108 replies to this topic

[monza gorilla]

Space elevator? That reeks of Arthur.

[dribbler]

The one with the body guard married to Rula Lenska? Or the one who makes shoes?

[monza gorilla]

Dudley Moore. Or cat food.

[Rainmaster]

Quiet One, on Dec 7 2008, 05:26 PM, said:

Where the hell have you been?
And why aren't you still there instead of polluting this forum?

Oh I've been preparing for the winter...and I missed arguing with people

Murray Walker, on Dec 7 2008, 05:28 PM, said:

  

And yes, it was a good thread, Jez.  Welcome back, George.

Thank you

[medilloni]

dribbler, on Dec 7 2008, 06:05 PM, said:

The one with the body guard married to Rula Lenska? Or the one who makes shoes?

Quote

Dudley Moore. Or cat food.

Dressing gown and towel?  I can't get the The Vagina Monologues out of my mind for some reason.  Or have I caught the wrong lift?  

[Jez]

Rainmaster, on Dec 8 2008, 04:21 AM, said:

I like space, personal space that is. Sometimes, when I'm bored, I go on this forum. But other times when I'm extremely bored I borrow Microsoft's telescope to look at some pictures of pretty bright things in space. You would probably find similar things if you typed 'space images' into Google Image Search or downloaded the program yourself or became me.

Oh and of course the space elevator idea is pretty cool, but they should make it a lift on the way up and a giant slide on the way down.

Top thread making Jez

Space pole dancing! from 'her' to eternity! How about it science?

Good to see you around George

[Jez]

freaky2, on Dec 2 2008, 12:18 AM, said:

Cool! My grandma would love it, and I got interested in stuff like that from her as well... will have to take a look at the pictures

Yeah, I didn't hear much about it the next day. There was too much cloud cover on the night from where I was to see anything...

I'll try hunt down some pics!

Edited by Jez, 08 December 2008 - 12:30 AM.

[Jez]

Some Mars news. Don't get too excited.



Nasa delays its next Mars mission
MSL is Nasa's next rover mission to the Red Planet

The US space agency (Nasa) has delayed the launch of its Mars Science Laboratory rover mission.

MSL was scheduled to fly next year, but the mission has been dogged by testing and hardware problems.

The rover's launch would now be postponed until late 2011, agency officials said.

The mission is using innovative technologies to explore whether microbial life could ever have existed on the Red Planet.

The delay could add $400m to the price tag, which is likely to top $2bn.

"Trying for '09 would require us to assume too much risk, more than I think is appropriate for a flagship mission," said Nasa's administrator Michael Griffin. Trying for 2009 would require us to assume too much risk - more than I think is appropriate for a flagship mission
Michael Griffin, Nasa

The launch date was changed following an assessment by the mission's scientists and engineers of the progress it has made in the past three months.

"Despite exhaustive work in multiple shifts by a dedicated team, the progress in recent weeks has not come fast enough on solving technical challenges and pulling hardware together," said Charles Elachi, director of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, US.

"The right and smart course now for a successful mission is to launch in 2011."

Technology hurdles

MSL will use novel technologies to adjust its flight while descending through the Martian atmosphere, and to set the rover on the surface by lowering it on a tether from a hovering platform.

It is engineered to drive longer distances over rougher terrain than previous rovers and contains a science payload 10 times the mass of instruments on Nasa's Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers.

"Up to this point, efforts have focused on launching next year, both to begin the exciting science and because the delay will increase taxpayers' investment in the mission," said Doug McCuistion, director of Nasa's Mars exploration programme.

"However, we've reached the point where we can not condense the schedule further without compromising vital testing."

Engineers have struggled with the development of MSL's complex actuators - the motors that drive and turn the rover's wheels, and operate its robotic arm.

The window for a 2009 launch ends in late October. The relative positions of Earth and Mars are favourable for flights to the Red Planet only a few weeks every two years.

The next launch opportunity after 2009 is in 2011. The window in 2011 runs through October to December.

Joining forces

Dr Ed Weiler, chief scientist at Nasa, announced he had held discussions with the European Space Agency (Esa) about conducting joint missions to Mars in future. He said the cost of such missions meant collaboration was inevitable.

