THere's a huge difference between a "technology specialist" and an engineer. Any monkey with an MSCE or Red Hat training is a tech specialist, it doesn't mean he can design rocket engines.
>Keep the governments out of things as much as possible.
Exactly. Which is why I oppose any international control of ICANN. ICANN needs to stay independent. I don't know much about IPv6 but anything that encourages more online activity and streamlined decentralization has my vote.
The groups that completely split from the Internet will suffer and try to reconnect. Look at all the problems China has with it's Great Firewall.
Those are very interesting numbers. Nauru, for instance, has nearly one IP address for every two residents. There are some other interesting ones, like Japan vs India in addresses, and the very large IP presence of South Africa. What has to change? Aren't IP addresses assigned on an as-needed basis?
>UN.... NONE of this is any kind of 'world government'.
Correct. The US Federal Government is the nascent World State - Washington (and New York) are the places the whole world pays attention to. The UN is only a distraction and talking shop as you put it. The irony is all the "small government" conservatives that keep blindly voting to create Bush's New World Order. This isn't much different from Clinton's NWO, either - there is one agenda here folks. Unocal, Carlyle Group, Bush, Saudi oil, bombing Serbia, it's all one nasty deal.
(adjusts tin foil hat)
Anyway, the UN can have the Internet when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Josh
Re:Two weeks is nothing
on
Space Lichens
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· Score: 1
The Ranger camera was a very significant find during Apollo. I actually think this has bigger implications, for one simple reason: lichen are far more complex than simple bacteria.
Josh
Re:panspermia, evolution
on
Space Lichens
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· Score: 1
>Maybe. The problem is the evidence works both ways.
I agree that it is not solved, but is the beginning of new possibilities. I'm not arguing for free-floating lichen, but for lichen being carried throughout the universe inside comets. We don't know if they thrive in that environment, but they would apparently survive. Yes, lichen definitely thrive in Earth's environment. Some of my post was wild conjecture, for sure, I'm fascinated with this subject.
>I'm not trying to belittle your ideas here. I'm just saying that the place where an organism >survives best is a good bet to be its native environment. And vacuum doesn't fit the bill for lichen.
Belittling is what Slashdot is for! 8) I wouldn't guess that lichen evolved in space, but on some distant world. I don't discount some Archaea and maybe cyanobacteria as free-space microbes (there has been some research), but lichens could be life that clings in all sorts of solar systems - on planets, in asteroids and comets. One mechanism for in-space living (verses stasis) would be if the outer layers of the lichen are enough to protect the colony while allowing sunlight to feed it. For a critter that can surive open space indefinitely, check out Deinnocochus Radiodurans. It's so radiation resistant that Russian biologists seriously claim it is from Mars.
>On the other hand, it is possible that what we have here is an organism that mostly hangs out on >planetary surfaces, in an atmosphere, and occasionally makes successful trips through vacuum. But >such trips would necessarily be very long: years (at least) within the Solar System, millennia >between stars. So the real question is whether lichen (or whatever) can be freeze dried for a while >and then brought back to life by the presence of a favorable environment. The next experiment they >need to do is to stick some lichen out in space for a year or so, then dump it in a nice tropical >environment and see what happens.
We already know that bacteria can be revived successfully after millions of years in amber. The panspermia.org website suggests bacteria in shut-down stasis are essentially immortal (barring catastrophics). Lichen also has lower/no metabolism states. Trips through the solar system are definitely doable (local panspermia), trips throughout the Milky Way galaxy are possible and galaxies collide (strong panspermia). I'm all for further astrobiology experiments, including long-duration exposures. I'm also for seeding the planets with new critters, just in case nature missed any potential ecosystems.
I can't bring myself to reply to the ACs following my post, so... Inside a comet there are all sorts of complex carbon molecules, PAHs and sugars, acetates, formaldehyde, methane, ammonia. These combined with some extremophile bacteria could easily feed CO2 to cometary lichen colonies.
Josh
panspermia, evolution
on
Space Lichens
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Lichen are tough. We all knew that. What we didn't know was how tough - this is incredible news. 15 days exposed in LEO and the samples were still viable? That indicates, to me, that lichen not only "happen" to be able to survive in space, but that the base organism evolved in space and transported to Earth continually until conditions allowed it to survive here. The description of lichen as protected by minerals in exo would indicate that they are capable of forming protected mats and still photosynthesize. The abstract didn't cover it all, did the lichen hibernate or photosynthesize? I'm not sure, but the basic survival fact is huge evidence in support of panspermia, universal left-handed chirality and biology as a basic element of the universe.
