Slashdot Mirror

So your hair follicle will be frozen solid and blasted into oblivion by cosmic rays over the millenia. Big deal. What everybody really wants is to get to space alive. I've had an idea for quite some time that could be expanded to cover this option ... and adding YOUR VERY OWN DNA (YVOD, registered trademark) might just provide the funding required....Basically, there are some bacteria that love heat and acid, and Venus just happens to have that environment in cloud droplets at 40-50 Km. So let's get space colonization underway and send these little guys on the ride of their life. Before they go, we could add plasmids spliced with YVOD (tm) and instead of inert frozen DNA, it would actually be active in the bacteria, contributing to its evolution and creation of the Venesian ecosphere by expression of your non-bacterial proteins. This isn't a nutty idea, already there is bacterial ecosystems being discovered in Earth's clouds. Any remaining dot-com millionaires out there who want to provide seed (pun) funding, I actually AM a rocket scientist and would love to get a project based on this idea (minus the plasmids, even) off the ground....or even just start a discussion about it.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=353
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

"Any responsible adult doesn't need months of NASA training not to push the wrong button. That's absurd," said Tito, who spent almost one year preparing for the trip with his Russian crewmates. "I was definitely over-trained for this mission."

That's because *nothing went wrong*. If there was an meteor hit, or an oxygen valve broke, or a fuel tank ruptured, or a million other things that could go wrong, you can bet his training would be useful.

Tito said he asked one of the residents how much research she had conducted since arriving at the space station months ago.

"'About two days,' was the answer," Tito told participants at a CNN World Report conference in Atlanta on Tuesday.

Of course. A) the damn thing's still under construction, and B) it's established that three crew members are needed to maintain the thing, that's why the final crew manifest will be seven.

And the CRV will happen, the Europeans are too heavily involved for it to just fall by the waysite due to US budget restrictions:


Yes, there are numerous things that NASA does wrong, and yes, there's a lot of space science that unmanned probes can do, but it's hard to learn about life sciences and what's it really like living in space without having people up there. And that's difficult, dangerous, and expensive.
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

Yes, earth crud has made it to mars at some point. Whether life made it there is more speculative but certainly not beyond reason. However, life would have not likely been transfered once Mars lost its atmosphere 2 billion years ago. The atmosphere slows down the debris making it possible for passengers to survive impact. During Mar's wet phase when it looked much like Earth, it is very possible that our biospheres were interconnected in this way. Here's the http://www.spaceref.com/redirect.ref?url=www.scien ce-frontiers.com/sf099/sf099g10.htm&id=2926 the full story.

The principle of panspermia is well understood. Although the surface of an asteroid ejected from Mars would be subjected to blast effects, radiation in space, and heat from re-entry, the interior (and any microbes therein) would be very well protected.

Also, it's not clear at all that an organism optimized for the Martian environment (with a sparse CO2 atmosphere and little biological competition) would survive, much less thrive, in an Earth environment (with a dense O2 atmosphere and intense competition). Furthermore, viruses are attuned to infect specific kinds of cells; the viruses that have developed on Mars (if any) would likely be unable to infect anything on Earth.

Here's some interesting info about the use of laptops on the ISS but AFAIK no point of presence on the Internet for the floating condo yet...

I'm waiting to fork over my 20 million until I can get my /.!

It's too late now, but at least this will be in the story when it gets archived.

There are more than 100 computers on the space station, just counting built-in. Indeed, each individual experiment rack -- about the size of an apartment fridge -- will include its own computer and custom software written for that experiment, all intended to link into the ISS network for data transmission and science interface. Many of the racks in Destiny (and future modules like Columbus and Kibo) provide station functions such as robot arm control, and each of these has its own computer as well.

But the core functions are called CDH (Command and Data Handling), including everything from navigation to turning the lights on and off: really, it's just the network infrastructure. Cabling is Thinnet. These computers are provided to NASA under contract by Honeywell, and are called MDMs, for Multiplexer/Demultiplexer. Think of a rack-mount swappable-processor system and you'll be close. These run the RTOS (Real Time Operating System) called VxWorks (from Wind River) -- the same RTOS used on the successful Mars Pathfinder mission, and custom software written by Honeywell and specific system vendors using Matrixx from the same vendor.

