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Is anyone else frustrated when you hear wonderful science like this being done, yet see that probes like this are slated to have their funding cut (http://www.spacedaily.com/news/voyager1-05a.html) ? For some reason, $4.2 million / year to operate them (ie, listen) seems unbelievably cheap for such a unique resource - not only are there only TWO probes out there (voyager 1 and 2), but to get others out to replace them would cost a whole ton more. ...In addition to having to wait another 20 or so years to get there.
Science just doesn't work when politics gets involved... :(

So, I was laying around lazily on a vacation here in San Diego, and an idea idly struck me while shooting the breeze with my accompanying teacher friend.

There have been plenty of schemes to use Solar Power Satellites to provide cheap, ecological power to earth-based consumers, but one big problem has always been transmission.

Lasers and microwaves have been proposed, but lasers are notoriously inefficient, and both lasers and satellites have other problems. (cooking birds, airplanes and pedestrians in the case of an alignment problem, etc)

How do you get that power down to earth?

Well, few recent articles lead me to believe that a space elevator made of 5,5 quantum wires might be the best!

1) Transmission of power over superconductors wouldn't be very "lossy".

2) Problem of getting power to the elevators themselves largely solved.

3) 5,5 "quantum wires" are single-walled nanotubes, the best kind for tension strength, and are thus a natural fit.

4) No "cooked birds and airplanes" problems with alignment.

5) Getting sufficient material into space to build an economically feasible solar power station is cheap - just put the stuff on the elevator!

Is there any reason why this wouldn't work? Can anybody shoot holes in this idea?

"in the few years in between now and when the new man-rated launch-vehicle comes out"

If you are referring to the CEV its not a few years, its more like a decade. The only thing happening in a few years, maybe, is a test flight by the two teams of an unmanned tin can maybe in 2008 but it would be a miracle if they held that schedule, this is NASA, Boeing and Lockheed after all. The earliest there would be a manned flight is 2014 and that is pretty much a fantasy target.

Here is a biting editorial on the giant mound of contractor pork and red tape that is CEV. Transformational Space, the one fresh and innovative company in the early running, apparently pretty much abandoned bidding on it when they saw it was business as usual for NASA and structured so only Boeing and Lockheed could or would compete for it.

Even if a manned CEV ever flies which is a long shot given NASA's record with new manned vehicles since the shuttle, you are probably talking about a relatively tiny conical capsule, yes after a decade of new development and billions of dollars you are going to pretty much be back where we were in the 1960's, a tiny vehicle capable of carrying a few people and a tiny amount of cargo. The launch vehicle will be a derivative of existing expendable launchers and wont have anything close to the power of a Saturn V so every mission profile beyond putting a tin can in LEO requires multiple launches and docking all the pieces in orbit.

Bottomline is what is in NASA's pipe is less than what they had in the 1960's but at a staggering cost in time and money.

The international community would probably be way ahead scraping together the money to build the proposed Russian Kliper.

"in the few years in between now and when the new man-rated launch-vehicle comes out"

If you are referring to the CEV its not a few years, its more like a decade. The only thing happening in a few years, maybe, is a test flight by the two teams of an unmanned tin can maybe in 2008 but it would be a miracle if they held that schedule, this is NASA, Boeing and Lockheed after all. The earliest there would be a manned flight is 2014 and that is pretty much a fantasy target.

Here is a biting editorial on the giant mound of contractor pork and red tape that is CEV. Transformational Space, the one fresh and innovative company in the early running, apparently pretty much abandoned bidding on it when they saw it was business as usual for NASA and structured so only Boeing and Lockheed could or would compete for it.

Even if a manned CEV ever flies which is a long shot given NASA's record with new manned vehicles since the shuttle, you are probably talking about a relatively tiny conical capsule, yes after a decade of new development and billions of dollars you are going to pretty much be back where we were in the 1960's, a tiny vehicle capable of carrying a few people and a tiny amount of cargo. The launch vehicle will be a derivative of existing expendable launchers and wont have anything close to the power of a Saturn V so every mission profile beyond putting a tin can in LEO requires multiple launches and docking all the pieces in orbit.

Bottomline is what is in NASA's pipe is less than what they had in the 1960's but at a staggering cost in time and money.

The international community would probably be way ahead scraping together the money to build the proposed Russian Kliper.

..allow me to present a quote from Burt Rutan at a recent congressional hearing (please bear with me):

'"The process ... just about ruined my program," he said, referring his experiences with the office of the FAA's associate administrator for commercial space transportation...'

Virgin Galactic is delaying by a YEAR the start of their sub-orbital service - because of our (U.S.) government's red. Tape.

Yeah, I'm off-topic, but if we want such services to start (and then drop in price as they expand), such that WE can actually get into space, we need to help - by contacting our elected officials and letting them know how we feel.

Watching actors and reading fictional blogs by fictional characters isn't going to help.

For more on this, read: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spacetravel-05y.htm l

If you are talking about the shuttle, then we are currently running at 14 deaths from about 100 shuttle launches (rounding for simplicity), or over 100,000 per million shuttle launches. The shuttles are running a bit behind.