Photos from Mars show patches of greenish-brown and blue-green on rocks, cliffs and in low-lying (higher pressure) regions. The Deep Impact mission showed almost 1/3rd the mass of the comet as carbonaceous material, the researchers claim it is prebiotic. Photos from both Viking I (Gil Levin photo) and both MER rovers show "fuzzy" greenish rocks and fine filamented structures. If lichen survive in open space, they would be that much more at home in a fluffy growing medium that contains lots of water, and with a few archaea in the mix would produce exactly the compounds found in comet Tempel 1.
I've always agreed with the tenets of panspermia, the last few months of space science has convinced me. There is life out there, and a lot of it.
Josh
Fun note: the craft that flew the BIOPAN experiment is a Foton capsule, a direct decendant of the capsule Yuri Gagarin flew in. It is a round metal ball with a donut of equipment on the back and some antennae, same layout with somewhat newer gear.
>The problem is that if governments cannot make extraterrestrial land >claims then who's jurisdiction is it? Theoretically, a private company >could build a colony on the moon and sell homes to individuals. The >individuals could go live there and no government could do anything about >it. Would such private colonies become self-governed entities? Granted, >it's not likely to happen any time soon.
Boston and many other colonial cities in the Americas were founded as private, money-making ventures. Most were funded by royalty but operated as corporations. Dutch East India Company, the Massachusetts Bay Corporation and Hudson Bay Trading Company all come to mind. The Portugeuse established mercantalist colonies as well, both in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific basins: Azores, Canaries, Macau, etc. While initially supported by kings and queens, most of these ventures turned profitable and independent (as biz) quickly. These early companies provided security, land-grant management, port services (precursor to modern Port Authorities) among other services. The establishment of this type of colony corporation requires deep pockets, but I would approach billionaires instead of the state for funding - look what Bill Gates is doing for malaria. We already have the tacit approval of the US govt for any kind of peaceful space activity, they really went above and beyond with the recent suborbital licensing process. NASA has more of a problem w/ private spaceflight than the rest of the government: Congress and Execuctive understand the money to be made with space.
Spot on second paragraph. Invasion on a claimed but undefendable body would trigger anything from official shrugs to nuclear war, it really runs the gamut. Following a sponsored-colony concept, entry into a declared area (maybe several hundred km radius of city) triggers active defense. For one base on the moon w/ 4 people, regardless of national issues, I suspect the settlers would welcome any new facilities and people. Security will have to grow organically with settlements, delibrate destruction of living habitats will become a crime on the order of genocide. There is volume/distance/wealth available in space that really changes how people will regard safety, friendship and property.
So far, the law has changed as needed for spectrum, GEO slots and suborbital tests. We (entrepreneurs and space geeks) are in an extremely favorable legal position. All we have to do is make successful space businesses. That is a huge, huge challenge, but the government is not holding us back from space.
A politically divisive step would be to pull out of the Outer Space Treaty. There are three players in this game, US, Russia and China, and none of us have done more than wink and grin over the OST. It is a dead letter to the players.
I'm glad the authorities shut these jackasses down. These "lunar/martian land for sale" businesses increase the giggle-factor against any legitimate property claims in space. Sort of like AC Clarke's statement about space elevators being built 25 years after everyone stops laughing, the same can be said for extraterrestrial land ownership. People issuing fake/joke certificates of ownership is bad PR in the long run.
Space property rights, extended ownership and salvage rules are going to be hot areas of law over the next 50+ years. We've seen some action with new spectrum allocation, but nothing to grant land-claims, yet. There was a guy trying to charge rent for NEAR landing on asteroid Eros, but he got laughed out of court. Again with the giggle-factor.
Real challenges to establish property claims in the near future: SpaceDev has said they will emplace transponders and legally claim any asteroids they explore. Someone will figure out how to recycle rocket stages in orbit (salvage). A company flying a private lander to the moon or Mars will claim the uranium/nitrates/ice/whatever that they find at their landing site. Two probes orbitting Ceres will dismantle each other while fighting over the iceball. Those are legitimate future cases for space property issues to be resolved. Lunar acreage in 2005 is not such an issue.
The linked article is more than just a "keep ancient stories out of science class" ruling from the Vatican. This is a refutation of the radical creatitionists and a shout out for the rational understanding of the Universe. The Church sponsored science for centuries, and it is good to see them siding with reason, observation and exploration instead of Irrationalism. They are assertting, again, that the physical Universe obeys certain rules. The Vatican openly supporting science puts 1.5 billion Catholics on the side of Smart.
