The launch team has reported that an ECO sensor on the hydrogen side of the external tank has failed. At this time the team is pressing forward with launch preparations. Mission Management Team members are meeting to determine if they will consider launching with three working sensors or if it will be necessary to de-tank and come back tomorrow.
I don't know if they'll launch. But they launched Discovery before with a (presumably) similar issue. I must admit that I'm a little annoyed that the external tank manufacturer didn't fix this problem after the last time this occurred.
CNN reports that a program manager thinks its likely the launch will be delayed for 24 hours.
I'm curious as to just how low the launch cost will be, compared to other options. From the article, it seems that SpaceX is targetting 6M$ per launch, but that is surely not for the same weight a shuttle can lift.
The Falcon 9 is what is planned to be used for the COTS program. While the Falcon 1 does have a pricetag of about $7 million, it only has a payload capacity of about half a tonne. I think the version of the Falcon 9 that will be used will have a payload capacity of about 9 tonnes and a cost of about $27-$35 million (depending on fairing design). It is still pretty damn cheap.
Or be exposed to U238. A spec of dust can kill you from the radiation.
Natural Uranium contains very very small amounts of U238 so its safe to touch but dont confuse it with refined weapons or plant grad e isotypes.
What? You are probably thinking about the plutonium urban legend that has been spread around by Ralph Nader. Plutonium dust is also about as toxic as any other heavy metal. Feel free to try to counter my statement with facts, but I ask that you calculate the activity of that spec of dust and then calculate the expected dose. Until you can do that, you really can't tell me how lethal it is (by the way, the fact that activity is calculated with only the decay constant and the number of atoms should clue you in that a spec of uranium, which will have extremely small values for both the decay constant and the number of atoms, will also have an extremely small value for its activity).
Second, U-238 is 99.28% of natural uranium. U-235 is 0.72% Weapons grade, or enriched uranium is natural uranium that has a much higher percentage of U-235.
You don't need a 100 ton rocket to go to the moon and NASA has already stated that the Constellation is an US-only project. What Japan will probably do is joining Europe and Russia on the ACTS (Advanced Crew Transportation System), that will be launched using existing Ariane 5 or similar rockets (20-25 ton to LEO, depending on the orbit inclination).
This is certainly true if you want to land on the Moon and then return, but to build a Moonbase you need to be able to carry some heavy loads. A 130 tonne Ares V to LEO will put only about 60 tonnes in Lunar orbit. A 20 tonne Arienne V will probably only put about 10 tonnes on the Moon. While they can piggyback several loads (like they are planning to do), it may start to be much more costly when you have to perform several LEO or lunar orbit rendevous procedures per part.
To put this in context, the ISS will have a mass of about 300 tonnes when complete. I would guess that a Moonbase would require about the same complexity as the ISS (to be useful). Assuming the mass lost for transit to the Moon is 50% this would take about 30 Arianne V flights with multiple rendevous procedures compared to 5 for the Ares V. Since the parts for Arianne V flights will be smaller, you will have to add additional mass for docking adapters or attachements (plus many more EVAs for assembly).
My second point is: while it is true that NASA has told the ESA that they can't work on the Ares I or Ares V rockets, I haven't heard that they have been blocked completely from Project Constellation. NASA just wanted to get those rockets going as fast as possible. Administrator Griffin has noted that it would be beneficial if everyone worked on the Moonbase together. For this reason, it seems to me that NASA wouldn't have a problem allowing other nations, such as Japan, to buy Ares V rockets for their purposes (which I hope the ESA does so that they can build a Moonbase). Additionally, Japan is in a much better political position to ask to join in on projects with NASA than their EU or Russian counterparts (due to recent political events). A Moonbase is a long way off, but I'm hoping that NASA and JAXA work together to build a moonbase. I think that the Russians and the ESA have felt snubbed by the Project Constellation denial and won't be partners in the future for Project Constellation (but I hope that I'm wrong).
