I was the consortium luck. I'll just add, I remember reading 25 years ago how it would take at least another 25 years for magnetic confinement fusion to be commercially viable. Now it is 50 years. Big science like this rarely pays off.
Is it a humiliation or triumph for mankind that it can build a machine that can defeat itself?
Human's should not feel humiliated at all. Indeed a great player like Kasparov can still
embarrass
the strongest chess program if he is given a little
information on how it is programmed. If humans are expected to play these programs blind, and programmers have full access to the game
records of the strongest grandmasters, is it really surprising that the humans lose? Kasparov
has shown that with solid understanding of the
opposing program and access to its playing record it is still possible for the
human to compete. The fact that there has been counterattack on chess computers at all since Kasparov/Deep Blue is
a tribute to the human mind!
Sending a mission to Phobos is like bypassing
New York City in order to visit Newark. Phobos is
of vanishingly small scientific significance compared to Mars. For some inexplicable reason the Russians are fixated on it. No harm I guess. Wouldn't it make more sense to visit an asteroid of a type not yet encountered (metallic).
Meanwhile, the Russians dust themselves off and prepare the next launch vehicle for the earliest possible sendup of the sail.
You can criticize lots of things about the US
space program, but not for open analysis of failures. It is
just good engineering to fix problems and not hide them.
I for one am heartened that a Russian sub-launched missile failed so ignominiously. One wonders how credible their nuclear deterent really is. Perhaps now
is the time to hit them with a first strike!
If you're lucky enough to be a crew member of one of the next European Space Agency (ESA) long-term missions
When is the next log-term European space mission, or rather, when is the next European space mission of any kind? Hitchhiking to ISS on Soyuz or Space Shuttle does not count. I would be very interested to see Europe use the Ariane V for manned missions.
One of my fondest memories of Win2K was semi-regularly seeing Linux/Unix users on Slashdot give it grudging props.
Don't be deceived by the few Micro$oft shills and astroturfers that now prowl this forum. I am writting this message from a crufty corporate W2K machine and I can assure you that Windoze is as bloated and unstable as ever. I need to reboot several times a week.
adding the mission could be followed by the construction of a multinational space station there.
I am all for going back to the moon ASAP, but leave the multinational out of it. The ISS was supposed to be a big hug between US/Russia/Europe/Japan. It has turned out to be a big pissing match. Why would the US want to get into
that again?
Triton's plumes are hardly "fluid" in any normal sense, given how thin they are. Scientific models of Triton's geysers are still very vague (there's even a chance that they're really more like dust devils), so what makes you so sure of how they work?
The literature is quite substantial. Check this
out. Your suggestion that these are dust devils is absurd. Dust devils that linger for days over a light colored vent, on a moon where the atmospheric pressure is so low that saltation velocity is greater than the speed of sound? Not likely. Given that Triton's surface temperature is so close to the submilation point of nitrogen I think that the canonical explanation is the most reasonable.
So, then, you count our moon as having an atmosphere. The solar wind blows sparse gas and statically-charged dust across it's surface (creating what look almost like faint clouds or aurora at times).
Not at all. The motion of such lunar dust particles is electrodynamic. The motion of Triton's geyser plumes are thermodynamic and fluid based.
They are entirely different phenomena.
What about Iapetus? It has what looks like wind blown streaks, but it doesn't appear to have an atmosphere.
Iapetus, Dione, Rhea all have bright wispy terrains that may have an impact or tectonic origin.
There is no evidence at all that these features were disbursed by an atmosphere. But Triton's dark geyser plumes have been observed actively rising and disbursing downwind at altitude.
These other moons have atmospheres but they are much thinner than even Mars' atmosphere. Hence the 'substantial' qualifier about Titan's atmosphere (which is thicker than Earth's).
Nonetheless, any moon (Triton) where particles can move downwind qualifies as a substantial atmosphere in my book.