This statement is much more important than last week's AAAS announcement of Kansas' copyright infringement. This is permission to continue advocating Science as an explainer, from the pulpit. This is very much against the Fundamentalist mentality.
I support Natural Philosophy. If you can't measure It, photograph it, weigh it or detect it, It doesn't exist.
This is progress! The major networks have been phobic about the "Internets" since the early 90s. Before that it was just a research.mil toy, with the dot-coms the TV networks saw their futures threatened. Partly, they were correct - we Slashdotans are a demographic that has statistically given up on television. That NBC would take the steps to broadcast online demonstrates that they comprehend this shift ("in people's lives" bit) and are trying to capitalize on it. Good for them, some cluefulness.
>I'm not claiming that ID is acceptable because macro-evolution isn't verifiable, I'm claiming that neither should be taught as fact.
Actually, species have been created in the lab (a type of californian seaworm and many new fruitfly species) and others have speciated in the wild under historical observation - flowers, rats, mice, others. Check out the talk.origins link below, they have plenty of cited examples of speciation. Natural Selection allows both accurate prediction and domestication - we wouldn't have dogs, brocolli or corn if "evolution" didn't work.
>All that needs to be shown is several fossils demonstrating gradual change from 1 species to another.
Very well. Please observe the change from Australopithecus to the various species of Homo, currently represented by H. Sapiens. The shades of variation are so slight through the fossil record, yet obviously showing a several million year span of evolution and change. Paleontologists will fight over whether a skull is Homo Ergaster or just a big-brained Habilis, but they will all agree that the fossils show structured, reasonable, natural changes that can be predicted by applying Natural Selection. There, fossils showing gradual, species-changing modification. Somewhere (probably at change to Homo?) the human lines lost chromosomes among other radical shifts. A modern H. sapiens could not breed with an Australopith, or no moreso than with a chimp. Unless you deny the actual existence of our ancestors, this shows both micro and macro evolution.
The link has an example of what I'm describing, I also recommend the excellent "Extinct Humans" for further reading.
Akgoatley, I'm not sure where you fit on the opinion section, this is not personal: I don't understand where the controversy is, honestly. Anyone that passed high school biology should understand the basic processes of life, including Natural Selection and modern evolutionary concepts. "It's only a theory" is a bullshit argument, that people buy this shows the dire lack of scientific literacy in this country. This is people trying to deny reality and using fairy tales to placate themselves. If you need God to get through the day, I don't hold it against you. Don't turn this country into a 3rd-world theocracy because you're scared to know things. "Evolution" is only the first thing these American Taliban are after- they also question plate tectonics, the physics light and I'm sure plenty of other scientific concepts. I know this, because as a child I thrived at a 7th-Day Adventist school, but what they claimed was science, was not.
Science and technology drive this world. We are roadkill if we try to deny this - shame on Kansas for trying to shackle their children with theocratic garbage. I definitely support the AAAS in putting the copyright screws to them - this is effective political conflict.
An old wooden fishing boat is going to be covered in thick marine paint and as the article said it was water logged.
Ancient Roman boats were caulked along the planks with pitch and cloth (and lime?). The sails were most likely wool or cotton and probably treated to be water resistant. There is likely to be oil in quantity on at least some of the galleys. A good argument can be made that Roman ships were significantly more flammable than a (relatively) modern wood fishing boat.
>I don't know of any area where the space-program advanced Russian high-tech exports.
Did you miss Greg Olsen landing last week? From a Soyuz? One of the Russian space-related products is space itself in the form of $20mil trips to the space station. They may not have much going economically, but space launch is one of the bright spots. Russia has the only manned spaceflight system in the world that approaches regular flights - China is still testing and Shuttle is severely grounded.
>Right now, yes. But give the Indians, Japanese and Chinese just a few more years...There'll be another Space Race in my lifetime (fingers crossed).
I'm with you on that! I do think the frontier is going to be cracked by corporations and cooperatives though. There is every chance that China will sell Shenzhou seats, and there are several US companies working towards the America's Space Prize.
NERVA is currently null, but there are definitely situations where it becomes practical. Impending comet impact, other nations' nuke rockets, maybe after the Nanocalypse.
I looked over the VASIMR specs on nasa.gov and the magnetic thruster, they are very similar - variations on a theme. VASIMR even mentions being able to do high-efficiency/lo-thrust and low-eff/hi-thrust flight depending on payload. Very interesting design.
