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Author	Topic: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
Iconic Registered: Aug '03	Date Posted: 10/20/03 4:14pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	I don't know if anyone's posted this, but Brazil's space program just hit a snag. A fire during launch preparations killed 21 technicians, many of whom were seasoned and some of the country's best minds. It should take 4 years or more for their space program to recover. -----signature----- Any Time I See Something Screech Across A Room And Latch Onto Someone's Neck, And The Guy Screams And Tries To Get It Off, I Have To Laugh, Because What Is That Thing?
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VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 10/21/03 12:16pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	I did read about that, here is an article: Brazil's Space Dreams Are Now in Limbo By Stan Lehman Associated Press Writer posted: 11:00 am ET 20 October 2003 ALCANTARA, Brazil (AP) -- Ever since John F. Kennedy promised in 1961 to put an American on the moon, Brazil has labored to join the elite club of nations that have mastered the technology to send rockets bearing satellites hurtling into space. That dream now lies buried under the blackened wreckage of an eight-story launch pad that collapsed in a massive explosion at Brazil's equatorial rocket launching site carved from a remote coastal rainforest. Twenty-one engineers and technicians died when the $6 million rocket burst into flames Aug. 22 because of a mysterious booster engine malfunction, dealing Latin America's only space program a setback of at least four years, if not more. Though it was Brazil's third failure since 1997 to send a rocket into space with satellites aboard, the previous rocket accidents didn't cause any deaths or injuries. This time, the country lost incalculable brain power with the deaths of some of the space program's most seasoned workers as they made final launch preparations. "Brazil's space program lost its professional elite," said physicist Francisco Conde, who leads the Brazilian union representing space program workers. "Eighteen of the 21 victims had more than 20 years of experience." While President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised to continue the program in the name of Brazilian pride and to honor the dead, Conde and others said South America's largest country will be hard-pressed to recoup lost ground. Long-standing problems of underfunding have traditionally made it difficult to attract qualified scientists and technicians. Even before the explosion, Conde said, the program's best and brightest ``have either left the program or never joined because they earn more working for the private sector.'' Top-level Brazilian space program engineers earn about $1,140 monthly, but can easily make double that working in the private sector. After the explosion, Brazil's government said the program's goal of sending a low-level satellite into orbit could be delayed by three to four years. But experts said the setback could last longer. "This is Brazil's equivalent of NASA's Columbia disaster," said Lon Rains, editor of Space News, a weekly newspaper for space program professionals. Besides the problem replacing the workers lost in the accident, he said authorities must figure out what went wrong with the rocket and put together a plan to avoid a similar catastrophe. Rebuilding it "will take a lot of money and a lot of time," Rains said. Brazil's space program is extremely modest by international standards, and far behind efforts by other developing countries, such as India. The Brazilian program gets about $30 million a year, compared to India's annual space budget program of $300 billion. Although India also spends money on military space technology while Brazil is focusing only on launching satellites, the Indians ``are decades ahead of Brazil in terms of investment and critical mass,'' said Luis Bitencourt, Brazil project director at the Woodrow Wilson International Institute for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Days after the accident, a 2002 review of the space program was made public. It alleges the program lacked qualified personnel _ jeopardizing the reliability and safety of the launch center. The report, prepared by a Brazilian air force colonel, was presented at the Superior War College and published by the respected weekly news magazine Carta Capital. It also suggested that basic maintenance could be a problem at Alcantara, which has always been considered a near-ideal launch site because of its location, just 2.3 degrees south of the equator. Because of the region's year-round hot, humid weather and proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, equipment -- such as the launch pad, antennas and radar -- are subject to deterioration, the report said. But Alcantara's big advantage as a launch site remains firmly intact despite the explosion. Because the earth's rotation is faster at the equator, rockets can be launched into space using less fuel but with heavier payloads. The private company Sea Launch does this and has been very successfull. They get down there via ship and launch at the equator; that is so cool to me, it's like an expedition. Alcantara-based rockets can be sent into space using 13 percent less fuel than launches at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and 31 percent less than from Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome. Government officials have not commented in detail about how they intend to replace the scientists and technicians who died at the Alcantara explosion, but deny the accident happened because Brazil doesn't invest enough money in its space program. "It is not fair to say that the accident at Alcantara was due to a lack of funds," Defense Minister Jose Viegas said. Also, Brazil was included in the International Space Station. They were going to supply an external platform for small experiments outside the station in exchange for crew time provided by NASA. NASA had a similar project before Brazil joined but cancelled it themselves. Brazil had wanted to do it but the budget was too much for them and they dropped out all together. -----signature----- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic-Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God-Michael Shermer I'm a sexy shoeless GOD OF WAR! #347 on SLG's List Of Sexy Men