The crew use laptops, and there are quite a number of them judging by photographs, many seemingly permanently linked into one or more MDM functions. Since the MDMs have no other interface to the crew, this makes sense. The laptops that link to the MDMs use Sun Solaris and a custom client that provides data feedback and a semi-graphical user interface, depending on function. These laptops go by the generic name PCS (Portable Computer System) and conform to specifications set during the mid-1990s. The PCS model in use is the IBM Thinkpad, and contrary to popular belief, these models have evolved along with the Shuttle and Station programs -- just more slowly than the commercial market. Models need to be constructed with higher-quality components and undergo flight qualification. The laptops available to Expedition One were (I believe) at least Pentium I-MMX class machines.

Some of these laptops are dual-boot with Windows NT on the other partition. Windows NT does have a function on the space station, but it is in no way linked to the command and control systems as outlined above. The major purpose it serves seems to be e-mail, but probably also record-keeping and recreation in the form of games or playing portable media such as CDs or DVDs. (There is also a built-in DVD player in one module that the astronauts can gather around for "movie night".) Windows NT can behave perfectly well when given a known, well-defined set of hardware and a well-tweaked configuration. The astronauts have access to spare hard drives that have images created on Earth using Norton Ghost. In one incident during Expedition One this was insufficient, and a spare hard drive was sent up during the current shuttle mission in order to bring that laptop back into service. But since they have plenty, it probably did not materially affect operations to be missing one.
----
lake effect weblog

This document describes the Windows NT/95 based Station Support Computer (SCC) system. (see also this site for details on the computer systems and software aboard.)

This page details just some of the problems the crew has had with the SCC and this quote sums it up:

SHIP'S LOG: NARRATIVE OF JOINT OPS 08-09 DEC
...
Carlos trying to load the SSC upgrade for the FPP experiment. No go. He spends about 3 hours on this and finally gets it to load after multiple tries. This very consistent with our earlier SSC experience-and one of the big reasons we try to minimize computer reconfigurations.

While these don't offer any hard evidence that the problem is Windows, having read the station logs, I could certainly understand why /. editors might jump to this conclusion.

This document describes the Windows NT/95 based Station Support Computer (SCC) system. (see also this site for details on the computer systems and software aboard.)

This page details just some of the problems the crew has had with the SCC and this quote sums it up:

SHIP'S LOG: NARRATIVE OF JOINT OPS 08-09 DEC
...
Carlos trying to load the SSC upgrade for the FPP experiment. No go. He spends about 3 hours on this and finally gets it to load after multiple tries. This very consistent with our earlier SSC experience-and one of the big reasons we try to minimize computer reconfigurations.

While these don't offer any hard evidence that the problem is Windows, having read the station logs, I could certainly understand why /. editors might jump to this conclusion.

Launch costs per pound are available here. Assuming Tito (plus accessories) is under 200 pounds, his direct launch costs to near earth orbit in a Soyuz are at most $0.5 million. Maybe $1 million counting food etc. The full cost of a Soyuz launch is $35-40 million, so he's paying the Russians for about 1/2 of one launch. Now, granted, he's not paying NASA anything, but it seems to me the fee is more than enough to cover his costs. And NASA has been subsidizing the Russian Space program for a while, why not let somebody else help subsidize it?

There doesn't seem to be any good rational explanation for the NASA (and ESA) opposition - so in one sense or another this must boil down to some kind of politics. Is it because Tito, a Republican, helped raise funds for "W" to get elected, and NASA's Goldin can't stand him for that? Or is it just typical inter-organizational squabbling?

If you need to find more relevant documents on specific subjects, I recommend using topic-specific search engines. I maintain one for all subjects relating to Paganism and Wicca on my Omphalos website. True, the site submissions have to be manually approved and this can lead to backlogs of site submissions, but since I spider all of the websites I have included in the directory (totalling over 140,000 webpages so far) the relevancy of any search results is raised by the lack of clutter from unrelated websites.

Similarly, if you are searching for information on Space Exploration try Spaceref where I used to work. Again, the directory is manually generated, and the results are greatly improved overall.

Nothing guarantees improved relevancy (for general purposes nothing beats Google in this respect), but using specialty search sites helps immensely in many cases.

I don't think anyone has mentioned it, so i will. I think my personal favorite is spaceref.com's mir page.