Titan is the only moon in the solar system to have a substantial atmosphere
Triton, Neptune's large moon also has a substantial Nitrogen atmosphere, enough to entrain
geyser plumes that move downwind. Ganymede has a thin atmosphere as well.
the hypothesis is that this feature is probably formed by plumes of frozen methane, forced from underground, which then slowly evaporate into methane gas.
It will be interesting to see what style of volcanism dominates on Titan - "cryoclastic" eruptions of methane gas and ammonia-hydrate ice
crystals, or gooey water/hydrocarbon flows. The light colored lobate features surrounding the caldera in the TIMS image suggests the later. The apparent ring faults surrounding the caldera also suggest that this is a shield profile volcano built by effusive eruptions. It will be interesting to measure its profile with Cassini's radar to find out for sure.
Anyone get the feeling we're becoming more and more of a police state?
A police state? You mean a country with enforced imigration law? Where it is illegal for to conspire
to commit acts of violence against American citizens, and support international terror under the guise of religious schooling? Then yes, I think it is, thank heaven.
One of the problems with our space programs, one of the problems it's had since the beginning, is that we haven't been building an infrastructure that would give us ongoing access to space at a reasonable price. We haven't been building our capabilities so that we'll be able to do important things like exploit the resources of the solar system. We just do stunts, usually to distract people from some political problem
The history of US space exploration in the past 40 years supports your point. But currently there are remarkably many viable options for US space architecture for the post shuttle era. This is because many of the elements of the shuttle can be reused (SRB's, SSME's, ET,...) and the Atlas V and Delta IV EELV's are on line. The shuttle orbiter has provided valuable and painful lessons about what a spacecraft should be. We just need a few people to make some firm decisions and procede. So far we are getting that leadership from President Bush and Mr. Griffin. Better days may be ahead.
Of course, if a Slashdotter with no formal training in nuclear science can desribe how bombs are built, is there any question as to why nuclear materials are carefully controlled?
If I remember correctly you are a charlatan whose deep knowledge of
nuclear science comes from a Wikipedia page. You should not be so quick to separate yourself from those lowly slashdotters with no formal training.
'Hey dude, if you have a heart attack, here are all the tools you need--and it's free,'McVoy says. "I'd rather pay someone to take care of me."
I can think of useful analogies to suggest the opposite: Using proprietary software is the equivalent of paying a quarter to use a toilet. I'd rather shit on the bathroom floor.
In the US there has an implicit bargain between
employers, employees, and the government since Reagan and Volker in the early 1980's: employers are free to expand and contract
payrolls as they see fit (including outsourcing); employees are free to pursue the highest wages possible in a mobile labor market; government may tax at a high level - all as long as growth remains high and employment remains full (structural unemployment at ~5%). When
this equilibrium fails you will see unionization
of professionals at companies like IBM.
In the aftermath of the tech bubble I think we can very close to breaking this equilibrium. Fortunately most other sectors of the US economy, and steady growth in the world economy were able to take up the slack.
Honest question: Why does the US have NASA? The US Army, Arforce and Navy all have their own space programs, so what is the point of NASA?
Because without NASA there would be no civilian space effort. When was the last time the armed forces launched a human in space? They have no plans to either.
One footnote though is the Clementine mission, jointly funded by the military and NASA. This mission was wildly successful and cheap!
Pretty awesome for the sheer mathematical probabilites involved
Satellite visiblity calculations are pretty simple. Let the position of MGS be a vector a in
Mars centric coordinates. Let the position of Mars Odyssey be a vector b. b - a is the
desired camera direction. Not such a big deal. To take the picture all you require is that this vector does not intersect the Martian surface. That is probably a little rare for low orbiting satellites. Since the positions versus time of both satellites are known with great precision,
this isn't really a big deal. It is a fun experiment. MSSS seems to enjoy doing this kind of thing lately.
Slashdot Mirror
This should be modded +5 on the basis of your research alone!
I was the consortium luck. I'll just add, I remember reading 25 years ago how it would take at least another 25 years for magnetic confinement fusion to be commercially viable. Now it is 50 years. Big science like this rarely pays off.
