Since there are so many parts to this project that are on the thin line between science fiction and science fantasy I think their estimate of 20(?) years (or about one generation) of development is more than a little optimistic. That said, in TWO generations this kind of thing might be a bit more practical, especially if, by that time, we have some relatively robust nano-bots that could construct and MAINTAIN the "starwisp". (Their stated approach to getting over the very probable impact of interstellar dust at relativistic speed is just numbers; that is launch a lot and hope a few survive. Not a very solid strategy to hang a likely multi billion dollar project on). Given that time frame (around 50 years?) another possibility arises. Their proposal currently has the 100 GW laser Beamer array being in a high altitude part of the super-dry atacama desert in Chile. Despite it's deliberate isolation from major population centers, it could still be used as an insanely powerful anti-sat weapon which would essentially give the controlling nation the power (ha ha) to rule near earth space. (Current technology shows 100KW lasers blowing drones out of the sky, this would be a million times more powerful). Even though it only can "see" half the sky, almost all orbits would eventually process overhead, only get-sync satellites on the opposite side of the earth would be permanently safe. This potential destructive capability would probably be a major block for international approval of this project. So, since the insanely ambitious other aspects of this project are unlikely to be ready soon, why not plan for a time when (hopefully) launch costs have given us ready access to the moon? In fifty years, it probably won't be insanely expensive to build this array on the Far side of the moon and it brings several advantages. No atmospheric distortion, geologic stability, slow (two week pointing time) rotation and abundant solar power just adds to the principal advantage of being unable to be used against the earth (and near earth objects possibly out to the moon's orbit). Another major advantage is that with the improved stability and beam purity it may be possible to keep it "locked on" for farther than 1 million kilometers. If it could do ten times this distance then the acceleration could be reduced and, more importantly, the sail would only have to be not absorb 99.9 % of the radiation instead of 99.99%. (Or the payload could be increased by a factor of ten or, you get the picture). For these reasons, a far side lunar array should be considered. As an aside, in addition to using this laser launch system to power space vehicles/habitats throughout the solar system; it might prove to be a very effective asteroid deflection system. A 100 GW laser beam hitting the side of an asteroid would provide a very powerful "kick" from the presumed boiling off of any material there. Over long periods of time, perhaps even the light pressure alone would be significant.
If the cargo version of the Dream Chaser (which I note is also winged and reusable), can be launched on the Falcon 9X (I think this is the version that has the reusable first stage) then almost the entire vehicle is reusable!
I think it will, unfortunately, still require a (small?) second stage to get it into orbit but perhaps the Dream Chaser (cargo version) can boost itself into orbit. In any case it would provide another reusable re-entry option for the Falcon (the Dragon space capsule of course has been proven to be recoverable).
Interesting to note that the wings on the Dream Chaser are folding so it can fit inside a launch fairing. Is this the normal launch profile? Does it never launch "naked" with wings unfolded? Perhaps the aerodynamics are just too problematic for a winged vehicle on the tip of a booster stack. Maybe that's why the crewed version didn't get approved (it would not be good to have the crew inside a launch fairing in case of an accident).
The aliens have their drive unit pointed at us as they want to decelerate into our solar system and not fly right through it. Their drive emissions are tremendously blue shifted (into the gamma rays) since they are approaching at a fair percentage of the speed of light (and maybe the drive is outputting gamma rays to begin with).
The best way to verify this would be to look at the spectra of the gamma ray emissions and see if they are gradually being redshifted (slowing down). This would give us an idea of how fast they are decelerating and maybe when they will be arriving. Let's hope that their ship isn't really huge or that it's not pointed directly at us so that their drive won't scour away our atmosphere!
(They could also be using a huge solar sail and what we're seeing is the reflection of our own sun but they'd really have to be moving very very close to c in order for it to be reflected as gamma rays. In that case, since they would be traveling just behind the wavefront they would also have to be right on top of us!).
I live in Vietnam so everything here is pirated already. How bad is it in the U.S. (and other "developed") countries? Are most apps available (illegally) for free?
Maybe even if they are "pirated" they can still earn revenue for their developers if they earn money through ads. Or have the pirated versions been modified to remove/change the ads?
So, once they bag and bake the asteroid to get the water out of it, why don't they use the solar collector to heat the water to make super (super!) heated steam. This can then be directed to propel the asteroid in the opposite direction. I believe a similar scheme has been proposed on earth to make laser (which are based on the ground) launched rockets using water as the working medium. If the water can't be heated enough to get a fast jet, you could always electrolyze it and just combust the oxygen and hydrogen like a normal chemical rocket.
I presume this scheme only is practical for small asteroids ( 100m?) because the "bag" must be big enough to fully enclose it. Otherwise it might be practical to use it for asteroid (self) deflection. Still, if there are a lot of these smaller asteroids available and if they are pretty "waterlogged" maybe this technique could be compared to almost having fuel tanks scattered around the outer solar system. A small spacecraft could approach one, wrap it, and then use the asteroid "jet" to scoot around the solar system. (As I mentioned by using the term "waterlogged" hopefully most of the asteroid is actually water, this would mean it wouldn't have to move around so much dead weight).
After reading the article on the NYTimes, I went to whitehouse.gov and made a petition to:
"Apologize to Dr. Xi of Temple Univ. for the FBI's wrongful accusation and prosecution of him on charges of spying."
The complete text reads:
After reading this article in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09... I was appalled and upset that another Chinese-American citizen had been wrongly accused and prosecuted for spying when even a basic check could have exonerated him. That this even got to this point not only speaks to the incompetence of the FBI but a pervasive bias and distrust of Chinese American CITIZENS.
President Obama should, at the very least, on behalf of the U.S. Govt. apologize to this distinguished professor who has seen his reputation shattered and loss of various posts and titles. This will be an important symbolic act.
If you believe that he (at least) deserves an apology, follow this link and "sign" the petition: "https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/apologize-dr-xi-temple-univ-fbis-wrongful-accusation-and-prosecution-him-charges-spying-0". For those of you unfamiliar with how this works, once it reaches 150 "signatures" then it is publicly viewable. If it then reaches 150,000 within a month then the white house promises to respond.
Please note: when I mentioned "another Chinese American" I did not mean that I am a Chinese American. I am not. Rather I was talking about the other Chinese American CITIZENS (like Wen Ho Lee) who have been charged and prosecuted apparently for no other reason than they are of Chinese origin. They were found innocent.