If you are talking about satellites, then I don't know what the numbers are, but they blow up all the time. The fact that they achieve 30 deaths per million launches is because they are unmanned and usually launched over the sea, not because of any inherant safety record.

If a hint isn't enough, trot your pottymind over to some science for a clue, before shooting off your pottymouth again.

According to the BBC, the ESA is set to send a robotic probe to Mars around 2011. They apparently want to return samples of Martian soil with the probe...

You'd think the poster would RTA. The 2011 mission is a rover mission.

NASA is already considering a sample return mission prior to the 2016 timeframe. I am not sure what plans there are for international collaboration. I would like to see the US work more closely with Japan.

Where do these magic numbers come from? We don't have the material, so we don't know the weight or the manufacturing costs.

I didn't say "manufacturing" costs - I said launch costs. The manufacturing costs could be much, much higher - but then, we spend close to a billion dollars prepping and fueling each Space Shuttle for launch. Clearly, the money is there even if the elevator ultimately takes in excess of $40 billion to manufacture, given the kind of access it gives you to both earth orbit as well as interplanetary targets. We've wasted a similar amount trying to build single stage to orbit space planes to replace the Shuttles, and have nothing to show yet for our troubles.

As for the weight, we have a pretty good idea of what the weight would be, since we have a pretty good idea of how strong carbon nanotubes are, and how many of them you'd need per centimeter of cable to hold the whole shebang together. This page, from 2003, discusses one proposal regarding how the elevator might be deployed.

I don't think anyone who has replied to my post has really considered that a very long piece of string is very heavy, and that the initial "ribbon" may have to be a few metres in diameter, making it very heavy - we won't know until we have a real material to plug into the very rough concept designs.

Why don't you try reading up one the subject, instead of raising ludicrous objections that have already been addressed by researchers working in the field? The initial ribbon won't have to be anywhere near a few meters in diameter. Try 11cm at its widest. It's also just a few microns thick. We know the physical properties of carbon nanotubes. We can already make carbon nanotube fibers, but they're only a few cm long at the moment. However, there's absolutely no reason to assume we'll be unable to make them longer in the future - in just the past couple of years we've doubled the length of carbon nanotube fiber we're capable of producing. We're unlocking the secrets of working with carbon nanotubes far more rapidly than we progressed at figuring out how to work with once exotic metals like aluminum. That's one reason why author Arthur C. Clarke now thinks we'll see a space elevator built in the 1st half of this century, not centuries from now as he earlier postulated.

If it's unlikely, a grand scheme, numbers are being made up, timescales are unrealisticly short and no reputable space agency is involved, then it could be a scam.

This has squat to do with any "scheme". Space elevators have been postulated for the better part of a century now, but until researchers stumbled across carbon nanotubes there was no known material you could use to construct one. The physical properties of carbon nanotubes meet those demanding strength requirements. Now all we need to do is figure out how to manufacture lengthy ribbons out of the stuff, a task that's far less daunting than it might at first appear. For example, we have scads of experience manufacturing massive lengths of magnetic tape, and some of those processes are bound to be applied to the manufacture and handling of carbon nanotube ribbons. It'll still be a massive engineering challenge, and there's no guarantee it'll be cheap, but right now a space elevator looks like a more practical use of research and development dollars than any other launch system proposal out there, in part because the potential payoff is so great. Even if we fail to develop a material that could be used to build a ribbon cable out of, carbon nanotube based materials will likely revolutionize manufacturing in the same way the development of plastics did in the 20th century. We'll get our money's worth out of this research one way or another.

OK, I'll bite. What do you propose doing? Do you realize that Seoul is within range of North Korea's artillery, and they have the capability to turn the whole city into one big pile of slag and rubble? This is a city with a population of 10 million. Basically North Korea is holding Seoul hostage. Any U.S. military strike against North Korea would result in the destruction of Seoul.

A more realistic approach might be to make some kind of a bargain with China: rein in North Korea, and in return, we won't try to stop you from retaking the renegade province of Taiwan (which, pretty soon, we won't be able to stop them from doing anyway, because of their naval buildup).

This is from last month, but Space Daily's Bruce Moomaw has an extensive overview of NASA's future plans for Mars exploration, based on the results of the first meeting of the Mars Strategic Roadmap Committee. It's a highly recommended read.

Some highlights:
* The 2007 Phoenix will "land on the near-surface layer of ice-saturated ground discovered by the Mars Odyssey orbiter in Mars' north polar regions to study the ice itself and its potential for preserving biochemicals."
* Mars Telecommunications Orbiter in 2009, which could boost the data rate coming back from Mars 10x to 100x.
* The Mars Science Laboratory will likely be pushed back to 2011 (instead of 2009), but is likely to have two or more versions constructed and sent to different areas. The base cost for a single rover is estimated at $1 billion, but another rover is expected to add $400 million. The MSL (or MSLs) will be looking for traces of organic chemicals and be further investigating the geological/climate history of Mars. The MSL is expected to weigh 600 kg including 65 kg of scientific instruments, compared to the MERs which weigh 185 kg including 5 kg of scientific instruments.
* There still seems to be considerable debate over when and how to launch a Mars Sample Return mission. One proposal I like is to send one (or more) to land near a MSL, have the MSL load a pre-drilled soil sample into the MSR, and then have the loaded MSR's return vehicle launch back.

