http://www.bautforum.com/ Humans and robots reaching out from the Earth to explore space. en Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:30:18 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.bautforum.com/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.bautforum.com/ http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96971-spectrographs-laser-sats.html Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:19:41 GMT It just hit me yesterday, but it seems so simple it's likely been suggested before, but I wonder:

Could a laser satellite be used to vaporize small jets of material on the surface of celestial objects and a spectrograph used to analyze the resulting plume to determine it's makeup? It seems much cheaper (at least for airless moons) than sending rovers to physically survey the site, and since it sits in earth orbit, its easier to fix, and can cover over time, a much larger area than rovers could. ]]> Space Exploration Crazy Tom http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96971-spectrographs-laser-sats.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96907-moon-ever-er-slightlydamp.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:03:44 GMT A bit of distraction is a welcome thing right now, so I'd repeat the question a friend asked me (and that i've wondered myself) a couple of days ago. 'If the moon has ice, and impacts, and on mars this leads to subsurface liquid water, why can't the same thing happen on the moon?'

The moon has orders of magnitude less ice than mars (10 parts per million was the result from lCROSS I think), but IIRC measurements by LRO and lunar prospector suggested that in places the concentration can reach 1% to 2% in the upper meter or so of regolith, and that may not be distributed evenly on finer scales, so there might be small regions where the ice concentration is even higher. The possibility of more ice at greater depths hasn't been ruled out either as far as I know.

Mars has an atmosphere, but it's barely above the triple point even at low elevations, so I guess that that doesn't figure much in the calculation of whether a subsurface body of liquid could form. So off the top of my head I can't think of a really solid reason why water melted by an impact couldn't form a temporary body of subsurface water, protected by its own ice, on the moon. The best I can come up with is that a couple of percent ice by weight wouldn't be enough to form a body of liquid in the first place, but as I said the ice may be clumpy enough that locally its concentration is significantly higher (I guess that would depend on how it was put down, and I don't think there's a firm answer to that either yet)- so I can't say to my friend that it couldn't happen because of that.

Please treat this as a bit of fun speculation, or a thought experiment, rather than a serious suggestion that the was liquid water on the moon in the past......any thoughts? ]]> Space Exploration marsbug http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96907-moon-ever-er-slightlydamp.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96902-new-astronaut-selection-criteria-surgeons-mechanics.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:04:15 GMT Astronaut Dr. Robert Satcher Jr. apparently had a whiz-bang time of it earlier this morning as he and Astronaut Michael Foreman rocketed two hours ahead of schedule while performing various maintenance functions during a spacewalk at the ISS. - Source

"As Satcher — the first orthopedic surgeon in space — lubricated snares for a robot arm, Bresnik observed "it is a thing of beauty to see the good doctor at work.""

I'm thinking his skills as a surgeon are simply translating well into that environment! Naturally, this raises the question of whether or not mechanics (or former mechanics) wouldn't make similarly adept spacewalkers?

For that matter, should we reevaluate, at least partially, the selection criteria for a portion of the astronaut corps? Perhaps issues such as proprioception (kinesthesia) and tool dexterity should be given more emphasis. ]]> Space Exploration mugaliens http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96902-new-astronaut-selection-criteria-surgeons-mechanics.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96881-could-self-sustaining-mars-colony-live-off-land-exist-now.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:00:18 GMT Could a self-sustaining Mars colony (live off the land) exist now using present day tech.? I know there has been talk about a one way voyage, but I am assuming that the astronauts would be giving up their lives....or am I quite wrong? Could a self-sustaining Mars colony (live off the land) exist now using present day tech.? I know there has been talk about a one way voyage, but I am assuming that the astronauts would be giving up their lives....or am I quite wrong? ]]> Space Exploration http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96881-could-self-sustaining-mars-colony-live-off-land-exist-now.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96830-new-martian-site.html Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:48:45 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6595077/Nasa-and-Microsoft-launch-explore-Mars-website.html I haven't tried the site out (yet) but thought it might be interesting :) Hopefully its more than just a front-end for the 'usual' info already available, but could be worth doing. Alex]]> http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/welcome

story on it here ->http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...s-website.html

I haven't tried the site out (yet) but thought it might be interesting :) Hopefully its more than just a front-end for the 'usual' info already available, but could be worth doing.