Yeah, I got fiber from Viettel, it's supposed to be 38Mb/sec but you really only see that at night when network congestion is low. I think the bottleneck is the few (two?) international fiber links that connect Vietnam to the outside world and that have very frequently(!!!) been cut. They've been cut so often and (almost always?) in the spot that only affects Vietnam's traffic that I suspect that China has a hand in it. (I'm assuming that China might have some deep sea technology that no other nation in the South China sea has).
Now that might explain some recent strange network problems that I've been having here in Vietnam. About 3 weeks ago, Google started denying my searches saying that due to the large number of attacks coming from your network they would refusing traffic (or something like that). I immediately checked my home network (a fiber optic TOTOlink router) and changed the password but the messages persisted. (They're gone now.)
I thought that perhaps I had a (lot of) neighbors who had been compromised/involved in attacks and perhaps Google was casting a wide net (blocking a large subnet of the ISP or even the entire ISP) and that I was just caught up in it. That may be the case, like the summary says there are few ISPs and presumably few different routers being used so it would be easy for a hacker to exploit a vulnerability and command a botnet of thousands of routers. On the other hand, I looked up TOTOlink router vulnerabilities and it said that there is an unpatched backdoor to my model so it is vulnerable. I assume this is true even if I changed my passwords.
So (since I'm obviously not an expert) my question is: is it likely that my router has been hacked? Will it allow the hacker to use it as a "bot"? Is my (unencrypted) traffic vulnerable to interception/change/man-in-the-middle attacks? Or is it more likely that Google isn't blocking my little network (that is attached to the internet by a single dynamic IP address) specifically but is blocking a large portion or even the entire ISP (in my case Viettel?).
I hope whoever can answer my questions is rewarded Karmically! Thanks!:)
"carbon nanotube tether anywhere between 62 and 620 miles long attached to a diamond-tipped harpoon"
Considering that the few attempts at space "tethers" have (I think) ended in failure and their cable lengths were much shorter, I think it is highly unlikely that they'll be able to make this work. They've also got to be able to "shoot" the harpoon at at spot on an asteroid that is neither too hard so that it'll bounce off of shatter the harpoon or so soft that the harpoon cannot have purchase. Of course, this is only worthwhile if the spacecraft and asteroid are traveling at a high velocity relative to each other. That way the spacecraft will either get a big savings in energy because it can use the tether to slow it down relative to the asteroid (and potentially generate a ton of energy through resistive braking!) or it could use it to "swing" around and dramatically change its direction of travel (like a gravity assist but with much more latitude). So the harpoon would be hitting the asteroid at kilometers per second and would need to "stick". (A mechanism to cut the cable or release the harpoon might be necessary if this system is to be used more than once).
As long as we are using carbon nanotubes and diamonds perhaps we should use a large lasso instead with micro thrusters positioning it for optimal placement. In any case IF this system could work then, yes, the spacecraft could go swinging through the solar systems using asteroids (small bodies with no atmosphere and little gravity) like Tarzan uses vines hanging from trees. I fear that the engineering difficulties are so great and the risk (you probably only get one "shot" during a flyby) will make this impractical.
Side note: - This idea is related to my, ahem, own idea of using a spacecraft that lands on an rotating asteroid, and then, using a tether, slinging off pieces of the asteroid into space. This could allow a very modestly sized spacecraft to divert the trajectory of an asteroid because it would be harnessing the energy of the asteroids rotation and converting it into kinetic energy. By landing (gently, no harpoon necessary) onto the asteroid's equator and extending a tether beyond the asteroids "geosync" orbit it could keep it permanently taut using a counterweight. Then, just like a space elevator, it would ferry material up to and beyond the geosync point, generating energy (to power the elevator) beyond that point using resistive braking before it flings the material into deep space. Properly timed releases could impart a directional thrust to the entire system. (If the asteroid is rotating fast enough the system is small enough that carbon nanotubes wouldn't be needed.)
NASA's needs Pu to get to Uranus (puns intended). If they can manage to get the correct isotope of Plutonium then a space probe that uses ion propulsion would have the necessary electrical power to drive the extremely efficient drive even when, as in this case, it is very far from the sun. Since the space probe DAWN has proven that multi-year thrusting of ion engines does work quite well, this would enable a "flagship" (read "big") mission to get to the very outer planets in less than a decade. It could spend roughly half its time accelerating to a high cruising speed then almost as long decelerating to be captured into orbit.
Then, once the mothership has arrived in orbit then, like Cassini, smaller spacecraft could be employed to explore the various moons and atmosphere of these gas giants. (Unfortunately since the moons of Uranus and Neptune may not be large enough to effectively permit gravity assists like Cassini uses with Titan or Galileo used with the four large Galilean moons, you might need smaller probes because the ion drive may have too low a thrust for dynamic orbital changes). Now the RTGs, having powered the spacecraft to the far reaches of the solar system, could be "gainfully" (ha ha) employed to power a high bandwidth radio transmitter/laser communicator. This would enable the small probes exploring the system to send lots of data back to earth without each carrying a huge antenna, only the mothership.
Why all spacecraft don't utilize the extremely high energy/weight RTGs for deep space PROPULSION is beyond me. I (maybe mistakenly?) think that the RTGs, since it generates its power from the natural decay of a radioactive element, is constantly "on" and if you don't use the power being generated YOU LOSE IT (anyone please correct me if I'm wrong!). So it would seem to be ideal for a space probe that needs to go somewhere far far away from the sun and for which a low thrust high impulse drive (like ion propulsion) that requires large amounts of electric power is ideal. Maybe it's because the DAWN probe needed to prove the ion technology before NASA could commit a flagship mission to it.
Too bad that the isotope of Pu that they need for the probe isn't the same that is used in nuclear bombs, that would be the most apt fulfillment of the biblical(?) phrase "beating swords into plowshares". Oh well, Congress needs to fund the reactor that is used in the nuclear fuel cycle that manufactures this critical resource for space travel.
Of course this is only a stopgap until we get either the Lockheed Martin or MIT (mini) fusion reactors working!
This is an honest question (I'm not Indian). How does the government get to override the recently passed decision by the Indian Supreme Court NOT to ban these very same sites? Is there some sort of executive order that allows the government to do so? Or is the government doing something "illegal" (I think the decisions by the Supreme Court must be the very definition of legality right?).
I didn't realize that "race" could now be determined by a genetic sequence (or two). If true this may lead to some very troubling possibilities.
