October 2006 - Posts
Halloween is the traditional time for ghost stories, whether they're true or ... well, let's just say embellished. Here at the Log, our tradition is to share spooky tales of the unexplained as well as the explainable. In past years, we've had the saga of the haunted garbage disposal, the tale of the phantom horse, the out-of-body birthing experience, the hole in the attic and the case of the unseen door. Now it's your turn ...
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• The Guardian: Is robo-war ethical?
• 'The Egypt Code' and more from Sub Rosa magazine
• Improbable Research: The biology of B-movie monsters
• The Onion: Science disproves vampires
Will the Democrats win control of the House? Will the Republicans will hang onto the Senate? Who's going to win the presidency in 2008? No matter which side you come down on, there are virtual stock markets where you can put your money where your political views are. And an economist says the markets seem to do at least as well as the pollsters on predicting the election's outcome.
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NASA says it wants to take a closer look at proposals for robotic space missions that would bring a piece of an asteroid back to Earth, sniff the air of Venus, map the moon's gravity field, and give the Deep Impact probe and/or the Stardust probe a new lease on life. Check out this news release for more about the concept studies being approved as part of the space agency's Discovery program - and stay tuned for the final selection next year.
• Planetary Society: Add your name to NASA's next Mars lander
• NASA: Don't forget to send a message to the asteroid belt
• Spitzer Science Center: Snake on a galactic plane!
• New Scientist: Elephant in a black hole!
H. Bond / STScI / NASA / ESA |
The Hubble Space Telescope snapped these pictures of the novalike star known as
V838 Monocerotis in November 2005 (left) and September 2006 (right). The
images show how a "light echo" is reverberating in the dust surrounding the star.
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The Hubble Space Telescope has delivered the latest surveillance photo from a years-long stake-out of an exploding star, even as its handlers here on Earth debate how much longer they can keep the world's premier orbiting observatory on the case.
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• 'Nova' on PBS: 'Monster of the Milky Way'
• Planetary Society: Last call for Pluto digital time capsule
• NASA: A growing intelligence around Earth
• Lifeboat Foundation: Shouting at the cosmos
Rocket Racing League |
Rocket science has become a common way to refer to anything that's difficult to do - but turning rocket science into a marketable entertainment event is almost as difficult as the science itself. Many have tried, including Mark Burnett, the mastermind behind such reality-TV blockbusters as "Survivor" and "The Apprentice." Now the folks behind the Rocket Racing League are piecing together their own entertainment puzzle, in hopes of producing a watchable, profitable package by next summer.
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• BBC: 'Tower of Babel' translator made
• Wired: Battle of the new atheism
• National Geographic: Mysteries, riches in ancient Syrian tombs
• USNews.com: Is there room for the soul? (via Daily Grail)
NASA / JPL / Cornell |
A true-color version of NASA's "McMurdo Panorama" shows the terrain surrounding
the Spirit Rover at its Martian winter haven in the Columbia Hills.
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NASA has released a 360-degree view of the Spirit rover's surroundings at Winter Haven, known as the
"McMurdo Panorama," to mark the robot's 1,000th Martian day on the Red Planet. Not a bad milestone for a machine that was designed with a manufacturer's warranty of merely 90 days.
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• Space.com: NASA wants you to name a piece of the space station
• Nature: Older embryos can survive stem-cell extraction
• Discover Magazine: Database digs up new meds
• Discovery.com: Amazon River once flowed in reverse
If there's a spaceflight in your future - whether it's a quick suborbital spin, a hypersonic rocket jaunt across the Pacific or a visit to a private-sector space station - chances are the Federal Aviation Administration is going to play a role in how that happens. The FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation is in charge of regulating as well as promoting commercial launches - and in that spirit, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey announced last week that it's "all systems go" for commercial space.
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• The Onion: Mars rover beginning to hate Mars
• YouTube: 'White & Nerdy' | Slate: Weird Al, troubadork
• Improbable Research: Hot bird-in-bird action
• Enterprise Mission: Data's Head on the moon
For most political junkies, the recently announced national space policy is hardly a blip compared with the congressional page scandal and the war in Iraq. But at least one political heavyweight, former Vice President Al Gore, sees the White House’s new perspective on space as a case of Iraq all over again. Gore lambasted the policy during an off-the-record luncheon address in New Mexico - and like most off-the-record talks to a large group, this one has spilled onto the blogosphere, complete with a video clip.
