France has the right idea in using French Guiana as a launch facility. Putting a rocket on a boat and moving it a few thousand miles on Earth is a lot easier than fighting the laws of physics. Actually Ariane is built in Guiana. No need to 'move it a few thousand miles on Earth', only a few thousand meters.
ISS cooperation was just fine except the Russians that were late on schedule but nothing bad.
The problem with ISS is not 'technical' (actually it's an international engineering success) but rather that for the money we could have build something more useful.
But still it helps to understand a lot of things and it helps us to learn how to work together.
You have to remember that ESA is use to low cost missions. For instance Mars Express is much cheaper than any of NASA's Mars mission.
Is it better? I'm not sure at all, only time will tell.
I have the felling that NASA is much more experienced and has better funding so ESA could fail where NASA could be successful, but I also think that this one doesn't look like a 'vote for me in November' call.
It's not that I don't believe in Bush, he never lied. Oh wait...
Because most of the people don't know how or don't want to install iTMS. It's much easier to send the code by mail to someone else and forget everything about it.
They say they are producing only 5000 a year because the tech is not ready and these 5000 are for some companies to make prototypes. We are not talking about large scale production here.
This remind me about an experiment that was covered on Slashdot where scientist were able to 'remote control' a mouse via implants in its brain.
What about sending a remote controlled mouse on Mars an make it perform experiments ? I mean it could very well go somewhere and bring stones back to a little rocket for sending them back to earth.
A mouse is very light thus easy to send on Mars.
Re:It will come back?
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Mice In Space
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· Score: 3, Insightful
They need them back to see how they re-adapt to Earth gravity after 5 weeks at 0.38g.
Maybe they could make the satellite spin even faster to reach 1.0g ?
Re:The picture appears composited
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News from Mars
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· Score: 1
It was the most spectacular part of the mission for sure, but in term of scientific return they estimated it to be between 20 and 25% of the whole Mars Express experiment.
There's no need to map earth at 1 foot resolution near real time. It's just so much data that you wouldn't have the time to analyse it until it gets outdated (continental drift, erosion, etc).
Instead they do have 1 foot resolution but they use it only on certains parts of the world and only when they need it, Iraq for instance.
The Mars Express Orbiter will: image the entire surface at high resolution (10 m/pixel) and selected areas at super resolution (2 m/pixel) produce a map of the mineral composition of the surface at 100 m resolution map the composition of the atmosphere and determine its global circulation determine the structure of the sub-surface to a depth of a few kilometres determine the effect of the atmosphere on the surface determine the interaction of the atmosphere with the solar wind
Beagle2 failed but it was only 20% of the mission.
Slashdot Mirror
No, we outsource that kind of job. You know indians are cheaper. Oh wait...
Dot matrix printers can print half a page, stop and print the second half the next day. And you can read the result between the 2 jobs.
You can use it as an ouput terminal.
Try to do that with a laser printer. Won't die anytime soon.
France has the right idea in using French Guiana as a launch facility. Putting a rocket on a boat and moving it a few thousand miles on Earth is a lot easier than fighting the laws of physics.
Actually Ariane is built in Guiana. No need to 'move it a few thousand miles on Earth', only a few thousand meters.
ISS, International Space Station.
ISS cooperation was just fine except the Russians that were late on schedule but nothing bad.
The problem with ISS is not 'technical' (actually it's an international engineering success) but rather that for the money we could have build something more useful.
But still it helps to understand a lot of things and it helps us to learn how to work together.
You need a beginning for everything.
That's a nice and motivating objective.
NASA did land on the moon in less than 9 years. I think ESA could do Mars in 30 years.
That's 1.13 Billion Euros. Approx 1.36 Billion $.
You have to remember that ESA is use to low cost missions. For instance Mars Express is much cheaper than any of NASA's Mars mission.
Is it better? I'm not sure at all, only time will tell.
I have the felling that NASA is much more experienced and has better funding so ESA could fail where NASA could be successful, but I also think that this one doesn't look like a 'vote for me in November' call.
It's not that I don't believe in Bush, he never lied. Oh wait...
Because my girlfriend is there.
[sarcasm]
It's because this picture was taken in a studio. Nobody never ever went to the moon and no robots never even landed on Mars.
Everything you can see is pure manipulation from NASA and the government.
[/sarcasm]
Concorde wasn't profitable mostly because the US government decided it wouldn't be allowed to fly over the US.
In Europ oil is very expensive so the Concorde wasn't worth the flight but in the US it was promised to a big success.
I like CNN, they once showed a map of Europ with the Switzerland misplaced. Too bad I can't find it anymore.
Yep but real work on it started at the end of the 19th century. At the time nobody understood why.
Many people were claiming the exact same thing when mathematicians started to work on the binary system in the 19th century.
Because most of the people don't know how or don't want to install iTMS. It's much easier to send the code by mail to someone else and forget everything about it.
"Current plans for financing NGST foresee a possible ESA participation at the 15% level -- as with the HST." (here)
It seems ESA participated for 15% in HST ! I guess they should have their word on Hubble future.
Well, IIRC, ESA participated in the financing of Hubble. I think it wasn't a lot of money but still, does ESA have something to say about the future of Hubble ?
RTFA.
They say they are producing only 5000 a year because the tech is not ready and these 5000 are for some companies to make prototypes. We are not talking about large scale production here.
This remind me about an experiment that was covered on Slashdot where scientist were able to 'remote control' a mouse via implants in its brain.
What about sending a remote controlled mouse on Mars an make it perform experiments ? I mean it could very well go somewhere and bring stones back to a little rocket for sending them back to earth.
A mouse is very light thus easy to send on Mars.
They need them back to see how they re-adapt to Earth gravity after 5 weeks at 0.38g.
Maybe they could make the satellite spin even faster to reach 1.0g ?
Here it is.
Are you all blind ? Everything is here.
It was the most spectacular part of the mission for sure, but in term of scientific return they estimated it to be between 20 and 25% of the whole Mars Express experiment.
Somebody else did it already.
You can see here that it's just a hill with weird shadows.
Nothing else, but hey did you really believe it was a martian building ?
There's no need to map earth at 1 foot resolution near real time. It's just so much data that you wouldn't have the time to analyse it until it gets outdated (continental drift, erosion, etc).
Instead they do have 1 foot resolution but they use it only on certains parts of the world and only when they need it, Iraq for instance.
Well it's maybe because they DO have a lot more material to release...
ESA probes/satellites are quite rare these days but it's good to see they seem to release the data because many scientists will use it.
It's only ONE aspect of the Mars Express mission.
On the website we can read:
The Mars Express Orbiter will:
image the entire surface at high resolution (10 m/pixel) and selected areas at super resolution (2 m/pixel)
produce a map of the mineral composition of the surface at 100 m resolution
map the composition of the atmosphere and determine its global circulation
determine the structure of the sub-surface to a depth of a few kilometres
determine the effect of the atmosphere on the surface
determine the interaction of the atmosphere with the solar wind
Beagle2 failed but it was only 20% of the mission.
In France we always consider the TGV as an alternative to planes. For the exact reasons you are giving here.
Our country is much smaller than the US and so the TGV is a true alternative.
It's very secure, it can cross France in 3 hours and 15 minutes (1 hour and a half with a plane not counting commuting to the airport, wait, etc).
I think that the real point here is that we don't need the Maglev because trains are already very efficient. And a lot less expensive.