It would be possible using CRISPR (a recently developed means of precisely targeting an exact genetic sequence) to have a virus that could infect just one particular population. Smallpox comes to mind because 1) very few people in the world are currently vaccinated against it (it was made extinct a while ago) and 2) its DNA has been sequenced and published online. So, using a DNA synthesis machine you could make a version of this virus that would target a particular population.
I believe such machines can now make DNA sequences long enough to create viruses. I also remember someone creating a much more lethal version of smallpox that could kill all of the laboratory animals it infected, including ones vaccinated against "normal" smallpox (I think it was 100% lethal).
Of course, making a virus that would go after a particular Sex as opposed to a racial characteristic should be much easier (just target any gene found on one of the sex chromosomes and not the other.) This particular scenario was explored in Frank Herbert's book "The White Plague". A related scenario might be the film "Children of Men" where all the women(?) are made sterile.
Will they find extra-terrestrial life IN the solar system or Outside it?
Frankly if they find it within the solar system then it would be a more significant find unless, of course, they found evidence of advanced (intelligent) life outside the solar system. It would mean that the universe is absolutely crawling with life; even if the life was somehow related to that on earth (distributed by asteroid impacts?) that would mean that panspermia is a viable method of distributing life over (at least) interplanetary distances.
In addition, it would mean that there would be a chance of someone going and really examining it within what's left of my lifetime!
So let's hope that it's on Mars (doubtful), Europa/Enceladus (possibly) or Titan. Of course if they find life on Titan, it'll have to be so radically different that our own that it'll blow the minds of just about every biologist in the world! Of course they'd be very very happy to find just fossils.
Whenever I hear about all the stupid comments and grandstanding from politicians trying to pander to a scientifically illiterate (American) public I despair. However when I look at the (long predicted and now achieved) strides in solar power, a see a "ray" of hope.
Finally solar power is becoming cost competitive even with coal. Hopefully in a few more years and certainly less than a decade it will be decisively so. At that point, one hopes, renewable power will no longer be a political decision but a purely economic one.
This, of course, won't solve global warming, certainly not "over night" (ha ha). The vast build up of CO2, thermal lag and feedback loops (permafrost melting) means we will be dealing with this for generations to come. But it might slow down the buildup enough so that new carbon sequestration technologies created (again by scientists and technologists) can fix the problem for good.
When Snowden released documents that indicated that (amongst other things) Huawei had been compromised, I wondered if human intelligence or "social engineering" may have been used to obtain some passwords. If so, and if the Chinese govt. found out who (perhaps inadvertently) gave them away, that person would at the very least seen their employment terminated and perhaps even been terminated themselves!
Now with the frank admission that there are human spies at work in China for the NSA, I'm sure the Chinese govt. has redoubled their efforts to find (and kill) them. If so, then these leaks may be directly responsible for the deaths (probably after considerable torture) of individuals who, for whatever reason, were helping the U.S.
So, this is a very serious consequence of the leaks. Do you still agree that Snowden was justified in leaking all of this presumably without giving the U.S. advance warning of what he was going to release (so that they could get vulnerable individuals to safety?).
From the abstract: "life as it exists on Earth could not take place at z>0.5". I take this to mean (since I'm not a professional astronomer I am guessing that the variable "z" represents redshift) that life couldn't get started in the earl(ier) universe because the galaxies were closer together/with more gamma ray bursters etc.
So a partial answer to Fermi's paradox (where are they?) is that we are one of the "first" to evolve into sentient beings because for "most" of the period before life evolved on the earth the whole universe was mostly uninhabitable. Of course I put "first" and "most" in quotation marks because we're talking about billions of years here; maybe the universe became reasonably habitable "only" a billion years before life arose on planet earth; that's still a lot of time! That's why I say this might be a "Partial" answer to Fermi's paradox, there would still be time for some civilizations to arise way before us. Just not as many and perhaps no really ancient multi-billion year old civilizations.
I know that this is a hard choice (especially since I heard Alibaba has soared by 38% in its first day) but please consider the following:
About 5 years ago I stopped investing in Chinese companies. Why? Because I didn't want to support even indirectly a regime that, without apology, oppressed Tibet and supported the despotic regime of North Korea. I hold them largely responsible for sacrificing millions of my long-separated brothers (yes, I'm ethnic Korean) through starvation and torture simply to keep a "buffer state" in between them and the "capitalist" (ha ha, what irony) South Korea and U.S.
My stance was only hardened by their support, for purely geopolitical/economic considerations (OIL), of Syria and Iran (and, I think Libya). They and Russia have kept those regimes propped up and have made the tragedies in the Middle East even worse (of course America started it but at least we know now that most of us were idiots to be led by one). That's not to mention the authoritarian and despotic regimes that the Chinese GOVERNMENT is supporting in Africa purely for their resources.
Look, I know the West (and especially the U.S.) have done a LOT of bad things but the Chinese government doesn't even make a pretense of things like human rights, even in their own country. As I've said, they've been willing to sacrifice millions for a modicum of security (they could've asked the U.S. and S. Korea if, in return for not letting the Kims return to North Korea from one of their trips to China, we would promise not to put American troops north of the 38th parallel. As if S. Korea would even want American troops on the peninsula once the threat was gone). Now, living in S.E. Asia, I see firsthand how the Chinese government with its growing power is throwing away treaties and agreements it has signed in order to bully the Vietnamese and Philippines with their ridiculous "cow tongue" shaped demarcation of the seas. They are returning to 19th century "gunboat" diplomacy in the 21 century world.
I fear that as China grows ever stronger, they will continue to discard previous commitments to peace and will literally force their will upon the world. Is that what you want to support? I'm a realist, and I love my gadgets and my improved standard of living brought on by the flood of low-cost Chinese products (often produced with stolen patents and technologies but that's another story) and I'm not quite ready to live without. However, when there's a choice, when you can purchase something that is identical (hopefully) in every way including price to another but one is made in China and one was made in Sweden(?), I hope you'll make the same choice I do.
If the Chinese government, not the U.S. government had the power the NSA has; would any of us have any protection at all? Think of what kind of world that would be to live in. (That's what 1.2 billion people ARE living in).
(If you're wondering why I'm advocating not buying/investing in China and hurting Chinese citizens as opposed to just their government, remember that the world boycotted South Africa during their Apartheid regime even though it undoubtedly hurt many whites and blacks who were good people. And it worked.)