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VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 10/21/03 12:26pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	And speaking of Sea Launch , They have had their 11th launch this month; A few snippets: Another scheduled launch of Zenit-3SL launch vehicle has been made at 08:03:00 Moscow Daylight Saving Time (04:03:00 GMT) from the sea-going launch platform Odyssey of the Sea Launch space launcher system currently located in the equatorial region of the Pacific Ocean at 154 degrees West near Christmas island. The objective of the launch was to deliver a 4.09 ton spacecraft Galaxy XIII/Horizons-1 to the target geotransfer orbit with the altitude of 2380 km at perigee and 35786 km at apogee and inclination of 0 degrees. Spacecraft launches from the sea-going space launching facility are carried out by an international stock company, the stock in which is held by Boeing of US, S.P.Korolev RSC Energia of Russia, Kvaerner Invest Norge AS of Norway and aerospace companies from Ukraine - Yuzhmashzavod Production Association and M.K.Yangel State Design Bureau Yuzhnoye. The next launch is scheduled for end of November, 2003. -----signature----- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic-Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God-Michael Shermer I'm a sexy shoeless GOD OF WAR! #347 on SLG's List Of Sexy Men
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VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 10/21/03 12:27pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD - Date Edited: 10/21/03 12:43pm (1 edits total) Edited By: VadersLaMent
	EDIT: OOPS, double post. Remember AOL sucks. -----signature----- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic-Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God-Michael Shermer I'm a sexy shoeless GOD OF WAR! #347 on SLG's List Of Sexy Men
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Iconic Registered: Aug '03	Date Posted: 10/21/03 12:41pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	Thanks for posting the article, dude. -----signature----- Any Time I See Something Screech Across A Room And Latch Onto Someone's Neck, And The Guy Screams And Tries To Get It Off, I Have To Laugh, Because What Is That Thing?
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VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 10/21/03 12:56pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	Your welcome. Well, there is just all kinds of things going on lately; from Space.com, X-43C:(Sorry if this is a bit long) U.S. Breathes Life into Hypersonic Rocket Endeavor By: Brian Berger Space News Staff Writer The U.S. government took another step toward the development of air-breathing rockets by awarding a $150 million contract to a Tennesseecompany that will build and fly the first of three identical hypersonic demonstration vehicles in 2007. The series of experimental aircraft, funded by NASA and the U.S. Air Force under a joint project dubbed X-43C, will be powered by a novel engine that sucks in oxygen from the atmosphere and combines it with jet fuel to propel the vehicles to speeds faster than 100 kilometers per minute. The X-43C fleet will be built by Allied Aerospace Industries, the Tullahoma, Tenn.-based contractor that built the X-43A experimental vehicles. By drawing in oxygen from the atmosphere, so-called supersonic ramjet engines like those being developed by NASA and the Air Force have the potential to dramatically lighten the load of future launch vehicles. More than one-fourth of the space shuttle's weight at liftoff, or about 600,000 kilograms, is the liquid oxygen that is needed to combust the 100,000 kilograms of liquid hydrogen the vehicle's three main engines burn on the way to orbit. Eliminating the need to carry so much liquid oxygen aloft would go a long way, NASA officials say, toward helping to blur the line between launch vehicles and aircraft. "We think it is a very important leap-frog technological capability that will help with affordability, safety and so on for future space lift requirements," said John "Roe" Rogacki, NASA's director of space transportation technology. While air-breathing engines are as old as the jet airplane, they have yet to find their way into hypersonic applications like rockets, despite more than 30 years of research. By perfecting so-called supersonic ramjet engines - and thus eliminating the need to carry tanks of liquid oxygen aloft - NASA sees the potential to dramatically lighten a launcher's load at liftoff. But supersonic ramjet engines, or scramjets, may be only part of the solution. NASA is also working on complimentary propulsion systems, like a high speed turbine engine, that would power future launch vehicles from zero to around Mach 5 before a scramjet takes over and propels the vehicle to speeds as high as Mach 15 or greater needed to reach space. NASA's long-term hypersonics technology roadmap, closely coordinated with the U.S. Air Force, lays out at least four distinct flight demonstration efforts on the way to building a large-scale demonstrator capable of taking off from a runway and hitting Mach 15, according to Paul Moses, NASA's X-43C program manager. Looking even further down the road, Moses said, NASA could be ready by 2025 or so to field a fully reusable air breathing launcher. While the Air Force is also interested in low-cost, reusable launchers, it could see benefits from its hypersonics investment somewhat sooner. Ron Sega, director of defense research and engineering at the Pentagon, told an industry audience in July that hypersonics research could yield a swift-moving, air-breathing cruise missile within the next decade. But there is a lot of technology development to come before air-breathing launchers, or even hypersonic cruise missiles, become reality. Most of what NASA knows about scramjet engines has been learned either in wind tunnels or from computer simulations, Moses said. In fact, NASA has yet to successfully flight test a single scramjet engine, but it has not been for a lack of trying. The X-43C program is meant to serve as a follow-on to Hyper-X, a separate flight research project that suffered a major setback in June 2001 when the first of three vehicles spun out of control shortly after launch. NASA plans to resume the Hyper-X project, also known as X-43A, in December with the launch of the first of two remaining vehicles. If successful, NASA will get about 10 seconds of engine data from each of the remaining X-43A vehicles before they exhaust their cryogenic fuel and glide to a controlled splashdown off the California coast. Like X-43A, the X-43C vehicles will