Here is a sample of the close to 200 links posted on Complete April Fools Day Reference

kylewenda.com - the government records your phone calls... scary
google.com - Google releases Google Gulp
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
spacedaily.com - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
chron.com - Bush Twins in Maxim
slashdot.org - Say 'Cheese' to Google Satellite at 10AM
habitablezone.com - Terrible News: The UN has voted to close down the Internet!
ebay.com - Google Gulp Invite
sswug.org - Run MSSQL on your xbox and linux
worldofwarcraft.com - Panda Express joke making fun of EQ and its /pizza
techtree.com - Apple hires DVD Jon

Isn't April Fools Day just the best? =] For a 'full' list of sites pulling pranks today check out this list here

Here is a sample:

kellyosbourne.org - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
telecom.co.nz - Click 2 Brick
ytmnd.com - (NSFW) hacked by teens for christ
wingus.ampedhost.com - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
thinkgeek.com - Fake product listings.
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org - Site purchased by Microsoft
ocremix.org - Now partnered with EA (or something like that). Called EA ReMix.
spacedaily.com - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
planet.gnome.org - Switched sites with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org - Switched sites with planet.gnome.org
ietf.org - RFC: Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
beejaysworld.de - Gentoo dropping livecds for x86
nature.com - Apollo bacteria spur lunar erosion
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov - Water On Mars
smh.com.au - (Free Reg Req) SMEGmail offers 1 terabyte storage
smh.com.au - (Free Reg Req) Linux looks to Hilton for exposure
thetoque.com - Canada Builds Own Missile Defense Shield
onion.com - U.S. Dog Owners Fear Arrival of Africanized Fleas
chron.com - Bush Twins in Maxim
ask.com - Jeeves has been replaced by a robot
animenewsnetwork.com - Viz Unlicenses Naruto
uninventthewheel.co.uk - New BMW technology to get around the EU ban on right hand drive cars in Europe.
newgrounds.com - changing to numagrounds.com
neopets.com - neopets adds 50 new pets
www.firstloox.org - The Loox is being recalled
packages.gentoo.org - Adobe doesn't sell products for Linux
pc.ign.com - Microsoft World of Wordcraft (Extremely Obvious)
spamusement.com - Page full of spoof banner ads
gentooexperimental.org - Gentoo using the NT kernel
moddb.com

For a full list of sites that pulled April Fools Day Pranks this year check out this list here -

Here is a sampling:

dotget.net - Microsoft to put P2P software .GET into next version of Windows
kylewenda.com - the government records your phone calls... scary
rfc-editor.org - RFC for "Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts"
planet.gentoo.org - Various things, CFLAGS, etc
fark.com - Many Jokes (keep reloading): BOOBIES!, Logged in as admin, North-Central Kentucky Bunghole-Discharge, page from 1999, BEER
2600.com - Formal Attire required for 2600 meetings today
forumsector.com - Changed the name to Nascar Sector
wikipedia.org - Britannica taking over Wikimedia
google.com - Google releases Google Gulp
kellyosbourne.org - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
wingus.ampedhost.com - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org - Site purchased by Microsoft
ocremix.org - Now partnered with EA (or something like that). Called EA ReMix.
spacedaily.com - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
planet.gnome.org - Switched sites with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org - Switched sites with planet.gnome.org
ietf.org - RFC: Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
beejaysworld.de - Gentoo dropping livecds for x86
nature.com - Apollo bacteria spur lunar erosion
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov - Water On Mars

For a full list of sites that pulled April Fools Day Pranks this year check out this list here Here is a sampling: dotget.net - Microsoft to put P2P software .GET into next version of Windows
kylewenda.com - the government records your phone calls... scary
rfc-editor.org - RFC for "Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts"
waferbaby.com - amusing php error
planet.gentoo.org - Various things, CFLAGS, etc
fark.com - Many Jokes (keep reloading): BOOBIES!, Logged in as admin, North-Central Kentucky Bunghole-Discharge, page from 1999, BEER
2600.com - Formal Attire required for 2600 meetings today
forumsector.com - Changed the name to Nascar Sector
wikipedia.org - Britannica taking over Wikimedia
google.com - Google releases Google Gulp
kellyosbourne.org - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
telecom.co.nz - Click 2 Brick
ytmnd.com - (NSFW) hacked by teens for christ
wingus.ampedhost.com - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
thinkgeek.com - Fake product listings.
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org - Site purchased by Microsoft
ocremix.org - Now partnered with EA (or something like that). Called EA ReMix.
spacedaily.com - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
planet.gnome.org - Switched sites with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org - Switched sites with planet.gnome.org
ietf.org - RFC: Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
beejaysworld.de - Gentoo dropping livecds for x86
nature.com - Apollo bacteria spur lunar erosion
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov - Water On Mars

This follows the triumphant Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn's moon Titan.