From what the better translations on/. seem to say, this system could find an application as a different nozzle for a NERVA or VASIMIR nuclear fission drive. The NERVA is probably impossible politically, but this kind of nozzle would enable true space-Ships - vehicles capable of lifting hundreds of tons into orbit. Some of the NERVA engines (Timberwind) proposed were capable of LEO launch, this kind of magnetic "afterburner" (an excellent analogy) would greatly add to the efficiency of that rocket. In space it would add to or replace the accelerators in a VASMIR nuke. From the description it could be used in a theoretical Zubrinite saltwater steam rocket or a solar-thermal rocket, the Alven wave properties work on any conductive fluid. This can be either a mid-low thrust magnetic drive (compare to a Hall thruster) or a boost added to a nuclear rocket. I'm not sure if it would be good as a station-keeping thruster as suggested above, but it'd open the inner solar system up to us - it could easily allow non-conjunction flights to mars and other bodies. Regular VASIMIR would too, but this is a very cool addition - it might be something the VASIMR already does. It'd make a great third-stage engine or space-tug engine.
At first I thought this was another article about M2P2, this is much different and very interesting. It'd be funny to combine the two.
I still don't get this. Reward failure (KSC, JSC) and punish success (JPL). Talk about screwed up.
That the "reason" for JPL's cuts are two essential, enabling missions for future efforts is beyond the pale. They are cutting the present and forfeiting the future. This is an egregious extension of NASA's behavior in the 1990s and early 00s - cuts across the board to fund overruns in Station/Shuttle. The irony being the lack of performance in those systems.
The telecom orbiter was important, so were the nuke engines. What a shortsighted mistake.
Josh
It's all about the cash
on
Space Tourism?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
"space" has to pay for it to become the new frontier. There simply must be viable economic paths to orbit and beyond. Rand Simberg has said for years that it isn't the technology or even politics, but lack of good business plans that have kept commercial development away from space. Telecomm is the obvious exception, because it has a good biz plan, and tourism seems to be finally taking off. Good news for the future. I get a kick out of otaku in Gundam clothes.
Also, what better measure for getting into space than paying a set price? The price is high, but anyone can work hard with that goal in mind. That it is an open, priced product puts it on the level playing field for all. Being a government Chosen Hero of the State is in no way egalitarian, but an act of status. It allows NASA to fly senators and Saudi princes, but stick their nose up when asked about paying customers. John Denver BEGGED them to let him fly on Shuttle, as a paying customer, they said "screw".
Negative. China's Yang Liwei flew before Mike Melville, by about 1 year. The current order (SS1 being retired notwithstanding) of successful manned space access is: Russia, China, Burt Rutan, NASA. Russia is of course the 800-lb gorilla in this equation.
Check out America's Space Prize for something that might beat NASA back to indiginous American orbital flight. The current ASP award date beats the first manned CEV flight NASA is planning.
I'd really like to see a private, American effort beat everyone else back to the Moon.
NASA doesn't track space junk, NORAD and US Space Command track the debris. SpaceCom has ultimate authority over launches in the US, last time I checked. They even supercede (IIRC) the FAA's AST office.
NASA does not equal space, as Elon, Burt and Mr. Bigelow are also proving.
Here's the deal: we need to live with nature. One aspect of this is that cities will get destroyed - the ruins of destroyed ancient cities ring the Earth.
New Orleans as it is should be adandoned. The high ground of the french quarter might be preserved. The deep water port and industrial areas like Michoud are restored. These areas have proper seawalls built with regard to natural silt flows, the rest of the city becomes Delta again. People that live in the area live the way you're supposed to in a swamp: in boats and house-barges. The swamp dwellers seem to have faired well, and came out of the woods to help evacuate the city. If the population was competent enough to live in the swamp instead of against it, they could flourish. As it is, they have probably crippled the shrimping and subsidence issues doom much of the city. Imagine a million houseboats stretching through a restored river system. People commute to work by boat, work in hi-tech, shipping and restored shrimp industries. Let the Mississippi wander as it needs, build the deep-water port out in the ocean and have lighter barges for carrying containers and oil in-shore. If people want to live there, they should adapt to life on the water.
Slashdot Mirror
THere's a huge difference between a "technology specialist" and an engineer. Any monkey with an MSCE or Red Hat training is a tech specialist, it doesn't mean he can design rocket engines.
Josh
The first Artificial Intelligence are pests.
>Keep the governments out of things as much as possible.
Exactly. Which is why I oppose any international control of ICANN. ICANN needs to stay independent. I don't know much about IPv6 but anything that encourages more online activity and streamlined decentralization has my vote.