also be boosted to an initial velocity on an air-launched rocket and operate under its own power for only a short time before gliding into the sea. But the slightly larger X-43C will carry more fuel (jet propellant instead of hydrogen) and get about five full minutes of powered flight before its more robust engine is shut down, Moses said. During that brief but important burst of powered flight, NASA hopes to show that the scramjet can produce enough thrust to boost the vehicle from Mach 5 to Mach 7. To put that into perspective, the SR-71 Blackbird is still the world's fastest aircraft able to sustain a cruising speed of Mach 3-plus, or more than over 3,000 kilometers hour. To survive the intense heat the X-43C's scramjet will see at such blazing speeds, Moses said, it was necessary to use its fuel to cool the engine. Because X-43A's engine has no cooling system, if left to run, it would overheat and begin to melt in less than a minute, he said. Lowell Keel, Allied Aerospace Industries' program manager for both efforts, said X-43C will look like a larger version of X-43A but with a flatter nose and a deeper throat to gulp down all the additional oxygen it will need for its much longer flight. Keel expects X-43C to come in about 1.2 meters longer from nose to tail than the 3.6-meter-long X-43A. The fully autonomous X-43C will also take advantage of many of the same subsystems, such as the thermal protection system and avionics, used for its predecessor X-43A, but with minor tweaks, he said. "This is first and foremost a propulsion experiment and we want to keep it focused on proving out the engine and doing it with as low of risk as we possibly can," he said. Keel said Allied Aerospace and its industry partners, Boeing Phantom works and Pratt & Whitney, are working to deliver the first non-reusable X-43C for flight testing in 2007. If all goes well, he said, the remaining two vehicles would be flown off over the following year and a half. NASA hopes before then to secure funding for the next two steps on the way to a large-scale demonstrator. First up, Moses said, would be a joint effort with the Air Force to build and fly a reusable vehicle that would have both a high speed turbine engine and a robust scramjet similar to the one in development for X-43C. The proposed vehicle, dubbed the Reusable Combined Cycle Flight Demonstrator, Moses said, would over a series of test flights demonstrate the ability to transition from a subsonic air-launch to powered flight up to Mach 7. The last piece of the puzzle, Moses said, would fall in place with the proposed X43-D, a fleet of vehicles, most likely expendable, designed to hit Mach 15. There is a lot of work to be done between now and then. But Moses and Keel say the payoff could be tremendous. "We're trying to use air-breathing engines to do some of the same things that we've typically used rockets for," Keel said. "The whole idea is not having to carry the oxidizer with us." A couple posts ago I mentioned I did not know much about the X43, I guess I did but didn't recall that it was also called the Hyper-X. Stuff like this is a step towards "Star Wars" type ships that can take off and land all in one piece aside from booster style rockets. Now if we can just make a VTOL-SSTO and shape it like a hamburger with a bite taken out of it..... -----signature----- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic-Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God-Michael Shermer I'm a sexy shoeless GOD OF WAR! #347 on SLG's List Of Sexy Men
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Iconic Registered: Aug '03	Date Posted: 10/22/03 12:18pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	News from Discovery.com: First Mission to Pluto in Trouble, Again Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News Mission to Pluto Grounded? Oct. 22, 2003 — After already rising from the ashes several times over the last ten years, the New Horizons mission to the only planet not yet visited by a spacecraft could be delayed — and therefore scrubbed for another century or so — because of an unexplained budget cut proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives. "Without any warning, out of the blue the House made this budget cut of almost half our budget," said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado. Ironically, it was only in April that NASA finally gave New Horizons the green light to start "cutting metal" to build the spacecraft. The $55 million cut out of a $130 million budget has the planetary scientists particularly upset because it would mean a delay in the January 2006 launch. That means missing critical alignments in the orbits of not only Pluto but Jupiter as well, Stern explained. As the mission is now planned, New Horizons first travels to Jupiter, and slingshots around it to speed its travel to Pluto. That boost would save fuel and three years of travel time. A delayed launch, on the other hand, would miss Jupiter and gobble up the fuel that was expected to send the spacecraft beyond Pluto and into the Kuiper Belt — the outer solar system asteroid belt of which Pluto is the largest member. What's more, the longer length of the mission would boost the overall cost of running the mission. That's a bad deal, according to an editorial entitled "Planets don't wait for budget catch ups" in the October 6 Aviation Week & Space Technology. Another problem caused by a delay in launch and a later Pluto arrival date is that scientists would probably miss a highly anticipated event — the freezing of the ninth planet's atmosphere. Right now Pluto is heading toward the further, chillier part of its elongated 248-year orbit and its atmosphere is in the process of freezing to the surface — an event that won't happen again until the middle of the 23rd century. The good news is that the project could get the funding back. Senators Kit Bond (R-MO) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) have reinstated the funding in the Senate's version of the NASA budget, according to Sen. Mikulski's press secretary Amy Hagovsky. The Senate bill is expected to reach a vote within a couple of weeks, she said. "We're hoping the Senate language will bring it back," said John Appleby of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and a member of the New Horizons science team. "The support in NASA and the scientific community is there." -----signature----- Any Time I See Something Screech Across A Room And Latch Onto Someone's Neck, And The Guy Screams And Tries To Get It Off, I Have To Laugh, Because What Is That Thing?