Dr Weiler told reporters that preliminary discussions with his opposite number at Esa, David Southwood, had led to an informal agreement that in future they would adopt a joint architecture for all missions to the Red Planet. Europe and the US could now make ExoMars a joint mission

Both agencies are likely to combine their efforts in the early 2020s to return rocks from Mars for study in Earth laboratories.

Europe has already made a decision to delay the launch of its own Mars rover, ExoMars, from 2013 to 2016.

Dr Weiler said there was a possibility this mission could also now become a joint venture with Nasa even though ExoMars is quite advanced in its design.

"We had a very short discussion yesterday on some ideas on how we could work together on ExoMars. They are literally at the viewgraph stage at this point in time, and I think we both learned not to make too many plans based on Powerpoints," said Dr Weiler.

"It is going to take some real scientists and engineers getting together and working that out. But is there a possibility it could become a joint mission? Absolutely. And we're certainly open to it and would welcome it."

At its Ministerial Council meeting last week, Esa said it was actively seeking the participation of both the US and Russia on ExoMars as a means of limiting the mission's 1.2bn-euro cost.

David Southwood told the BBC that international cooperation at Mars was the only way forward. "This is big," he said. "Ed and I can set the grand plan, but we need our people to get together to work out the detail. Give us six months and we'll have an announcement."

[medilloni]

Jez, on Dec 1 2008, 03:36 AM, said:

Something for the Aussies members to look out for tonight-

A smile that will light up the night sky
December 1, 2008 - 10:55AM


THE world may be facing its worst economic turmoil in decades, but the heavens are about to smile on Australia.A rare cosmic alignment tonight will produce a smiling face - or an emoticon, depending on your generation - high over the country.

From soon after 8pm until just before 11pm the planets Venus and Jupiter will stare down from the western sky like two brilliant eyes. Directly below, the crescent moon will form a happy mouth.

"I think it will be very spectacular," Sydney Observatory's astronomer, Nick Lomb, said. "The three brightest objects in the night sky will all be in the same patch of the sky."

As the night draws on, Dr Lomb predicted, "the smiley face" - with Venus playing the left eye and giant Jupiter the right - "will improve and become a little more compact".

To the superstitious, unusual astronomical apparitions were often seen as omens. While Dr Lomb said he did not believe in such things, he noted that Monday's smiling face will appear on the eve of the next Reserve Bank's meeting at which it will consider interest rates.

"There was an upside-down sad face visible on the morning of April 23, 1998," he recalled. That day's Herald was dominated by news of conflict on Australia's waterfront, protests against child-care costs, big rises in bank fees and executions in Rwanda.

Dr Lomb urged people to attempt to photograph tonight's heavenly show, which will not smile on the US or Europe.

"It should be very easy to take a photograph with a digital camera and a tripod. Use a one-, two- or three-second exposure and, of course, no flash."

However the cosmic cheeriness will be a fleeting affair. Another smiley face will not grin over Australia until the early hours of July 21, 2036.

Sydney Observatory will stay open for tonight's show, allowing people to stare back through telescopes and glimpse Jupiter's moons, Venus's gibbous shape and lunar craters.

Not sure if you got a pic Jez, so here you go, the smiley face: http://news.bbc.co.u...ech/7759146.stm

According to the article, seems it was visible from Euroland?

EDIT: Click on the 'see your pictures' link under the main image - some great photo's.

Edited by medilloni, 12 December 2008 - 05:51 PM.

[Jez]

Thanks Meds. Indeed, great smiley pics!

[Jez]

Space thread bump!!




Mars rovers roll on to five years
The rovers keep on rolling across the dusty surface


The US space agency's (Nasa) Mars rovers are celebrating a remarkable five years on the Red Planet.

The first robot, named Spirit, landed on 3 January, 2004, followed by its twin, Opportunity, 21 days later.

It was hoped the robots would work for at least three months; but their longevity in the freezing Martian conditions has surprised everyone.

The rovers' data has revealed much about the history of water at Mars' equator billions of years ago.

"These rovers are incredibly resilient considering the extreme environment the hardware experiences every day," said John Callas, project manager for Spirit and Opportunity at Nasa's Jet Propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"We realise that a major rover component on either vehicle could fail at any time and end a mission with no advance notice, but on the other hand, we could accomplish the equivalent duration of four more prime missions on each rover in the year ahead."