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• Univ. of Wash.: How oxygen decline choked early life on land
• Cosmos: Subterranean bacteria hint at Martian life (via Daily Grail)
• New Scientist: Viking landers may have missed Martian life
• Science News: The 'expanding universe' of spidrons
What do you get when you cross a circus with a space shot? That breed of alien hybrid would probably look very much like the Wirefly X Prize Cup, gearing up at the Las Cruces International Airport in New Mexico. Rockets are going up ... and sometimes crashing down. And then there's the big event in the center ring, the $2 million Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.
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Armadillo Aerospace's Pixel prototype for a lunar lander completed the first leg of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge today, with $350,000 at stake. But one of Pixel's legs was damaged during the hard landing, and a small fire burned circuitry on the craft. Those mishaps ruled out the required return trip, which means Armadillo's first bid to win the prize was a noble failure.
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NASA is a potential customer for trips aboard privately developed suborbital spaceships, the agency's chief told entrepreneurs building those spaceships today during the Wirefly X Prize Cup Executive Summit in Las Cruces, N.M.
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Armadillo Aerospace |
Will they or won't they? Armadillo Aerospace's bid to win a piece of the $2 million Lunar Lander Challenge could go boom or bust, depending on the outcome of an 11th-hour rocket test scheduled in advance of the Wirefly X Prize Cup in New Mexico.
Rocket fans are following every twist and turn in Armadillo's tangled tale.
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• Space Elevator Blog: Teams qualify for $400,000 contest
• dBusinessNews: Lunar Lander Challenge judges listed
• RLV/Space Transport News: Rocket Racing League pushes ahead
• LiveScience Blog: Experience the best in space
If you're going on a long space trip, remember to keep your drink straws clipped shut. Do exercise, but don't fling your sweat in someone else's direction. Practice going to the bathroom before you have to go in orbit. And for heaven's sake, don't forget the duct tape.
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• BBC: Human species 'may split in two'
• Slate: Maybe TV does cause autism
• Scientific American: The dark ages of the universe
• New Scientist: Swarmbots team up to shift heavy objects
Lunar Explorer |
It'll be at least a decade before humans revisit the moon, but if you can't wait that long, you can revisit a virtual moon in 3-D and see sights that just don't come across in the 35-year-old imagery from the Apollo missions - including the stars shining in lunar skies. The fresh perspectives come courtesy of Lunar Explorer, a software package making its official debut Monday.
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• 'Nova' on PBS: 'The Deadliest Plane Crash'
• The Economist: Your television is ringing
• ANSA: Was Atlantis actually Sardinia? Debate rages (via Daily Grail)
• Times of London: Humanity's traces would vanish in 200,000 years
While I'm on vacation, here are a few Web links to spark your curiosity - or a smile:
• NASASpaceflight.com: NASA sets Orion 13 for moon return
• 'Fly Me to the Moon: The Movie' (via HobbySpace)
• Wired News: 'Second Life' figures get a life
• The Onion: Bush urges expanded drilling of Alaskan wildlife
NASA |
Four decades ago, the engineers who built the Apollo program’s moon lander were focused on one thing: John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing humans on the moon and returning them safely to the earth.
“Exploration, and lunar bases, and expansion of the program were thought to be down the road,” Bob Haslett, an engineer who worked on Apollo’s Lunar Module, recalled this week. “Our question was, ‘Can we do it at all?’”
Now NASA’s goals for future moon missions are more complex, and chances are the machine created to achieve that goal will be more complex as well. Some of the initial steps toward building that machine could well be taken next week in New Mexico at the Lunar Lander Challenge – which is being sponsored by the same company that built the first piloted lunar lander, Northrop Grumman.
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As noted last week, I'm on vacation and mostly offline this week in the Midwest, but here's a sprinkling of Web links mailed in from Miguel's Coffee Bar in Dubuque, Iowa:
• Slate: Does North Korea really need to test its nukes?