The Huygens probe was a technical success. But ESA's handling of the landing event left a lot to be desired. If there is another big mission lets hope that the sharing of initial results with the public is handled more openly.

This guy in Space Daily a year and a half ago wrote an interesting article that proposed the idea of using an ESA hosted launch of a Soyuz (or two) to service Hubble. I have no idea if its feasible, but I wonder if anyone in NASA is considering ideas like this.

I get this popup when I go to http://www.spacedaily.com/. I am using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0. This idea of "only the popups you request" (by clicking on a link) has always pissed me off. When I select the option "no popups" I mean NO POPUPS. Clicking on a link that has Javascript do a popup should just result in the taskbar saying "popup blocked".

No, you just don't go to the right sites to see this shit. Try going to http://www.spacedaily.com/ and observe absolute insane shit that FireFox still allows random web sites to do.

Here is the proposed Russian replacement for Soyuz called Kliper. Astronautix has a little more detail on it. They are planning to show a full size model at the Paris air show in June.

Its an interesting hybrid of lifting body and capsule, it will reenter like a lifting body but pop a parachute and land with a thud like Soyuz. I think its fairly similar to canceled X vehicle Burt Rutan was developing as the ISS lifeboat.

It will carry 6 people or 700 Kilo's of cargo. If you hang one of these on the ISS as the emergency vehicle you could raise the manning level to six people and actually do some research on it for a change. The cargo capacity also appears well suited to resupply the ISS, it can carry a lot more than Progress and Soyuz.

They hope to have it flying by 2010 which just happens to be about when the Shuttle stops flying. They need $10 billion roubles to finish it which sounds like a lot but the exchange rate is 28 roubles to the dollar so that is only $350 million dollars. By contrast NASA is wasting $500 billion on CEV this year alone and they wont get ANYTHING for it other than pretty computer generated images. Building CEV is going to cost at least 36 times as much as Kliper and is scheduled to be 4 years later for its first manned launch, 2010 versus 2014.

Sure looks to me like Russia is hoping to fill the void the Shuttle is going to leave in 2010 with Kliper and essentially take over the ISS if they get the funding to develop it. Whatever happens the Russians are going to be the ONLY people putting people in to LEO on a regular basis from 2010 to 2014, maybe the Chinese will launch a few people too. NASA ought to be ashamed, very ashamed, again.

Seems to me like the Europeans or Japanese should jump at helping with the funding for Kliper. Their investment in ISS has been largely destroyed by NASA's failures, most of their modules are sitting on the ground and they may never get the astronauts onboard the ISS needed to do their planned research. For $350 million they could save their ISS investment and in partnership with Russia develop their own manned space program free of the boat anchor that is NASA, Boeing, Lockheed.

Seems to me like the Chinese could partner with Kliper as well with their new found wealth and jump start their rather slow manned space effort, especially if they get technology sharing in return for cash.

P.S.

I submitted the Kliper article when it came out a few days ago and it was rejected. It is real news versus this fluff piece. Hate to break it to you the shuttle has been scheduled to launch in May for a while now, its not news. The breaking news will be if they manage to stay on schedule for a change.

" NASA is looking at commercial options for resupply of the International Space Station."

I think the Russians are way ahead of NASA on both keeping the ISS going, and on the CEV.

The Russians are going to be showing a full scale model of their Kliper reusable capsule at the Paris air show this June.

This is their planned replacement for the venerable Soyuz. It will carry 6 astronauts or 700 kilos of cargo. The article sounds like they are a little cagey on the schedule, it just says a few years. I'll bet you they have a manned launch about 5 years sooner than the CEV.

If they hang one of these on the ISS as an emergency vehicle they will enable bringing the ISS up to nearly its planned manning level, and might actually allow people to do research on the thing, instead of spending all their time maintaining as the 2-3 man crews have been doing.

Kind of looks to me like Russia is planning to go it alone when the U.S. gives up on the ISS and the shuttle. The other source of friction is that since Russia is trading with Iran and the U.S. has embargoed Iran NASA is officially forbidden from having any financial relationship with the Russian Space agency. I wonder if they will have to paint a white line down the middle of the ISS and have a U.S. half and a Russian half :) Or more realisticly the Russians can just undock the modules they built and control from the NASA tidbits and let them burn up. Their modules are a full, self contained space station, a Mir2 if you will and they don't actually require the American parts.

For comparison to Kliper, the CEV is going to have Lockheed and Boeing launched an unmanned, half baked prototype in 2008, pick a winner between the two and wont have a manned launch, probably just to LEO, before 2014 at the earliest.

By contrast NASA went from a nearly standing start to putting a man on the moon in way less than 10 years in the '60's when it had never been done before. In summary, NASA, Boeing and Lockheed are today, officially pathetic. As nearly as I can tell the CEV, and the Bush Moon/Mars initiative is mostly just an excuse to pump money in to the pockets of Boeing and Lockheed and put the milestones that count so far out there it will be a miracle if they program isn't killed before they actually have to do anything serious for the subsidies.

