Jedi Council Forums - SPACE SCIENCE THREAD

Locked Topic | Read Only Topic | Previous Active Topic | Next Active Topic

« 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 » - Previous | Next | Reload

Author	Topic: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 1/16/04 12:10pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	I just love Space.com: FAQ: Bush's New Space Vision By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 11:00 am ET 15 January 2004 The Big Questions What will Bush's space vision cost? There is no set price tag. After the shuttle fleet is retired and the space station completed in 2010, about $6 billion of NASA's current annual budget of $15.5 billion will be diverted to the new program. Meanwhile, Bush has asked for an additional $1 billion spread over the next five years. Other funds could come from curtailing other space agency activities, but no details were provided. Can America afford this? That depends of course on whom you ask. Lost in much of the discussion on this point is the fact that America already spends $15.5 billion per year on space exploration, less than 1 percent of the overall federal budget. The vast bulk of the new project's financing, at least over the next decade, will come from shifting some of these funds. The increase Bush asked for amounts to, on average, $200 million per year for each of the next five years. That is a key number that should be considered in any water cooler debates about the merits of space exploration. Critics argue that not enough money will be available to accomplish what Bush envisions. "It's never going to happen," said Robert Park, a physicist at the University of Maryland and director of the Washington office of the American Physical Society. "The price tag will scare Congress off and the robots are doing so well it's going to be hard to justify sending a human." Other scientists said the gradual approach to increased funding is sensible. "I think this is the best thing that has happened to the space program in decades," said Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), whose district comprises much of Florida's Space Coast. "When you really look back over the last 30 years we've had a lack of clarity, purpose and direction. George W. Bush laid out a plan that I think is doable from a financial and political side as well." There's also a lot of wait-and-see. The White House stresses that other NASA programs will be adjusted and better aligned towards long-term exploration. Astronomers are anxious whether any robotic or telescopic missions will suffer. Details will come with the President's 2005 budget, to be submitted to Congress next month. Why not spend this money on social programs instead? That's a philosophical argument that cannot be answered -- or, rather, each person has his or her own answer. Many scientists (and citizens) see space exploration as an important piece of overall federal spending. Others would prefer NASA's budget be capped or cut, though the latter opinion is not often voiced in debates over space spending. Among experts, the debate centers on whether whether robots or humans are more efficient at exploring other worlds. Robert Park, a physicist at the University of Maryland and director of the Washington office of the American Physical Society, estimates robotic exploration costs about 1 percent of the price of sending humans. Ken Edgett, a geologist at Malin Space Science System, uses a robot to explore Mars. He helps operate the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor. "The only way we're ever going to understand Mars and its history is to have people there doing the work," Edgett says. Supporters also stress that space exploration inspires the nation, and generates useful medical and industrial spinoff technology. Others see little or no point in human spaceflight, which is more expensive on a per-mission basis, and often these critics instead favor robotic spaceflight and remote observing (as with the Hubble Space Telescope). Will other NASA programs be cut or employees laid off? This remains to be seen. The White House's position is that "impact stemming from the Shuttle's retirement and the new focus on exploration will depend on what type of vehicle systems and skills will be needed in the future. It is premature to speculate on specific job impact. In general, the requirements of the new vision will have a very positive impact on the aerospace sector and related sectors, and the vision will help attract talented people to science and engineering fields." Why should humans go to Mars? Because humans need new destinations and ever-expanding horizons. That's one argument. Because only humans can unlock the mysteries of the red planet, including whether it does or ever did harbor life. Because going to Mars will inspire the nation's youth. And because the technology developed along the way will benefit all humanity. Those are the main arguments. Critics don't buy them, of course, at least not if they cost too much. Do we need to go back to the Moon to get to Mars? This is perhaps the most contentious point of Bush's plan as far as scientists are concerned. The most enthusiastic supporters of human missions to Mars do not want to stop at the Moon first, as they see it as a possible dead-end detour that will suck up funds and political energy. Some planetary scientists applauded Bush's step-by-step approach as the sort of reasonable, affordable vision that could get support of Congress and the people. The Planetary Society, an advocacy group of scientists, favors continued robotic exploration and also putting humans on Mars. The group yesterday issued a statement in general support of Bush's vision but said it had not taken a position on the lunar step. "Carl Sagan remarked, many