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VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 10/22/03 2:44pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	Funny, I just posted the budget increase a few pages ago, and now it's cut. I am not distressed, I was kinda pissed when the increase occured because they cut the Europa mission budget at the same time. Maybe now they will give dollars back to the Europa probe. Better yet, if they are so worried about missing the correct alighnment, how about putting more money towards fast propulsion like the 180,000 mph M2P2? Then NASA could send probes out whenever they wanted. This really is also another good example of why NASA should be privatized. -----signature----- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic-Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God-Michael Shermer I'm a sexy shoeless GOD OF WAR! #347 on SLG's List Of Sexy Men
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MasterAero Registered: Aug '02	Date Posted: 10/23/03 10:40am Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	Are there any websites out there that have a proposal on the privatization of NASA. The only way I see it working is for the amount NASA gets every year to be given to a company and then let them go do it. I think the problem with mission cancellations and stuff lies in the political aspects of it and also sometimes it just setting priorities with what little money there is. I like VadersLament's comment about so much money per day will fund NASA. There should be a commercial or telethon. "For only 10 cents a day you can help fund a mission to Pluto or something. Please help these cash strapped engineers do their work" -----signature----- My whole life all I've wanted to do is fly, bomb stuff, shoot people down.
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VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 10/23/03 10:54am Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	It could be done in a manner like the Christian Children's Fund...a guy puts a sad looking enginner in his short sleeved shirt and tie on his lap: "This is MasterAero. He works here at the Marshall Center, and he has a problem. NASA's budget is only billions per year, and you just can run an effective space program that way. MasterAero needs your help, NASA needs you. For just the price of a cup of coffee and donuts, you can help poor little MasterA fund probes to other planets. That's right, for $1.50 per day you will get a picture of MasterAero, and regular reports on his work here at NASA. Just call 1-800-FOR-NASA. That's all it takes. Help them. Won't you? -----signature----- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic-Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God-Michael Shermer I'm a sexy shoeless GOD OF WAR! #347 on SLG's List Of Sexy Men
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VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 10/23/03 11:45am Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	Oh I like this one, from Space.com: Can Aliens Find Us? By Seth Shostak Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute posted: 07:00 am ET 23 October 2003 It’s a legend about as popular, and generally believed, as the reputed presence of alligators in the sewers of New York; namely, that the only human-made edifice that astronauts can see from space is the Great Wall of China. Well, forget it. The Great Wall is about 15 feet wide, which even from as little as 200 miles up (Shuttle cruising altitude) subtends an angle of only about one-twentieth of a minute of arc. The human eye can see detail down to one minute of arc, which is obviously far too poor for Wall watching. Still, with a really nice pair of binoculars, the Wall (not to mention less romantic constructions, such as interstate highways) does become visible from orbit. Any curious aliens that made it to within a few hundred miles of Earth would have no trouble seeing the artifacts of our civilization. They would know, without doubt, that technologically competent beings roamed our world. But how visible are we to aliens that are farther away? In the early nineteenth century, the Austrian physicist Joseph von Littrow is said to have suggested digging giant geometric shapes in the Sahara Desert as signaling devices. The excavations would be filled with water and kerosene, and set afire at night to get the attention of our Martian brethren. The desert figures were to be roughly 20 miles across. So to make out these patterns from the Red Planet would require a 10-meter Keck-size telescope perched on top of, say, Olympus Mons (where the effects of atmospheric "seeing" would be minimal). If sophisticated Martians existed, they could presumably build such an instrument and admire von Littrow’s flaming trench work. This is just one of many early attempts to flirt with nearby aliens, but it boils down to this: if intelligent beings were hanging out just about anywhere in the solar system, it would be a piece of technological cake for them to detect modern Homo sapiens, Saharan trenches or no. OK. But what about aliens that inhabit other worlds, around other stars? How easy would it be for them to learn of our existence? If they’ve already built planet-finding telescopes, comparable to, or slightly better than, the one that NASA will be hefting into orbit in the next dozen years, then they could detect the Earth. With substantially larger telescopes, they could find our planet from hundreds or even thousands of light-years’ distance. Not only that, but they could also spectroscopically sample the light reflected from our atmosphere, and learn that it has large quantities of oxygen and methane, tell-tale markers of biology. In other words, aliens -- even relatively distant aliens -- could make straightforward astronomical observations that would prove that the third planet from the Sun hosts life. If biology is common in the cosmos, then Earth might be just another entry in a long list of "living worlds" compiled by some alien graduate student. Its discovery might not excite the extraterrestrials very much. But proof of intelligence on this planet might. So how could the aliens learn that high IQ creatures crawl the Earth? For them to see the Great Wall of China, the lights from our cities, or even the