Together, the rovers have driven more than 20km, and returned more than 36 gigabytes of data. This has included a quarter of a million images.

Spirit is exploring a 150km-wide bowl-shaped depression known as Gusev Crater. It has found an abundance of rocks and soils bearing evidence of extensive exposure to water.

Opportunity is on the other side of the planet, in a flat region known as Meridiani Planum. Some of the rocks seen by Opportunity were once "drenched" in water

Its data has shown conclusively that Mars sustained liquid water on its surface. The sedimentary rocks at its study location were laid down under gently flowing surface water.

The rovers are now showing some serious signs of wear and tear.

Spirit has to drive backwards everywhere it goes because of a jammed wheel; and Opportunity's robotic arm has a glitch in a shoulder joint because of a broken electrical wire.

There have been times also when the vehicles have been dangerously short on power because of the dust covering on their solar panels. The vehicles continue to return breathtaking panoramas


When Spirit and Opportunity do eventually fail, Nasa will have to wait awhile for its next surface mission.

It recently delayed this year's planned launch to 2011 of a much more capable vehicle, known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). The rover project has been beset by technical and budgetary problems.

The decision was taken not long after Europe also put back its rover venture known as ExoMars. Officials cited cost concerns.

It is likely all surface missions in future for Nasa and the European Space Agency will be joint affairs because of the high cost of getting spacecraft down on to the planet.

Nasa lost contact with its static Phoenix lander in November. It was operating in much more difficult conditions at a high-latitude location. The rovers succeeded where some other missions failed

[Max Mosley]

Proving that there was water on Mars is interesting.  It could be really important to understanding how life arose on Earth.

[medilloni]

Murray Walker, on Jan 31 2009, 07:57 PM, said:

Proving that there was water on Mars is interesting.  It could be really important to understanding how life arose on Earth.

Sheesh, Muzza, always looking for the scientific answer.  

It's pretty straightforward dude...remember the apple? The one the blonde guy with the six-pack got from the bee-atch that did the pole dancing thang with the snake?  

Er, doh, it wasn't an apple.  

It was a really juicy pair, and from there we all sprang.  That's how life 'arose', it was 'roused'.  And still is.  Life is a stiffy.  Cool

Fcuk the water, now if they find some pear or apple tree roots, then we're in for a hell of a thread  






Edit: I was going to mention something about a snake shedding its skin and condoms, but Mrs Meds was looking over my shoulder.........

Edited by medilloni, 31 January 2009 - 11:11 PM.

[medilloni]

Here you go Jez, thought you'd like this...

http://news.bbc.co.u...ech/7870562.stm

I bet this goes down like a lead ballon with some though:

Quote

"It's a process of quantifying our ignorance," said Duncan Forgan, the University of Edinburgh researcher who carried out the work.

    

Quote

Number of alien worlds quantified
Intelligent civilisations are out there and there could be thousands of them, according to an Edinburgh scientist.

The discovery of more than 330 planets outside our solar system in recent years has helped refine the number of life forms that are likely to exist.

The current research estimates that there are at least 361 intelligent civilisations in our Galaxy and possibly as many as 38,000.

The work is reported in the International Journal of Astrobiology.

Even with the higher of the two estimates, however, it is not very likely that contact could be established with alien worlds.

While researchers often come up with overall estimates of the likelihood of intelligent life in the universe, it is a process fraught with guesswork; recent guesses put the number anywhere between a million and less than one.

"It's a process of quantifying our ignorance," said Duncan Forgan, the University of Edinburgh researcher who carried out the work.

In his new approach, Mr Forgan simulated a galaxy much like our own, allowing it to develop solar systems based on what is now known from the existence of so-called exoplanets in our galactic neighbourhood.

These simulated alien worlds were then subjected to a number of different scenarios.

The first assumed that it is difficult for life to be formed but easy for it to evolve, and suggested there were 361 intelligent civilisations in the galaxy.

A second scenario assumed life was easily formed but struggled to develop intelligence. Under these conditions, 31,513 other forms of life were estimated to exist.