Actually it is worse than that. According to NASA Watch:
The action was issued during a budget presentation by Richard Fox during which Suffredini was told that the ISS program has a $100 million shortfall for FY 2007. One of the impacts of shutting all science down for FY07 is that it will take as long as 3 years (FY08 - 10) to restore the capability to operate payloads aboard ISS. If implemented, the shut down would close the Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) at MSFC, lay off both the contractor flight controller and facility support staff, as well as contractor staff at both JSC and KSC who support payload integration.
This means that we could potentially lose the ability to do science until 2010. The important science modules will be installed well before then (Columbus in 2007 and the Japanese laboratory in 2008--though the Russian laboratory will only launch in 2010 at the earliest). Additionally a 6 man crew will be assigned probably in early 2009. This move would mean that we would probably lose a good year or more of major research time (vice the minor reasearch we are doing now).
Don't overlook one of the most important parts of QA: watching the workers do their job. In the nuclear industry whenever most nuclear work is done there will be a QA inspector who does nothing other than make sure that the workers follow the procedures to the letter.
This might sound like overkill, but they do this to prevent issues like what occured in the Big Dig. With a QA inspector signing off every hangar inspection they wouldn't have had issues like having no epoxy or too little epoxy on the hangars. Nor would they have allowed installation out of specifications, like the gap widths that were observed.
Additionally there would be a paper record on who installed each hanger, when they installed it, and who was the QA inspector on duty--this provides a level of accountability ensuring better work practices. The downside is that QA work costs a lot more money. But for dangerous installations (like cement panels hanging overhead that could have a cascading reaction) it makes a lot of sense.
This should be an interesting mission mostly due to the complicated spacewalk required to install the P3/P4 truss segment and its associated solar arrays. Currently the P5 truss and its solar arrays are mounted on the Z1 truss. The P3/P4 truss segment and its solar arrays need to go in between. I'm not exactly sure how they plan to do this but I would assume they are going to temporarily move the P5 truss and solar arrays to some temporary mounting point (perhaps they will retract the solar arrays if that is possible). Then they will install the P3/P4 truss and reinstall the P5 truss outboard (and extend the solar arrays).
Since the station has always had power from the P5 truss while it has been inhabited it will have to depend on temporary power from another source (such as the solar arrays on the Zvezda service module or the Zarya control module). This may add additional time constraints in this spacewalk. For fans of spacewalks this will be a blast! It will definitely be one of the most complicated spacewalks ever performed.
If you aren't a fan of spacewalks and complicated juggling tricks in space, this might be a boring mission for you.
An example of the syndrome which led to them tolerating foam strikes, right up to the point where they lost an orbiter.
Actually, no. It was always the people on the ground tolerating a situation. While the astronauts certainly have some say in what happens in the space program (i.e. not shaving themselves bald for fire protection), mission control is usually the one who makes the major decisions, especially when there is some discrepancy (and this always occurs--like the 1202 executive overload in the Apollo 11 lunar descent). I am willing to bet that if mission control gives them clearance to return to earth, they will believe that it is safe to do so. The astronauts aren't robots who believe everything that mission control tells them, but they can't have access to all of the information, so they have to trust mission control (otherwise they probably wouldn't have strapped themselves into the Shuttle at launch).
I can't see in TFA what the primary indication is. It can't be a loss of pressure because this would tell them what is leaking.
Actually, it is a loss of pressure. From an entry of the Write Stuff Blog:
"The APU 1 fuel pressure is decaying differently than the other two tanks which is indicative of a small N2 [nitrogen] or hydrazine leak. The data is very subtle so it has taken eight days to detect this change in slope between the three APU fuel tank plots. APU 2 and APU 3 shows a normal pressure decay of 6 psi over the eight days of the mission. This is due to the temperature change in the tanks which is caused by a 9-10 degrees Fahrenheit decrease in the tank temperatures as the aft structure cools. It takes some time to see this change because ascent does a good job of warming up this part of the vehicle. APU 1 Tank pressure has dropped a total of 22 psi over these eight days which is indicative of a leak which is most likely N2."
But are you saying this makes it less or more worrying?...