The groups that completely split from the Internet will suffer and try to reconnect. Look at all the problems China has with it's Great Firewall.
Josh
Those are very interesting numbers. Nauru, for instance, has nearly one IP address for every two residents. There are some other interesting ones, like Japan vs India in addresses, and the very large IP presence of South Africa. What has to change? Aren't IP addresses assigned on an as-needed basis?
Josh
>Except it's not in your cold dead fingers
>It's in the USA's cold dead fingers
Yes, and I am the USA! Well, 1-300,000,000th of the USA, and I vote.
I do not in any way support the UN's underhanded attempts to wrest control from ICANN.
Josh
>UN.... NONE of this is any kind of 'world government'.
Correct. The US Federal Government is the nascent World State - Washington (and New York) are the places the whole world pays attention to. The UN is only a distraction and talking shop as you put it. The irony is all the "small government" conservatives that keep blindly voting to create Bush's New World Order. This isn't much different from Clinton's NWO, either - there is one agenda here folks. Unocal, Carlyle Group, Bush, Saudi oil, bombing Serbia, it's all one nasty deal.
(adjusts tin foil hat)
Anyway, the UN can have the Internet when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Josh
The Ranger camera was a very significant find during Apollo. I actually think this has bigger implications, for one simple reason: lichen are far more complex than simple bacteria.
Josh
>Maybe. The problem is the evidence works both ways.
I agree that it is not solved, but is the beginning of new possibilities. I'm not arguing for free-floating lichen, but for lichen being carried throughout the universe inside comets. We don't know if they thrive in that environment, but they would apparently survive. Yes, lichen definitely thrive in Earth's environment. Some of my post was wild conjecture, for sure, I'm fascinated with this subject.
>I'm not trying to belittle your ideas here. I'm just saying that the place where an organism
>survives best is a good bet to be its native environment. And vacuum doesn't fit the bill for lichen.
Belittling is what Slashdot is for! 8) I wouldn't guess that lichen evolved in space, but on some distant world. I don't discount some Archaea and maybe cyanobacteria as free-space microbes (there has been some research), but lichens could be life that clings in all sorts of solar systems - on planets, in asteroids and comets. One mechanism for in-space living (verses stasis) would be if the outer layers of the lichen are enough to protect the colony while allowing sunlight to feed it. For a critter that can surive open space indefinitely, check out Deinnocochus Radiodurans. It's so radiation resistant that Russian biologists seriously claim it is from Mars.
>On the other hand, it is possible that what we have here is an organism that mostly hangs out on
>planetary surfaces, in an atmosphere, and occasionally makes successful trips through vacuum. But
>such trips would necessarily be very long: years (at least) within the Solar System, millennia
>between stars. So the real question is whether lichen (or whatever) can be freeze dried for a while
>and then brought back to life by the presence of a favorable environment. The next experiment they
>need to do is to stick some lichen out in space for a year or so, then dump it in a nice tropical
>environment and see what happens.
We already know that bacteria can be revived successfully after millions of years in amber. The panspermia.org website suggests bacteria in shut-down stasis are essentially immortal (barring catastrophics). Lichen also has lower/no metabolism states. Trips through the solar system are definitely doable (local panspermia), trips throughout the Milky Way galaxy are possible and galaxies collide (strong panspermia). I'm all for further astrobiology experiments, including long-duration exposures. I'm also for seeding the planets with new critters, just in case nature missed any potential ecosystems.
I can't bring myself to reply to the ACs following my post, so... Inside a comet there are all sorts of complex carbon molecules, PAHs and sugars, acetates, formaldehyde, methane, ammonia. These combined with some extremophile bacteria could easily feed CO2 to cometary lichen colonies.
Josh
Lichen are tough. We all knew that. What we didn't know was how tough - this is incredible news. 15 days exposed in LEO and the samples were still viable? That indicates, to me, that lichen not only "happen" to be able to survive in space, but that the base organism evolved in space and transported to Earth continually until conditions allowed it to survive here. The description of lichen as protected by minerals in exo would indicate that they are capable of forming protected mats and still photosynthesize. The abstract didn't cover it all, did the lichen hibernate or photosynthesize? I'm not sure, but the basic survival fact is huge evidence in support of panspermia, universal left-handed chirality and biology as a basic element of the universe.
Photos from Mars show patches of greenish-brown and blue-green on rocks, cliffs and in low-lying (higher pressure) regions. The Deep Impact mission showed almost 1/3rd the mass of the comet as carbonaceous material, the researchers claim it is prebiotic. Photos from both Viking I (Gil Levin photo) and both MER rovers show "fuzzy" greenish rocks and fine filamented structures. If lichen survive in open space, they would be that much more at home in a fluffy growing medium that contains lots of water, and with a few archaea in the mix would produce exactly the compounds found in comet Tempel 1.