The final scenario examined the possibility that life could be passed from one planet to another during asteroid collisions - a popular theory for how life arose here on Earth.

That approach gave a result of some 37,964 intelligent civilisations in existence.

Form and function

While far-flung planets may reduce uncertainty in how many Earth-like planets there are, some variables in the estimate will remain guesses.

For example, the time from a planet's formation to the first sparks of life, or from there to the first intelligent civilisations, are large variables in the overall estimate.

For those, Mr Forgan says, we will have to continue to assume Earth is an average case.

"It is important to realise that the picture we've built up is still incomplete," said Mr Forgan.

"Even if alien life forms do exist, we may not necessarily be able to make contact with them, and we have no idea what form they would take.

"Life on other planets may be as varied as life on Earth and we cannot predict what intelligent life on other planets would look like or how they might behave."

If you visit the bbc site, the comments below the article are a larf.......

[Max Mosley]

I saw a beautiful halo around the Moon last night.  Exactly like this one from Germany:



Apparently it's caused by light being refracted as it encounters ice crystals found in some types of clouds.

Edited by Murray Walker, 05 February 2009 - 05:14 PM.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer]

Murray Walker, on Feb 5 2009, 05:12 PM, said:

I saw a beautiful halo around the Moon last night.  Exactly like this one from Germany:

Exactly??? wow that is amazing, you mean it had the same house and trees there as well?? What are the odds of that??








(sorry Muzza, just pulling yer leg )

[Oli]

Quote

recent guesses put the number anywhere between a million and less than one.

Less than one? That's a bit cynical.

[mikathegreat2]

Meh, happens all the time!

[medilloni]

Oli, on Feb 5 2009, 09:47 PM, said:

Less than one? That's a bit cynical.

Less than one planet, or less than one alien?  Moving on, how would we react if we met less than one alien?  

I have given this less than some thought, and I think less than it would look like this:
 small_alien.JPG   50.97K   2 downloads

[Oli]

medilloni, on Feb 6 2009, 02:54 PM, said:

Less than one planet, or less than one alien?  Moving on, how would we react if we met less than one alien?  

I have given this less than some thought, and I think less than it would look like this:
small_alien.JPG

I was referring to the allusion that there could be less than one intelligent civilization in the galaxy. I would have hoped that it was an oversight not to say less than one OTHER intelligent civilization.

[Jez]

monza gorilla, on Dec 8 2008, 04:31 AM, said:

Space elevator? That reeks of Arthur.

Yep, in a good though right?

Oli, on Feb 10 2009, 06:30 AM, said:

I was referring to the allusion that there could be less than one intelligent civilization in the galaxy. I would have hoped that it was an oversight not to say less than one OTHER intelligent civilization.

[Jez]

Stare into the curve of Herschel's mirror too long and you get a slightly giddy feeling that comes from not being able to judge where its surface really starts.

It is enchanting, spectacular and - at 3.5m in diameter - it will soon become the biggest telescope mirror in space, surpassing that of Hubble.

The great 18th Century astronomer William Herschel would have been astonished by the silver sensation that now bears his name. The design keeps Herschel's critical detectors in an ultra-cold state
More details


The European Space Agency (Esa) is certainly very proud of its new observatory. It has been working on the venture for more than 20 years.

"The mirror is an enormous piece of hardware," enthused Thomas Passvogel, Esa's programme manager on the Herschel space observatory.

"It's a ceramic mirror; it's the biggest piece ever made from silicon carbide. It's very hard but much, much lighter than glass and the performance is excellent."

This week, the finished observatory will be flown to Europe's Kourou spaceport in South America. There, it will be bolted to an Ariane rocket and hurled into orbit.

It will take up a vantage point a million-and-a-half kilometres from Earth, to open up what scientists expect to be an utterly fascinating new vista on the Universe.

"Very simply, the science pillars of Herschel are to understand better how stars and galaxies form and how they evolve," Göran Pilbratt, Esa's project scientist on Herschel, told BBC News. Hubble has viewed some near-infrared wavelengths. Its "successor", James Webb (2013), will seek infrared light also but with an even bigger mirror


Unlike Hubble, which is tuned to see the cosmos in the same light that is visible to our eyes, Herschel will go after much longer wavelength radiation - in the far-infrared and sub-millimetre range. It will permit Herschel to see past the dust that scatters Hubble's visible wavelengths, and to gaze at really cold places and objects in the Universe - from the birthing clouds of new stars to the icy comets that live far out in the Solar System.



