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(because it's not technically possible for them to float in space while you work on them)

I'm not so sure about that.

From: this article...:
"[T]he first science-fictional reference to the idea of automatic speech translation is found in Hugo Gernsback's 1911 classic Ralph 124c 41 +."

Yeah. I never heard of it, either.

http://www.space.com/14531-nasa-mars-missions-budget-cuts-2013.html

Shuttle cost $209 billion over it's life, 134 missions. $1.6 billion per flight.
http://www.space.com/12166-space-shuttle-program-cost-promises-209-billion.html
So more like $200 million per Astronaut on Shuttle.

Russia sells flights to ISS for ~$50 million (Sarah Brightman), though used to be cheaper ($20 million for Mark Shuttleworth).
SpaceX is targeting $20 million per person for its Dragon Capsule

Very interesting - thanks for posting. I had no idea that sun-syncronous orbits existed, let alone how they worked (wiki helped with that). It sounds like it would be a great orbit to be in if you were a space tourist - the view you'd get riding the terminator would be very dramatic.

Re: the weather satellites, if things get really bad, maybe NOAA can take over that spy sat that DOD donated to NASA (as I heard it, NASA got a late-model spy sat to use for astronomy but doesn't have the cash to launch it). (ref)

Plus prototype rovers that *may* fly in 8 years time aren't nearly as exiting as a rover that's actually there and doing some science.

The imager can see 12th magnitude stars. It has both high resolution and high sensitivity, but no moving parts. A decade ago it was state of the art stuff. But physics is still physics. At twice the radius, a pixel will get one fourth the light flux, so will need four times longer exposure. That means four times fewer images. However, doubling the CPA also means half the slew rate, so it may not be so bad.
The original article: http://www.space.com/18087-pluto-moons-rings-risk-new-horizons.html
The craft: http://www.space.com/1800-horizons-voyage-edge-solar-system.html
The telescope (LORRI): http://www.universetoday.com/566/new-horizons-telescope-sees-first-light/

The imager can see 12th magnitude stars. It has both high resolution and high sensitivity, but no moving parts. A decade ago it was state of the art stuff. But physics is still physics. At twice the radius, a pixel will get one fourth the light flux, so will need four times longer exposure. That means four times fewer images. However, doubling the CPA also means half the slew rate, so it may not be so bad.
The original article: http://www.space.com/18087-pluto-moons-rings-risk-new-horizons.html
The craft: http://www.space.com/1800-horizons-voyage-edge-solar-system.html
The telescope (LORRI): http://www.universetoday.com/566/new-horizons-telescope-sees-first-light/

Whatever it is, doing research into finding and solving those problems sure seems more worthwhile than the near "dead end" research they're doing.

There are many things depending on gravity: http://www.space.com/4302-stresses-immune-organs.html
Just too much trouble trying to live long term without it.

And as far I see if we can build spacecraft that can cope with 3g, we should be able to build a spinning "bucket"+cables+"counterweight" that can cope with 1g (from spinning) plus some tidal forces.

It seems to me that any mission taking months of time, would use some kind of artificial gravity. Artificial gravity would be needed for the astronauts health and muscle tone as well as medical emergencies requiring surgery.

Research:
"help ward off the debilitating loss of muscle and bone due to weightlessness on long missions"
Here is the physics:
Simulated Gravity with Centripetal Force

Does anyone know of plans for the Mars mission (what kind of vehicle will be used)?

Your attitude is incredibly ignorant and short sighted. Look at this graph.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/multimedia/0212-spacejunk/img/chart-historical-debris-growth.jpg

Then tell me space debris will not become a problem.

And yes, collisions have happened.

http://www.space.com/5542-satellite-destroyed-space-collision.html

More will happen, if people don't come together and deal with it.

Yeah. And what's with all the dried up riverbeds?