I would think that on such a wildly irregular body (the topology has been likened to a rubber duck), not only does the strength of the comet's gravity vary from place to place but the DIRECTION does as well. Something that appears to be "flat" or horizontal may, in fact, be a steeply sloping surface because the gravity vector is not perpendicular to the surface. Of course if it the surface were a liquid or very fluid particles then the surface would always be perpendicular to the local gravity vector but it appears as if it is made of a very heterogenous bunch of materials some of which are rigid (like rocks).
Then again, the surface gravity is likely to be so small (1/100th of a gee? 1/1000th of a gee?) that maybe it doesn't matter. From what I understand the probe has to harpoon itself to the surface; though I don't know whether that is because the gravity is so low that it might just bounce back off into space or because of the outgassing from the comet as it approaches the sun will threaten to "blow it away".
Too bad the comet's orbit doesn't have its closest point closer to the sun, I'd expect some real "fireworks". As it is, I'm not sure how much outgassing they expect.
Hmm... It's only ahead of the comet Siding Spring by about a month. Will it have time/fuel to "duck and cover" by getting to the far side of the planet before the close approach of the comet and the potential of a cometary dust storm that could wreck it? (Contrary to what some people think, it doesn't take much energy to change your orbital position IF you've got time. A simple change of 1 meter/sec from the thrusters will, after one year mean a distance of over 30,000 km. That simplification ignores some orbital dynamics but you get the picture.) Of course Mangalyaan doesn't have a year but it has much greater delta-vee capability, its orbital insertion burn is (I think) 1.6 KM/sec. And maybe it would've been on the far side of the planet anyway.
On the other hand, maybe it's near the comet NOW, or nearer to the comet than any other spacecraft. Perhaps it can take some good close-ups of the comet or at least see it from a different angle. (If it can see a full or partial eclipse of the sun by the comet, scientists may be able to determine the comet's composition or the composition of the comet's coma. It might be able to do it using radio wave occultation from earth.). In any case, it's good that there will be another spacecraft near the comet when it arrives at mars! Too bad the U.S. isn't willing to risk sacrificing one of its older orbiters (I think one has been around mars for about a decade) for a close flyby. (Again, given enough advance planning, a surprisingly small amount of delta-vee would be required to put one of the orbiters on a collision course, especially if gravitational chaotic resonances AKA "the interplanetary highway" were harnessed.)
Too bad we didn't know about this close encounter say a decade ago. We might have been able to send a probe that could've used mars' gravity to slingshot a probe into a matching trajectory with it so that, like the ESA Rosetta probe, we could rendezvous, orbit and land on it!
No, the Chinese government would probably WELCOME piracy of their O.S. because it would mean that their backdoored (it that a word?) O.S. was spreading even beyond what they hoped for.
The problem is that very few software companies like Microsoft would write applications for it knowing that the number of actual PAYING customers in China will be few. I think I read somewhere that a Microsoft exec. said they made more money in the Netherlands than in all of China because of piracy. The simple business analysis would be that they wouldn't be able to recoup their development costs for another platform, especially if it was pirated even more. Maybe if China told every software company that wanted to sell its products in China that they HAD to develop for their O.S. then they would actually get some native applications; I think it would be equally likely that since these software companies weren't getting a lot of revenues anyway (because of piracy), they might pack up and leave. That's not to mention what using the Chinese O.S. would leak (more like gush like a firehose!) to the Chinese industrial complex about their products.
I'm assuming that if the O.S. was "compatible" in the sense that it could run Windows programs using some sort of similar API or emulation that people wouldn't tolerate the poor performance/bugginess. I figure they'd just buy a computer with the Chinese O.S., wipe the drive and install their (pirated) copy of Windows for the best computing experience (if you can call Windows "best"!). Also, as bad as the NSA is, perhaps the average Chinese citizen would prefer some faraway American govt. agency snooping on their computer than the jack-booted thugs who would kick down your door in a moments notice which is basically the Chinese State Security apparatus.
This is a step along the road towards the Morlocks and Eloi of H. G. Wells "The Time Machine".
While this isn't as bad as "Gattaca" or "Brave New World" with their emphasis on eugenics; it's definitely not good for the concentration of wealth, power and yes, intelligence. When people can be ACCURATELY rated in terms of all their various intellectual abilities (as they already are in Chess ability) it will mean a further stratification of society and concentration of advantages.
While this has always being going on throughout history (and pre-history) if they really apply scientific techniques it could dramatically enhance its predictive power.
Maybe, eventually, humanity will start to diverge into multiple species.:(
While the solar wind will blow away the atmosphere in a (perhaps) short time geologically speaking, in a human timescale it would likely take thousands of years. By then, the humans could have implemented a giant electromagnetic shield (powered by sharks with frickin lasers) or have developed wormholes to directly transfer water from the water from Jupiter's moons or have migrated to the far reaches of the galaxy. Or have gone extinct.
Mars didn't become the dry desert it is today in an instant, I believe for the first half billion years or so it was a warm wet place (because of the cometary impacts during the chaotic early solar system. Hence all the evidence of flowing water). Plenty of time.
By the way, responding to other posts, it is very easy to move satellites great distances in orbit GIVEN TIME. A simple 1m/sec change in velocity would, after a month, result in change in distance of several thousand kilometers. Remember that these spacecraft are capable of quite substantial delta-vee changes (in the KILOmeters/sec). And that isn't even taking into account any kind of sophisticated planning by the mission controllers (like using gravity assists or chaotic gravitational effects "the interplanetary highway").
If this happened (optimistically) 50 years from now, we'd be able to deflect the comet to HIT mars, thus delivering a lot of water and warming things up a bit. (Only, I'm afraid, a little bit of terraforming, it would probably take thousands of such comet strikes to make the planet "habitable"). Or we could make it hit one of the moons and, if done very carefully, could deliver said water to possible Mars Moon colonists (but they'd have to find a way to keep the resulting fragments from ruining near-Mars space for space travels).
More realistically, I wonder if NASA (and the ESA) have plans to move their spacecraft for best viewing. If they're worried about damage, they could have them be on the other side of the planet when it makes its closest approach. If there are any spacecraft that are on their "last legs" (low propellent, malfunctioning equipment, no more spare reaction wheels), perhaps they could even make a very risky close approach!
I expect there will be some great images! (If the HiRes camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter can take 1m resolutions of Mars from orbit, it surely will be able to take great pictures of a comet only a few tens of thousands of kilometers away).
Slashdot Mirror
By the way, sorry for the numerous typos, improper use of contractions (it's vs. it's) etc. I'm typing this on a smartphone on a bumpy bus!