cities themselves, would be extremely difficult. But as virtually every reader of these columns knows, our radio signals are dead giveaways of terrestrial technology. The aliens could "hear" us far more easily than they could see us. Radio was invented in the 19th century, and large-scale broadcasting began in the 1920s. Alas, these early broadcasts were of low power, and at low frequency. The difficulty with low frequency transmissions, such as AM radio, is that they are refracted by Earth’s ionosphere, and have difficulty making it into space. However, beginning in the 1950s, we started to construct high-power, high frequency transmitters – for radar, for FM radio, and for television. These signals leaked off the planet, and headed for the stars. A modern TV transmitter can put out as much as a megawatt of power. It’s not very tightly focused, so even though much of the broadcast energy spills into space, it’s fairly weak by the time it reaches another star system. Consider one of our early TV programs just washing over a planet that’s 50 light-years’ away. To detect the "carrier" signal from this broadcast in a few minutes’ time would require about 3,000 acres of rooftop antennas connected to a sensitive receiver. That’s a lot of antennas, and an unsightly concept. But it’s not hard to build, and the aliens could conceivably do it. If the extraterrestrials were unwise enough to actually want to see the program, then they’d need an antenna about 30,000 times greater in area (roughly the size of Colorado). Ambitious, but possible. A rather easier task would be to detect our military radars. The bigger ones typically boast a megawatt of power, and are focused into beams that are a degree or two across. There are enough such radars that, at any given time, they cover a percent of the sky or so. The signal from the most powerful of these could be found at 50 light-years’ distance in a few minutes time with a receiving antenna 1,000 feet in diameter. Indeed, these military radars are the only signals routinely transmitted from Earth that are intense enough to be detectable at interstellar distances with setups equivalent to our own SETI experiments. Bottom line? With radio technology slightly more advanced than our own, Homo sapiens is detectable out to a distance of roughly 50 light-years. Within that distance are about 5,000 stars, all of which have had the enviable pleasure of receiving terrestrial television. And each day, a fresh stellar system is exposed to signals from Earth. But even if you believe in highly optimistic estimates regarding the prevalence of cosmic intelligence, it’s unlikely that another civilization exists within 50 light-years. That’s too small a distance. We’re no doubt listed in some alien grad student’s data tables as a world with life, but without the footnote indicating intelligent life. We are the new kids on the block, and so far it’s a safe bet that none of the other kids know we’re here. On Robert Bradbury's MBrain web page(It's in the head post) there is a brief mention of 100 billion, Moon-sized telescopes linked as an inteferometer with a diameter equal to Jupiter's orbit that an Mbrain could build. I asked if he knew how far away an MBrain could be and take a pic of my face here on Earth, he said he never worked it out. I went to the Space.com forums, I looked at several google pages, and nothing could reveal this to me. So, I did some rather large arithmatic. A telescope of that magnitude could take a pic of my face from 30,000 light years out. That's a little farther than the distance to the center of the galaxy. Interesting thing is, if it were that far away, at best, it would be looking at ape-men trying to make fire for the first time. If one were 2,000 ly away, it would be checking up on Jesus Christ right about now. There was something I read about using paired photons via quantum entanglement to send signals instead of radio, with it the sender would be able to send everything it wanted to and be able to hide its location, like a message in a bottle. Since we do not have the technology to make a..um..."quantum pair detector"?...we do no hear the glactic gossip going on yet. It involved sending entangled pairs to mirrors for reflection lightyear apart. For advance cultures this would be easy. Still, radio is always easier. -----signature----- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic-Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God-Michael Shermer I'm a sexy shoeless GOD OF WAR! #347 on SLG's List Of Sexy Men
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VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 10/28/03 3:19pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	Oh boy, great, just what I don't want to read, from Space.com: House Committee Urges NASA To Halt Work on Orbital Space Plane By Jason Bates Space News Staff Writer posted: 04:00 pm ET 27 October 2003 WASHINGTON -- The leadership of the House Science Committee, the Congressional panel that authorizes NASA programs, wants NASA to halt work on the Orbital Space Plane, because of budget issues and concerns over the direction of the agency’s human space flight program. In an Oct. 21 letter to NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe, the committee expressed “deep concern” with NASA’s approach to the program and urged the agency to defer work on the project until an inter-agency space review is completed by the White House and approved by the president and Congress. The program “will not be successful on its current track,” said the letter, which was signed by Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-Texas), the chairman of the committee, and Rep. Ralph Hall (Texas), the ranking Democrat. The Orbital Space Plane, billed as the nation’s next space vehicle, would be launched atop an expendable rocket and ferry astronaut crews to and from the international space station. Plans call for fielding an early space station crew rescue version of the vehicle by 2010, but NASA is considering moving up that schedule by two years. Boehlert and Hall said in their letter that the committee is concerned that NASA’s cost estimates for the program are not credible. NASA officials informed Congress in early October that fielding a crew rescue version of the Orbital Space Plane by 2008 could cost a total of $11 billion to $13 billion, at least $7 billion more than NASA has budgeted in its five-year plan that accompanies the agency’s 2004 budget request. “Prior human space flight projects at NASA have been plagued by problems stemming from the unrealistic cost estimates put forth at their inception,” the letter said. “We are not prepared to let budgetary gamesmanship damage another NASA program,” Boehlert and Hall said in their letter The committee also wants NASA, Congress and the White House to agree on the direction the human space flight program should take beyond the international space station before the Orbital Space Plane program proceeds. “Without such consensus on a shared vision, progress on all of these steps will stall and public support for the nation’s civilian space program will inevitably founder,” the letter said. Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin were awarded contracts to design versions of the Orbital Space Plane. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin announced in September that they would combine their efforts. NASA officials have said previously that they hope to award the prime contract for the Orbital Space Plane program in mid-2004. If a 'safety because of budget' is a concern, then increase the budget. They let NASA spend over 40 billion for a space station we did not need, yet want to stop the development of the OSP which is something we really did need. I don't get it, really, my understanding is lost on this. The shuttle needs to be mothballed, put them all in the Smithsonian. I will be pleased when I see a shuttle go up again, but displeased if it means another 25 years of using it. There is so much NASA can do, yet they are held back. There are so many projects concerning what we can do beyond LEO. Yet it's getting to LEO that is holding it all back. Sometimes it feels like we are on the edge of the beginnings to becoming a TRUE spacefaring society, then little obstacles like this come along and I see another 30 years without my ticket to a hotel on the Moon go by. -----signature----- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic-Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God-Michael Shermer I'm a sexy shoeless GOD OF WAR! #347 on SLG's List Of Sexy Men
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MasterAero Registered: Aug '02	Date Posted: 10/29/03 5:14am Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	Don't worry too much about those 2 dissenting voices on the committee. Everything else points to overwhelming support for OSP all the way to the top. I think this is a case where a negative view gets a story put out. Their statement (you can read their letter on Nasawatch) is pretty ridiculous. If you follow their suggestion of having a full debate on the design, operation, and development in a congressional committee, nothing will ever get done. Full funding approval of the OSP program should be coming soon. I don't see how the space program can do without it at this point. -----signature----- My whole life all I've wanted to do is fly, bomb stuff, shoot people down.
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VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 10/31/03 12:48pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD - Date Edited: 10/31/03 12:57pm (1 edits total) Edited By: VadersLaMent
	I'm glad to hear it, glad to hear a positive thing really. The following is part 5 in a talk with various scientists about aliens and SETI and so forth. It comes from the astrobio web page which is now a part of the head post: The Drake equation was developed as a means of predicting the likelihood of detecting other intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. At the forum, Frank Drake, who formulated the equation 42 years ago, moderated a debate between Peter Ward and David Grinspoon. In this installment, the three participants respond to audience questions about the evolution of machine intelligence and the potential for civilizations that span the galaxy. Raymond Kurzweil believes that evolution is going to take us into a digital implementation in the not-too-distant future. Image Credit: MIT Q: This discussion is all very biologically oriented, and we are now in an era of the digital developments. If you read Kurzweil, evolution is going to take us into a digital implementation in the not-too-distant future. And with evolution being an exponential factor, that bodes well for the existence of intelligence. Not necessarily biologic intelligence, but intelligence. He is talking about the possibility of the Technological Sigularity, there is a thread in the Senate devoted to it which I hope to make further additions to in a day or so. Grinspoon: Arthur C. Clarke, who as you know is the H.G. Wells of the paleocybernetic age, once said that we are near the end of biological evolution and near the beginning of the evolution of intelligence. And I think that we have perhaps an innate bias against this idea. We don't like it. That the machines we create might outlive us and outlast us and become something superior to what we are. If I remember, I am going to make a post concerning fears of technology, both here in this thread and possibly as a separate thread in the JC. But when we get over that emotional reaction, there's no logical reason to believe that machine intelligence won't, in fact, inherit the Earth, and perhaps inherit the Universe. And you can certainly imagine, even if it doesn't happen here, that on some planet intelligent machines have been created which are effectively immortal. In fact, I think that it's hard to argue the opposite. And so I very much agree with you that when we consider the entire spectrum of possibilities with evolution of extraterrestrial intelligence, that we do have to consider the existence of quasi-immortal machine civilizations out there. And one intriguing possibility is that when we do receive a signal, which surely we will sooner or later - I prefer sooner - that we may not know if it comes from a machine or from a biological entity. Q: One problem with humans reaching other star systems is that we don't come with off switches. If humans were replaced or supplemented with artificial intelligences that did come with off switches, or if this had happened on some other planet or some other star system, it