How do you explain this without water?

http://i.space.com/images/i/20995/wS4/mount-sharp-1600.jpg?1346122345

Please, do correct me if I'm wrong; but I was under the impression that the overwhelming majority of the cost of doing space work was in launching the things

Nope. A quick search shows that cubesats cost $40k to launch, and developing a cubesat reportedly runs from $25-50k, easily a significant fraction of launch price.

    http://www.space.com/308-cubesats-tiny-spacecraft-huge-payoffs.html

Is the cost of computing anywhere near that significant [...] rather than a slightly more expensive, but by no means all that esoteric, ARM SoC board designed for embedded applications?

You really should read TFA. Cell phones are perfect because they include a compass, gyro, camera, etc. A LOT more than just an ARM SoC. Hell, they can probably sell the screens on eBay and make back a significant portion of their purchase price.

Thought TFA didn't say so, the power management in Android phones is probably better than what you'll get anywhere else... Standby and talk time are major advertised features, so manufacturers make sure it's working as well as possible. And with a satellite, electrical limits are a major issue.

In the same vein, is there an advantage to using an Android environment(whose virtues lie primarily in UI and 3rd party applications) rather than a standard embedded linux or other OS?

Android is a standard embedded Linux OS... It's basically just got a custom UI instead of X11. From the command-line, you wouldn't know the difference. Many people install Debian on their Android phones...

"NASA's core mission remains one of space exploration, science and aeronautics," Michael Cabbage told SPACE.com. "Administrator Bolden regrets that a statement he made during a recent interview mischaracterized that core mission."

Anybody who still recites this incident as actual policy rather than a gaffe induced by peer pressure, which was immediately retracted, is just trolling. Furthermore I defy you to identify any actual funds that Nasa has spent on Muslim outreach instead of space exploration in the two years since Bolden said that.

PS I am really looking forward to the most ambitious Mars landing yet, this Sunday.

By the way, the landing will be shown live on a jumbo-tron in Times Square!
http://www.space.com/16863-mars-rover-landing-nasa-events.html

unfortunately, you're right..
http://www.space.com/8725-nasa-chief-bolden-muslim-remark-al-jazeera-stir.html

stuff like this is where the right wing gets the whole 'democrats hate america' thing from. this guy should be working towards america becoming 'the' space authority in the world, not by force, necessarily, but by technology and drive.

Will spiderwebs look the same?

No.

Does a fish swim differently in a floating body of water?

Yes, initially, though they appear to figure it out.

Will a bird adapt to floating without wind?

Tough to tell. Birds require gravity to swallow, so it'd have to be a really quick flight...

Will ants be able to place scent trails in mid air?

Not sure they've ever tried free-floating ants. They had to engineer an ant farm because the ants would have been crushed by dirt during lift-off.

And that's just after a quick google.

http://www.space.com/16412-dark-matter-filament-galaxy-clusters.html

...at a non-slashdotted link, no less:

http://www.space.com/16395-orion-space-capsule-nasa-unveiled.html

When stars go supernova, they sometimes release large Gamma Ray Bursts which are far more devastating to an atmosphere than X-rays. GRBs can cover great distances too. Currently a star named WR 104 which is 8000 light years from earth seems to be pointing straight at us. If it goes GRB when it explodes, we may be in for trouble. There's enough energy there (even at that insance distance) to cause wide spread extinction on the planet.

Interestingly enough, it may have already happened but the light from it, and/or the GRB, hasn't gotten here yet.

http://www.space.com/5081-real-death-star-strike-earth.html

I thought fire wasn't a big deal in space. http://www.space.com/13766-international-space-station-flex-fire-research.html

Elon Musk doesn't need credibility with you, he has a net worth of $2 billion. And frankly, between you and him, I know who has more credibility with me.

A couple of things... First, you need to update your notion of what is "required" for a Mars mission. Second, SpaceX is developing a line of reusable launchers which will drastically cut the cost of launching mass to LEO.

Lots of very smart people have been working on this for quite a while, and they seem to think it can be done. After listening to their arguments, I tend to agree. We are on the cusp of a new "golden age" in space exploration. You may disagree, but I reckon you're in for a pleasant surprise, sooner than you think.