• The Space Review: Space sports and space power
• Scientific American: Impact from the deep
• Associated Content: A view from July 20, 2019 (via Hobbyspace)
NASA / JPL / U. of Ariz. |
Astronomers have used the faint infrared glow from Saturn's warm interior to light up the planet's deep cloud patterns from within - creating an effect they liken to a Chinese lantern.
It's just the latest cool, colorful view from the Cassini spacecraft.
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With just two weeks left before the Space Elevator Games in New Mexico, advocates of the space elevator concept have come out with two publications outlining their ideas and the challenges ahead. One is a revised road map for building what is basically a railway to outer space, while the other provides fresh words of encouragement from the concept’s most famous advocate: science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke.
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• 'Nova' on PBS: 'The Viking Deception'
• The Economist: Biological unity and diversity
• The Age: Here's why you hate Mondays (via Daily Grail)
• Maps of War: 5,000 years of Middle East history (via GeekPress)
Here's a prime example of better living through physics: A recently published study lays out the best strategy for getting the most bubbles from your bubbly. The research paper, titled "Champagne Experiences Various Rhythmical Bubbling Regimes in a Flute," goes into depth about the factors that make the difference between orderly and irregular streams of bubbles running up the sides of your champagne flute.
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I'll be out of the office for the next couple of weeks - first for a visit to the Midwest, including a tête-à-tête with King Tut, then for the X Prize Cup festivities in New Mexico. As always, postings to the log during the trip will be dependent on time, bandwidth and news developments - but in any case, I'll try to send some virtual postcards from the trip. In the meantime, here's the Cosmic Log Used Book Club selection for October:
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• Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards of 2006
• Stardust Holiday: The NASA Bedrest Project
• The New Yorker: How childbirth went industrial
• New York Metro: Why everyone has Apocalypse fever
Laura Rauch / AP file |
Flash from the past: SpaceShipOne astronaut Brian Binnie waves the flag at
California's Mojave Airport after his X Prize-winning flight on Oct. 4, 2004.
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It's been exactly two years since a privately developed craft last flew a human to space, on a mission that won the $10 million Ansari X Prize. At the time, the founder of the X Prize said SpaceShipOne's achievement on Oct. 4, 2004, heralded a "personal spaceflight revolution." To some, that climactic X Prize flight seemed to kick off a commercial sprint to space as captivating as the superpower marathon initiated by Sputnik's launch on Oct. 4, 1957.
But it's taking a while for this space race to get started - and the revolution's success is by no means assured.
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2MRS |
Even as two astrophysicists are being honored with a Nobel Prize today for seeing the big picture in the universe's background radiation, another astronomical team has released a different set of cosmic pictures - mapping out the huge concentrations of mass in our own celestial neighborhood. The astronomers behind the 2MASS Redshift Survey say their pictures represent the "largest full-sky, three-dimensional survey of galaxies ever conducted."
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This month's Space Elevator Games in New Mexico are aimed at testing the technologies that could someday be used to send payloads up to space on carbon nanotube ribbons - technologies such as superstrong tethers, beamed-power systems and robotic climbers. But those technologies also could make tomorrow's interplanetary rovers and power systems better. That's why NASA is providing $400,000 in prize money for the games this year - and setting aside up to $4 million through 2010.
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• NJIT: Math professor handicaps baseball playoffs
• Avant News: Voting-machine technician elected president
• Popular Science: Build a fire-breathing Robozilla
• New Scientist: 'Launch ring' to fling satellites into orbit
• The Onion: Green-conscious GE develops hybrid lightbulb
The results are in from this summer's balloon-borne broadband test, conducted by LiftPort in the skies over Washington state's Kitsap Peninsula with approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. The test was meant to find out whether balloon-supported aerial platforms could provide Internet service for remote areas - as a small, commercial step toward creating an elevator to outer space. There's good news, and there's bad news.
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• Must-see pictures from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
• SpaceRef: Weightless over Cleveland, Part 1 | Part 2
• Cosmic Connexion: A message to the extraterrestrials (via Slashdot)
• Science News: Chemical enlightenment
• Discovery.com: Ancient hair dye worked at nano-level