I would say that it is less worrying for the astronauts, and more worrying for the engineers on the ground. The astronauts know that a fire has occurred before and that it wasn't deadly (though the circumstances are different). Mission control knows a fire has occurred before and doesn't want to take the chance again!
On a side note, the two APU fires (I miswrote in my previous post--there were two!) were minor issues for STS-9 compared to the 2 failed GPC's and failed IMU that almost killed the astronauts.
Odd, my cellphone practically has no metal surfaces...
Guess what, neither does air, and that doesn't stop lightning!
Your cellphone does have many internal parts that are metal (including conductive surfaces right next to your mouth and ear). If lightning can find a less resistive path to ground it will take it. Metal objects mean that lightning has to ionize a few cm less air (and if the storm is lucky, the human body will reduce the rest of the distance to ground).
Minor correction: I meant superuser logins for normal use. Obviously if I used runas I was using superuser permissions (though not always, wink, wink!)
I've been running Windows NT machines (and later) for almost 8 years without using superuser permissions for normal use. You just have to become very familiar with "runas". In some cases you will need to actually be logged in as an Administrator to do certain tasks, but that is fairly rare. Some examples: if you need to access your control panel you can use:
and then navigate there (though I recommend you rename your 'Administrator' account). Another useful program is mmc (and after a year or so you will memorize all the component names).
I should note, however, that it may seem that a runas for cmd might be useful. Sometimes it is. But some of the functionality is limited. For example, if you have an Administrator priviledged cmd prompt and you type "start.", you will open up a directory in explorer with the logged in user priveledges, not the superuser priveledges. That is why you must use "iexplore.exe c:" to get Administrator priveledges.
Windows XP is sort of nice now that you can right click for a runas. If you are frequently using runas, you may find that that feature is helpful. Finally, I should note that you shouldn't do highspeed tasks with a program loaded with runas. You will definately see a performance drop, especially with programs that make extensive use of the windows API.
How about allowing farmers to sell THC rich varieties as well. That way, you can... lower your dependance on foreign weed
I must say that I like your logic!
But that wasn't my point. I'm a realist. There isn't going to be an illegal drug revolution in the US in the next 20 years (even with hemp). I'm just trying to focus on the issue of useful things you can do with hemp, other than smoke it. But as other posters have mentioned (and I wasn't completely aware), THC-free hemp has been available since 1999 and is still not legal. What it will take to change that, I don't know. Realistically, it might be better to import hemp-derived hydrocarbons from a country that doesn't ban hemp. Yeah, I know it is sort of idiotic.
Hmm... I wonder if it is possible to create a GM hemp plant without the THC. Would research on that be banned?
I hear a lot of people discuss the benefits of hemp in one way or another. It seems to me that if that is the case, then removing the THC (if possible) would be a good solution. I think the US government would more easily legalize hemp if you could prove that it couldn't produce THC.
I'm not too impressed by arguments that say that energy efficiency is the only reason that ethanol or biodiesel can't work. Even if they consume more energy to produce than they make, they are still very useful for one major reason: they are easily transportable. If I can make electricity at $0.07 per KWh at a coal or nuclear plant and make it into a much more valuable transportable energy source via the ethanol or biodiesel route, then I may come out ahead even after the energy losses. Coal and nuclear power are cheap. Gasoline isn't.
Of course, I should mention, you probably shouldn't be running your tractors and other equipment that you use to harvest the corn or other agricultural product with oil or ethanol. That doesn't work. It only works if you have a mostly electrical system. I wonder if there are any major piece of agricultural equipment that can be set up to "run from the grid" in a sense. Like big batteries on tractors that recharge every day?
A little bit of mental morphing of the image could transform it into the pre-Federation Enterprise (NX-01). Will the Vulcans make first contact in Tokyo?
I know I'm going to regret mentioning this.... but,
First contact with the vulcans was made with the Phoenix, not the NX-01.
I agree completely. When you pool resources you get things like the ISS. At this point in that project can we really say we haved saved money by doing it the international way?