While the craft itself operates unmanned, it could be easily adapted for human cargo in a not so ridiculous way. In fact, 2 seconds of searching revealed the plan to used a modified (scaled up) version of this design to transport astronauts into space. http://www.space.com/13230-secretive-37b-space-plane-future-astronauts.html

Besides Earth, Titan is the only object in the Solar System to circulate liquids in a cycle of rain and evaporation

No, it is not.

The US is spending 25.7 billion (17.7 billion NASA, 8 billion for the military (GPS, etc)) on space in 2012

ESA spent 4 billion Euros (about $5 billion)... a total of 413 million EU on human space flight.

There's a lot of talk in the paper about "global" exploration of the moon. I can only assume that means they don't plan on increasing that.

ESA has 19 member countries and even some of them have space organizations of their own so the spending you cite is inaccurate. The EU actually has 27 member countries, 6 applicants for membership and additionally Switzerland and Norway are in ESA but not in the EU. Don't ask me how this correlates with the eurozone...

I didn't claim exposure needs to be 0. I said 'effective', which for the purposes of initial Mars exploration can mean 'survivable'

Do you have any better data than this study?

The US is spending 25.7 billion (17.7 billion NASA, 8 billion for the military (GPS, etc)) on space in 2012

ESA spent 4 billion Euros (about $5 billion)... a total of 413 million EU on human space flight.

There's a lot of talk in the paper about "global" exploration of the moon. I can only assume that means they don't plan on increasing that.

That's why the EU is making a case to return to the moon -- so somebody else will foot the bill for them.

The US is spending 25.7 billion (17.7 billion NASA, 8 billion for the military (GPS, etc)) on space in 2012

ESA spent 4 billion Euros (about $5 billion)... a total of 413 million EU on human space flight.

There's a lot of talk in the paper about "global" exploration of the moon. I can only assume that means they don't plan on increasing that.

The Dyna-Soar and Sanger didn't didn't have the boost engines that the X37 may have. A skip and boost might be good enough and even if not the X37 just needs to get back to Edwards or some other base after a skip maneuver. I didn't even say that it could do it but it would be very useful for recon if it could.
Yea I cut and pasted from... The USAF site for the X37... You know the official .mil sight. Do you have any reference that no observer saw the X37s Solar panel? Or even had the capability to see a solar panel?
Or to use your childish term does the USAF have unobtanium batteries that can power the X37 for a year? Or maybe do you think it carried an RTG or a Nuclear reactor which it did not.
Naw i just threw in the id number as joke since all of your info you supplied was based on nothing but uninformed opinion. It is even better that you bash reference that include the official USAF site. Yes the X37 used a solar panel for http://www.space.com/13156-secret-x37b-space-plane-longer-mission.html is an image from NASA showing the X37b with a solar panel deployed. It is solar powered and has been documented as such by a number of sources.

Worse, this is the second time a NASA barge has hit a bridge in a little over four months. The first time knocked a section of the bridge down, and they just got a new section installed about a week ago.

I'm beginning to think that NASA needs to seriously improve the rigorousness of their training/selection process for barge captains. Just saying.

They are sitting in a cleanroom in upstate New York. There is a longer, more detailed article in the New York Times. The satellites may save $250M each or more on various NASA missions, but they still need to be launched and have a program built around them — which may put dark matter research more than a decade ahead of schedule.

For the folks who don't know what the National Reconnaissance Office is, the NRO is the member of the US Intelligence Community responsible for designing, building, launching, and maintaining the United States' intelligence satellites. It does not do intelligence work itself, nor does it direct the use of space assets. Judging from some of the comments on the NYT article, I should also say this: NRO has been around for a half century, and its existence was declassified two decades ago, so this isn't some kind of "new"/shadowy intelligence agency. While its work is classified, its purpose and function is well-understood.

For a look at what kinds of work NRO does, see

Declassified US Spy Satellites Reveal Rare Look at Secret Cold War Space Program

Twenty-five years after their top-secret, Cold War-era missions ended, two clandestine American satellite programs were declassified Saturday (Sept. 17) with the unveiling of three of the United States' most closely guarded assets: the KH-7 GAMBIT, the KH-8 GAMBIT 3 and the KH-9 HEXAGON spy satellites...

