ISS has officially transitioned from Expedition 33 to Expedition 34. Soyuz TMA-05M landed in the early morning hours today local time (about 10pm EST yesterday) in central Kazakhstan. American exp. commander Sunita Williams, Russian Yuri Malenchenko and Japanese Akihiko Hoshide are now recovering and reacclimating. Williams is the second female station commander, and oversaw the first operational SpaceX Dragon commercial docking. ATK (parent company of Thiokol, of Shuttle SRB fame) is building a fleet of service satellites called ViviSat. The hope is to use ViviSats to repair and refuel aging satellites in orbit. Just being able to refuel satellites--replenish their attitude control fuel, which is typically the limiting factor in a satellite's life expectancy these days--would be valuable in the control of space junk.
These are the first two (and among scant few known) color images of the surface of the planet Venus. They were taken by the Soviet lander Venera 13 on March 1, 1982. Space.com is profiling the mission. Despite the fall of the Soviet Union, little is known about many of its space endeavors. Particularly the Venera program. Unlike their long-jinxed Mars program (from the earliest flyby attempts to this year's Fobos-Grunt), the Russians had immense success with missions to Venus in the 1970s and 1980s. Lasting 127 minutes, the Venera 13 lander lasted longer than any other surface probe that has landed on Venus. Most only last 60-90 minutes due to the crushing pressure of the Venusian atmosphere, generally 90 times the atmosphere of Earth. A total of eight Soviet landers (Veneras 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14, along with Vega 2 in 1985) successfully made it to the surface. Only one American probe, the Pioneer Venus Day Probe, has landed safely on the planet, and it wasn't even designed to survive landing. The four probes sent to enter the Venusian atmosphere in 1978 (along with an orbiter, which was still operating when Magellan arrived in 1990) were intended to drop from their parachutes after spending a while testing the atmosphere, and crash on the surface. The Day Probe survived that crash, and sent data for an additional 67 minutes.
Elon Musk, the PayPal founder who has been powering SpaceX's commercial space feats, now wants to establish a large Martian colony. He envisions sending 10 people to start it, get it self-sustaining, then recruit a group as large as 80,000 for a fee of $500,000 per head. There will be a lunar eclipse on Wednesday (11/28). You probably won't even notice it. It's a partial, and will occur around sunrise in America. The ISS thanksgiving feast this year featured irradiated smoked turkey, yams, Russian mashed potatoes with onions, American cornbread stuffing, corn and a cranberry-apple dessert. Yummy.
If organics are found on Mars (recently hinted by Nasa), any manned exploration should be banned. Too great a chance that we contaminate the planet with Terran DNA.
Dateline: Mars -- dust storm in progress This image is a composite of map swipes from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter taken last Sunday (11/18). There is a dust storm rising in the southern hemisphere of Mars. The region where it is developing is known for producing global dust storms. Currently the storm is about 900 km away from the Opportunity rover, and likely not much further from Curiosity. This could be what finally puts the nine-year-old Opportunity rover out of commission. Originally intended to last 90 days, Opportunity is powered by solar cells, so its survival would depend on the condition of its batteries. Curiosity, which is nuclear-powered, does not have that issue. Opportunity also had to weather a dust storm in June 2007. With a previous global storm in September 2001, the time could indeed be near for another.
Aww, that's cute. Actually when the rover gets too covered in dust, it can be halted and positioned in a wind-favorable position to allow the Martian wind to blow the dust away over time. This is referred to as a "cleaning event", and can take anywhere from overnight to a couple months, in part due to the tenuous nature of the Martian atmosphere. Here's a good example from the Spirit rover. This was not a single cleaning event. But the left shows Spirit in October 2007 so caked in dust that it looks like it's part of the Martian surface. The right shows Spirit in November 2008, much cleaner.
not following modern capitalist principles of private property in space (or antarctica, or the oceans) is not "peace'n'love hippie nonsense". besides the very practical considerations that led to what this fellow calls "space law", our own notions of property haven't even been operative in the majority of cultures and epochs of history, and were most certainly absent from the 99.9% of human experience that lies outside it.
There's no way it will work. I can't imagine anyone qualified going, even if you pay them half a million to go. You can't spend it on Mars, and you can't spend it if you are dead.
Yeah, the money certainly doesn't add up. Sounds better than that one Martian reality TV show, though.
49 years ago today, the NASA Launch Operations Center on Merritt Island, Florida, was renamed John F. Kennedy Space Center. Cape Canaveral itself was renamed Cape Kennedy shortly thereafter, but its name was reverted in 1973 due to local pressure.
I can see the first ten going even if they have to pay, as they get immortalised in history. But if you want quality people you aren't going to get them if you ask them to pay. The first ten will have to be paid big money to go and lay the groundwork, unless you want people like Richard Branson going to set up your space colony. The other 80,000? I doubt there'll be much demand, and especially not for $500,000 each.
He did say up to 80,000. I think that'll be a stretch, too, unless you want to see a best case scenario of the civilization degenerating into Total Recall. The worst case scenario, of course, is one unhinged element deciding to breach the colony's atmospheric containment, and causing an utter genocide.
that's what i understood too. after all, you certainly can't launch a mission to mars with that kind of dough (the only other interpretation) so that must be what the hundred or so people on the voyage each shell out. are there 80,000 people in the world with that kind of dough? sure. who are in physical condition for such a trip? not impossible. who would give up a rich person's life on earth (still the nicest neighborhood in the solar system by far) to go live in the equivalent of a dingy basement with nothing to do or see? yeah, right.
Well. This is getting rather complicated. MESSENGER, which has been orbiting and mapping Mercury for over a year now, has found enormous amounts of surface water ice in permanently-shadowed portions of the planet. They have also found evidence of organic compounds. This could give rise to the discovery of possible underground microbial life in the shaded portions of the planet. It can't happen on the sun-lit side, which constantly bakes at temperatures up to 340 °C. And anything exposed to the near-vacuum of Mercury's surface wouldn't last long (Mercury has an extremely negligible surface atmosphere that is mostly oxygen and sodium). But areas around the terminator (and, as I said, underground) could potentially harbor life.
The Russians didn't go to Mercury. Looking closer at the findings, it looks like there is a film of organic compounds on the surface of many of the ice sheets. It's possible that very early in the evolution of the solar system, when Mercury had much faster rotation (it is not tidally locked, but spins very slowly; one day lasts 2/3 as long as its entire year) and was more geologically active, it could've been cool enough around its polar regions to harbor biological processes. Whether or not it lasted long enough to produce life (and, if it did, if it's still there), it'll take some time to figure out. There is going to be a teleconference at Noon EST today regarding the latest science from the Curiosity rover and the Voyager probes. Despite rumors, NASA says the Curiosity findings to be discussed today are not "Earth-shattering". However, I am beginning to think it's likely they will declare that Voyager 1 has actually left the solar system and entered the interstellar medium.