One of the big things that you lose when you pool resources is adaptability. Now that's fine if you are building a piece of technology that is completely understood, but it is death to people who want to compete in emerging technologies.
Would the US space program be better off if we were able to cut off funding to the ISS and focus on the CEV? I think so. But that is not possible because we have international agreements. We have to finish our share before we abandon it.
These international resource pools remind me of the old engineering maxim:
Yeah it's a sad day, but it could be worse. Thank God that the Cray assets were sold before SGI went into its final downward spiral.
This day reminds me of the day DEC was bought. I knew that day that I'd never see another 'DEC' or 'digital' in big letters on a new computer again. Now I know I will never see another wire square logo on a new computer again.
You have plenty of choice. A vote for a third candidate does not throw your vote away
It is slightly more complicated than that. Many people use their vote to vote *against* a certain candidate that they don't like. If you are going to do that, you have to vote for the opposition candidate who is most likely to win if you want your vote to have any effect.
Personally, I prefer instant runoff voting, because it never forces you to use your vote against a candidate. You just get to pick your priorities. It doesn't have much political support because it essentially undermines the two-party system and makes it *much* easier for a third party to gain power. But there are some local areas that are using it, so hopefully it will catch on.
Well, shouldn't people be taxed on their ability to pay? Those that are the most wealthy are the ones most able to pay.
The tax you are considering is a property tax. Property taxes have an extremely negative effect on business. For example, in Seattle I have to pay about $100 a year on my car for the Monorail tax (no more, woohoo!) and Sound Transit tax. I pay such a low tax because I own a 10 year old car. I refuse to buy a new car because it will cost me an additional ~$5000 in taxes over time. How do you think this helps the car market in Seattle? Now consider property taxes on houses: will an average consumer buy a more expensive house even if he or she could afford it? How about on savings: Will anyone save money? Start a private business? Or even build an extension onto their house (which people don't do now because of property taxes)?
Anyways, the GGP didn't note that based onincome, the top 5% pay ~55% of federal income taxes, and the top 50% pay over 95% of federal income taxes.
NOTE: my first link is the IRS excel file, and my second one is the google HTML version.
Slashdot Mirror
CNN reports that a program manager thinks its likely the launch will be delayed for 24 hours.
Second, U-238 is 99.28% of natural uranium. U-235 is 0.72% Weapons grade, or enriched uranium is natural uranium that has a much higher percentage of U-235.
To put this in context, the ISS will have a mass of about 300 tonnes when complete. I would guess that a Moonbase would require about the same complexity as the ISS (to be useful). Assuming the mass lost for transit to the Moon is 50% this would take about 30 Arianne V flights with multiple rendevous procedures compared to 5 for the Ares V. Since the parts for Arianne V flights will be smaller, you will have to add additional mass for docking adapters or attachements (plus many more EVAs for assembly).
My second point is: while it is true that NASA has told the ESA that they can't work on the Ares I or Ares V rockets, I haven't heard that they have been blocked completely from Project Constellation. NASA just wanted to get those rockets going as fast as possible. Administrator Griffin has noted that it would be beneficial if everyone worked on the Moonbase together. For this reason, it seems to me that NASA wouldn't have a problem allowing other nations, such as Japan, to buy Ares V rockets for their purposes (which I hope the ESA does so that they can build a Moonbase). Additionally, Japan is in a much better political position to ask to join in on projects with NASA than their EU or Russian counterparts (due to recent political events). A Moonbase is a long way off, but I'm hoping that NASA and JAXA work together to build a moonbase. I think that the Russians and the ESA have felt snubbed by the Project Constellation denial and won't be partners in the future for Project Constellation (but I hope that I'm wrong).
Don't overlook one of the most important parts of QA: watching the workers do their job. In the nuclear industry whenever most nuclear work is done there will be a QA inspector who does nothing other than make sure that the workers follow the procedures to the letter.
This might sound like overkill, but they do this to prevent issues like what occured in the Big Dig. With a QA inspector signing off every hangar inspection they wouldn't have had issues like having no epoxy or too little epoxy on the hangars. Nor would they have allowed installation out of specifications, like the gap widths that were observed.