Alex ]]> Space Exploration AlexInOklahoma http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96830-new-martian-site.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96814-nasas-wise-ready-survey-whole-sky.html Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:13:43 GMT Should be wonderful http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/nov/HQ_09-269_Wise.html Enjoy Should be wonderful

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009...-269_Wise.html

Enjoy ]]> Space Exploration bebe7 http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96814-nasas-wise-ready-survey-whole-sky.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96763-so-if-ares-essentially-cancelled-what-can-nasa-do-next.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:07:23 GMT So if Ares is essentially cancelled- what can NASA do next? Start from scratch (AGAIN??????). Seems like they started from scratch and wasted billions on programs only to have them cancelled (ah, but there's always the value in developing new technologies and finding better ways to make a widget). It's not my money (I'm a Canadian tax payer). Nasa should either put up or shut-up.....ie. get out of the business....anyways real superpowers like China and India will be going to the moon and Mars next (not to get political but that's just the way it is- read economy). ]]> Space Exploration http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96763-so-if-ares-essentially-cancelled-what-can-nasa-do-next.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96722-vandenberg-officials-launch-atlas-v-rocket-w-dms.html Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:55:42 GMT Interesting article from GloSec....NASA surely helps out... http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/news/2009/space-091019-afns01.htm Enjoy team Interesting article from GloSec....NASA surely helps out...



http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/...019-afns01.htm


Enjoy team ]]> Space Exploration bebe7 http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96722-vandenberg-officials-launch-atlas-v-rocket-w-dms.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96717-glosecs-page-project-constellation-plus-links.html Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:12:31 GMT Wonderful photos too... http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/vse.htm Enjoy team Wonderful photos too...

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/vse.htm

Enjoy team ]]> Space Exploration bebe7 http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96717-glosecs-page-project-constellation-plus-links.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96670-21th-century-type-3-civilization.html Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:35:29 GMT ok, being new here i'm not sure how this community stands relatively to extrapolated trends (singularity-style), but i am going to assert that we are going to become a type 3 civilization this century.

we all heard of Moore's law, but less frequently hear what stands behind it: the capacity to analyze & account for (and thus manipulate) smaller elements grows with computation power. normally we mainly hear about how this is used in a circular fashion to engineer smaller elements in computing itself, but what the main function here is increasing our visual resolution.

this has had an obvious affect on our telescopic capacity, which in itself grows exponentially on the back of Moore's law. but while the debate on whether Moore's law has an upper limit rages on, we know we have an upper limit on telescopic capacity: accounting for 99.999...% of the light particles reaching the optical surface. if this sounds far fetched to you, i'll remind you that while our intuition of progress is linear, the progress here is rising exponentially and may even be subject to a double-exponential curve sooner then later.
once reached, further increase in visual resolution would only enable more compact ratio's of optical surface vs. telescope size, which while enabling increasingly more "spherical" telescope lenses to get a wider spectrum, all it would merely do is save telescope rotation time & reduce information sharing requirements. while particle physics may find new particles to scan for, the scale for which we can build such scanners would still be tuned to the general scale of telescopic capacity.
so what happens to the field of astronomy when the perfect telescope has being built? well, initially we would continue to deal with the exponential rise of more & more information to analyze, so it will take time for this block to hit the academic society... but it is going to hit, and when it does so its going to hit an astronomy society which has adapted to an exponential scale of new information (possibly with software), and will suddenly have to deal with no information. the field of astronomy experiences a bubble burst:
optical engineering companies loose revenues, academia fires scientists, any privatization that may have taken place of space exploration by that time will loose in stock value... because astronomy is not only a field of research, its all the institutions and manpower doing that research.
are they going to let that happen just because they built a perfect telescope? i doubt it: if there isn't an exponential growth in the light that comes to us, we are going to create an exponential growth coming to it.
and how do you call a telescope that gets propelled into the depth of space? yep, you heard this before: interstellar probes.

ofcourse interstellar probes have a problem: resources.
since the rate of gaining information from each of them is linear, creating exponential growth would require building more and more of them which - while in hypothetical land drains our solar system - more realistically it forces the scientific society to compete for resources with every other consumer based industry, having a more or less static demand but increasingly less and less supply, curving down the graph.
but it doesn't end there: as our capacity for speed in space travel improves, any distance (and thus information gained) made by the probe of one generation can be outdone by the next.
picture this: we send one probe to a nearby solar system, but before it does half the way we have the technology to build a probe that can do the same way in half the time and then we send that probe but it has the exact same problem, with each generation of probes costing resources we are basically forming a cycle of waste up until we reach half the speed of light.
in order to overcome this, we need to include self-improvement capacities in the probe so it can always use the "latest" (within the time it took information of the latest version to travel to it) version of propulsion. but here we have another problem: we can't predict what will be needed for the next generation of propulsion systems, so the redesign-capacity has to be the most general possible... basically an on board general assembler.
but once we have that we can also fix the first problem by allowing it to build more copies: a Von Newman prove.
this in itself would enable a double-exponential growth in information gathering: probes moving at faster speeds in more directions (until half the speed of light is reached and the double exponential growth would meet reducing returns until its only a single exponential growth).

now lets take a step back: what have we done? we've basically placed a general-assembler we can communicate with in every planetary system in an exponentially increasing portion of the galaxy. within that sphere anything we can communicate as information we can also build, and i think its more then likely that this "anything" is going to include ourselves in one form or another. we basically reach the capacity to travel in the speed of light (plus reconstruction time and limited to a zone that increases in diameter less then the speed of light)...