"The administration is spending a lot of money on scientific research, specifically the trips to the moon and mars."

The Bush administration is spending next to nothing in going to the Moon and in reality nothing at all on going to Mars. When he proposed the new initiative he said NASA would get a 5% increase in spending in the 2006 budget, they are getting 2.5% in the document released this week.

CEV funding is up to $1 billion in the 2006 budget from $500 million this year, and much of that money is probably going to be split between Boeing and Lockheed in duplicated effort so you get half as much as you would if there were one team.

By comparison missile defense gets something like $8 billion a year. Tsunami aid is going to see about as much money as CEV. The War in Iraq spends a billion dollars in a few days. No don't con anyone in to think Bush is a champion of the sciences or space explanation. He is throwing crumbs at it, most probably as payoffs to Boeing and Lockheed more than any interest in space exploration.

Project Prometheus is cancelled in the 2006 budget, which may or may not be a good thing, it is bad if you are a fan of nuclear propulsion.

So the only thing new Bush is funding while he is actually in office are the two unmanned prototype CEV launches presumably in to LEO by Boeing and Lockheed in 2008 at the end of his term if they don't slip. They are likely to be exceptionally lame tin cans sitting on top of existing expendable launchers. Its unlikely there will be anything new or leading edge about them. Boeing is pushing its Titan Heavy Lifter apparently and it ain't no Saturn V. In 2008, assuming one or both prototypes actually work they pick a winner and then there are no launches for another 6 years, if they stay on schedule, so there MAY be a manned CEV in 2014, 6 years after Bush is out of office. Boeing and Lockheed are going to make a lot of money for doing relatively little on CEV for a long time.

By contrast the Russian Space Agency is taking a full scale model of their Kliper reusable capsule to the Paris Air show in June. It will carry 6 astronauts to the ISS or possibly the moon. There schedule is vague, "a few years" but it would be really hard for it to take longer than the ridiculously slow CEV schedule. In the second race to the Moon by money is on Russia to win this time. It appears a near certainty that they are going to achieve something NASA has completely failed to do and get the ISS up to six people so they can do some science instead of just barely keeping up on maintainance. With Kliper it also appears likely they will be ready to go it alone resupplying the ISS after NASA abandons it and the shuttle.

NASA went from Kennedy's speech, and a nearly standing start to the moon in much less than 10 years. This time around it appears it will take 10 years just to get the first manned capsule in to LEO and just get back to where we were around 1965, 50 years later.

And it's a shame the US threatened to shoot down the alternative european/asian Galileo system if the US military couldn't have the right to shut the new system down when it wanted, and has also applied as much pressure as it can to stop countries getting involved with Galileo at all.

And you wonder why other governments disagree with US policy sometimes?

Clinton had a much better policy - let people use the satellites free and non-degraded, leading to massive civilan commercial adoption - and given only US companies were allowed to make GPS receiver components, it had a massive benefit for the US economy directly as well as indirectly. But hey, it's far better to make your allies so suspicious of your actions that they'll invest over a billion to get their own system not under your control, huh.

After reading This article, I believe that our moon is indeed a planet. He proposes that if it has fusion, it's a star. Otherwise, if it is large enough to be rounded by its own gravity, it's a planet. Otherwise, it's an asteroid.

That's about the most conclusive method I've heard.

Just to point out how things have changed, the upcoming Delta IV heavy will have a payload capacity greater than that of the STS.

The Delta 4 Heavy may have a way to go before all the bugs are ironed out. In any case, development of a Saturn class superlifter would be a really, really good idea. Relying on 20-30 tons per throw EELVs would require way too many launches.

It is time to say goodbye. been saying this for a while now. THere was a good article on spacedaily a while back too:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hubble-04p.html

in fact they suggested even building 2. If Hubble keeps going a while longer, (it could go 2010 with luck) we would then have 2 scopes going!

Dont get me wrong, its been fantastic, but it is in essence 70's tech with upgrades bolted on. I think some of the bits are still original - they have been going a long long time, so when they blow thats it. There are a lot of things that can be done better too..

Tech has moved on - time to stop putting money into Hubble, great tho the old horse has been..

Read this astronomer's take on the feasibility of continuing Hubble. Very eye opening.

Check this article:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hubble-04p.html

If I recall, the mirror is many times heavier than a modern unfolding/segmented mirror is - for the same launch weight we could have a bigger mirror, or a lighter scope with the same mirror. Plenty of the hardware has not been swapped - the processor/hard disk etc is also pretty old.

From the article..
When NASA, on July 29, finally announced a list of the nine mission concepts to be funded for further study, most of them also had strong relevance to cosmology as well as to the development of stars within this galaxy and the search for their possible planets.

And one of those concepts was the Hubble Origins Probe ("HOP") proposed by Colin Norman of the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates Hubble.

HOP would fly the WFC-3 and COS instruments- intended for installation on Hubble- on a new orbiting space telescope, in a similar low Earth orbit, with a 2.4 meter mirror just as big as Hubble's.

But (like the other Origins Probe ideas) it would cost less than $670 million, thanks to the major cost-saving advances in technology that have occurred since Hubble itself was built in the 1980s.

(For instance, the European Space Agency's "Herschel" infrared space telescope, set for launch in 2007, costs only about a billion dollars and weighs less than one-third as much as Hubble - but it carries three instruments, and its mirror is almost half again as wide as Hubble's and has over twice as much light-collecting area.)

Sorry, yes, photons. That's the downside to writing a comment in three minutes during English ^_^. I found the article I was thinking of on this topic, and would be interested in feedback about it. Solar Sailing Breaks Laws of Physics Not exactly my area of expertise, just my area of interest.

Further, when the Brazilian government and Brazilian businesses spend money on licensing fees, they are actually spending money on things toward building an economy that provides jobs. Paying licensing fees is an integral part of a capitalistic economy.

How does space militarization, which the Chinese have been doing, achieve prosperity?

"Thanks to the strong leadership of President Bush, we have a real plan for space,..."

There is some evidence that Bush's space initiative is totally unrealistic. Besides, which each shuttle flight at an estimated cost of 760 million, the billion dollars that he requested from congress in your article is not going to get you anywhere near the Moon, let alone Mars... No worries though, the long timeframes of space missions ensure that Bush will have left politics way before there is any backlash from the failure of his space program.

New space suits would be cool I guess, but I'm kind of left wondering what exactly these will be used for other than the occasional turn around the ISS before the Bush administration mothballs it and the space shuttle.

I see Boeing and Northrop have teamed for the CEV leading to the inevitable result of every NASA contract competition, a team led by Boeing competeing against one led by Lockheed, assuming they don't either collude or spy on one another as is theire history.

So, I assume maybe these suits will be used for the CEV and maybe landing on the moon 20 years from now if its not cancelled first, when it becomes obvious the U.S. is so deeply in debt it can't afford it.

I sure wish there would be a real maverick CEV team lead by Burt Rutan and T/Space but it appears inevitable it will be the same old, same old pork going to Boeing and Lockheed and T/Space will have to partner with and be swallowed by one of them.

If you read the description in the link of what the Crew Exploration Vehicle is, it sure sounds to me like they are going to spend 10-15 years to basicly redevelop Apollo. Considering it took less than a decade the first time you'd think they would do it in slightly less time, not way more time this time around, especially with better computers, more experience etc.

Lockheed is a fascinating study in the giant corporations that run the U.S. government ... err ... excuse me work for the U.S. government. By one counting the average tax payer in the U.S. pays $228 dollars just to Lockheed in a year. The F-22 fighter has turned in to the most expensive and delayed fighter aircraft in history, at maybe $300 million a copy.

All in all the CEV just sounds like yet another avenue for redistributing our tax dollars to Lockheed and Boeing and it will probably never fly anything useful. Maybe the will make it to the moon briefly just so people wont be completely pissed over the billins spent on it and then just like Apollo everyone will be wondering what the point is, and why we are spending so much money on it. Unless we develop fusion power first, which would be a better use for the money, and are mining fuel for it from the Moon I'm really at a loss as to what going to he moon again would be good for except as a stunt.

Mars is a far more worthwhile place to go, and put a permenent colony, but its pretty much an unattainable goal due to the simple fact that NASA/Boeing/Lockheed budgets are so extravagantly wasteful that we will never be able to afford it.

There's also people to bitch about the TV broadcast - this guy Jeffrey Bell has a lot of venom here on SpaceDaily. It is true that the broadcast was minimalistic compared to a lot of 100% NASA-managed (succesful) projects, but dude, getting into such ignorant political hatred when it's mostly a matter of a nonexistant PR budget..

I would probably say even if less, its questionable. The hubble was brilliant as a late 70's design, but is well outmoded now - even the new cameras to be sent up are well behind current designs, and will be even more so by the time they are fitted. Hubble is wearing out in all areas - at some stage a critical failure will render it useless, whatever repairs are carried out.

Modern space-telescope mirrors weigh much less than the Hubble's, the Hubble's orbit is less than satisfactory, and so on. It has been proposed that modern space scopes with the same capability could be produced even cheaper than the JWST..

See:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hubble-04p.html

If it costs $200mil+ to deorbit, I doubt even that is worth it - many more lifes could be saved by spending $200mil in other areas than are risked by hubble re-entry - although I realise that is a political decision..

According to Steve Squyres.

Forget people -- guns are way cheaper and more portable. The only way we currently have to compactly store large amounts of energy for rapid release is chemically, and gunpowder is a fine example.

Where lasers really shine currently is the rapidity with which they bring energy to a target, so you can use them to shoot down projectiles in flight.

Google for "Tactical High Energy Laser" for more info.

Math boxes allow for greater flexibility and adaptability to varied mathematical abilities. (This text is the only one that gives the instructor a choice of teaching planetary science either at a descriptive level or at a moderately advanced level involving algebra and elementary calculus.)

b) According to the IAU's Committee for Small Body Nomenclature, three objects are both minor planets and comets: Chiron, Wilson-Harrington, and Elst-Pizzaro. Your comment that "comets and asteroids have very different histories and compositions" is irrelevent, as the histories and compositions of individual objects are often not known (even spectroscopy can only tell you about the surface, not what's beneath). Thus an object that has never been known to sport a coma is typically designated as a minor planet (i.e. asteroid) regardless of composition. The clear-cut distinction between asteroids and comets disappears in the face of observational constraints.

c) Armagh Observatory, on Centaurs: "These bodies, many of which have diameters greater than 100 km, are called "Centaurs" because of their "half-comet, half-asteroid" status." There are many links on that page to other pages discussing the controversy surrounding the naming of objects. Centaurs are usually referred to in the literature as asteroids, not comets. Notice that the Minor Planet Center (which was given responsibility by the IAU of designating minor bodies in the Solar System) lists Centaurs on the minor planet orbits page, not the comet orbits page.

The nomenclature problem isn't limited to Centaurs, as discussed in this excellent but dated Spacedaily article, which says (referring to a April 20, 2000, "Nature" article by Dr. Don Yeomans):

Yeomans in Nature points out that recent computer simulations show that as much as three percent of Kuiper Belt objects are likely to be rocky asteroids that formed in the outer fringes of the Asteroid Belt -- but then, at some point over the eons, flew close enough to Jupiter to be catapulted by its gravity into the outer Solar System.... [M]eteorites have been found still containing significant traces of water trapped inside them -- which means that "Far from being the dry rocky bodies they were once thought to be, it would seem that some asteroids, along with with comets, might be significant sourcees [sic] of water."

Google is my friend. Is it yours?

I wasn't talking about Sedna. I was responding to a general statement you made about asteroids, not any particular asteroid.

What is this rocket's ability to return cargo? That ability has been critical to ISS; trash has been building up on ISS, and the small Soyuz return capsules haven't been able to remove it fast enough.

So let's see, we have a space station that doesn't accomplish anything that could be called real science, it's in a lousy orbit that was forced by the political consideration of being able to launch to it from Baikonur. It's way over cost, and we have to launch space shuttle flights up to it to remove the trash the astronauts, who are on half rations now because the logistics calculations were somehow fucked up, generate. I'm sure that Wernher Von Braun, Willy Ley, Robert Goddard, Robert Heinlein et al are spinning in their graves.

The shuttle is a disaster, it's a 30 year mistake. If we were smart we'd scuttle it and ISS immediately and start over. Instead we keep pissing money down a rathole. The only justification for the Shuttle is to launch parts for ISS. The only justification for ISS is to have somewhere for the Shuttle to go. It's a convenient circularity for a lot of NASA contractors and employeees but doesn't do anything to further our future in space. I have to wonder if Rei either a shuttle contractor or has his bills paid by someone who is. I can't think of any other reason, outside of sheer perverse ignorance, why he keeps touting the benefits of this POS.

Aren't we buying goods and services from the Russians these days? A 5-pack of Satan rockets might just be a line item somewhere.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/launchers-04p.html

There's no full abbreviation for it, so... R.T.F.Newspaper Once In A While

Or more likely, dust devils, given how thin mars' atmostphere is:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000317.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-dust-04b.html
http://www.weathernotebook.org/transcripts/2004/08 /24.php
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/ dust_edgett_010702-1.html

(google has tons more of this stuff)

A dust devil is a basically a minature tornado. Not to be underestimated, the martian variety can make tracks visible from space, as they come in all sizes. It stands well within the realm of possibility that a dust devil (of the smaller variety) just happened to tag the rover and suck the dust off of it.

Its only by scientific prudence that the phenomenon is called a "mystery" at all. We have no real way of proving if this is how it happened, let alone if any other theory is more or less valid. There's simply no data other than the solar cell output before and after (and possibly some photos of the solar array itself). But given the lack of evidence for any other "dust moving phenomenon" on mars, we're left with what we already know about mars: almost no wind and the occasional dust devil.

Will someone please explain to the Bushtard that you can't change the laws of physics, even for matters of national security? I mean, seriously. This is getting out of hand.

I don't think you've considered the possible real motives behind this initiative:

A) To lock up crucial votes in Florida and the space coast of Florida in the 2004 election, which happened nicely. You can be sure everyone in that area is going to vote for a President promising them years of lucrative employment and a strong local economy. To Florida as a whole space program is prestige so they like politicians who pour money in to it D or R.