Is it a humiliation or triumph for mankind that it can build a machine that can defeat itself?
Human's should not feel humiliated at all. Indeed a great player like Kasparov can still embarrass the strongest chess program if he is given a little information on how it is programmed. If humans are expected to play these programs blind, and programmers have full access to the game records of the strongest grandmasters, is it really surprising that the humans lose? Kasparov has shown that with solid understanding of the opposing program and access to its playing record it is still possible for the human to compete. The fact that there has been counterattack on chess computers at all since Kasparov/Deep Blue is a tribute to the human mind!
Sending a mission to Phobos is like bypassing New York City in order to visit Newark. Phobos is of vanishingly small scientific significance compared to Mars. For some inexplicable reason the Russians are fixated on it. No harm I guess. Wouldn't it make more sense to visit an asteroid of a type not yet encountered (metallic).
Meanwhile, the Russians dust themselves off and prepare the next launch vehicle for the earliest possible sendup of the sail.
You can criticize lots of things about the US space program, but not for open analysis of failures. It is just good engineering to fix problems and not hide them.
I for one am heartened that a Russian sub-launched missile failed so ignominiously. One wonders how credible their nuclear deterent really is. Perhaps now is the time to hit them with a first strike!
Hmmpfh, trolling?
Moi? Never!
If you're lucky enough to be a crew member of one of the next European Space Agency (ESA) long-term missions
When is the next log-term European space mission, or rather, when is the next European space mission of any kind? Hitchhiking to ISS on Soyuz or Space Shuttle does not count. I would be very interested to see Europe use the Ariane V for manned missions.
Believe it or not, it _is_ possible to like something MS makes without being a shill.
LOL! You are a stranger in a strange land then.
One of my fondest memories of Win2K was semi-regularly seeing Linux/Unix users on Slashdot give it grudging props.
Don't be deceived by the few Micro$oft shills and astroturfers that now prowl this forum. I am writting this message from a crufty corporate W2K machine and I can assure you that Windoze is as bloated and unstable as ever. I need to reboot several times a week.
adding the mission could be followed by the construction of a multinational space station there.
I am all for going back to the moon ASAP, but leave the multinational out of it. The ISS was supposed to be a big hug between US/Russia/Europe/Japan. It has turned out to be a big pissing match. Why would the US want to get into that again?
Triton's plumes are hardly "fluid" in any normal sense, given how thin they are. Scientific models of Triton's geysers are still very vague (there's even a chance that they're really more like dust devils), so what makes you so sure of how they work?
The literature is quite substantial. Check this out. Your suggestion that these are dust devils is absurd. Dust devils that linger for days over a light colored vent, on a moon where the atmospheric pressure is so low that saltation velocity is greater than the speed of sound? Not likely. Given that Triton's surface temperature is so close to the submilation point of nitrogen I think that the canonical explanation is the most reasonable.
So, then, you count our moon as having an atmosphere. The solar wind blows sparse gas and statically-charged dust across it's surface (creating what look almost like faint clouds or aurora at times).
Not at all. The motion of such lunar dust particles is electrodynamic. The motion of Triton's geyser plumes are thermodynamic and fluid based. They are entirely different phenomena.
What about Iapetus? It has what looks like wind blown streaks, but it doesn't appear to have an atmosphere.
Iapetus, Dione, Rhea all have bright wispy terrains that may have an impact or tectonic origin. There is no evidence at all that these features were disbursed by an atmosphere. But Triton's dark geyser plumes have been observed actively rising and disbursing downwind at altitude.
These other moons have atmospheres but they are much thinner than even Mars' atmosphere. Hence the 'substantial' qualifier about Titan's atmosphere (which is thicker than Earth's).
Nonetheless, any moon (Triton) where particles can move downwind qualifies as a substantial atmosphere in my book.