Since there are so many parts to this project that are on the thin line between science fiction and science fantasy I think their estimate of 20(?) years (or about one generation) of development is more than a little optimistic. That said, in TWO generations this kind of thing might be a bit more practical, especially if, by that time, we have some relatively robust nano-bots that could construct and MAINTAIN the "starwisp". (Their stated approach to getting over the very probable impact of interstellar dust at relativistic speed is just numbers; that is launch a lot and hope a few survive. Not a very solid strategy to hang a likely multi billion dollar project on).
Given that time frame (around 50 years?) another possibility arises. Their proposal currently has the 100 GW laser Beamer array being in a high altitude part of the super-dry atacama desert in Chile. Despite it's deliberate isolation from major population centers, it could still be used as an insanely powerful anti-sat weapon which would essentially give the controlling nation the power (ha ha) to rule near earth space. (Current technology shows 100KW lasers blowing drones out of the sky, this would be a million times more powerful). Even though it only can "see" half the sky, almost all orbits would eventually process overhead, only get-sync satellites on the opposite side of the earth would be permanently safe. This potential destructive capability would probably be a major block for international approval of this project.
So, since the insanely ambitious other aspects of this project are unlikely to be ready soon, why not plan for a time when (hopefully) launch costs have given us ready access to the moon? In fifty years, it probably won't be insanely expensive to build this array on the Far side of the moon and it brings several advantages. No atmospheric distortion, geologic stability, slow (two week pointing time) rotation and abundant solar power just adds to the principal advantage of being unable to be used against the earth (and near earth objects possibly out to the moon's orbit). Another major advantage is that with the improved stability and beam purity it may be possible to keep it "locked on" for farther than 1 million kilometers. If it could do ten times this distance then the acceleration could be reduced and, more importantly, the sail would only have to be not absorb 99.9 % of the radiation instead of 99.99%. (Or the payload could be increased by a factor of ten or, you get the picture).
For these reasons, a far side lunar array should be considered. As an aside, in addition to using this laser launch system to power space vehicles/habitats throughout the solar system; it might prove to be a very effective asteroid deflection system. A 100 GW laser beam hitting the side of an asteroid would provide a very powerful "kick" from the presumed boiling off of any material there. Over long periods of time, perhaps even the light pressure alone would be significant.
If the cargo version of the Dream Chaser (which I note is also winged and reusable), can be launched on the Falcon 9X (I think this is the version that has the reusable first stage) then almost the entire vehicle is reusable!
I think it will, unfortunately, still require a (small?) second stage to get it into orbit but perhaps the Dream Chaser (cargo version) can boost itself into orbit. In any case it would provide another reusable re-entry option for the Falcon (the Dragon space capsule of course has been proven to be recoverable).
Interesting to note that the wings on the Dream Chaser are folding so it can fit inside a launch fairing. Is this the normal launch profile? Does it never launch "naked" with wings unfolded? Perhaps the aerodynamics are just too problematic for a winged vehicle on the tip of a booster stack. Maybe that's why the crewed version didn't get approved (it would not be good to have the crew inside a launch fairing in case of an accident).
The aliens have their drive unit pointed at us as they want to decelerate into our solar system and not fly right through it. Their drive emissions are tremendously blue shifted (into the gamma rays) since they are approaching at a fair percentage of the speed of light (and maybe the drive is outputting gamma rays to begin with).
The best way to verify this would be to look at the spectra of the gamma ray emissions and see if they are gradually being redshifted (slowing down). This would give us an idea of how fast they are decelerating and maybe when they will be arriving. Let's hope that their ship isn't really huge or that it's not pointed directly at us so that their drive won't scour away our atmosphere!
(They could also be using a huge solar sail and what we're seeing is the reflection of our own sun but they'd really have to be moving very very close to c in order for it to be reflected as gamma rays. In that case, since they would be traveling just behind the wavefront they would also have to be right on top of us!).
I live in Vietnam so everything here is pirated already. How bad is it in the U.S. (and other "developed") countries? Are most apps available (illegally) for free?
Maybe even if they are "pirated" they can still earn revenue for their developers if they earn money through ads. Or have the pirated versions been modified to remove/change the ads?
So, once they bag and bake the asteroid to get the water out of it, why don't they use the solar collector to heat the water to make super (super!) heated steam. This can then be directed to propel the asteroid in the opposite direction. I believe a similar scheme has been proposed on earth to make laser (which are based on the ground) launched rockets using water as the working medium. If the water can't be heated enough to get a fast jet, you could always electrolyze it and just combust the oxygen and hydrogen like a normal chemical rocket.
I presume this scheme only is practical for small asteroids ( 100m?) because the "bag" must be big enough to fully enclose it. Otherwise it might be practical to use it for asteroid (self) deflection. Still, if there are a lot of these smaller asteroids available and if they are pretty "waterlogged" maybe this technique could be compared to almost having fuel tanks scattered around the outer solar system. A small spacecraft could approach one, wrap it, and then use the asteroid "jet" to scoot around the solar system. (As I mentioned by using the term "waterlogged" hopefully most of the asteroid is actually water, this would mean it wouldn't have to move around so much dead weight).
After reading the article on the NYTimes, I went to whitehouse.gov and made a petition to:
"Apologize to Dr. Xi of Temple Univ. for the FBI's wrongful accusation and prosecution of him on charges of spying."
The complete text reads:
After reading this article in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09...
I was appalled and upset that another Chinese-American citizen had been wrongly accused and prosecuted for spying when even a basic check could have exonerated him. That this even got to this point not only speaks to the incompetence of the FBI but a pervasive bias and distrust of Chinese American CITIZENS.
President Obama should, at the very least, on behalf of the U.S. Govt. apologize to this distinguished professor who has seen his reputation shattered and loss of various posts and titles. This will be an important symbolic act.
If you believe that he (at least) deserves an apology, follow this link and "sign" the petition:
"https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/apologize-dr-xi-temple-univ-fbis-wrongful-accusation-and-prosecution-him-charges-spying-0".
For those of you unfamiliar with how this works, once it reaches 150 "signatures" then it is publicly viewable. If it then reaches 150,000 within a month then the white house promises to respond.
Please note: when I mentioned "another Chinese American" I did not mean that I am a Chinese American. I am not. Rather I was talking about the other Chinese American CITIZENS (like Wen Ho Lee) who have been charged and prosecuted apparently for no other reason than they are of Chinese origin. They were found innocent.