I'd argue that it's not so bad as it sounds: "...NASA has relinquished the quest for cheap space launch capability." I'd say instead, they may have taken an important step to get closer to cheap launches. Chances of the X-33 ever flying were slim at this point, and an commercially-viable follow-on funded by LockMart corporate funds (VentureStar) even slimmer.

What actually happened today was that NASA refused to add funds to the sinking program from the Space Launch Initiative, which is intended to actually develop viable launch options for the future. There's more in the NASA press release at spaceref.com. NASA intends to spend 900+ million over the next couple of years on access to space--that hardly sounds like they are giving up. I suspect that they can find more promising projects to fund than X-33. Of course, there are probably more wasteful ones, as well...

If you want more technical data on the InterPlanetary Internet then check out the IPN section on SpaceRef. I might also point out that TLD will most likely be linked into .sol. ICANN which is now headed by Vint Cerf will not be creating the .mars TLD anytime soon. I have that on a very reliable source. You can look for the first test in space of the IPN this summer. As well the IPN will be used on the 2003 Mars twin rover mission.

I watched that launch. I was 22. I was a space enthusiast now turned space professional. The space program has always and will continue to inpsire me. To remember that day I am featuring a gallery of 228 pictures on SpaceRef. From crew training to the memorial, it's all there. The pictures say it all.

And its been around for a while as a concept. I used to work for SpaceRef who maintain an excellent niche search engine devoted to space exploration.

I maintain Omphalos which is a niche search engine devoted to the modern alternative religions (Paganism, Wicca, etc) and related subjects.

All it really requires is a reliable collection of websites focusing on a specific range of subjects and good search engine software to index their pages. The results are often much more relevant than those from the major search engines - although Google is generally an excellent choice IMHO.

Tito recently provided SpaceRef with an in-depth interview which makes for good reading.

Kinda reminds me of my first astronomy class. I hadn't even made it to my freshman year of high school and I had 4 credits of Astronomy from the local community college.

Many people have given good advice above. I'll mainly just second their comments. The order I'd proceed in is.

First item, a good beginners star atlas.

Second item, warm clothing.

Third item, many nights in the country just learning the stars and constelations.

After that go and get a good pair of binoculars or a good telescope.

Last, but not least. As your doughter is so young, you will need to be there as a source of infromation. You'll need to learn alot to help guide her in the early years.

Now for some Links. The first two have good beginners information. Some of the links below may be dead. I just quick cut and pasted them from the astronomy section of my Interesting Places page.

• Astronomy Mag. (www.astronomy.com/home.asp).
• Sky & Telescope Mag. (www.skypub.com).
• Minnesota Astronomical Society (MAS) (www.mnastro.org).
• The Telescope Shoppe (www.telescopeshop.com), 3402 Federal Dr., Eagan, MN, 651-688-7335. Yes this is a local Twin Cities telescope shop. They have a map on their site showing where they are. They are tucked in the lower level along the side of the strip mall they are in. The store is small and easy to miss. If your at the corner of Yankee Doodle RD and Federal Dr., park in the lot to the south east. They are a short stones throw from the intersection.
• Telescope making links
• • Many good links on making AltAz mounts (zebu.uoregon.edu/~mbartels/altaz/altaz.html).
  • ATM's resource List (www.freenet.tlh.fl.us/~blombard).
• Astronomy-Mall.com (www.astronomy-mall.com/Astronomy-Mall).
• Stellafane (www.stellafane.com).
• Terrestrial Planet Finder (tpf.jpl.nasa.gov).
• Many Images of the moon (www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/pxmoon.html) .
• Solar Views (www.solarviews.com).
• Planetary Image Atlas (www-pdsimage.JPL.NASA.GOV/PDS/public/Atlas).
• Hubble Space Telescope Archive (oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html).
• Hummble Site (hubble.stsci.edu).
• StarStuff (www.starstuff.org).
• SpaceRef (www.spaceref.com), Your space refference.
• Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive (antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html).
• SkyView (skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov) virtual observatory.
• 2MASS (www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/) and (pegasus.astro.umass.edu/GradProg/2mass.html) Two Micron All Sky Survey.
• Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO) (http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/lasco.html).
• AAVSO Network to Search for Optical Counterparts of Gamma-Ray Bursts (www.aavso.org/grb.stm).
• High Altitude Observatory (www.hao.ucar.edu).
• Asteroid Comet Impact Hazards (impact.arc.nasa.gov).
• • Unusual Minor Planets (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Unusual.html).
  • Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/PHACloseApp.html).& nbsp; Of particular interest to me are LB16 and AN10 which will pass at a distance closer than the moon's orbit. LB16 currently only has one opposition charted so it's predicted orbit will likely change as new data comes in. It's expected to swing by in 2004. In 2027 AN10 will visit earth. It's orbit is calculated with three oppositions meaning it't much more likely to really showup ontime and in place. With further data LB16 could either get closer or farther away. When AN10's orbit was first predicted (only one opposition at the time) it's error envelope included earth. With further data it was found to just pass within the moon's orbit and miss the earth.
  • Forthcoming Close Approaches To The Earth (cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/CloseApp.html).&nbs p; This is the document to look at when you want to know who will visit next and how far away. It has all close approaches to 0.2 AU away from earth or within 20% of the distance of between the sun and earth. On Sep 19th, 2000 we will have a visiter at 0.0477 AU and on Oct 31st anotehr one will pass at 0.07386 AU. LB16 and AN10 are expected to pass at around 0.25% of the distance between the sun and earth.
• Mars Global Surveyor (mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/index.html).
• Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) (ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html). There are full data on the shape of Mars including 1 degree and .5 degree elevation data sets.
• Planetary photojournal by JPL (photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov).
• NASA's Origins Program (origins.jpl.nasa.gov).