B) Distract all the space advocates, lobbyists, contractors and politicians who represent the thousand places with NASA centers or contractors who dine from the giant pork machine that is NASA. While they are distracted with chump change for this new program, that will probably never make it to the bending metal stage, they quickly euthanize the Shuttle and ISS. Then around 2008 when this program starts sucking up real money one of two things happen:

1) The ISS model, they just pour money in to it forever, never enough to do it or do it right but just enough to keep all the pork addicted contractors and congressional districts in gravy

2) The Bush, I hate science and bureaucracy, model where some realist points out that with the U.S., which is running huge deficits thanks to privatizing Social Security, more tax cuts for the rich, and maintaing occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria, just can't afford it. The program gets the axe, the Shuttle and ISS are long gone, and the U.S. has no manned space program and one giant bureaucracy many politician's hate dies a quick death. Ironicly everyone will be relieved by this because the current manned space program sucks so bad.

At this point we can only hope private ventures lead by Burt "Kelly Johnson" Rutan and Transformational Space, (a.k.a t/Space), will have grabbed the fumbled ball and ran with it. Would be way better than letting Boeing and Lockheed continue to screw up the manned space program in the name of profit

India, like Russia - builds rockets with shoestring budgets, as opposed to the average US ones - which cost way beyond.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/india-02i.html
the difference is that while developing countries/ or financially contsrained countries go through extensive optimisation. several factors too exist which spirals the costs upwards:
1) US usually wants to dominate any sector it chooses - this will cost plenty.
2) bleeding edge technology involves taking huge risks, plenty of writeoff on obselete technology, and investment.
3) people in developing countries work for longer hours for cheaper wages - (which is why you can find plenty of indians in nasa! they prefer nasa for a better pay and recognition - unlike a scientist in india who is not financially rewarded as like in the US)
4) people are expendable in the lesser countries - so all those double check facilities that might be deployed by nasa might not be on an equal level in the financially constrained countries - at least not to that insane level of perfection carried out by nasa ( i could be wrong here)
5) this is the most significant - US were ahead in the game - and at one time - nasa was showered with so much money - * just to beat the russians*. after that they continued recieving money. while the rest of the industry were on diet - nasa enjoyed gobs of money to toy around ( not all of it went waste, a large percentage as in research for kevlar was useful)

"The Energia Rocket and Space Corporation, the organization that has built all of Russian's human space vehicles for the past half century,

Space vehicals like the Buran space shuttle! No, wait... That was designed by NASA too...

India is also looking at lunar and manned programs and already has launched its own satellites, etc. Private entries from the US, Canada and the UK (and other countries) can perhaps be considered separately from the goverment operations. There are now many players, some major (some declining, some expanding) and some minor (some expanding, some perhaps will never get off the ground). Exciting times ahead, I hope.

Here are links to more articles:

Space Daily
GaTech
A Student's description

If you or anybody can provide some kind of verifiable evidence that the world was created in 7 days I will consider coming over to that side.

Now, on the topic, here is something you should look at. It says that two-thirds of Americans support a space program that "would include a stepping-stone approach to return the space shuttle to flight, complete assembly of the space station, build a replacement for the shuttle, go back to the Moon and then on to Mars and beyond." Not only that, 79% of Republicans support it, while only 60% of Democrats do.

In other words, your claim that conservatives aren't interested in space exploration is full of crap.

"The FCC *will* change its tune if the public outcry is great enough"

I don't think there is ANY chance the FCC will change its tune though there is a slim chance Congress might step in and change it for them. They sure didn't change their tune on media consolidation in the face of truly massive public outrage.

I think its a little naive to think a bunch of slashdotter's are going to send letters to congressman and change their course. If you want to get on the list of people your Congressman actually listen to you need to accompany your letter with a $1,000 campaign contribution.

"but CORPORATIONS DON'T VOTE!"

Yea but they do control the media and the news most people use to get their view of the world so they do for the most part control the minds of the people that vote. They pay for the ads both commercial and political that decide how most people think these days. Some people are breaking off from this corporate and media hegemony, thanks in particular to the Internet, but I'd say we are a tiny minority.

Most importantly corporations pay tons of money for the lobbyists who actually control Congress. For example when the Medicare "Reform" bill was on the floor of the house it wasn't citizens out in the lobby of the capital building expressing their opinions to our Congressman, it was lobbyists mostly for the drug and healthcare industry. In the case of Rep. Billy Tauzin they gave him a multimillion dollar job as a drug industry lobbyist after he delivered "Medicare Reform" to them on a silver platter. the name is kind of a euphemisms since its really just a scheme to transfer our tax dollars in to the pockets of the drug industry.

I'd say bottomline is it would have to be a really impressive letter writing campaign to change their course, if there is no money behind it. But if anyone can pull it off its /., its just a major uphill battle.

"Look only to the recent bruhaha over the Hubble Space Telescope"

Last I recall the bruhaha resulted in a bizarre mission to use a robot to try to repair Hubble. There is a good chance its going to end up costing at least twice what an ordinary shuttle repair mission would cost, and there is a high chance the mission will either get cancelled or fail after spending a staggering sum of money, like 2 billion dollars, so in the end those fond of pork will be the only true winners. I don't think I would really call it a success story for public involvement just yet. Here is a pretty good editorial from Space Daily on NASA's penchant for squandering money on doomed programs and the Hubble repair mission smacks of being one.