1234 replies to this topic

[Deadbolt]

But there are better sciences to spend the money on.

[Time_Traveller]

Hints of ice at Mercury's poles

A Nasa spacecraft has found further tantalising evidence for the existence of water ice at Mercury's poles.



From http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17470151

[Raklian]

Runaway Planets Zoom at a Fraction of Light Speed


ScienceDaily (Mar. 22, 2012) — Seven years ago, astronomers boggled when they found the first runaway star flying out of our galaxy at a speed of 1.5 million miles per hour. The discovery intrigued theorists, who wondered: If a star can get tossed outward at such an extreme velocity, could the same thing happen to planets?
New research shows that the answer is yes. Not only do runaway planets exist, but some of them zoom through space at a few percent of the speed of light -- up to 30 million miles per hour.






http://www.scienceda...20322113604.htm


Talk about a gigantic cannonball!

[wjfox]

^ Astonishing!

[Immortal]

I wouldn't like to get hit by that !

[Time_Traveller]

Thousand-year wait for Titan's methane rain



Places on Saturn's moon Titan see rainfall about once every 1,000 years on average, a new analysis concludes.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17454005

[Time_Traveller]

Europe's ATV space freighter launches

Europe's ATV space truck has blasted off from the Kourou base in French Guiana.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17470396

[Raklian]

Europe's ATV space freighter launches Europe's ATV space truck has blasted off from the Kourou base in French Guiana. From http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17470396

This article is saying that the ISS is falling lower to Earth at a rate of 50-100m per day. Isn't that a bit much? Maybe not when you're speaking in hundreds of miles. This freighter is going to use its own boosters to push the ISS to a higher orbit.

[Time_Traveller]

Giant asteroid Vesta 'resembles planet'



The giant asteroid Vesta possesses many features usually associated with rocky planets like Earth, according to data from a Nasa probe.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17481911

[Time_Traveller]

ISS crew take to escape capsules in space junk alert

The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) briefly took refuge in escape capsules as a piece of space junk drifted nearby.






From http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17497766

Edited by Time_Traveller, 24 March 2012 - 01:05 PM.

[Logically Irrational]

ESA says BepiColombo will stay on budget despite delay

http://www.spaceflig.../05bepicolombo/

Technicial difficulties with BepiColombo, a joint project between Europe and Japan, will push back its launch to Mercury by 13 months until August 2015, but officials do not expect the postponement to trigger another increase in the mission's budget.

Launch was set for July 2014, but development and testing of the mission's electric propulsion thrusters, solar arrays, antennas and thermal control system is taking longer than expected, according to Jan van Casteren, Europe's BepiColombo project manager.

"Much of the equipment is specially developed for this mission and is critical in view of its intended operation at high solar intensity and high temperatures," van Casteran said in an email to Spaceflight Now.

The challenges forced European officials to push back the mission's departure to the next launch opportunity, when the planets in the inner solar system are positioned to permit BepiColombo's circuitous route to Mercury.

The new schedule calls for launch around Aug. 15, 2015. BepiColombo will fly by Earth a year later, followed by two closes passes near Venus and four approaches of Mercury. The flybys will use each planet's gravity to slingshot the spacecraft closer to the sun, eventually allowing BepiColombo to enter orbit around Mercury in January 2022.

BepiColombo's previous arrival date at Mercury was in November 2020.

I guess this will have to be moved on the timeline.

[Logically Irrational]

NASA Sub-Scale Solid-Rocket Motor Tests Material for Space Launch System

http://www.space-tra...System_999.html

A sub-scale solid rocket motor designed to mimic Nasa's Space Launch System, or SLS, booster design has been successfully tested by engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The 20-second firing tested new insulation materials on the 24-inch-diameter, 109-inch-long motor. The motor is a scaled down, low-cost replica of the solid rocket motors that will boost SLS off the launch pad.

[Time_Traveller]

ILS Proton Launches Intelsat 22

Intelsat S.A., and International Launch Services (ILS) announced today that an ILS Proton vehicle successfully launched the Intelsat 22 satellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Liftoff occurred at 8:10 a.m. EDT (18:10 in Baikonur). After a 15 hour and 30 minute mission, at 11:40 p.m. EDT, the Breeze M successfully released the Intelsat 22 satellite, weighing 6199 kg, into supersynchronous transfer orbit (SSTO) at a 65,000 km apogee.



From http://www.space-tra...sat_22_999.html

[Logically Irrational]

Mars for the 'average person'

http://www.bbc.co.uk...health-17439490

In the discussion, the California entrepreneur says key technology breakthroughs are dramatically lowering the cost of space access to the point where a mission to the Red Planet will very soon become a realistic financial prospect.

"My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars - this is very important - so you don't have to carry the return fuel when you go there," he said.

"The whole system [must be] reusable - nothing is thrown away. That's very important because then you're just down to the cost of the propellant.

"We will probably unveil the overall strategy later this year in a little more detail, but I'm quite confident that it could work and that ultimately we could offer a round trip to Mars that the average person could afford - let's say the average person after they've made some savings."

The entrepreneur described this as about half a million dollars. He conceded the figure was unlikely to be the opening price - rather, the cost of a ticket on a mature system that had been operating for about a decade. Nonetheless, Musk thought such an offering could be introduced in 10 years at best, and 15 at worst.

"Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket - half a million dollars. It can be done," he asserts.[/background][background=rgb(255, 255, 255)]
Leaving aside how one might define the wealth of an "average person", this is quite a claim.

[Time_Traveller]

Super-Earths 'in the billions'



There could be many billions of planets not much bigger than Earth circling faint stars in our galaxy, says an international team of astronomers.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17532470

[Time_Traveller]

Engineers set their sights on asteroid deflection

Pioneering engineers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow are developing an innovative technique based on lasers that could radically change asteroid deflection technology.



From http://www.spacedail...ection_999.html

[Time_Traveller]

Soviet Weather Satellite Falls in Antarctica

Meteor 1-1, the Soviet Union's first fully operational weather satellite, fell in Antarctica on Tuesday after more than four decades in orbit, the Russian Defense Ministry said.



From http://www.spacedail...rctica_999.html

[GNR Rvolution]

Europe's ATV freighter docks at space station

Europe's sophisticated ATV space freighter has docked with the International Space Station (ISS).

The unmanned robotic craft attached itself to the Zvezda module on the rear of the platform at 22:31 GMT



http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17539319

Edited by GNR Rvolution, 29 March 2012 - 11:45 AM.

[wjfox]

Huge tornadoes discovered on the Sun

Solar tornadoes several times as wide as the Earth can be generated in the solar atmosphere, say researchers in the UK. A solar tornado was discovered using the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly telescope on board the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) satellite.

http://www.physorg.c....adoes-sun.html

[Time_Traveller]

Cassini spacecraft captures Saturn moon geyser images

The Cassini spacecraft has captured striking images from flying by three moons of Saturn, including new pictures of Enceladus's gushing geysers.











From http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17550834