Secret No More: Spy Satellite Designer Reveals Life's Work

Phil Pressel had kept a secret for 46 years. A secret that he shared with no one, not even his wife, since he first went to work for the Perkin-Elmer optics company in 1965...

Aside: I know this is difficult to comprehend for some on slashdot, but US intelligence assets in space are almost exclusively used for FOREIGN intelligence. Occasionally capabilities of, e.g., the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) may provide civil support in natural disasters. Our intelligence operations are not transparent, and are kept secret to deny our adversaries knowledge of our techniques, capabilities, sources, and methods. Be happy that we're able to repurpose for science intelligence assets that might otherwise have been destroyed or kept secret beyond all usefulness.

They are sitting in a cleanroom in upstate New York. There is a longer, more detailed article in the New York Times. The satellites may save $250M each or more on various NASA missions, but they still need to be launched and have a program built around them — which may put dark matter research more than a decade ahead of schedule.

For the folks who don't know what the National Reconnaissance Office is, the NRO is the member of the US Intelligence Community responsible for designing, building, launching, and maintaining the United States' intelligence satellites. It does not do intelligence work itself, nor does it direct the use of space assets. Judging from some of the comments on the NYT article, I should also say this: NRO has been around for a half century, and its existence was declassified two decades ago, so this isn't some kind of "new"/shadowy intelligence agency. While its work is classified, its purpose and function is well-understood.

For a look at what kinds of work NRO does, see

Declassified US Spy Satellites Reveal Rare Look at Secret Cold War Space Program

Twenty-five years after their top-secret, Cold War-era missions ended, two clandestine American satellite programs were declassified Saturday (Sept. 17) with the unveiling of three of the United States' most closely guarded assets: the KH-7 GAMBIT, the KH-8 GAMBIT 3 and the KH-9 HEXAGON spy satellites...

Secret No More: Spy Satellite Designer Reveals Life's Work

Phil Pressel had kept a secret for 46 years. A secret that he shared with no one, not even his wife, since he first went to work for the Perkin-Elmer optics company in 1965...

Aside: I know this is difficult to comprehend for some on slashdot, but US intelligence assets in space are almost exclusively used for FOREIGN intelligence. Occasionally capabilities of, e.g., the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) may provide civil support in natural disasters. Our intelligence operations are not transparent, and are kept secret to deny our adversaries knowledge of our techniques, capabilities, sources, and methods. Be happy that we're able to repurpose for science intelligence assets that might otherwise have been destroyed or kept secret beyond all usefulness.

reducing the cost to 20 million USD?

it *already* costs 20 mil to pay Russia to send you to the space station via soyuz, including training, and has for a few years now.

Perhaps for an indvidual, but NASA are paying over $50,000,000 a seat. And I believe that Soyuz is already flying in order to take Russian crews to ISS, NASA aren't buying an entire flight just for their astronauts.

Here's the first relevant page Google found:

http://www.space.com/8158-nasa-signs-335-million-deal-fly-astronauts-russian-spaceships.html

The primary problem with the shuttle wasn't that it was reusable.

1) The shuttle was built to handle both lots of cargo and humans. That meant that it had to have the reliablity of a man-rated craft with the lifting capacity of a heavy lifter.

2) Not enough funding for a fullly reusable shuttle. Early plans involved a fully reusable shuttle. The shuttle as designed instead was a hybrid which in many respects combined the worst of both reuable and disposable spacecraft.

2) Two much flexibility in orbital parameters was insisted on. This is frequently not appreciated as a serious problem. The US military insisted that the shuttle be able to take off from a variety of other locations including Vandenberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_AFB_Space_Launch_Complex_6. They wanted it to be able to launch into a near polar orbit, send out a satellite and land all in a single orbit of the Earth. This was so that if things ever got hot with the USSR we could launch additional spy satellites faster than the Soviets could shoot them down, or could launch single use spy satellites for other purposes . This article http://www.space.com/1438-chapter-opens-space-shuttle-born-compromise.html discusses this in detail. There are also other requirements that the military had but it seems that the details remain classified, and it is possible that the public orbital parameters as required by the military were covers for other orbits. But the requirement that the shuttle be able to do absolutely every low Earth orbit that every civilian or military source could possibly want severely constricted the shuttle design in many ways that were never used or infrequently used.