Some of these targets, though, are frigid in the extreme (between five and 50K; or -268 to -223C); and for Herschel to register them requires an even colder state be achieved on the observatory itself.

This involves the use of a cryostat. It is akin to a giant "thermos" bottle. Filled with more than 2,000 litres of liquid helium, its systems will plunge Herschel's science instruments into the deepest of chills.

Critical detectors will be taken to just fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0K; -273C), from where they can make the most of their remarkable design performance. "Imagine one million, million, millionth of the brightness of a 60W lightbulb - that's what we can detect with one of our detectors," explained Professor Matt Griffin, who leads the international consortium behind SPIRE (Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver), one of Herschel's three instruments.



"Turning that around - imagine observing one of our very faint sources; let's say a very distant galaxy. If we were to observe it with SPIRE for a billion years, we would collect enough energy to light that 60W lightbulb for just one-twentieth of a second," the Cardiff University, UK, researcher said.

Herschel's other instruments are HIFI (the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared) and PACS (Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer).

With the entire package, the observatory can investigate a broad range of wavelengths (55-672 microns), including a swathe that has hitherto been missed by orbiting telescopes.

The classic "Pillars of Creation", great columns of gas and dust. Viewing the star-forming region at progressively longer wavelengths opens up new features(A) Visible light: Reflected light from the nebula is seen (0.5µm)( Near-infrared: Nebula suddenly becomes transparent (1-2µm)© Even longer: Possible to see emission from the nebula itself (7µm)(D) Longer still: Different structures start to become apparent (50µm)


Herschel's interest will be piqued near and far.

Close to home, it will study the mountainous balls of ice, dust and rock (some of them comets) that orbit our Sun beyond Neptune. The nature of these "primitive" objects has an important bearing on the story of how our Solar System came into being.

And beyond our little corner of space, Herschel's vision will allow it to see inside the clouds of gas and dust that give rise to stars in the Milky Way galaxy today, to see the conditions "in the womb". Studying these embryonic events will give astronomers further insights into the Solar System's beginnings 4.5 billion years ago. Once the liquid helium boils off, Herschel's instruments will go blind

Another key target for Herschel's investigations will be those galaxies that thrived when the Universe was roughly a half to a fifth of its present age. It is a period in cosmic history when it is thought star formation was at its most prolific.

Herschel will need to look deep into space to make these observations. The data will be used by scientists to test their models of how and when the galaxies formed their stars and how successive generations of those stars produced the abundance of heavy elements (everything heavier than hydrogen and helium) that now exist in the Universe.

Professor Griffin summed up the Esa mission in this way: "Herschel is not about studying mature stars or galaxies; it is really about studying the processes by which they are created.

"We know very little about that and we need to understand it in order to put together a picture of how the Universe we live in today grew from the earliest stages after the Big Bang."

A double deal

Herschel's launch will be doubly significant because it sees Esa loft two major science missions on a single rocket. The other passenger on the Ariane will be the Planck telescope, which will look at even longer wavelength (microwave) radiation. Herschel will share its ride with the Planck telescope
Read about Esa's Planck mission

One reason for the dual launch, says Esa's head of science projects, Jacques Louet, is logistics. Both telescopes have been designed to operate at the so-called Lagrange Point 2, a gravitational "sweet spot" in space where the observatories can stay fixed in the same location relative to the Earth and the Sun.

"The other reason is that we have coupled them industrially," he told BBC News.

"Both spacecraft share the same service module, so there is an economy in building them together. And because you build them together, you have basically the same timing on each mission. So, overall, I think it is a good strategy, but a risky strategy."

At a combined value for Hershel and Planck of approximately 1.7 billion euros, you get an idea of just how risky this strategy is. If the rocket fails, both missions are lost.

One is tempted to say "good luck"; but as Göran Pilbratt points out, when you have put as much effort into these missions as Esa has over the past 20 years, "luck doesn't come into it". Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer]

Oli, on Feb 9 2009, 07:30 PM, said:

I was referring to the allusion that there could be less than one intelligent civilization in the galaxy. I would have hoped that it was an oversight not to say less than one OTHER intelligent civilization.