years ago, that the Moon could end up a detour, rather than a stepping stone, to Mars. How lunar missions would lead to a Mars landing must be closely examined," said Louis Friedman, the society's executive director. "The essential requirement is to keep the focus on sending humans to Mars -- investigating conditions of life and habitability on that planet." The White House maintains the Moon missions will be an "important demonstration of our ability to live and work on another world. We will assess technologies and the use of lunar resources, and we will build the skills and gain the experience that will enable us to conduct sustained exploration of other worlds." Curiously, Bush never uttered the phrase "Moon base" or "permanent colony" in his speech, as many had anticipated. Instead he called for "extended human presence" with the goal of "living and working there for increasing periods of time." Supporters of going to the Moon argue that solar power collectors there could beam energy back to Earth. There are many other scientific arguments -- most hotly disputed -- for going to the Moon. Why does NASA need a new vision? Few scientists, politicians or space analysts would argue that NASA was in a rut. The shuttle Columbia disaster cast a dark cloud over the human spaceflight program. "Why spend $6 billion or so a year to dangerously circle the Earth?" many people wondered. Some sort of reorganization was inevitable. The question in many minds was whether human spaceflight would ultimately be redirected, curtailed or halted. The White House's position: "From the Apollo landings on the Moon, to robotic surveys of the Sun and the planets, to the compelling images captured by advanced space telescopes, U.S. achievements in space have revolutionized humanity's view of the universe and have inspired Americans and people around the world. As the world enters the second century of powered flight, it is time to articulate a new vision that will define and guide U.S. space exploration activities for the next several decades." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Details When do we get to the Moon? Under the plan, a robot would go to the Moon around 2008. The first manned flight would occur between 2015 and 2020. When do we get to Mars? No timetable was set. But you can bet it won't be before 2020, at least not if Bush's vision is carried out. If the White House and NASA think it'll take at least 12 years to get to the Moon, it seems reasonable to assume at least a few years more would be needed to mount a Mars mission, especially since the president stressed that financial and technological readiness would be evaluated at each step of the process. Will the International Space Station be completed? Yes. But its fate is then unclear. The Bush plan calls for retiring the shuttle fleet after the station is completed in 2010. There will likely be a gap -- perhaps four years -- when America has no space-ready vehicles. Presumably Americans could not then get to the station except aboard Russian ships. Meantime, Bush said work aboard the space station would be redirected to study medical effects of space flight in support of the vision. Medical research is now part of a host of science activities aboard the station. What space ship will take us "into the cosmos?" America's next space ship is not yet designed. Bush called for a vehicle that could take astronauts to the Moon. Some analysts worried that the shuttle would be replaced by an Orbital Space Plane (OSP) with obvious limitations. The White House's position is that this won't be the case. A new Crew Exploration Vehicle "will have different requirements and will be developed for the exploration mission. It may be able to perform some functions the OSP would have performed, but its design will be centered on exploration." Bush was clear on this point: "The Crew Exploration Vehicle will be capable of ferrying astronauts and scientists to the Space Station after the shuttle is retired," he said in his speech. "But the main purpose of this spacecraft will be to carry astronauts beyond our orbit to other worlds. This will be the first spacecraft of its kind since the Apollo Command Module." Will humans visit asteroids, too? Maybe. Bush said human trips to the Moon would serve to test ways to get beyond it. He was clear that Mars is not the only ultimate destination. "Today I announce a new plan to explore space and extend a human presence across our solar system," he said. "We do not know where this journey will end, yet we know this: human beings are headed into the cosmos." Some scientists think asteroid mining (many asteroids are rich in metals) could become commercially profitable. White House position: "Other potential destinations include asteroids, the moons of Jupiter, and deep space sites suitable for large observatories." The implication of "large observatories" is that of huge telescopes on the Moon, where there are no clouds or blurring atmosphere. Will private companies play a role? Yes. But it is not clear if commercialism of space will extend beyond the supportive roles that aerospace companies have always played in human spaceflight (by getting NASA funding to build the machines). The White House position: "NASA will vigorously pursue commercial and private sector participation in exploration." Some analysts think space needs to be opened up to exploration led by private industry and supported by NASA, from advertising to lunar hotels and perhaps even space reality television. No such plans were mentioned by Bush. Will other countries play a role? The president hopes so, as do scientists and space analysts who see shared space missions as an opportunity to bring nations together. "We'll invite other nations to share the challenges and opportunities of