I've always agreed with the tenets of panspermia, the last few months of space science has convinced me. There is life out there, and a lot of it.
Josh
Fun note: the craft that flew the BIOPAN experiment is a Foton capsule, a direct decendant of the capsule Yuri Gagarin flew in. It is a round metal ball with a donut of equipment on the back and some antennae, same layout with somewhat newer gear.
>The problem is that if governments cannot make extraterrestrial land
>claims then who's jurisdiction is it? Theoretically, a private company
>could build a colony on the moon and sell homes to individuals. The
>individuals could go live there and no government could do anything about
>it. Would such private colonies become self-governed entities? Granted,
>it's not likely to happen any time soon.
Boston and many other colonial cities in the Americas were founded as private, money-making ventures. Most were funded by royalty but operated as corporations. Dutch East India Company, the Massachusetts Bay Corporation and Hudson Bay Trading Company all come to mind. The Portugeuse established mercantalist colonies as well, both in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific basins: Azores, Canaries, Macau, etc. While initially supported by kings and queens, most of these ventures turned profitable and independent (as biz) quickly. These early companies provided security, land-grant management, port services (precursor to modern Port Authorities) among other services. The establishment of this type of colony corporation requires deep pockets, but I would approach billionaires instead of the state for funding - look what Bill Gates is doing for malaria. We already have the tacit approval of the US govt for any kind of peaceful space activity, they really went above and beyond with the recent suborbital licensing process. NASA has more of a problem w/ private spaceflight than the rest of the government: Congress and Execuctive understand the money to be made with space.
Spot on second paragraph. Invasion on a claimed but undefendable body would trigger anything from official shrugs to nuclear war, it really runs the gamut. Following a sponsored-colony concept, entry into a declared area (maybe several hundred km radius of city) triggers active defense. For one base on the moon w/ 4 people, regardless of national issues, I suspect the settlers would welcome any new facilities and people. Security will have to grow organically with settlements, delibrate destruction of living habitats will become a crime on the order of genocide. There is volume/distance/wealth available in space that really changes how people will regard safety, friendship and property.
So far, the law has changed as needed for spectrum, GEO slots and suborbital tests. We (entrepreneurs and space geeks) are in an extremely favorable legal position. All we have to do is make successful space businesses. That is a huge, huge challenge, but the government is not holding us back from space.
A politically divisive step would be to pull out of the Outer Space Treaty. There are three players in this game, US, Russia and China, and none of us have done more than wink and grin over the OST. It is a dead letter to the players.
Josh
I'm glad the authorities shut these jackasses down. These "lunar/martian land for sale" businesses increase the giggle-factor against any legitimate property claims in space. Sort of like AC Clarke's statement about space elevators being built 25 years after everyone stops laughing, the same can be said for extraterrestrial land ownership. People issuing fake/joke certificates of ownership is bad PR in the long run.
Space property rights, extended ownership and salvage rules are going to be hot areas of law over the next 50+ years. We've seen some action with new spectrum allocation, but nothing to grant land-claims, yet. There was a guy trying to charge rent for NEAR landing on asteroid Eros, but he got laughed out of court. Again with the giggle-factor.
Real challenges to establish property claims in the near future: SpaceDev has said they will emplace transponders and legally claim any asteroids they explore. Someone will figure out how to recycle rocket stages in orbit (salvage). A company flying a private lander to the moon or Mars will claim the uranium/nitrates/ice/whatever that they find at their landing site. Two probes orbitting Ceres will dismantle each other while fighting over the iceball. Those are legitimate future cases for space property issues to be resolved. Lunar acreage in 2005 is not such an issue.
Josh
Excellent definition!
The linked article is more than just a "keep ancient stories out of science class" ruling from the Vatican. This is a refutation of the radical creatitionists and a shout out for the rational understanding of the Universe. The Church sponsored science for centuries, and it is good to see them siding with reason, observation and exploration instead of Irrationalism. They are assertting, again, that the physical Universe obeys certain rules. The Vatican openly supporting science puts 1.5 billion Catholics on the side of Smart.
This statement is much more important than last week's AAAS announcement of Kansas' copyright infringement. This is permission to continue advocating Science as an explainer, from the pulpit. This is very much against the Fundamentalist mentality.