What was it Eric Idle sang in the Meaning of Life? "let's hope there's some intelligent life out there, because there's b*gger all down here on Earth...."

[Jez]

Russian and US satellites collide
Iridium spacecraft provide satellite phone services

US and Russian communications satellites have collided in space in what is thought to be the biggest incident of its kind to date.

The US commercial Iridium spacecraft hit a defunct Russian satellite at an altitude of about 800km (500 miles) over Siberia on Tuesday, Nasa said.

The risk to the International Space Station and a shuttle launch planned for later this month is said to be low.

The impact produced a cloud of debris, which will be tracked into the future.

Since the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, it is estimated about 6,000 satellites have been put in orbit.

Satellite operators are all too aware that the chances of a collision are increasing. The space station does have the capability of doing a debris-avoidance manoeuvre if necessary
John Yembrick
Nasa spokesman

The Americans are now following the debris path from the impact. It is hoped that most of it will fall to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

Shuttle launch

The concern is whether the debris will spread and pose any risk to the ISS, which is orbiting the Earth some 435km below the course of the collision.

According to the Washington Post, a Nasa memo said officials determined the risk to be "elevated" but have estimated it as "very small and within acceptable limits". SPACE DEBRIS Around 17,000 objects tracked in spaceMonitored by the US Space Surveillance NetworkNasa says four other cases of minor collisions in orbitISS has had to manoeuvre away from debris eight times
Collision highlights growing threat

Nasa spokesman John Yembrick said the ISS had the "capability of doing a debris-avoidance manoeuvre if necessary".

He said this had happened on just eight previous occasions during the course of its 60,000-plus orbits.

Officials said there were no plans to delay the launch of Nasa's space shuttle Discovery later this month, although that would be re-evaluated in coming days.

Nicholas Johnson, an orbital debris expert at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that the Hubble Space Telescope and Earth-observing satellites at higher orbits and closer to the collision site were at greater risk of damage.

'Extremely unusual'

Communications firm Iridium, based in Bethesda, Maryland, said it "lost an operational satellite" after it was struck on Tuesday by the Russian satellite.

It said its clients may experience some brief outages until it had temporarily fixed the problem by Friday.

Iridium said it hoped to replace the 560kg satellite, launched in 1997, with one of its in-orbit spares within the next 30 days.




The firm described it as an "extremely unusual, very low-probability event", stressing that it was not caused by any fault on its part.

Russia's space forces confirmed the collision with the defunct 950kg (2,094lb) satellite.

"A collision occurred between an Iridium 33 satellite and a Russian Kosmos 2251 military satellite," Major General Alexander Yakushin said.

The satellite was launched in 1993 and ceased to function two years later, he said according to the AFP news agency.

Russia has not commented on claims the satellite was out of control.

Littered orbit

Space debris experts say the chances of such collisions have been rising.

A reconstruction showing how the satellites may have collided



Litter in orbit - caused in part by the break-ups of old satellites - has increased to such an extent that it is now the biggest threat to a space shuttle in flight.

Mr Johnson said that at the beginning of this year about 17,000 manmade pieces of debris were orbiting Earth.

The items, some as small as 10cm (four inches), are tracked by the US Space Surveillance Network - sending information to help spacecraft operators avoid the debris. Of the 6,000 satellites sent into orbit since 1957, about 3,000 remain in operation, according to Nasa. Europe has just initiated its own space surveillance programme. One of its main weather satellites had a near miss in December with a Chinese object. The Europeans knew nothing about the threat until the Americans contacted the European Space Agency to inform it of the danger.

[mikathegreat2]

Have the bombs fallen yet??

[Jez]

Nasa delays space shuttle launch
Nasa has nine shuttle flights left before it completes the space station

Nasa has delayed the first space shuttle launch of 2009 for the fourth time because of safety concerns.

US space agency managers and engineers met for 13 hours on Friday to discuss a potentially dangerous problem with fuel valves in its engine compartment.

The Discovery shuttle's crew is due to fit the International Space Station with its fourth and final set of solar arrays.