this new era of discovery," Bush said. "The vision I outline today is a journey, not a race, and I call on other nations to join us on this journey, in a spirit of cooperation and friendship." Is this proposal like Bush's fathers' vision for space? No. Bush the senior laid out a vision of sending humans to Mars, then a huge price tag was applied -- $500 billion. The reasons for the vision were not laid out as well as with Bush the junior. And the cost this time around was, perhaps wisely, not presented as a lump sum. The White House position: "This vision sets the nation on a sustainable course of long-term exploration. It is not predicated on getting to a particular destination by a particular date, nor is it solely focused on human exploration." There are several ideas for getting to Mars with less than $250 billion nowadays, even as cheaply as $30 billion by one account. But many critics think it will cost much more. Is this Apollo all over again? No. The Apollo program was a race. Bush said this is not a race but is a journey. Apollo was driven partly by fear and in the interest of national security and was given a comparatively huge budget for the era. The new vision is driven by exploration and a desire to achieve and, as Bush presented it, with only incremental increases for space agency funding. The White House position: "The new vision shares the same spirit of opening a new frontier that inspired the Apollo program. But this initiative will be based on the sustainable allocation of a reasonable resource level over the long-term. It will involve both humans and robots and will advance our knowledge of multiple destinations in parallel, including the Moon, Mars, Jupiter's moons, asteroids, and planets around other solar systems. The vision is not driven by a single destination or a particular timeline." The Apollo program is estimated to have cost about $150 billion to $175 billion in today's dollars, all crammed into a few years. --------------------------------------------------- People keep preaching about the cost of all this. At less than 1% of the national budget people still question it. An aircraft carrier costs as much as a shuttle, yet we have a dozen carriers and less than 5 shuttles. "But we NEED those carriers!" Yes we do, but we also need a space craft. I hope we don't see a few thousand NASA employees laid off with no where to go. I think we need to work to keep those minds, unless they go off into successfull private ventures. People here and there are bitchin' about the "CEV". They say it is not a glamorous name and such. It will not be called "CEV", it will be called by some lofty name like "Luna" or "Ares" or whatever its mission is. CEV is just a working title so to speak. -----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
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 1/16/04 12:38pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	A few notes; John Glenn was interviewed about what he thought of the Bush plan. He seemed a bit skeptical as to the cost and compared the Apollo cost to today, his estimate of "it would be 800 billion in today's dollars "is WAY off. Russia is quite pleased with all of this, it seems to me that they would like to do more but their economy is so bad they have to settle for living vicariously through NASA. The various contractors...Lockeed, Boeing etc, seemed quite pleased as well, I just hope they get their act together and make a real re-usable space craft that is 'modular' as requested. It sounds like there is to be a version for LEO and GEO missions, then a heavy lift vehicle for the Moon. NASA is already starting to reorganize starting with 4 new offices: Four new offices NASA also on Thursday announced the creation of four new offices within the administrator's organizational chart to "allow for more independent leadership in areas vital to the execution of NASA's vision and mission," according to a news release. The offices include: Chief Engineer: Will ensure that agency development efforts and mission operations are planned and conducted using sound engineering. Health and Medical Systems: Will ensure the well-being of the NASA workforce and provide independent oversight authority for health care and related research. Chief Information Officer: Will manage the agency's information technology investments, lead the development of a strategic plan, and create a roadmap to guide the agency's IT programs and policies. Institutional and Corporate Management: Will lead the oversight of NASA's management systems, institutional and corporate activities. Even as NASA officials were setting up the agency for the long road ahead, O'Keefe said the White House was putting together a commission that will look into the best way to implement the new space vision. O'Keefe said a key area of concern for the commission, which will be led by former Air Force Secretary Pete Aldridge, is attracting the best people to work for NASA and retaining those who feel they might be better off working elsewhere. I am amazed at some of the skeptics out there. Make no mistake, this is going to happen. -----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
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
HawkNC Title: FanForce RSA Oceania Registered: Oct '01	Date Posted: 1/16/04 12:43pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	<3 NASA People are going to be complaining about the cost of this for a long time, presumably right up until we actually reach the moon, then Mars. The only way to silence the critics is to prove that we can do it within the budget, because we have a clearly defined vision of what needs to be done. -----signature----- Use dp/dt -- Come now, do you really expect me to do coordinate substitution in my head while strapped to a centrifuge?