Titan is the only moon in the solar system to have a substantial atmosphere
Triton, Neptune's large moon also has a substantial Nitrogen atmosphere, enough to entrain geyser plumes that move downwind. Ganymede has a thin atmosphere as well.
the hypothesis is that this feature is probably formed by plumes of frozen methane, forced from underground, which then slowly evaporate into methane gas.
It will be interesting to see what style of volcanism dominates on Titan - "cryoclastic" eruptions of methane gas and ammonia-hydrate ice crystals, or gooey water/hydrocarbon flows. The light colored lobate features surrounding the caldera in the TIMS image suggests the later. The apparent ring faults surrounding the caldera also suggest that this is a shield profile volcano built by effusive eruptions. It will be interesting to measure its profile with Cassini's radar to find out for sure.
Anyone get the feeling we're becoming more and more of a police state?
A police state? You mean a country with enforced imigration law? Where it is illegal for to conspire to commit acts of violence against American citizens, and support international terror under the guise of religious schooling? Then yes, I think it is, thank heaven.
I am often critical of the EU, but not as a contributer to free software movement. The EU is very well represented by lots of bright people.
One of the problems with our space programs, one of the problems it's had since the beginning, is that we haven't been building an infrastructure that would give us ongoing access to space at a reasonable price. We haven't been building our capabilities so that we'll be able to do important things like exploit the resources of the solar system. We just do stunts, usually to distract people from some political problem
The history of US space exploration in the past 40 years supports your point. But currently there are remarkably many viable options for US space architecture for the post shuttle era. This is because many of the elements of the shuttle can be reused (SRB's, SSME's, ET, ...) and the Atlas V and Delta IV EELV's are on line. The shuttle orbiter has provided valuable and painful lessons about what a spacecraft should be. We just need a few people to make some firm decisions and procede. So far we are getting that leadership from President Bush and Mr. Griffin. Better days may be ahead.
Of course, if a Slashdotter with no formal training in nuclear science can desribe how bombs are built, is there any question as to why nuclear materials are carefully controlled?
If I remember correctly you are a charlatan whose deep knowledge of nuclear science comes from a Wikipedia page. You should not be so quick to separate yourself from those lowly slashdotters with no formal training.
'Hey dude, if you have a heart attack, here are all the tools you need--and it's free,'McVoy says. "I'd rather pay someone to take care of me."
I can think of useful analogies to suggest the opposite: Using proprietary software is the equivalent of paying a quarter to use a toilet. I'd rather shit on the bathroom floor.
Another Micro$oft apologist/astroturfer.
The NRO is contributing to the image database. Their Iran coverage is particularly good, in many wavelengths.
In the US there has an implicit bargain between employers, employees, and the government since Reagan and Volker in the early 1980's: employers are free to expand and contract payrolls as they see fit (including outsourcing); employees are free to pursue the highest wages possible in a mobile labor market; government may tax at a high level - all as long as growth remains high and employment remains full (structural unemployment at ~5%). When this equilibrium fails you will see unionization of professionals at companies like IBM.
In the aftermath of the tech bubble I think we can very close to breaking this equilibrium. Fortunately most other sectors of the US economy, and steady growth in the world economy were able to take up the slack.
Honest question: Why does the US have NASA? The US Army, Arforce and Navy all have their own space programs, so what is the point of NASA?
Because without NASA there would be no civilian space effort. When was the last time the armed forces launched a human in space? They have no plans to either.
One footnote though is the Clementine mission, jointly funded by the military and NASA. This mission was wildly successful and cheap!
Pretty awesome for the sheer mathematical probabilites involved
Satellite visiblity calculations are pretty simple. Let the position of MGS be a vector a in Mars centric coordinates. Let the position of Mars Odyssey be a vector b. b - a is the desired camera direction. Not such a big deal. To take the picture all you require is that this vector does not intersect the Martian surface. That is probably a little rare for low orbiting satellites. Since the positions versus time of both satellites are known with great precision, this isn't really a big deal. It is a fun experiment. MSSS seems to enjoy doing this kind of thing lately.