There's another thing to remember though: the shuttle was the world's first reusable craft whereas there have been a lot of single-use craft. The first model of something will often have more problems. We shouldn't take the problems with the shuttle and make a blanket assumption that reusable craft can't be done efficiently.

Answered #1 myself, answer is YES.
http://www.space.com/15479-seti-telescope-space-junk-search.html

SpaceX Launches Private Capsule on Historic Trip to Space Station

And don't forget the Space Launch System (SLS), which is the next iteration of (government operated) US human spaceflight.

ah, shoot! "path of totality" is a common phrase related to an eclipse, except this type

Yes I type it out of a grammar habit, for the middle line in this picture :
Map of U.S. from link (path of eclipse)
http://i.space.com/images/i/17171/i02/annular-solar-eclipse-may20-2012-us.JPG?1336084354

My bad...

Rough out there?

http://www.space.com/14834-solar-storm-blinds-venus-express-spacecraft.html

http://www.space.com/14656-japanese-space-elevator-2050-proposal.html

Could this have any bearing on the position and location of lava tubes on Mars?

http://www.space.com/14086-mars-alien-life-lava-tubes.html

Correct, and yet, this loss of speed has cost it about 250k mi in it's first 34 years. On a percentage basis, it's irrelevant, but over time it adds up. Here's an older article on the anomaly

The discrepancy caused by the anomaly amounts to about 248,500 miles (400,000 kilometers), or roughly the distance between Earth and the Moon. That's how much farther the probes should have traveled in their 34 years, if our understanding of gravity is correct. ...

The drift showed that the Pioneers were being accelerated toward the Sun (or, rather, decelerated in their movement away from the Sun) by a tiny but inexplicable amount. The level of drift is equal to a gravitational effect 10 billion times weaker than the pull of Earth.

The giant impact lunar origin theory got a little less likely just recently. The original article in Nature Geoscience is behind a paywall, but you can read a summary at http://www.space.com/15035-moon-formation-theory-challenged.html.

Basically, titanium isotope signatures from Earth and lunar samples are identical. For the giant impact theory to be correct, the impactor would have had to have the same titanium isotope mix as Earth, which seems unlikely if it originated elsewhere/when in the solar system's formation. But as usual, it's complicated. See the article and stay tuned...

You forgot Blue Origin (run by Amazon's Jeff Bezos) and the quaintly named but feisty Armadillo Aerospace. Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Grumman -- I believe those companies have been contracting to NASA and the defense department for years but prefer to suck the government's massive teats by going through NASA, the DOD, and all those other agencies. In fact, Northrop more or less purchased Scaled Composites.

These new companies are fresh faces on the scene that has been dominated by aerospace heavy weights for years. I have great admiration for Elon Musk. That guy rules.

And only when they weren't docking at the ISS. Basically if they were headed to the station, and something went wrong and they couldn't hook up, sending another shuttle up wasn't going to help. One time in recent memory that they had two shuttles sitting on the launchpad, was when one was going to service the Hubble. So in this instance, they had a backup, as they would not be docking with the ISS. Looked it up to find a picture, and found this article with a little more info. Two shuttles were only every visible on launch pads at the same time 4 times. And there was only ever 2 shuttles on launch pads (but not both visible at the same time) 18 times in history. http://www.space.com/6597-rare-sight-twin-shuttles-launch-pad-time.html

1. No idea, payload bay is 2.1 × 1.2 m and its launch weight is 5000 kg
2. Hundreds of millions to billions - "Details on the funding level remain within the Air Force's classified budget request"
3. Launch vehicle is an Atlas V (~$13,000 per kg to LEO - $65 million per launch)
4. Yes, supposedly, OTV-1 came back, has not launched again yet, OTV-2 is still up there

http://www.space.com/8239-details-secretive-37b-space-plane-revealed.html

This laptop I bought on craigslist with the JPL asset tag and wallpaper is starting to look interesting.
What is this "Plumbing Subroutines" folder? And why does ZoneAlarm have it allowed to connect to ISS.nasa.gov?
Whoops...