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 1/16/04 12:45pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD - Date Edited: 1/16/04 12:47pm (1 edits total) Edited By: VadersLaMent
	From MSNBC.com: What the moon has to offer Scientists point to building materials, energy sources President Bush announced Wednesday that he wants to establish a base on the moon as a stepping stone toward further human exploration of the cosmos. With its weaker gravitational pull to tug on spacecraft, the moon makes a better jumping-off place than Earth, he said. Bush noted Wednesday that lunar soil could be processed to make rocket fuel and create breathable air. But the list goes well beyond that, other scientists said after Bush’s speech. “The bulk of the stuff we need to develop an industrial complex on the moon is all over the place,” said Alan Binder, director of the Lunar Research Institute in Tucson, Ariz., who advocates commercial exploitation of the moon. “We have a tremendous resource sitting out there.” Basically, he said, “the moon is made of the same stuff we have here on Earth.” Locked in the lunar terrain, he said, are versatile key elements. Oxygen can be used to make air for astronauts and rocket fuel, which combines liquid oxygen and hydrogen, he said. Silicon can be used to make solar cells to harvest solar energy there. Iron could be used to build structures on the moon, Binder said. Aluminum, titanium and magnesium can be used in making spacecraft to go deeper into the cosmos, and making Earth-orbiting factories that can create alloys and crystals in zero gravity, he said. What’s more, he said the lunar soil could be melted and poured into casts to make blocks for construction. Scientists already have shown they can make water from lunar rocks by heating them, which causes their hydrogen to react with oxygen, said Gerald Kulcinski, director of the University of Wisconsin Fusion Technology Institute. Carbon and nitrogen on the moon could be combined with other elements to enable growing food on the moon, he said. Fusion power? Eventually, Kulcinski said, the moon’s supply of a form of helium called helium-3 could be used in futuristic fusion reactors on Earth that would generate electricity without producing nuclear waste. Such fusion technology could also power rockets for deep space travel in the future, he said. There’s so little helium-3 on Earth that the technology hasn’t been studied much, but the moon appears to have it in abundance, he said. That’s because the moon lacks the atmosphere and magnetic field that keep helium-3 from raining down on our planet from outer space. The downside is that scientists haven't yet figured out how to build a safe, energy-producing fusion reactor. The ITER project, which draws its acronym from the old title "International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor," is aimed at conducting fusion research, but scientists say commercial applications are decades away. Even then, it's not clear whether helium-3, mined on the moon and shipped back to Earth, will be the least expensive option for fueling such reactors. Solar power? One of the moon’s key resources is its dependable supply of solar energy, said David Criswell, director of the Institute of Space Systems Operations at the University of Houston and the University of Houston-Clear Lake. It could not only supply lunar bases, but could also be harnessed as an energy source for Earth, he said. The idea would be to turn it into electricity and then microwaves that could be beamed to Earth. Within a few decades, Criswell contends, such a stream of cheap energy could free people from depending on fossil and nuclear fuels and “enable everyone on Earth to be prosperous, and that’s impossible any other way.” Not everyone has such a sunny view of beamed solar energy, however: Environmentalists worry about the effects of sending such concentrations of microwaves through Earth's atmosphere. If such a system is feasible, the energy beams could conceivably be used as weapons as well. MSNBC's Alan Boyle contributed to this report. As I said previously, a solar powered set up could shoot probes to another solar system. I would like to see more details on beaming microwaves into Earth's atmosphere. Normally environmentalist have no clue as to what the science world can do safely, but that is quite a bit of power to shoot through the air, we need about 20,000 terrawatts by 2050 just to support the possible 10 billion that will populate the globe. EDIT: btw...post 500. And Hawk, yes we do have a clear vision it seems, and what people are not understanding is THAT TEH MONEY IS ALREADY THERE. -----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
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
HawkNC Title: FanForce RSA Oceania Registered: Oct '01	Date Posted: 1/16/04 12:51pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	Dude, seriously...just start saying "SPACE.COM" in every post, it's easier. -----signature----- Use dp/dt -- Come now, do you really expect me to do coordinate substitution in my head while strapped to a centrifuge?