Yeah, I got fiber from Viettel, it's supposed to be 38Mb/sec but you really only see that at night when network congestion is low. I think the bottleneck is the few (two?) international fiber links that connect Vietnam to the outside world and that have very frequently(!!!) been cut. They've been cut so often and (almost always?) in the spot that only affects Vietnam's traffic that I suspect that China has a hand in it. (I'm assuming that China might have some deep sea technology that no other nation in the South China sea has).
Now that might explain some recent strange network problems that I've been having here in Vietnam. About 3 weeks ago, Google started denying my searches saying that due to the large number of attacks coming from your network they would refusing traffic (or something like that). I immediately checked my home network (a fiber optic TOTOlink router) and changed the password but the messages persisted. (They're gone now.)
I thought that perhaps I had a (lot of) neighbors who had been compromised/involved in attacks and perhaps Google was casting a wide net (blocking a large subnet of the ISP or even the entire ISP) and that I was just caught up in it. That may be the case, like the summary says there are few ISPs and presumably few different routers being used so it would be easy for a hacker to exploit a vulnerability and command a botnet of thousands of routers. On the other hand, I looked up TOTOlink router vulnerabilities and it said that there is an unpatched backdoor to my model so it is vulnerable. I assume this is true even if I changed my passwords.
So (since I'm obviously not an expert) my question is: is it likely that my router has been hacked? Will it allow the hacker to use it as a "bot"? Is my (unencrypted) traffic vulnerable to interception/change/man-in-the-middle attacks? Or is it more likely that Google isn't blocking my little network (that is attached to the internet by a single dynamic IP address) specifically but is blocking a large portion or even the entire ISP (in my case Viettel?).
I hope whoever can answer my questions is rewarded Karmically! Thanks! :)
"carbon nanotube tether anywhere between 62 and 620 miles long attached to a diamond-tipped harpoon"
Considering that the few attempts at space "tethers" have (I think) ended in failure and their cable lengths were much shorter, I think it is highly unlikely that they'll be able to make this work. They've also got to be able to "shoot" the harpoon at at spot on an asteroid that is neither too hard so that it'll bounce off of shatter the harpoon or so soft that the harpoon cannot have purchase. Of course, this is only worthwhile if the spacecraft and asteroid are traveling at a high velocity relative to each other. That way the spacecraft will either get a big savings in energy because it can use the tether to slow it down relative to the asteroid (and potentially generate a ton of energy through resistive braking!) or it could use it to "swing" around and dramatically change its direction of travel (like a gravity assist but with much more latitude). So the harpoon would be hitting the asteroid at kilometers per second and would need to "stick". (A mechanism to cut the cable or release the harpoon might be necessary if this system is to be used more than once).
As long as we are using carbon nanotubes and diamonds perhaps we should use a large lasso instead with micro thrusters positioning it for optimal placement. In any case IF this system could work then, yes, the spacecraft could go swinging through the solar systems using asteroids (small bodies with no atmosphere and little gravity) like Tarzan uses vines hanging from trees. I fear that the engineering difficulties are so great and the risk (you probably only get one "shot" during a flyby) will make this impractical.
Side note: - This idea is related to my, ahem, own idea of using a spacecraft that lands on an rotating asteroid, and then, using a tether, slinging off pieces of the asteroid into space. This could allow a very modestly sized spacecraft to divert the trajectory of an asteroid because it would be harnessing the energy of the asteroids rotation and converting it into kinetic energy. By landing (gently, no harpoon necessary) onto the asteroid's equator and extending a tether beyond the asteroids "geosync" orbit it could keep it permanently taut using a counterweight. Then, just like a space elevator, it would ferry material up to and beyond the geosync point, generating energy (to power the elevator) beyond that point using resistive braking before it flings the material into deep space. Properly timed releases could impart a directional thrust to the entire system. (If the asteroid is rotating fast enough the system is small enough that carbon nanotubes wouldn't be needed.)
NASA's needs Pu to get to Uranus (puns intended). If they can manage to get the correct isotope of Plutonium then a space probe that uses ion propulsion would have the necessary electrical power to drive the extremely efficient drive even when, as in this case, it is very far from the sun. Since the space probe DAWN has proven that multi-year thrusting of ion engines does work quite well, this would enable a "flagship" (read "big") mission to get to the very outer planets in less than a decade. It could spend roughly half its time accelerating to a high cruising speed then almost as long decelerating to be captured into orbit.
Then, once the mothership has arrived in orbit then, like Cassini, smaller spacecraft could be employed to explore the various moons and atmosphere of these gas giants. (Unfortunately since the moons of Uranus and Neptune may not be large enough to effectively permit gravity assists like Cassini uses with Titan or Galileo used with the four large Galilean moons, you might need smaller probes because the ion drive may have too low a thrust for dynamic orbital changes). Now the RTGs, having powered the spacecraft to the far reaches of the solar system, could be "gainfully" (ha ha) employed to power a high bandwidth radio transmitter/laser communicator. This would enable the small probes exploring the system to send lots of data back to earth without each carrying a huge antenna, only the mothership.
Why all spacecraft don't utilize the extremely high energy/weight RTGs for deep space PROPULSION is beyond me. I (maybe mistakenly?) think that the RTGs, since it generates its power from the natural decay of a radioactive element, is constantly "on" and if you don't use the power being generated YOU LOSE IT (anyone please correct me if I'm wrong!). So it would seem to be ideal for a space probe that needs to go somewhere far far away from the sun and for which a low thrust high impulse drive (like ion propulsion) that requires large amounts of electric power is ideal. Maybe it's because the DAWN probe needed to prove the ion technology before NASA could commit a flagship mission to it.
Too bad that the isotope of Pu that they need for the probe isn't the same that is used in nuclear bombs, that would be the most apt fulfillment of the biblical(?) phrase "beating swords into plowshares". Oh well, Congress needs to fund the reactor that is used in the nuclear fuel cycle that manufactures this critical resource for space travel.
Of course this is only a stopgap until we get either the Lockheed Martin or MIT (mini) fusion reactors working!
This is an honest question (I'm not Indian). How does the government get to override the recently passed decision by the Indian Supreme Court NOT to ban these very same sites? Is there some sort of executive order that allows the government to do so? Or is the government doing something "illegal" (I think the decisions by the Supreme Court must be the very definition of legality right?).
I didn't realize that "race" could now be determined by a genetic sequence (or two). If true this may lead to some very troubling possibilities.