I support Natural Philosophy. If you can't measure It, photograph it, weigh it or detect it, It doesn't exist.
Josh
This is progress! The major networks have been phobic about the "Internets" since the early 90s. Before that it was just a research.mil toy, with the dot-coms the TV networks saw their futures threatened. Partly, they were correct - we Slashdotans are a demographic that has statistically given up on television. That NBC would take the steps to broadcast online demonstrates that they comprehend this shift ("in people's lives" bit) and are trying to capitalize on it. Good for them, some cluefulness.
Josh
>I'm not claiming that ID is acceptable because macro-evolution isn't verifiable, I'm claiming that neither should be taught as fact.
h tml#morphological_intermediates_ex3
Actually, species have been created in the lab (a type of californian seaworm and many new fruitfly species) and others have speciated in the wild under historical observation - flowers, rats, mice, others. Check out the talk.origins link below, they have plenty of cited examples of speciation. Natural Selection allows both accurate prediction and domestication - we wouldn't have dogs, brocolli or corn if "evolution" didn't work.
>All that needs to be shown is several fossils demonstrating gradual change from 1 species to another.
Very well. Please observe the change from Australopithecus to the various species of Homo, currently represented by H. Sapiens. The shades of variation are so slight through the fossil record, yet obviously showing a several million year span of evolution and change. Paleontologists will fight over whether a skull is Homo Ergaster or just a big-brained Habilis, but they will all agree that the fossils show structured, reasonable, natural changes that can be predicted by applying Natural Selection. There, fossils showing gradual, species-changing modification. Somewhere (probably at change to Homo?) the human lines lost chromosomes among other radical shifts. A modern H. sapiens could not breed with an Australopith, or no moreso than with a chimp. Unless you deny the actual existence of our ancestors, this shows both micro and macro evolution.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.
The link has an example of what I'm describing, I also recommend the excellent "Extinct Humans" for further reading.
Akgoatley, I'm not sure where you fit on the opinion section, this is not personal: I don't understand where the controversy is, honestly. Anyone that passed high school biology should understand the basic processes of life, including Natural Selection and modern evolutionary concepts. "It's only a theory" is a bullshit argument, that people buy this shows the dire lack of scientific literacy in this country. This is people trying to deny reality and using fairy tales to placate themselves. If you need God to get through the day, I don't hold it against you. Don't turn this country into a 3rd-world theocracy because you're scared to know things. "Evolution" is only the first thing these American Taliban are after- they also question plate tectonics, the physics light and I'm sure plenty of other scientific concepts. I know this, because as a child I thrived at a 7th-Day Adventist school, but what they claimed was science, was not.
Science and technology drive this world. We are roadkill if we try to deny this - shame on Kansas for trying to shackle their children with theocratic garbage. I definitely support the AAAS in putting the copyright screws to them - this is effective political conflict.
Josh
We need a first generation of pioneers.
He seemed to be suggesting something along the lines of neutron bombs and anthrax, not precision-guided munitions.
Grandparent post was excellent, BTW.
Josh
I RTFA but not the 175 posts:
An old wooden fishing boat is going to be covered in thick marine paint and as the article said it was water logged.
Ancient Roman boats were caulked along the planks with pitch and cloth (and lime?). The sails were most likely wool or cotton and probably treated to be water resistant. There is likely to be oil in quantity on at least some of the galleys. A good argument can be made that Roman ships were significantly more flammable than a (relatively) modern wood fishing boat.
I wouldn't put anything past Archimedes, as well.
Josh
Don't the sailors say "It's not gay when the ship is underway"?
I think a jacuzzi, strawberries and a stock of champange would make any Mars mission more fun! 8)
Josh
>I don't know of any area where the space-program advanced Russian high-tech exports.
Did you miss Greg Olsen landing last week? From a Soyuz? One of the Russian space-related products is space itself in the form of $20mil trips to the space station. They may not have much going economically, but space launch is one of the bright spots. Russia has the only manned spaceflight system in the world that approaches regular flights - China is still testing and Shuttle is severely grounded.
Josh
>Right now, yes. But give the Indians, Japanese and Chinese just a few more years...There'll be another Space Race in my lifetime (fingers crossed).
I'm with you on that! I do think the frontier is going to be cracked by corporations and cooperatives though. There is every chance that China will sell Shenzhou seats, and there are several US companies working towards the America's Space Prize.
NERVA is currently null, but there are definitely situations where it becomes practical. Impending comet impact, other nations' nuke rockets, maybe after the Nanocalypse.