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 1/16/04 1:00pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	My posting habits in this thread, basically: Info USUALLY comes from Space.com, MSNBC.com(Cosmic Log section), Sciscoops.com, Spacedaily.com, Universetoday.com and/or whatever links and pages I might find by browsing message boards on other sites. It has become a bit easier for me to provide some elaboration and/or commentary to current events instead of: On occasion I will go through the head post links and start digging an CREATE a given topic from existing material. I did this alot in the beginning and tossed in a link here and there. I have severe time constraints nowadays and am constantly playing catch-up, so this has become difficult. Things to do: Go through PERMANENT.com and start detailing uses for Moon stuff, since that is the first destination. Terraforming Mars and how it can be done(Or why it should not be done). Redo "Superlasers and Deathrays". It got pruned from SW MISC some time ago and I never got around to doing it again. Post a few bits of Email between Robert Bradbury and myself, as well as comments by Robert has thrown in about technology and its uses along with a few fallacies(Robert is quite clever). -----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
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 1/17/04 6:19am Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD - Date Edited: 1/17/04 6:20am (1 edits total) Edited By: VadersLaMent
	A sad sort of note, to me anyway; the Hubble Space Telescope had a servicing mission on the way when the Columbia tragedy happened. This, along with Bush's plan have cancelled any further servicing missions. As far as I know Hubble will continue to operate until 2010, if its orbit is not adjusted it will start a long slow decline into the atmosphere that should terminate in 2020. Personally I would like to have seen Hubble recovered and placed in the Smithsonian. There is of course still plenty of time to do this, but it is apparently not on anyone's 'to do' list. That link has all the Hubble info you could want. "This is a sad day." - John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief scientist, on decision to abandon-in-place the Hubble Space Telescope -----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
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 1/18/04 6:59am Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	Right now Bush's plan and the twin Martian rovers are the center pieces of space and science news. We will be hearing about other robotic missions soon enough. First up. you can Send your name to a comet , you have until the end of this month to get your name burned onto a DVD for an impact with comet Tempel 1 in July of this year. Also in July the Cassini probe to Saturn will be dropping off the Huygens probe into the atmosphere of Titan. The cloud covered moon may be similar to a primordal Earth and this will be the first probe to actually land on a body in the outer solar system. A ways off in 2009 another Mars probe the size of a Mini Van and powered by a nuclear reactor instead of solar power will look for organic processes. -----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
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
MasterAero Registered: Aug '02	Date Posted: 1/22/04 5:45am Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	Here's an excerpt from Space.com about what's going on in OSP. “The single largest offset is the Orbital Space Plane and Space Launch Initiative,” O’Keefe said. Most of that money, he said, would be put toward a new project, the Crew Exploration Vehicle. Prior to the rollout of the president’s vision, NASA had hoped to accelerate the development of its planned Orbital Space Plane, which was supposed to be a replacement for the space shuttle. The goal of that program was to have a vehicle by 2008 that would be capable of bringing crews back from the International Space Station. The idea was to eliminate the need to use the shuttle as a crew transport vehicle and to reduce NASA's dependence on Russian-built Soyuz capsules. By 2010, under the old plan, NASA had hoped to be ready to use the Orbital Space Plane as a rocket-launched crew taxi and thus dramatically cut back on the number of astronauts that would have to fly on the shuttle. But that plan would have been costly, requiring about $7 billion more than NASA had in its five-year budget for the program. In charting a new course for NASA, Bush pledged the agency to build a Crew Exploration Vehicle that will someday ferry astronauts beyond Earth’s orbit. It is in some ways a more ambitious goal, but NASA has more time to meet it -- about six years more. The president’s vision does not call for putting humans aboard the Crew Exploration Vehicle until 2014. Under the old plan, astronauts would have flown on the Orbital Space Plane for the first time in 2008. 2014 doesn't seem right..least that's not what we've been told. Two aerospace contractors, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, had been competing since 2002 for the prime contract to build the Orbital Space Plane. That competition is now on hold as NASA plots its next moves. But O’Keefe said the work the two companies have done to date on Orbital Space Plane designs -- some $334 million worth -- would not be wasted. “We’re not going to start with a clean sheet of paper,” O’Keefe said of shifting its focus from the Orbital Space Plane to the Crew Exploration Vehicle. “It’s not a matter of Orbital Space Plane being cancelled, it’s a question of how do we evolve it to the Crew Exploration Vehicle.” This is pretty accurate as our acronym/project has changed from OSP to CEV. -----signature----- My whole life all I've wanted to do is fly, bomb stuff, shoot people down.
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 1/22/04 12:28pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	I think reporters should rephrase there words to say "..no later than 2014.." rather than "...by 2014.." It actually means the same frikkin thing but people don't read it that way. It was my understanding that it could be sooner but 2014 is an end goal date to shoot for and budget from. How did your meeting go MasterA? The Monday before the Bush announcement I mean. ??? -----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
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
MasterAero Registered: Aug '02	Date Posted: 1/22/04 12:37pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	We knew pretty much what he was going to say but really no specifics until the meeting we had after the speech. O'Keefe gave a briefing the next day that was pretty informative. I think Tuesday is when OSP officially became CEV but we weren't sure that was going to happen until then. THere's lots of work to do on program structuring and stuff and I believe O'Keefe said by summer all the new requirements will be out for the new vehicle. -----signature----- My whole life all I've wanted to do is fly, bomb stuff, shoot people down.
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 1/22/04 1:18pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	I just read today that Russia made it official that they are not ready to go to Mars. I thought it odd, but they are just confirming that despite their space know-how they would not try this alone and would rather make a joint mission out of it. Bush did invite other countries to take part but Russia has said they have had no specific invitation. In other news: Warning against weapons in space I think it is inevitable that weapons platforms will make their way above the Earth. If it is done secretly the outcry could be enormous if it is found out. If it is done publically, then a new weapons race is on. The Moon itself could be another place for weapons. A laser...be it microwave, gamma, or x-ray based...could be powered by a large solar array or a fission plant on the Moon. Such a device in the microwave range could send a mesh sail probe to another star at better than 20% lightspeed. It would not be impossible that such a device can be used as a weapon given the power output equal to and greater than the current power output of the U.S. -----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
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 1/22/04 1:36pm Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	This is one of my favorite topics, I have talked about it at length twice in this thread with a few mentions here and there. Space.com: Interstellar Espionage: While We're Watching Mars, Could Someone be Watching Us? By Seth Shostak Senior Astronomer posted: 06:00 am ET 22 January 2004 Have aliens sent mechanical emissaries to our solar system -- robotic probes on a snoopy mission to reconnoiter Earth? It’s certainly an intriguing idea: sophisticated spy satellites from light-years away monitoring our planet, watching the slow evolution of life, and reporting back to their alien masters. Such a scenario has frequently appeared in the SETI literature, and Allen Tough, at the University of Toronto, has urged that we take the idea seriously enough to make a search for these alien "bugs." You might question whether interstellar spying makes sense. After all, there are several hundred billion star systems in the Galaxy, spread across a disk 100,000 light-years in diameter. Sending billions of probes over such daunting distances sounds like a project that no alien congress would ever approve. But the idea can’t be dismissed that easily. Advanced societies -- even those that are only modestly beyond our own -- will have catalogs of planets known to support life. This inventory can be assembled by using large telescopes to collect and analyze the light reflected from the atmospheres of other worlds; looking for "biomarkers" such as oxygen and methane. Finding these gases on someone else’s planet would be a clue that biology is present. Surprising as it may seem, microbes can be detected at light-years’ distance using this technique. NASA will be launching a few space telescope that will be capable of such "bio-marking". Long before we send a probe we will have targets. Larger scopes could even resolve continents on Earth-sized worlds. If worlds with life are plentiful, then some of them will be relatively close to the aliens’ home planet, encouraging a close-up look via a probe. If bio-worlds are rare, then these would be so singular as to make the greater travel times required to reach them worth the wait. Either way, there could be some stimulus to post a probe. And the total number of probes need not be extraordinarily