It would be possible using CRISPR (a recently developed means of precisely targeting an exact genetic sequence) to have a virus that could infect just one particular population. Smallpox comes to mind because 1) very few people in the world are currently vaccinated against it (it was made extinct a while ago) and 2) its DNA has been sequenced and published online. So, using a DNA synthesis machine you could make a version of this virus that would target a particular population.
I believe such machines can now make DNA sequences long enough to create viruses. I also remember someone creating a much more lethal version of smallpox that could kill all of the laboratory animals it infected, including ones vaccinated against "normal" smallpox (I think it was 100% lethal).
Of course, making a virus that would go after a particular Sex as opposed to a racial characteristic should be much easier (just target any gene found on one of the sex chromosomes and not the other.) This particular scenario was explored in Frank Herbert's book "The White Plague". A related scenario might be the film "Children of Men" where all the women(?) are made sterile.
Will they find extra-terrestrial life IN the solar system or Outside it?
Frankly if they find it within the solar system then it would be a more significant find unless, of course, they found evidence of advanced (intelligent) life outside the solar system. It would mean that the universe is absolutely crawling with life; even if the life was somehow related to that on earth (distributed by asteroid impacts?) that would mean that panspermia is a viable method of distributing life over (at least) interplanetary distances.
In addition, it would mean that there would be a chance of someone going and really examining it within what's left of my lifetime!
So let's hope that it's on Mars (doubtful), Europa/Enceladus (possibly) or Titan. Of course if they find life on Titan, it'll have to be so radically different that our own that it'll blow the minds of just about every biologist in the world! Of course they'd be very very happy to find just fossils.
I'd rather have ten years of American hostility(?) than a thousand years of the Chinese.
Whenever I hear about all the stupid comments and grandstanding from politicians trying to pander to a scientifically illiterate (American) public I despair. However when I look at the (long predicted and now achieved) strides in solar power, a see a "ray" of hope.
Finally solar power is becoming cost competitive even with coal. Hopefully in a few more years and certainly less than a decade it will be decisively so. At that point, one hopes, renewable power will no longer be a political decision but a purely economic one.
This, of course, won't solve global warming, certainly not "over night" (ha ha). The vast build up of CO2, thermal lag and feedback loops (permafrost melting) means we will be dealing with this for generations to come. But it might slow down the buildup enough so that new carbon sequestration technologies created (again by scientists and technologists) can fix the problem for good.
When Snowden released documents that indicated that (amongst other things) Huawei had been compromised, I wondered if human intelligence or "social engineering" may have been used to obtain some passwords. If so, and if the Chinese govt. found out who (perhaps inadvertently) gave them away, that person would at the very least seen their employment terminated and perhaps even been terminated themselves!
Now with the frank admission that there are human spies at work in China for the NSA, I'm sure the Chinese govt. has redoubled their efforts to find (and kill) them. If so, then these leaks may be directly responsible for the deaths (probably after considerable torture) of individuals who, for whatever reason, were helping the U.S.
So, this is a very serious consequence of the leaks. Do you still agree that Snowden was justified in leaking all of this presumably without giving the U.S. advance warning of what he was going to release (so that they could get vulnerable individuals to safety?).
From the abstract: "life as it exists on Earth could not take place at z>0.5". I take this to mean (since I'm not a professional astronomer I am guessing that the variable "z" represents redshift) that life couldn't get started in the earl(ier) universe because the galaxies were closer together/with more gamma ray bursters etc.
So a partial answer to Fermi's paradox (where are they?) is that we are one of the "first" to evolve into sentient beings because for "most" of the period before life evolved on the earth the whole universe was mostly uninhabitable. Of course I put "first" and "most" in quotation marks because we're talking about billions of years here; maybe the universe became reasonably habitable "only" a billion years before life arose on planet earth; that's still a lot of time! That's why I say this might be a "Partial" answer to Fermi's paradox, there would still be time for some civilizations to arise way before us. Just not as many and perhaps no really ancient multi-billion year old civilizations.
I know that this is a hard choice (especially since I heard Alibaba has soared by 38% in its first day) but please consider the following:
About 5 years ago I stopped investing in Chinese companies. Why? Because I didn't want to support even indirectly a regime that, without apology, oppressed Tibet and supported the despotic regime of North Korea. I hold them largely responsible for sacrificing millions of my long-separated brothers (yes, I'm ethnic Korean) through starvation and torture simply to keep a "buffer state" in between them and the "capitalist" (ha ha, what irony) South Korea and U.S.
My stance was only hardened by their support, for purely geopolitical/economic considerations (OIL), of Syria and Iran (and, I think Libya). They and Russia have kept those regimes propped up and have made the tragedies in the Middle East even worse (of course America started it but at least we know now that most of us were idiots to be led by one). That's not to mention the authoritarian and despotic regimes that the Chinese GOVERNMENT is supporting in Africa purely for their resources.
Look, I know the West (and especially the U.S.) have done a LOT of bad things but the Chinese government doesn't even make a pretense of things like human rights, even in their own country. As I've said, they've been willing to sacrifice millions for a modicum of security (they could've asked the U.S. and S. Korea if, in return for not letting the Kims return to North Korea from one of their trips to China, we would promise not to put American troops north of the 38th parallel. As if S. Korea would even want American troops on the peninsula once the threat was gone). Now, living in S.E. Asia, I see firsthand how the Chinese government with its growing power is throwing away treaties and agreements it has signed in order to bully the Vietnamese and Philippines with their ridiculous "cow tongue" shaped demarcation of the seas. They are returning to 19th century "gunboat" diplomacy in the 21 century world.
I fear that as China grows ever stronger, they will continue to discard previous commitments to peace and will literally force their will upon the world. Is that what you want to support? I'm a realist, and I love my gadgets and my improved standard of living brought on by the flood of low-cost Chinese products (often produced with stolen patents and technologies but that's another story) and I'm not quite ready to live without. However, when there's a choice, when you can purchase something that is identical (hopefully) in every way including price to another but one is made in China and one was made in Sweden(?), I hope you'll make the same choice I do.
If the Chinese government, not the U.S. government had the power the NSA has; would any of us have any protection at all? Think of what kind of world that would be to live in. (That's what 1.2 billion people ARE living in).
(If you're wondering why I'm advocating not buying/investing in China and hurting Chinese citizens as opposed to just their government, remember that the world boycotted South Africa during their Apartheid regime even though it undoubtedly hurt many whites and blacks who were good people. And it worked.)