Additionally there would be a paper record on who installed each hanger, when they installed it, and who was the QA inspector on duty--this provides a level of accountability ensuring better work practices. The downside is that QA work costs a lot more money. But for dangerous installations (like cement panels hanging overhead that could have a cascading reaction) it makes a lot of sense.
Correction: by P5 truss I meant P6 truss and associated arrays. The P5 truss segment will be in between the P6 and the P3/P4 truss.
This should be an interesting mission mostly due to the complicated spacewalk required to install the P3/P4 truss segment and its associated solar arrays. Currently the P5 truss and its solar arrays are mounted on the Z1 truss. The P3/P4 truss segment and its solar arrays need to go in between. I'm not exactly sure how they plan to do this but I would assume they are going to temporarily move the P5 truss and solar arrays to some temporary mounting point (perhaps they will retract the solar arrays if that is possible). Then they will install the P3/P4 truss and reinstall the P5 truss outboard (and extend the solar arrays).
Since the station has always had power from the P5 truss while it has been inhabited it will have to depend on temporary power from another source (such as the solar arrays on the Zvezda service module or the Zarya control module). This may add additional time constraints in this spacewalk. For fans of spacewalks this will be a blast! It will definitely be one of the most complicated spacewalks ever performed.
If you aren't a fan of spacewalks and complicated juggling tricks in space, this might be a boring mission for you.
Whoops, I gave the wrong link. It is still useful information about the APU problem, but here is the correct link (from which I quoted).
Actually, it is a loss of pressure. From an entry of the Write Stuff Blog:
I would say that it is less worrying for the astronauts, and more worrying for the engineers on the ground. The astronauts know that a fire has occurred before and that it wasn't deadly (though the circumstances are different). Mission control knows a fire has occurred before and doesn't want to take the chance again!
On a side note, the two APU fires (I miswrote in my previous post--there were two!) were minor issues for STS-9 compared to the 2 failed GPC's and failed IMU that almost killed the astronauts.
STS-9 came in with an APU on fire. Here is a video.
Guess what, neither does air, and that doesn't stop lightning!
Your cellphone does have many internal parts that are metal (including conductive surfaces right next to your mouth and ear). If lightning can find a less resistive path to ground it will take it. Metal objects mean that lightning has to ionize a few cm less air (and if the storm is lucky, the human body will reduce the rest of the distance to ground).
It says in the article that most of the gamers die due to sitting in cramped positions for hours. Apparently it disrupts their blood circulation.
It seems to me that if they went out for smokes, a lot fewer gamers would be dying. At least in the short term.
We have a major lesson here: get up and take a walk every couple of hours.
I hate to break it to the project leaders, but if everything goes well private industry will build fusion reactors well before 2040.
Minor correction: I meant superuser logins for normal use. Obviously if I used runas I was using superuser permissions (though not always, wink, wink!)
I've been running Windows NT machines (and later) for almost 8 years without using superuser permissions for normal use. You just have to become very familiar with "runas". In some cases you will need to actually be logged in as an Administrator to do certain tasks, but that is fairly rare. Some examples: if you need to access your control panel you can use:
/user:Administrator "C:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe c:"
.", you will open up a directory in explorer with the logged in user priveledges, not the superuser priveledges. That is why you must use "iexplore.exe c:" to get Administrator priveledges.
runas
and then navigate there (though I recommend you rename your 'Administrator' account). Another useful program is mmc (and after a year or so you will memorize all the component names).
I should note, however, that it may seem that a runas for cmd might be useful. Sometimes it is. But some of the functionality is limited. For example, if you have an Administrator priviledged cmd prompt and you type "start
Windows XP is sort of nice now that you can right click for a runas. If you are frequently using runas, you may find that that feature is helpful. Finally, I should note that you shouldn't do highspeed tasks with a program loaded with runas. You will definately see a performance drop, especially with programs that make extensive use of the windows API.