large. How big do the probes have to be? Allen Tough has written that these alien bugs "could be smarter and more knowledgeable than any human being, yet… be smaller than a basketball or baseball." Smaller is better for two reasons: less energy is required to hurl them to other worlds, and they would be harder to find and confiscate by any intelligent beings on the spied-upon planet. Sound familier to readers of this thread? I just mentioned ANTS again in the post above On the other hand, the probes are pretty useless if they don’t have the oomph required to send back data, either via a radio signal or a tightly focused infrared laser (the latter seems more sensible to me). So the aliens might opt for a "master-slave" setup somewhat akin to the scheme used to retrieve data from the Mars rovers. A relatively small probe could orbit near to Earth, making high-resolution photos and collecting information, while a larger, more distant "mother ship" could be hanging out in, say, the asteroid belt, where it would process the data from the smaller probe and relay it back home. Another approach would be to have only one probe, but on a highly elliptical orbit (like a short-period comet). This scheme would keep the probe largely out of sight, but bring it close to our planet for detailed looks every few dozen years. I read many things about true A.I. and the possibility of super-programs that are not truly sentient but might as well be given the possibilities of massive storage capacities and learning programs. What about the costs? For a truly advanced society, the bill for the hardware might be negligible. But to send a probe to the stars at even a leisurely one-tenth light speed requires a substantial dollop of energy. If the probe weighs 10 pounds, the minimum energy necessary to rocket it to target and then slow it down on arrival is roughly 5,000 trillion joules. If you buy that much energy from your local electric company, it will cost you $120 million. Frankly, although a bill that size would probably stupefy your spouse, it’s not an unthinkable amount (a Mars Exploration Rover costs three times as much). As said before, a magnetic field, wether it be via a super-conductor or an M2P2 plasma bubble will allow a craft to accelerate all the way and slow down from ANY speed once the mag field hits the magnetic field of the target star. Still, there are some probe-o-phobes who ask, "why would the aliens bother? After all, the probes can only telemeter their data at the speed of light. Why wouldn’t the snoopy extraterrestrials simply await our television signals? These would reach them at the same time any report from a probe would." Indeed. And one could argue that the content of our broadcasts would tell alien viewers all they might want to know about our society (I won’t lapse into the obvious…) Our tv signals are not strong enough to watch at distances measured in lightyears, so no one has to worry about aliens being offended by I Love Lucy But there’s another angle. Life on Earth has been detectable (via atmospheric biomarkers) for two billion years. Intelligent life is only a recent, and so far, brief, phenomenon. Very few (if any) of the biologically active worlds investigated by probes are likely to have brainy life. The aliens will surely know this. They will send probes, not to find us – after all, our signals, in the end, will find them – but to investigate, up close and personal, life that isn’t ever going to broadcast. For 500 million years, there’s been a rich pantheon of plants and creatures on this planet, making it a natural history exhibit of enough interest to warrant a close-up look. So probes are a possibility. And maybe one was launched our way, sometime in the last two billion years. We might still be able to find it, if we knew where to look. Should we make a careful investigation of the asteroid belt? The Earth-Moon Lagrange points? Perhaps parked in a nearby orbit, or on the Earth itself? We just don’t know, and that makes the search space dreadfully large. Probes are not crazy, but how to find one is hazy. I mentioned before that I fully intend to join in this search. I may be working and saving for another year before it becomes something I can do affordably. my only decision is wether to use a radio search to look for non-optical anomolies, or use an optical telescope with photometers, spectrograph, and/or perhaps LADAR to make a detection possible. Something mentioned but not elaborated on in the Space.com article: there may be more than one sitting out there waiting as they coordinate the investigation of this solar system. -----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