I would think that on such a wildly irregular body (the topology has been likened to a rubber duck), not only does the strength of the comet's gravity vary from place to place but the DIRECTION does as well. Something that appears to be "flat" or horizontal may, in fact, be a steeply sloping surface because the gravity vector is not perpendicular to the surface. Of course if it the surface were a liquid or very fluid particles then the surface would always be perpendicular to the local gravity vector but it appears as if it is made of a very heterogenous bunch of materials some of which are rigid (like rocks).
Then again, the surface gravity is likely to be so small (1/100th of a gee? 1/1000th of a gee?) that maybe it doesn't matter. From what I understand the probe has to harpoon itself to the surface; though I don't know whether that is because the gravity is so low that it might just bounce back off into space or because of the outgassing from the comet as it approaches the sun will threaten to "blow it away".
Too bad the comet's orbit doesn't have its closest point closer to the sun, I'd expect some real "fireworks". As it is, I'm not sure how much outgassing they expect.
Hmm... It's only ahead of the comet Siding Spring by about a month. Will it have time/fuel to "duck and cover" by getting to the far side of the planet before the close approach of the comet and the potential of a cometary dust storm that could wreck it? (Contrary to what some people think, it doesn't take much energy to change your orbital position IF you've got time. A simple change of 1 meter/sec from the thrusters will, after one year mean a distance of over 30,000 km. That simplification ignores some orbital dynamics but you get the picture.) Of course Mangalyaan doesn't have a year but it has much greater delta-vee capability, its orbital insertion burn is (I think) 1.6 KM/sec. And maybe it would've been on the far side of the planet anyway.
On the other hand, maybe it's near the comet NOW, or nearer to the comet than any other spacecraft. Perhaps it can take some good close-ups of the comet or at least see it from a different angle. (If it can see a full or partial eclipse of the sun by the comet, scientists may be able to determine the comet's composition or the composition of the comet's coma. It might be able to do it using radio wave occultation from earth.). In any case, it's good that there will be another spacecraft near the comet when it arrives at mars! Too bad the U.S. isn't willing to risk sacrificing one of its older orbiters (I think one has been around mars for about a decade) for a close flyby. (Again, given enough advance planning, a surprisingly small amount of delta-vee would be required to put one of the orbiters on a collision course, especially if gravitational chaotic resonances AKA "the interplanetary highway" were harnessed.)
Too bad we didn't know about this close encounter say a decade ago. We might have been able to send a probe that could've used mars' gravity to slingshot a probe into a matching trajectory with it so that, like the ESA Rosetta probe, we could rendezvous, orbit and land on it!
No, the Chinese government would probably WELCOME piracy of their O.S. because it would mean that their backdoored (it that a word?) O.S. was spreading even beyond what they hoped for.
The problem is that very few software companies like Microsoft would write applications for it knowing that the number of actual PAYING customers in China will be few. I think I read somewhere that a Microsoft exec. said they made more money in the Netherlands than in all of China because of piracy. The simple business analysis would be that they wouldn't be able to recoup their development costs for another platform, especially if it was pirated even more. Maybe if China told every software company that wanted to sell its products in China that they HAD to develop for their O.S. then they would actually get some native applications; I think it would be equally likely that since these software companies weren't getting a lot of revenues anyway (because of piracy), they might pack up and leave. That's not to mention what using the Chinese O.S. would leak (more like gush like a firehose!) to the Chinese industrial complex about their products.
I'm assuming that if the O.S. was "compatible" in the sense that it could run Windows programs using some sort of similar API or emulation that people wouldn't tolerate the poor performance/bugginess. I figure they'd just buy a computer with the Chinese O.S., wipe the drive and install their (pirated) copy of Windows for the best computing experience (if you can call Windows "best"!). Also, as bad as the NSA is, perhaps the average Chinese citizen would prefer some faraway American govt. agency snooping on their computer than the jack-booted thugs who would kick down your door in a moments notice which is basically the Chinese State Security apparatus.
This is a step along the road towards the Morlocks and Eloi of H. G. Wells "The Time Machine".
While this isn't as bad as "Gattaca" or "Brave New World" with their emphasis on eugenics; it's definitely not good for the concentration of wealth, power and yes, intelligence. When people can be ACCURATELY rated in terms of all their various intellectual abilities (as they already are in Chess ability) it will mean a further stratification of society and concentration of advantages.
While this has always being going on throughout history (and pre-history) if they really apply scientific techniques it could dramatically enhance its predictive power.
Maybe, eventually, humanity will start to diverge into multiple species. :(
While the solar wind will blow away the atmosphere in a (perhaps) short time geologically speaking, in a human timescale it would likely take thousands of years. By then, the humans could have implemented a giant electromagnetic shield (powered by sharks with frickin lasers) or have developed wormholes to directly transfer water from the water from Jupiter's moons or have migrated to the far reaches of the galaxy. Or have gone extinct.
Mars didn't become the dry desert it is today in an instant, I believe for the first half billion years or so it was a warm wet place (because of the cometary impacts during the chaotic early solar system. Hence all the evidence of flowing water). Plenty of time.
By the way, responding to other posts, it is very easy to move satellites great distances in orbit GIVEN TIME. A simple 1m/sec change in velocity would, after a month, result in change in distance of several thousand kilometers. Remember that these spacecraft are capable of quite substantial delta-vee changes (in the KILOmeters/sec). And that isn't even taking into account any kind of sophisticated planning by the mission controllers (like using gravity assists or chaotic gravitational effects "the interplanetary highway").
If this happened (optimistically) 50 years from now, we'd be able to deflect the comet to HIT mars, thus delivering a lot of water and warming things up a bit. (Only, I'm afraid, a little bit of terraforming, it would probably take thousands of such comet strikes to make the planet "habitable"). Or we could make it hit one of the moons and, if done very carefully, could deliver said water to possible Mars Moon colonists (but they'd have to find a way to keep the resulting fragments from ruining near-Mars space for space travels).
More realistically, I wonder if NASA (and the ESA) have plans to move their spacecraft for best viewing. If they're worried about damage, they could have them be on the other side of the planet when it makes its closest approach. If there are any spacecraft that are on their "last legs" (low propellent, malfunctioning equipment, no more spare reaction wheels), perhaps they could even make a very risky close approach!
I expect there will be some great images! (If the HiRes camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter can take 1m resolutions of Mars from orbit, it surely will be able to take great pictures of a comet only a few tens of thousands of kilometers away).