No new launch date has been set for the orbiter's two-week mission.

During the last shuttle mission in November, a tiny part of one valve cracked.

There was no danger to the crew or the shuttle, officials said.

But Bill Gerstenmaier, Nasa's associate administrator for space operations, said: "We need to understand a little bit more the consequences if a piece comes off."

He added: "When we're in this mode, we need to be careful about jumping to conclusions and picking solutions."

Nasa has nine shuttle flights left before it completes construction of the station. The fleet is scheduled to be retired in 2010.

[Jez]

I can't wait for the age of reusable rockets to commence!-


Skylon spaceplane gets cash boost
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News
Skylon would be totally reusable

An innovative UK launcher concept is to get 1m euros (£900,000) of investment from the European Space Agency (Esa).

The Skylon spaceplane would take off from a conventional aircraft runway, carry over 12 tonnes to orbit and then return to land on the same runway.

The money will help prove the vehicle's core technologies, including its Sabre air-breathing rocket engine.

Reaction Engines, the company behind the project, believes its reusable launcher could fly within 10 years.

Alan Bond, the Oxfordshire firm's managing director, said: "Traditional throw-away rockets costing more than a $100m per launch are a drag on the growth of this market.

"The Holy Grail to transform the economics of getting into space is to use a truly reusable space-plane capable of taking off from an airport and climbing directly into space, delivering its satellite payload and automatically returning safely to Earth."

The Skylon concept's key enabling technology is its Sabre propulsion system.

It is part jet engine, part rocket engine. It burns hydrogen and oxygen to provide thrust - but in the lower atmosphere this oxygen is taken from the atmosphere.

At high speeds, this requires Sabre be able to cope with 1,000-degree gasses entering its intake. These need to be cooled prior to being compressed and burnt with the hydrogen.

Reaction Engines' breakthrough is a remarkable heat exchanger pre-cooler.

Arrays of extremely fine piping plunge the hot intake gases to minus 130C in just 1/100th of a second. Skylon would operate like more traditional transportation systems


The Esa money comes from the agency's technology development programmes and contributes to a total programme of investment in Skylon worth almost £6m.

It will enable Reaction Engines to build a full test pre-cooler at its facility at Culham.

Other aspects of the Skylon design will be investigated by EADS Astrium, the German space agency (DLR) and the University of Bristol.

Europe already has a very capable expendable rocket system in the Ariane 5, but Esa constantly has one eye on the future and the technologies that will provide the next generation of launch systems.

Guaranteed access to space for its member states is one of Esa's primary objectives, but lowering the cost of that access is also important.

The "brochure price" for an Ariane 5 is about 160m euros (£140m).

'Good position'

"People are looking for the technologies which are going to enable us to really transform the economics of putting stuff up into space," said UK science minister Lord Drayson.

"Britain is well placed here. The Skylon project is a good example; but I'd also point to Surrey Satellite Technology Limited with their microsatellites that are a fraction of the price of conventional satellites.

"We're in a promising position as a country to be working on those areas of technology that are applicable to the future of space research," he told BBC News.

Lord Drayson said the coming year was an exciting one for the UK as it finessed its policies in the light of an important review being undertaken into space activity and exploration.

The minister said it was possible a new structure - meaning a dedicated UK space agency - was needed to oversee this future.

"We need to ask ourselves, 'are we as well organised as we can be to make the best from this good position we've got?' We haven't made any decisions about this yet because I'm waiting for this review to come to me." Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

[Max Mosley]

Nice!  There's some real innovation right there.

[Jez]

Indeed. Maybe forumla one's KERS technology will further aid development of the Skylon Spaceplane.

[Jez]

US 'CO2 hunter' set for lift-off
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News
OCO will launch from California

Nasa is all set to launch its first mission dedicated to measuring carbon dioxide (CO2) from space.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) will help pinpoint the key locations on our planet's surface where the gas is being emitted and absorbed.

CO2's increased concentration in the atmosphere will lead to global climate change, say the major institutions and agencies that study Earth sciences.

The OCO data is intended to help forecast that change more accurately.

Currently, carbon dioxide is regularly sampled at about a hundred sites around the world. The new satellite will be taking roughly 30,000 readings on each orbit.