A full announcement is expected next week from NASA -- wouldn't it be nice if they would simply release news as it happens rather than create News Happenings?

Of course it would, but that would mean that NASA would understand good PR. No, they like to hold things close to the vest, preferring pomp and circumstance to timely news. NASA's still stuck in the Sixties as far as their public relations shop runs.

Anyone who's read NASA Watch for some time knows how clueless NASA's PR shop is. But they were getting better under the late Brian Welch, who, I feel, was working to improve the immediacy and efficacy of NASA press coverage. Welch was instrumental in the Dreamtime work done on ISS, and really had a thing for using Webcams on stuff. He initially opposed Keith Cowing's press accreditation efforts, but I really do feel that Brian "got it".

But in this era of "faster, cheaper, better", NASA PAO seems to be still thinking "slower, costlier, bad theater".

Here is the recent story I remember.

Wasn't it on /.?


...and I'm not sure we should trust this Kyle Sagan either.

The laptops themselves have lotsa hardware mods, see SpaceRef for more info (look under mission guides).

See the previous slashdot article 2001: A Space Laptop and then the link it refers to from SpaceRef will all sorts of interesting information about the laptops, why they run windows, and how the networks are all set up, including both the shuttle LAN and the ISS LAN.

Yes they are running Windows on the laptops up there (check spaceref.
There is a Free software project, but it's pretty much dead (or dormant.). I'm currently researching some maths about it.
If you have the kownledge, contact me.
sxpert _at_ www _dot_ esitcom _dot_ org

Anyone notice the prominent "(Alpha)" notice on the Shadow screenshot?

Can't imagine it's referring to the CPU, either.

If you check the icon at the top left of the screen capture there it is the standard icon for C++ builder apps (hey they could recompile everything using Kylix...)

The Time Vector Server screen shot has a very interesting IP address: 132.123.5.17 and seems to be assigned to the Army National Guard Bureau. Are they developing/testing the software or was it just a random IP with a interesting owner?

Please wait while trying to download some security patches from www.microsoft.com. These patches are necessary for the safe operation of [Insert one of the programs listed here].

SpaceRef Also has this story but with the actual paper attached in HTML.

The biggest problems with Search Engines, is relevancy. The problem being that when I do a search for a word like "magic" the search engine will return results based upon its algorithm, but trying to produce relevancy from a single search word is just about impossible as a task. With a term like "magic" I could be looking for:

• Magic as in Magic the Gathering - a collectible card game I used to play.
• Magic as in the occult.
• Magic as in sleight-of-hand.

Or any of a large number of subjects that I could have in mind at the time of my search. The results from a search engine such as Google, will rank pages which contain the word magic in the page title, multiple times in the body of the page, in the META tags, in or near HREF links, or which are linked to by many other sites higher than those which do not meat these criteria. It differs from search engine to search engine, depending on criteria.