seems likely that they would have explored other star systems and colonized them, including ours. Which means that if this sort of thing was common, it would be unlikely that it hasn't happened yet. But, apparently it hasn't happened yet. Ward: Is your name Fermi? Enrico Fermi is known as the originator of the Fermi paradox in SETI research. Credit: Wikipedia Q: Yes, it is the Fermi paradox, but that Fermi paradox only works if you either have spacecraft that can go fast enough that the existing forms of life can take advantage of them, or if you have forms of life that can be turned off so that they can colonize the galaxy with spacecraft of modest speed. Grinspoon: A couple of thoughts. One, I do think that there's this temporal bias, in that we see it as impossible to travel between the stars because in a human lifetime we can't conceive of traveling between the stars, because they're very far away and we're limited certainly by the speed of light, and probably, practically, by much lower speeds. But, why should other beings evolved on other planets care about the timescale of a human lifetime? You can imagine an intelligent sequoia tree that might not have a problem with interstellar travel. So I think that we shouldn't be too temporally chauvinist, just because we have such pitifully short lives and the stars are so far away. But the other comment that I would make is that we don't know that that hasn't happened. Our solar system is almost entirely unexplored. And while I completely support radio SETI and I think it's just obvious that we should continue and expand our efforts for radio SETI because it's cheap and it seems destined to succeed sooner or later, I also think that there are other ways to search. And I think that, while here we verge into science fiction and into tabloid journalism and whatever, but there's no reason why we shouldn't, as we explore the solar system, be on the lookout for artifacts. The asteroid belt could be riddled with alien garbage, and we wouldn't know about it yet. And, certainly, if there was a buried obelisk on the moon, we would not have discovered it yet. So, it's entirely possible that somebody has been through our region of space in the billions of years that our planetary system has been here. You can check previous pages in this thread for general ideas on alien relics and/or space probes and how they may get here. This is also the kind of SETI I would like to engage in using lasers as detectors rather than radar which a stealthy probe(s) would have an easy time hiding from. Q: Dr. Drake, in your introductory remarks about the factor L, you talked about how human civilization has gone from radio transmission to cable in a hundred years, and so effectively we're quiet now. But you said that there could be a civilization out there that was noisy for a billion years. I assume you don't mean that they had the intelligence to develop radio transmission, but then it took them a billion years to develop cable. So, what did you have in mind? Drake: We, of course, have not disappeared yet. The number of our high-powered television transmitters has remained about constant at the present time. It's just that, looking into the crystal ball, one sees that within 100 years or so, we will probably drop that means of delivering television and go entirely to satellites, fiber optics and cable. And the prospect is that at least that sign of our existence will disappear. Now the big question is: Will something else replace it? For example, we are again seriously considering constructing solar-power satellites. These are huge solar-energy collectors we put in orbit. They transmit the power they capture to Earth by microwave beams. A few years ago these were considered and determined not to be practical economically. Not technologically, but economically. Now that picture's changed, and the engineers are telling us: Yes, these systems would return more value than it would cost to put them in orbit. Now, if that's the wave of the future, you may have hundreds of such things in space. Their transmitter power is about a billion watts; that's what they transmit to Earth. All antennas are imperfect, they reflect a little power into space, one percent, say, even a very fine antenna. Well one percent of a billion watts is 10 million watts, which is more than our present typical TV transmitter. So, if that's the wave of the future - and, of course that's an appealing way, because it's clean power, there's no pollution, you're not overheating the Earth, there're no bad things to that - if that's the wave of the future, civilization may stay visible for a very long time. There is a possibility of using quantum entanglement to send lightspeed transmissions that would keep the recipient from knowing the origin of the transmission. We do not have the technology to detect such a signal. Of course, a billion years, who knows? When we throw out a billion-year figure, we're talking about David's immortal civilizations, civilizations that want to communicate, and they create beacons for the benefit of other civilizations. Now, that's very science-fiction stuff, but you can't rule it out. And it has been proposed many times, seriously, that there is a galactic network, so to speak, of intercommunicating civilizations that have been in communication for literally billions of years, and if we just knew where to look and on what frequency, we could join that network. So it's that which, of course, is totally speculative - no evidence whatsoever for it's existence - which says, well, you must consider that perhaps, some very small fraction of civilizations remains detectable for a very, very long time. The first I heard of this idea was a sciam article. All comms are lightspeed meaning info is years, decades, maybe even centuries out of date. But basically it would be like having the Encyclopedia Galactica(Or better yet, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) on your computer. The possible size of such a data base would be greater than we could store, but then there are experiments underway of putting the entire Library Of Congress on disk, and quantum computers could handle the processing with ease. I like the idea of a galactic internet, even if it is 'view only' without live chats with aliens. Again though, we would need to be able to