    Don't confuse government spending with the worth of the projects. There have been an abundance of amazing technologies that have come about due to the space programs. We'd have even more if we had many generations of spacecraft, building upon known technology. From Mercury to the Shuttle, there were tremendous advancements. What would it be like if we had multiple generations of spacecraft, and real space based societies?

    Antarctica has a population in the thousands during the winter. Space? The most I could find was 13. That's not a huge population for a space faring population. That's a camping trip, without the woods. To put it in comparison, 0.0000002% of the world population was in space at the same time. Once.

    No one does fun little experiments like "What happens if you space a water balloon?". There are important things to know, and until more people are up there doing oddball experiments, we won't discover 'em.

    And, I'm all for spacing a water balloon. A thermite filled balloon launched towards the atmosphere should make a pretty light show. It might need to be a pretty big balloon. Lots of room to experiment. :)
   

Around 1980, ESA came to the conclusion that by the end of the '90s, Ariane 4 would no longer be large enough to lift the predicted satellites to GEO. That's why ESA developed Ariane 5.

ESA has been considering Soyuz since at least 2004. I suspect using Soyuz instead of Ariane 4 was a matter of cost.

As for manned Soyuz launches: the capsule hasn't been designed for sea landings, according to a 2004 ESA report. So manned launches would require a redesign.

I hate this "all-eggs-in-one-basket" argument for preserving the human race. It misses the point entirely, because in the bigger picture Earth is not a sustainable system. The Sun is getting brighter; in less than a billion years it will be too intense for Earth's oceans to continue to exist. Like Mars did in ages past, Earth is going to lose its water. On the other side of the balance, Earth's interior is cooling, geological activity is diminishing, and so volcanic replenishment of the atmosphere is slowly winding down.It is clear, at such time scales, that if the entirety of life on Earth is to avoid extinction then life must branch out off the planet. That means launching equipment and people to build massive, robust infrastructure. Crops. Botanical gardens. Zoos.

Except that space is HARD. It's really expensive to get there and it is a high-vacuum radiation hell. It would take a long time and an expensive, sustained effort to construct off-planet habitats - a *tremendous* amount of effort and money before there is any payoff at all.

On the other hand, for example the asteroid 16 Psyche contains enough metal to construct a solid cylinder fivekm in diameter stretching from here to the Moon. Or cover North America in a layer 280 meters thick.The resources available to an outer space civilization are great enough to insure that if outer space habitats do reach the point where they can expand and grow, the payoff would be big enough to sustain life past the death of the Sun.

We are half-way through the era of animals on Earth. There have been at least a half dozen mass extinctions since animals first started evolving a half-billion years ago; there will be more. The glaciers have grown and retreated dozens of times over the last two million years; they will return. Yellowstone is going to explode again. And again. And again. Time is not unlimited.

But we have time. Abundant fossil fuels, and the internet - we are right now living in the decades of maximum wealth. At some point, within a few decades, we will either run out of fuel or we will run out of the capacity to sink carbon emissions. When this happens, it will mean the end of a way of life. Maximum wealth *right now* means that *right now* is the best and possibly the only time to lift off. Life on Earth only gets one pass at the fossil fuel heritage; if the next extinction event brings us to a place where launching is not possible, life will have missed its chance.

I'm not a nutter, I am a realist. I'm certain that outer space settlements will not solve our current growth vs. environment problems - the payoff will come way too late for that. None of our current issues will be solved, or even mitigated, by vigorous and immediate launches into the great expanse. Nonetheless, if DNA is to avoid extinction we need to start moving now as rapidly as we can. Nothing else matters.

The cocoon we call Earth is going to wither; whether or not she gives birthbefore she dies is entirely in the hands of human civilization. Our civilization,right now, we're the only chance. Sure, leaving Eden is a horrible burden. Suckit up. We have to go. Now.

Or, we can continue toasting marshmallows at the planet's one-time-only oil burning party.