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 1/24/04 1:10am Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	NASA's Second Hyper-X Ready for Captive Carry Test By Jim Banke Senior Producer, Cape Canaveral Bureau posted: 09:00 pm ET 23 January 2004 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA is moving closer to another return to flight, this one already more than two-and-a-half years in the making. An X-43A scramjet test vehicle, part of the space agency's Hyper-X program, is being readied for a captive carry flight beneath the wing of a B-52 as early as Saturday. Staged from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the exercise will serve as a dress rehearsal for the targeted Feb. 21 air launch of the combination X-43A and Orbital Sciences Pegasus booster over the Pacific Ocean. Rain showers forecast for Saturday over the Antelope Valley may prevent the weekend captive carry flight, but the test team was moving forward on Friday with their plans, officials said. If a review of the dress rehearsal shows all went well, managers likely will give a go for the launch -- an event that will mark the first flight of an X-43A since June 2, 2001, when the vehicle was lost moments after the Pegasus booster was ignited. According to a NASA investigation there was no single root cause of the failure. Engineers have since modified the control system of the booster and adjusted the flight plan -- for example, dropping the vehicle at 40,000 feet instead of 20,000 feet as was done in 2001. After the vehicle is dropped, the modified Pegasus booster is to loft the X-43A to a top altitude of about 95,000 feet and moving at a speed of Mach 7 -- or seven times the speed of sound. Moving at hypersonic speed, the X-43A will separate from its booster and fly under its own power on a preprogrammed path that ultimately will send it gliding to impact in the ocean. The X-plane's power is expected to come from the operation of a supersonic combustion ramjet engine, better known as a scramjet. The basic idea of a scramjet is that by moving the essentially hollow engine at such speeds, enough of the thin air of the upper atmosphere will be forced into the chamber, pressurized and then ignited with the help of hydrogen fuel. If it works the X-43A will become the first air-breathing hypersonic vehicle in free flight. The vehicle being tested now is the second of three planned. The first was lost in the 2001 incident, while the third is to be flown up to Mach 10. NASA hopes the technology could lead to new vehicles that will provide faster, more reliable and less expensive trips into Earth orbit. Scramjets could be a lift system that could shoot launch costs down to hundreds of dollars per pound instead of thousands per pound for current launch vehicles. In fact, the target goal for the NASA ASTP (Advanced Space Transportation Program) is $100 per pound. I'm glad that this is still on going despite the new Moon/Mars program and restructuring of NASA. The military applications are obvious, high speed attack missions from anywhere in the world within minutes or hours. On a commercial note, scramjet airliners would remake the transportation business; you could go from New York to Britain in less than an hour at Mach 7. ^That is just one cool pic. This would be the HyperX craft fully relized. ^That is the X-43a as of now. -----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
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History
VadersLaMent Registered: Apr '02	Date Posted: 1/25/04 5:44am Subject: RE: SPACE SCIENCE THREAD
	MasterAero, According to this referance page for space elevators a system could be set up where a dock hangs down to LEO where a rocket could dock and send cargo up the elevator to a 775 mile altitude where a space station/hotel sits. According to this page it can be done with existing materials instead of "unobtanium" reqired for a tether going from the Earth's surface to GEO. The International Space Station orbits at an average 250 miles above the Earth. Coudn't a tether then be lowered from the ISS to sub-orbital altitudes? If so, a craft like Spaceship One which may make its first sub-orbital flight this year or early next for tourism, could then be used to carry cargo to the lower end to go up to the station. A couple of tons at a time could go up to build a rocket at the station capable of going to the Moon. From the ISS a Delta V of something less than 4,000 miles per hour is needed to get to the Moon. Is this impossible? Is there a dynamic I am not aware of that syays a tether would not be stable from the ISS to sub-orbit? If it is possible then trips to the Moon could be much easier and cheaper than using heavy lift vehicles to shoot to the Moon from Earth's surface. Educate me. -----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
	Locked Topic \| Active Topic Notification \| Private Message \| Post History

« 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 » - Previous | Next | Reload