"We need to make a measurement that is about three times more precise than has ever been made for a trace gas in the Earth's atmosphere," said Dr David Crisp, OCO's principal investigator.

"We regularly measure ozone in the Earth's atmosphere to about 1%. We need to make a measurement of CO2 to about three-tenths of 1% to start answering the questions that face scientists."

Colour clues

The $270m mission will be put in orbit by the smallest ground-launched rocket currently in use by the US space agency. NASA'S OCO MISSION OCO weighs approximately 440kgWill fly at a 705km altitudePasses the equator every pm30,000 measurements per orbitGlobal coverage in 16 days

The Taurus XL vehicle is scheduled to leave the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 0951 GMT, Tuesday.

It will loft OCO into a near-polar orbit at an altitude of 705km (438 miles). The spacecraft will then circle the planet once every 98.8 minutes, passing over the entire globe in the course of 16 days.

Nasa stresses the mission is an experimental one; it first has to establish that the measurement approach it has adopted is a robust one.

OCO carries a spectrometer that analyses the sunlight reflected off the Earth's surface. By splitting that light into its component colours, it will be able to see the part of the spectrum absorbed by carbon dioxide molecules.

By measuring oxygen's presence in the atmosphere also, OCO should be able to arrive at a concentration figure for CO2. The instrument is sensitive to carbon dioxide in the lower reaches of the atmosphere.

"We'll be pumping down about 50 gigabits of data every day," said Dr Crisp.

"We're a very small spacecraft - we'd be a very cosy telephone booth - but we'll pump down data at such a high rate I often joke we'll melt the snow around the base of the down-link station."

CO2 in the atmosphere has seen a steady rise in recent years


This mass of information should help the OCO science team pinpoint the so-called sources (where CO2 comes from) and sinks (where CO2 is pulled out of the atmosphere by land and ocean processes, and stored) of carbon dioxide.

Scientists have calculated that Nature cycles about 330 billion tonnes of carbon every year. Human activities put about eight billion tonnes into the atmosphere - a tiny sum in comparison but enough, say researchers, to imbalance the system and raise the global mean surface temperature of Earth.



Of that eight billion, studies suggest about half remains in the atmosphere, says Dr Paul Palmer, a collaborator on the mission from the University of Edinburgh, UK.

"The remaining 50% gets taken up by the ocean biosphere and the land biosphere, or so we think. But if you take into account what we know about the oceans and the land, there is still a high percentage - something like 20% - which is poorly understood.

"We don't know where it goes, but we do know that this unaccounted sink changes in magnitude from year to year."

It could be going into land areas where trees, grasslands, crops and soil are absorbing carbon dioxide at a faster rate than previously been acknowledged.

These sinks are likely to include abandoned farmland where forests are re-growing.

They could also take in the northern, high-latitude forests that are experiencing longer, warmer growing seasons, allowing trees and shrubs to "bulk up" and absorb more carbon dioxide.

OCO measures carbon dioxide on the day-side of the Earth


"Even 'Smokey Bear' is a sink," said Professor Scott Denning, an OCO science team associate at Colorado State University, referring to the US Forest Service's anti-fire mascot.

"By putting fires out in our western forests and allowing the wood to accumulate, we are actually sequestering CO2."

To identify those currently poorly understood - or "missing" - sinks, OCO's data will have to be combined with models of how the air is transported through the atmosphere.

The famous US forest mascot may have a part in the storyUltimately, researchers will use the OCO maps to assess how well the sinks are likely to perform over time.

"[Different climate] models show very different CO2 levels in the atmosphere for the same human emissions. So even though people are producing the same emissions in each of these models, the resulting CO2 in the atmosphere is very different by the end of the century due to the differences in land and ocean behaviour," explained Professor Denning.

"This actually shows up at about 300 parts per million (ppm) of difference in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere - remember, we're at about 385ppm today. So this is a big difference and is really quite important for understanding future climate."

The OCO team is working closely with the Japanese Gosat ("Ibuki") mission which launched its carbon observatory last month.

The orbits of the two spacecraft will cross six times each day.

The groups use different measurement approaches, which will provide a cross-check on each other's data. Both will take their calibration from ground stations which, although limited in number, can measure CO2 with much higher precision at their locality. Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk