. You can have maybe three launches of 50 million dollars each to launch the parts for the spaceship. You could then assemble it in orbit. Then you go on your merry way to Mars, get there in 2 months, stay for a month, and come back.

A VASIMR-powered spacecraft can be reused. After the Mars mission, it would just have to be refueled and resupplied, and it could be sent out again on another mission to Mars or even Saturn or Jupiter, with the addition of extra fuel tanks.

Read about the VASIMR here

For example, like this...

Several hours later it was discovered that the software used by the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories had a slight flaw, and the corrected simulations show that the nuclear explosions were in fact beige.

In a related story, the updated software was found to contain massive amounts of spyware.

I was wondering that myself. I had heard that the plans for the Saturn V were lost. But that seems to be mostly an urban legend. You can get the full story on the Saturn V plans here (warning: pop ups).

looks like space.com has an article disputing this claim.

Deep-space spacecraft tend to me much longer lived than Earth orbiting ones as they aren't subject to Van-Allen radiation, nasty atomic oxygen effects plus the thermal cycling stresses you get from going from sunshine into shadow and back into sunshine every obit.

Points made:

1. it would be cool if they can contact the probe.

(Ah yes, took some serious insight to figure that out.)

2. They used to make space probes more solidly than they do know.

(Um, far from being insightful, this is blindingly obvious. In fact, it's by design, as part of NASA's "faster, better, cheaper" plan.)

3. By the time something gets far away from us, it is very old.

(Huh. Look at that.)

Second, remember the Mars Climate Orbiter? NASA lost that one thanks to a confusion between metric and imperial units. "Mission control computers had incorrectly gauged the velocity of the craft throughout the entire four-month trip from Earth to Mars." Oops.

By the way, as a pilot, I have to tell you that I certainly would not count on an autopilot being bug-free either. (Probably one reason my flight instructor made me learn five different ways to disable it should it start misbehaving.)

umm, we already have fusion reactors, how do you think we get nuclear power? Maybe you mean antimatter engines?

A couple of comments. First, this is an old idea - cyclers have been proposed for over 20 years and Aldrin's seminal addition to the concept was made in 1985 - see here for details. My question is, why is this meme back in the public consciousness NOW? It can't be because Aldrin thinks Bush will support the concept now that he's Prez; the new Bush NASA is going exactly the opposite route than cyclers with their sudden support of nuclear propulsion. Second question, where did the sudden push for NASA nukes come from? Especially at the expense of previously planned missions to Pluto and Europa? And my third question, why is space so passe to Slashdotters and by extension tech oriented fans in general? All the space articles on Slashdot get one-tenth to one-quarter the postings of just about any other topic; if even the geeks don't care about space that much any more, how can we ever hope to have a stable space program instead of this outer plane probes / no wait, nuke rockets / no wait, cyclers mass confusion?

Here is a space.com news article which details exactly that. The US military does believe that space is their future, and they want to control it. There's talk about creating a new space force division, though for now it looks like the air force will control space missions for the near future. Given this one may ask, why are they killing off manned flight? I think it's because they realize that automated systems, not manned flight, is where both terrestrial and space flight is going. Humans have far too many physical limitations which automated systems don't share. Everything from very limited acceleration to supporting basic biological needs go against the requirements for "controlling space". To further this policy NASA (along with whatever scientific projects are ongoing and/or planned will be eviscerated.

Cheers,
--Maynard

...the International Space Station drifts helplessly, out of communication with the ground, with power draining away - because the computers crashed. Some so-called 'desktop' uses really are mission critical.

If a hypernova were close enough to earth the gamma-ray burst could blow away our atmosphere. You can read more about it here.

This promises to be one of the brightest supernova in a long time. I hope they point the hubble torwards it.

There is an excellent site that will track the progress of this supernova here

Space.com has an article about hypernova here. More detail about hypernova mechanics are here and here

If they can catch a Gamma-Ray Burst with this object, then this will be a pretty big deal.

Agreed, but the X-33 is just a hulk of its former self.

It gives the impression that these are unilateral rules put in place by NASA when they are infact, rules which have been prepared and agreed upon by ALL the partners in the ISS Project.

After almost two years of negotiations, NASA and its International Space Station partners on Thursday released a new set of ground rules for the selection of professional astronauts and cosmonauts as well as other travelers to the orbiting outpost.

It's there, but it's small (in an angle-subtended sense - it's roughly 30 microarcseconds in size). No current instruments can resolve the event horizon of the black hole. Of course, many observations of the inner regions of the Galactic Center have been made over the past twenty years, and many spectral features have been associated with emission coming from within a few tens of Schwarzschild radii of the event horizon. Sgr A* (the name for the radio source associated with the black hole and its immediate environment) is actually fairly bright at radio wavelengths, so in that sense we can "see" the region right around the black hole.

In the next ten years or so, VLBI techniques will probably improve to the point that we can image the Galactic Center and see the shadow of the black hole against the rest of the radiating gas there. Pretty exciting stuff! See this space.com article for discussion and images.

-Gabe

It's a space.com article anyway. I can't imagine why msnbc has so many slashdot fans.

30 Billion Earths? New Estimate of Exoplanets in Our Galaxy http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/ju piter_typical_020128.html

I think that it will also very intereting, its one of the last (from sun) planes in our solar system, and we know little about it compare to our closer friends. It's on the edge of our solor system! This article also talks about it.

Or one of these people?

In November 1954 a housewife in Alabama was struck by a 3-lb (1.4 kg) meteor that smashed through her roof, bounced off some furniture, and struck her in the hip as she lay sleeping. She received a large bruise but no other harm.

In October 1992 a 26-lb (12 kg) meteor punched clear through the trunk of an automobile in Peekskill, New York, wrecking the aged Chevrolet (but also turning it into an instant collector's item that sold for over $20,000).

In June 1994 a man driving near Madrid, Spain suffered a broken finger when a 3-lb (1.4 kg) meteor crashed through his car's windshield and smashed the steering wheel, ending up in the back seat.

or here.

Unfortunately I couldn't find the link to the central park jogger that got nailed a few years ago. Although all it did was bounce off him. It made many major newspapers though. Anyone got a reference?

The purpose of this experiment is explained much better in this Space.com article

"The distance by itself isn't very interesting," Murphy said in a telephone interview.

Murphy's real motivation is to test Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which is based on an assumption that gravity affects a feather and a bowling ball in the same manner.

"This probes at the fundamental characteristics of gravity, which is the most important force in our daily lives," Murphy said.

Murphy's Special Law of Relativistic Gravity: Anything that can go wrong with gravity, will go wrong with gravity, and it will happen relative to me.

I guess Murphy's first Law wasn't enough. Now they need a special case for if the moon falls on you.

The parallel article contains this ghastly analogy:

Murphy's real motivation is to test Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which is based on an assumption that gravity affects a feather and a bowling ball in the same manner. You cannot test this in your home, because air keeps the feather aloft.

I forget -- was Einstein the guy who dropped the balls off the tower or the one who was hit in the head with an apple?

The parallel article contains this ghastly analogy:

Murphy's real motivation is to test Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which is
based on an assumption that gravity affects a feather and a bowling ball in the same
manner. You cannot test this in your home, because air keeps the feather aloft.

I forget -- was Einstein the guy who dropped the balls off the tower or the one who was hit in the head with an apple?

After a nearly perfect launch, 2001 Mars Odyssey is on its 400-million-mile, six-month journey to the red planet. The spacecraft will primarily search for water on Mars but it will also seek 19 other chemical elements and measure radiation. NASA, just barely holding the budget-cutters at bay, needs to recover from two previous Mars failures: the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Climate Orbiter. If everything works, Mars Odyssey will spend two years circling the planet while taking measurements and readings. The mission was already providing remarkably sharp and dramatic views before and during lift-off with two cameras attached to the Delta 2 rocket, one facing up and one down.

NASA:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/
Space.com: Space.com

NASA Marshall is funding the work of Prof. Gerry Smith, formerly of the PSU Physics Dept. (where I got my Ph.D. a while back) and who has gone to NASA MSFC

This was posted previously on /. here.

You can seen the PSU antimatter propulsion page here.
He also has tried to sell folks on anti-matter assisted fusion energy at the NASA fusion propulsion workshop that was held in 2000.

I haven't the slightest idea how far any of this will get under the current NASA budget woes.

-- Mycr0ft

From a space.com article:

"And it's not clear that NASDA's idea conforms to other standards laid out for solar power satellites ? that they should be environmentally benign and unusable as a weapon."

Good fungus link

If this is not it... I'm sure it will show up eventually.

If you would like to read the whole series, search for "Phantom Heresies" on the main Space.com web page, and it will give you the headlines (duplicated many times over). Topics include mediclorians, Boba Fett, and other analysis into the Star Wars movies.

If you would like to read the whole series, search for "Phantom Heresies" on the main Space.com web page, and it will give you the headlines (duplicated many times over). Topics include mediclorians, Boba Fett, and other analysis into the Star Wars movies.

If the Hubble has a 486, it was almost certainly an upgrade!

Yes, you are entirely correct about that, it was inserted on a spacewalk. However, the article mentions that Pentiums wasn't ready for space.

If your interested in this have a look at quite a few other plans in the works, many not so far off (2004 and beyond) for new telescopes looking for extra-solar planets and such.

For example the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) which although is currently un-funded, is targeted to launch around 2011.

More links and info.

These kinds of advancements make me happy to be alive now, and I look forward to 'seeing' the first "earth like" plannet!

If your interested in this have a look at quite a few other plans in the works, many not so far off (2004 and beyond) for new telescopes looking for extra-solar planets and such.

For example the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) which although is currently un-funded, is targeted to launch around 2011.

More links and info.

These kinds of advancements make me happy to be alive now, and I look forward to 'seeing' the first "earth like" plannet!

There was already a story on this earlier this summer.

and a great page on

space clocks and frequency control technology

In terms of "insignifigance," this has always been one of the most awe-inspiring photos I've seen:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/to p10_images_010925-10.html

It's not the most beautiful or the most visually stunning, but when you sit and think that every one of those little blobs is (or was) an entire *galaxy* similar to ours, and this is just a tiny, tiny sliver of the universe around us, it's absolutely mind-boggling. If that doesn't make you feel very small and insignificant on a cosmic scale, I don't know what will... ;)

DennyK

This year's images are nice, but the one I like most is here:
For one thing, it could affect us directly... and some scenarios could make it an extinction event.

As you might expect, the coolest images of 2001 are not as cool as the coolest images of all time. Of these, my favorites are the Eagle nebula and the Hubble Deep Field.

As you might expect, the coolest images of 2001 are not as cool as the coolest images of all time. Of these, my favorites are the Eagle nebula and the Hubble Deep Field.

As you might expect, the coolest images of 2001 are not as cool as the coolest images of all time. Of these, my favorites are the Eagle nebula and the Hubble Deep Field.

That's no comet, it's the (very recent! or dust would've covered it up) impression of a Sasquastronaut's foot on Mars, decolorized and the surrounding terrain blacked out to perpetuate the Sasquatch-deniers' fraud. Yet more proof of the Sasquatch race, and they're technologically advanced to boot.

This is a completely irrelevant side note, but has anyone else noticed that Space.com's picture-presenting cgi feeds the caption in the URL? Silly way of doing things, but provides the opportunity for some fun.

Observe.

I had some really insightful comment about how space exploration has died, but IE ate it. So you get this instead :p

Merry Christmas.

All the images I've seen so far are really small

You can of course enlarge them. I personally think ~500x800 is big enough for a decent desktop picture...

Seth has also written a series of articles on SETI, the most interesting of which to me was the one on the Fermi Paradox. If they're out there, theyve been out there for a LONG time...so why don't we see the astronomical equivalent of jet contrails from their warp drives? Any spacefaring civilization should be all over the Galaxy ... not just come by Earth. So where are they?