I looked over the VASIMR specs on nasa.gov and the magnetic thruster, they are very similar - variations on a theme. VASIMR even mentions being able to do high-efficiency/lo-thrust and low-eff/hi-thrust flight depending on payload. Very interesting design.
Josh
From what the better translations on /. seem to say, this system could find an application as a different nozzle for a NERVA or VASIMIR nuclear fission drive. The NERVA is probably impossible politically, but this kind of nozzle would enable true space-Ships - vehicles capable of lifting hundreds of tons into orbit. Some of the NERVA engines (Timberwind) proposed were capable of LEO launch, this kind of magnetic "afterburner" (an excellent analogy) would greatly add to the efficiency of that rocket. In space it would add to or replace the accelerators in a VASMIR nuke. From the description it could be used in a theoretical Zubrinite saltwater steam rocket or a solar-thermal rocket, the Alven wave properties work on any conductive fluid. This can be either a mid-low thrust magnetic drive (compare to a Hall thruster) or a boost added to a nuclear rocket. I'm not sure if it would be good as a station-keeping thruster as suggested above, but it'd open the inner solar system up to us - it could easily allow non-conjunction flights to mars and other bodies. Regular VASIMIR would too, but this is a very cool addition - it might be something the VASIMR already does. It'd make a great third-stage engine or space-tug engine.
At first I thought this was another article about M2P2, this is much different and very interesting. It'd be funny to combine the two.
Josh
I still don't get this. Reward failure (KSC, JSC) and punish success (JPL). Talk about screwed up.
That the "reason" for JPL's cuts are two essential, enabling missions for future efforts is beyond the pale. They are cutting the present and forfeiting the future. This is an egregious extension of NASA's behavior in the 1990s and early 00s - cuts across the board to fund overruns in Station/Shuttle. The irony being the lack of performance in those systems.
The telecom orbiter was important, so were the nuke engines. What a shortsighted mistake.
Josh
"space" has to pay for it to become the new frontier. There simply must be viable economic paths to orbit and beyond. Rand Simberg has said for years that it isn't the technology or even politics, but lack of good business plans that have kept commercial development away from space. Telecomm is the obvious exception, because it has a good biz plan, and tourism seems to be finally taking off. Good news for the future. I get a kick out of otaku in Gundam clothes.
Also, what better measure for getting into space than paying a set price? The price is high, but anyone can work hard with that goal in mind. That it is an open, priced product puts it on the level playing field for all. Being a government Chosen Hero of the State is in no way egalitarian, but an act of status. It allows NASA to fly senators and Saudi princes, but stick their nose up when asked about paying customers. John Denver BEGGED them to let him fly on Shuttle, as a paying customer, they said "screw".
Josh
Negative. China's Yang Liwei flew before Mike Melville, by about 1 year. The current order (SS1 being retired notwithstanding) of successful manned space access is: Russia, China, Burt Rutan, NASA. Russia is of course the 800-lb gorilla in this equation.
Check out America's Space Prize for something that might beat NASA back to indiginous American orbital flight. The current ASP award date beats the first manned CEV flight NASA is planning.
I'd really like to see a private, American effort beat everyone else back to the Moon.
Josh
NASA doesn't track space junk, NORAD and US Space Command track the debris. SpaceCom has ultimate authority over launches in the US, last time I checked. They even supercede (IIRC) the FAA's AST office.
NASA does not equal space, as Elon, Burt and Mr. Bigelow are also proving.
Josh
Here's the deal: we need to live with nature. One aspect of this is that cities will get destroyed - the ruins of destroyed ancient cities ring the Earth.
_ schrope072501.asp
New Orleans as it is should be adandoned. The high ground of the french quarter might be preserved. The deep water port and industrial areas like Michoud are restored. These areas have proper seawalls built with regard to natural silt flows, the rest of the city becomes Delta again. People that live in the area live the way you're supposed to in a swamp: in boats and house-barges. The swamp dwellers seem to have faired well, and came out of the woods to help evacuate the city. If the population was competent enough to live in the swamp instead of against it, they could flourish. As it is, they have probably crippled the shrimping and subsidence issues doom much of the city. Imagine a million houseboats stretching through a restored river system. People commute to work by boat, work in hi-tech, shipping and restored shrimp industries. Let the Mississippi wander as it needs, build the deep-water port out in the ocean and have lighter barges for carrying containers and oil in-shore. If people want to live there, they should adapt to life on the water.
I want to see a JMOB/SeaHub container facility in the Gulf of Mexico. This technology can be applied to housing, shipping, huge mobile hospitals, etc. http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/01/07/wo
Josh