How about allowing farmers to sell THC rich varieties as well. That way, you can ... lower your dependance on foreign weed
I must say that I like your logic!
But that wasn't my point. I'm a realist. There isn't going to be an illegal drug revolution in the US in the next 20 years (even with hemp). I'm just trying to focus on the issue of useful things you can do with hemp, other than smoke it. But as other posters have mentioned (and I wasn't completely aware), THC-free hemp has been available since 1999 and is still not legal. What it will take to change that, I don't know. Realistically, it might be better to import hemp-derived hydrocarbons from a country that doesn't ban hemp. Yeah, I know it is sort of idiotic.
Hmm... I wonder if it is possible to create a GM hemp plant without the THC. Would research on that be banned?
I hear a lot of people discuss the benefits of hemp in one way or another. It seems to me that if that is the case, then removing the THC (if possible) would be a good solution. I think the US government would more easily legalize hemp if you could prove that it couldn't produce THC.
I'm not too impressed by arguments that say that energy efficiency is the only reason that ethanol or biodiesel can't work. Even if they consume more energy to produce than they make, they are still very useful for one major reason: they are easily transportable. If I can make electricity at $0.07 per KWh at a coal or nuclear plant and make it into a much more valuable transportable energy source via the ethanol or biodiesel route, then I may come out ahead even after the energy losses. Coal and nuclear power are cheap. Gasoline isn't.
Of course, I should mention, you probably shouldn't be running your tractors and other equipment that you use to harvest the corn or other agricultural product with oil or ethanol. That doesn't work. It only works if you have a mostly electrical system. I wonder if there are any major piece of agricultural equipment that can be set up to "run from the grid" in a sense. Like big batteries on tractors that recharge every day?
A little bit of mental morphing of the image could transform it into the pre-Federation Enterprise (NX-01). Will the Vulcans make first contact in Tokyo?
I know I'm going to regret mentioning this.... but,
First contact with the vulcans was made with the Phoenix, not the NX-01.
One of the big things that you lose when you pool resources is adaptability. Now that's fine if you are building a piece of technology that is completely understood, but it is death to people who want to compete in emerging technologies.
Would the US space program be better off if we were able to cut off funding to the ISS and focus on the CEV? I think so. But that is not possible because we have international agreements. We have to finish our share before we abandon it.
These international resource pools remind me of the old engineering maxim:
Yeah it's a sad day, but it could be worse. Thank God that the Cray assets were sold before SGI went into its final downward spiral.
This day reminds me of the day DEC was bought. I knew that day that I'd never see another 'DEC' or 'digital' in big letters on a new computer again. Now I know I will never see another wire square logo on a new computer again.
You have plenty of choice. A vote for a third candidate does not throw your vote away
It is slightly more complicated than that. Many people use their vote to vote *against* a certain candidate that they don't like. If you are going to do that, you have to vote for the opposition candidate who is most likely to win if you want your vote to have any effect.
Personally, I prefer instant runoff voting, because it never forces you to use your vote against a candidate. You just get to pick your priorities. It doesn't have much political support because it essentially undermines the two-party system and makes it *much* easier for a third party to gain power. But there are some local areas that are using it, so hopefully it will catch on.
Well, shouldn't people be taxed on their ability to pay? Those that are the most wealthy are the ones most able to pay.
The tax you are considering is a property tax. Property taxes have an extremely negative effect on business. For example, in Seattle I have to pay about $100 a year on my car for the Monorail tax (no more, woohoo!) and Sound Transit tax. I pay such a low tax because I own a 10 year old car. I refuse to buy a new car because it will cost me an additional ~$5000 in taxes over time. How do you think this helps the car market in Seattle? Now consider property taxes on houses: will an average consumer buy a more expensive house even if he or she could afford it? How about on savings: Will anyone save money? Start a private business? Or even build an extension onto their house (which people don't do now because of property taxes)?
Anyways, the GGP didn't note that based on income, the top 5% pay ~55% of federal income taxes, and the top 50% pay over 95% of federal income taxes.
NOTE: my first link is the IRS excel file, and my second one is the google HTML version.