None of these criteria for ranking take into account the nature of my query - what I had in mind when I did the search. In other words they do not directly address the relevancy of the results. If a search engine offered me the opportunity to pick from results it returned and gradually refine the search to produce better results it would be addressing this situation. Some do with a "search again in this result set" or "more like this" type option on their results pages, but its still kinda mechanical, and not all that reliable.

I think it will take some sort of AI analysis of search requests based on user-feedback of some sort and with a learning capability to surpass the current crop of search engines. Until such time as we have some smart systems working behind the scenes on searching any improvements will no doubt be incremental rather than radical.

Now, as for keeping the specifics of how a page is ranked secret I think its absolutely necessary. There is a constant, quiet, war going on between the search engines and the folks who want to get their websites listed at the top of the page when a result set is produced. The people who regularly submit their sites to the various search engines, with each search engine receiving a specially made page generated just for its benefit to ensure that the website gets the best ranking possible etc, are not interested in how accurate the search engine is, they simply want to come up first. The folks at the search engine generally want the most relevant pages to be returned. There is an essential difference of purpose between the two camps.

On the side of the search engines, they have control over their ranking system, and change it peridically to prevent abuse of the system. The folks who are seriously trying to get to the top of the heap in the search engine results are constantly trying new methods to get ahead.

For instance, at one point some webmasters were creating their webpages with a lot of text at the bottom of the page that was the same font color as the background, so that the search engines would spider the contents of the page but users would never see those contents. This let them list all sorts of words that scored higher in the search engines returns, but had little or no relevancy to the page contents. The search engines got wise to this trick and now most will penalize you for using it.

Opening up the search engines ranking rules would only make the system easier to abuse more precisely. No matter how many eyeballs pour over the code, it will still not change the nature of the guy who will use any method at his disposal to get his porn page returned as Link #1 when you do a search for MP3 because its the hottest term currently being searched for.

Google has altered this battle somewhat by ranking pages higher in their results based on how many other webpages contain links to that page (and also based upon the nature of the linking page. They use a distinction between pages which contain a lot of links - like a web directory such as my own Omphalos - and those which are linked to by a lot of other pages. Both get points for different reasons and in different instances. I don't remember the details), but even this is open to abuse, although with a bit more effort required. I know of a website which has over 200 different URLs registered and operational, all of which contain pages which point back to the main URL they are promoting. When a search engine such as Google goes to anaylize this website, it will rank it higher because it is linked to by so many separate domains and so many separate pages on those domains. Its harder to abuse, but it can be done.

Of course, this is all basically irrelevant, since each of the search engine companies keeps their methodology and their source code highly protected. It is worth millions of dollars in revenue, and I cannot honestly see any of them deciding to release their software in this way.

If you have not noticed, practically every graduate student who devises a new and effective method of indexing and ranking search results ends up creating their own company once they have delivered their thesis and entered the real world. That is certainly how Google started, and I believe is also how Ask Jeeves got going. I am sure that most of the other main search engines have gotten going in the same or similiar manners.

All that said, If you want to play with a true search engine that is GPLed and works quite well, although not on the scale of a Google or an Altavista, try UDMSearch. It runs just fine under Linux or FreeBSD (I have installed it on both in the past) and I am using it on my site under Solaris. It is still in an intense development cycle and new versions are released regularly, but its worth exploring if you are interested in how a search engine works, and want to get your hands dirty.

For more information on the big boys, check out Search Engine Watch, and finally, if you are simply interested in Space, Space Exploration or Space Science, check out SpaceRef.

. .If you look close enough at the pictures of the cold, dead planet on this page, it kinda looks like cold, dead Algore.

It looks like this story was leaked by Nasawatch/SpaceRef or Space.com prematurely. It was supposed to be embargoed until the International Astronomical Union actually made the announcement on Monday. Naughty naughty.

Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag now, so here's a list of all the sites covering the story in addition to Nasawatch/SpaceRef.

The news will get much better on Monday, when all us space news sites can actually post the real story and provide all the details. Stay tuned.

• BBC News
• CNN Space
• Discovery.com
• Space Chronicle

And of course, my own coverage at Universe Today:
Astronomers Discover Nearby Extrasolar Planet - August 4, 2000

Fraser Cain

Here's a comprehensive list of Internet resources about this story:

The original Arctic Mars homepage was providing regular updates about the research station, but they stopped around two weeks ago. They still have a lot of background material about the story.

From that point on, current news has been posted to the Mars Society Homepage.