detect the signals used and at what frequency. Lasers are not out of the question here either. Grinspoon: It's worth just thinking about the timescales of evolution. Biological evolution took us something like (depending on when you believe life started) a few billion years to get here. And then contrast that to the timescale of technological evolution and look how much the world has changed in just the last 100 years. And so when we try to imagine the technology even 100 years from now it's challenging. Try to imagine the technology a thousand years from now, or 10 thousand years. When you start talking about civilizations that may have lasted a million, or a billion years, then you can call it science fiction, but perhaps the science fiction writers might be those among us who are best qualified to imagine those capabilities. It's very difficult, but it's hard to rule out many possibilities that seem far-fetched, when you don't consider the timescale of technological change and what that may lead to over these cosmological timescales. Q: We're not officially trying to contact anything, it's only through our TV transmissions and what-not. But 20 years from now, if we do detect an Earth-like planet somewhere, do you think there would be an effort to direct communications towards that, and if so would it be radio or optical? Any opinions on that? Drake: At the present time we're not attempting to contact other civilizations. We do not transmit. And there are two good reasons for that. One is it's very expensive; it's better to spend our resources listening. And the other is the Earth's doing it for us for free. There are 2000 that receive our television, and about 1500 of them are just now seeing Super Bowl I and wondering how that's going to come out. But there is a protocol in existence which says that should a message be detected, we will not reply until we have understood the message, understood enough about what that message meant to construct, if desirable, a meaningful reply. But just how that would be done has not been determined. Usually what I have read about is the idea that we would send out our own "World Encyclopedia" to the galactic community, especially if they have sent their own to us. What our Encyclopedia would contain would probably spark huge debates and arguments from all nations, races, religions, and the average person on the street, and I imagine there would be those who would be against any such reply. -----signature----- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic-Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God-Michael Shermer I'm a sexy shoeless GOD OF WAR! #347 on SLG's List Of Sexy Men
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VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 11/1/03 3:33pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	And it appears my lamenting about resistance to the OSP was premature as MasterAero said, from Space.com: WASHINGTON -- NASA’s schedule for the Orbital Space Plane does not move the program out ahead of the ongoing inter-agency space review being led by the White House, the agency’s administrator Sean O’Keefe said Oct. 29 in response to recent Congressional concerns about the program. In an Oct. 21 letter, the leadership of the House Science Committee, the Congressional panel that authorizes NASA programs, said it wanted the agency to halt work on the Orbital Space Plane until the White House, Congress and NASA agree on the direction the human spaceflight program should take beyond the international space station. "Without such consensus on a shared vision, progress on all of these steps will stall and public support for the nation’s civilian space program will inevitably founder," the letter, signed by Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-New York), the chairman of the committee, and Rep. Ralph Hall (Texas), the ranking Democrat, said. In testimony before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Oct. 29, O’Keefe said the plan “we have developed is consistent with what is included in the president’s budget request for 2004. … We are not ahead [of the interagency review] and we are not planning to move ahead.” The Orbital Space Plane, billed as the nation’s next space vehicle, would be launched atop an expendable rocket and ferry astronaut crews to and from the international space station. Plans call for fielding an early space station crew rescue version of the vehicle by 2010, but NASA is considering moving up that schedule by two years. Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin were awarded contracts to design versions of the Orbital Space Plane. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin announced in September that they would combine their efforts. NASA officials hope to award the prime contract in mid-2004. Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.), suggested that the president should appoint a commission to help set a vision and plan for NASA’s future in human spaceflight that included Harold Gehman, chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, and several of the board’s members. Gehman said he was supportive of any measure that would spark debate on the future of NASA and included all branches of government, plus scientists and engineers. One of the goals of the Columbia board included changing the way NASA does business, and causing a national debate on “the lack of an agreed upon national vision of what the United States wants to do in space,” he said. NASA’s 2004 budget request also lays out a clear mission for the agency and the steps needed to reach its goals, O’Keefe said. The agency’s three primary focus areas, all designed to improve technology needed for long-term human space travel, are developing new power and propulsion systems, understanding and expanding the capability for humans to survive in space for long periods, and developing improved communications needed, he said. O’Keefe said NASA’s response to the House Science Committee’s letter would be delivered before the end of the day Oct. 29. Yippee! -----signature----- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic-Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God-Michael Shermer I'm a sexy shoeless GOD OF WAR! #347 on SLG's List Of Sexy Men
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