Marc Boucher, CEO of SpaceRef is also the webmaster for the project, so SpaceRef has a tremendous amount of coverage of the project, as well as a live webcam.

In my opinion, though, MSNBC has had the absolutely best coverage, providing stories almost daily; unfortunately, they overwrite the older stories so there's no archive:
July 31 - Mars simulation begins in Arctic

And, of course, my own coverage at Universe Today:

• Arctic Mars Simulation Begins - August 1st
  
• Arctic Mars Habitat Gets a Roof - July 27th
  
• Arctic Mars Construction Begins - July 24th
  
• Mars Society Gives Green Light for Arctic Mars Station - July 20th
  
• Arctic Mars Base Damaged in Parachute Drop - July 11th

Fraser Cain

Here's a comprehensive list of Internet resources about this story:

The original Arctic Mars homepage was providing regular updates about the research station, but they stopped around two weeks ago. They still have a lot of background material about the story.

From that point on, current news has been posted to the Mars Society Homepage.

Marc Boucher, CEO of SpaceRef is also the webmaster for the project, so SpaceRef has a tremendous amount of coverage of the project, as well as a live webcam.

In my opinion, though, MSNBC has had the absolutely best coverage, providing stories almost daily; unfortunately, they overwrite the older stories so there's no archive:
July 31 - Mars simulation begins in Arctic

And, of course, my own coverage at Universe Today:

• Arctic Mars Simulation Begins - August 1st
  
• Arctic Mars Habitat Gets a Roof - July 27th
  
• Arctic Mars Construction Begins - July 24th
  
• Mars Society Gives Green Light for Arctic Mars Station - July 20th
  
• Arctic Mars Base Damaged in Parachute Drop - July 11th

Fraser Cain

SpaceRef.com has a whole section of their site devoted to providing information on the HMP/Mars project up in Haughton Crater. Marc Boucher of Spaceref is up in Haughton Crater as part of the NASA team and is the webmaster for the site. The latest entries from his personal journal are located here.

SpaceRef.com has a whole section of their site devoted to providing information on the HMP/Mars project up in Haughton Crater. Marc Boucher of Spaceref is up in Haughton Crater as part of the NASA team and is the webmaster for the site. The latest entries from his personal journal are located here.

SpaceRef.com has a whole section of their site devoted to providing information on the HMP/Mars project up in Haughton Crater. Marc Boucher of Spaceref is up in Haughton Crater as part of the NASA team and is the webmaster for the site. The latest entries from his personal journal are located here.

From Space Station User's Guide:

Zarya's jets controlled the final minutes of the approach for docking, as the ISS closed on Zvezda at a glacial rate of two-tenths of a meter per second.

Did anyone else realise that this is about 10 miles an hour? Who'd like to park their car at that speed...

The Space Station User's Guide is a terrific resource on the entire space station (written and assembled by one of the engineers who worked on it BTW), including the live NASA TV broadcast of the docking.

And yes, I submitted this link this morning to Slashdot but it got rejected in favour of the Space.com link in this story - go figure.

There is more information on the Solar eruption over here on Spaceref.com.

There is more information on the Solar eruption over here on Spaceref.com.

There is more information on Zvezda here on Spaceref.com.

There is more information on Zvezda here on Spaceref.com.

Open Space [beta] Open Space, a community of like minded people committed to open and informative discussion, making news, sharing knowledge and fostering a growing space community. Before you start you should know that we moderate Open Space. Messages are given a score for their value and users can filter messages by the threshold scores. For instance a -1 score is either off topic or a flame. A +5 is highly useful message. This model was adopted from Slashdot although the code is uniquely ours. You can read messages without being a member, but to post messages to the community you must sign up, it's free.

At least according to this article on spaceref.com which states that the eartch approaching asteroid 2000 BF19 has a small probability of impacting Earth. And this press release would seem to counteract the claims made here, since NASA states they have cut their estimate of the total number of large asteriods in the Solar System in half.

Perhaps trusting statistical analysis is the problem? Whats the saying "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics"?

At least according to this article on spaceref.com which states that the eartch approaching asteroid 2000 BF19 has a small probability of impacting Earth. And this press release would seem to counteract the claims made here, since NASA states they have cut their estimate of the total number of large asteriods in the Solar System in half.

Perhaps trusting statistical analysis is the problem? Whats the saying "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics"?