is that not a type 3 civilization?

p.s.
moderating note: i was not sure where to place this. the result of the process are in "life in space" but the causality of it is exploration, so i decided to go by the cause... ]]> Space Exploration traceur http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96670-21th-century-type-3-civilization.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96660-chandrayaan-1-discovers-lunar-mini-magnetosphere.html Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:08:53 GMT http://www.newkerala.com/nkfullnews-1-150347.html Chandrayaan-1 confirms presence of mini-magnetosphere on the Moon. Happy reading. http://www.newkerala.com/nkfullnews-1-150347.html

Chandrayaan-1 confirms presence of mini-magnetosphere on the Moon.

Happy reading. ]]> Space Exploration Zvezdichko http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96660-chandrayaan-1-discovers-lunar-mini-magnetosphere.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96605-lro-other-objects-moon.html Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:56:36 GMT according to wikipedia, there are dozens of objects we know location of on the Moon: didn't LRO portrayed anyone of them till now? We all know how a landing site should look like, and ok, it's amazing eventually seing them, but all other dozens of objects have never been seen before! :sad: Come on, LRO!!:) ]]> Space Exploration jumpjack http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96605-lro-other-objects-moon.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96515-hotol-when.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:29:08 GMT Looking at the specs for Orion and comparing them to the Apollo CSM made me start thinking about the ultimate means of interface transport, the Horizontal Take-Off and Landing single stage to orbit vehicle. So, how many generations are we away from having “Space Planes” like Skylon (realistically)? I looked at an article in Cosmos stating we are a decade away assuming ESA development and an expected development cost of $10B. If that is somewhat correct, why isn’t NASA jumping all over this technology. It seems that historically the HOTOL is ignored by NASA but embraced by the Europeans, is it just because we have such a developed rocket program? On a side note, wouldn’t an air-breathing rocket engine provide a leap forward in traditional rocket performance as well? Looking at the specs for Orion and comparing them to the Apollo CSM made me start thinking about the ultimate means of interface transport, the Horizontal Take-Off and Landing single stage to orbit vehicle. So, how many generations are we away from having “Space Planes” like Skylon (realistically)?

I looked at an article in Cosmos stating we are a decade away assuming ESA development and an expected development cost of $10B. If that is somewhat correct, why isn’t NASA jumping all over this technology. It seems that historically the HOTOL is ignored by NASA but embraced by the Europeans, is it just because we have such a developed rocket program?

On a side note, wouldn’t an air-breathing rocket engine provide a leap forward in traditional rocket performance as well? ]]> Space Exploration Turboswede http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96515-hotol-when.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96432-nasas-critics-overly-harsh-ideologically-biased-ungrateful.html Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:56:44 GMT I am surprised & puzzled at how much criticism NASA often seems to get here and on the BA blog (& elsewhere too) and wonder why it is that the most successful of all space agencies ever, the only one to put twelve men on the Moon (or indeed any at all!) and the one that has put more people into space than any other seems to cop it so harshly from its critics?

Yes, NASA like all organisations is imperfect and, yes, they've made some mistakes. (Although often they're just under-funded and not supported enough.) I'm not claiming NASA shouldn't occasionally be stuck into when it gets something terribly wrong & thus deserves it.

But the lack of respect and lack of gratitude for all the amazing, superluminous (ie. beyond just brilliant) things NASA has done and continues to achieve really bugs me. I think NASA's critics often go overboard in their criticisms and have an attitude towards NASA that is overly negative and unfair.

Astronomers everywhere owe NASA an unpayable, irredeemable debt of gratitude for the Hubble Space Observatory* alone.

Add the Apollo missons to the Moon, the Shuttle program, Skylab, not to mention the Voyagers, the Mars rovers, Cassini, Galileo, Magellan, MESSENGER, Stardust, Genesis, the Mariners, the Vikings, et cetera, .. & it becomes pretty clear that NASA has helped science & space exploration more immensely, more significantly than words can express & certainly more than its rival space agencies. Let alone the private sector which is still at the sub-orbital stage where NASA were fifty years ago and thus about half a century behind!

So before NASA's harsher critics start tearing NASA down and abusing them I think they might want to stop & consider all that NASA's accomplished - most of which is far beyond what any other group - nation or company - could or has ever manage(d).

If they did, I think its critics might realise that they are displaying a distinct ingratitude problem and are treating NASA unfairly.

No, I'm not an employee or anything like that - I'm not even American but Australian. My connection with NASA is simply as a big fan of them and of the work they do for space exploration & astronomy.

The impression I get is that much criticism of NASA comes from the peculiar US hatred of government and the Public sector and their irrational favouring of corporations and business over, well, *everybody* really. Its an odd, simplistic "Public bad, private good" ethos that is an odd and harmful ideological bias at least as I view things.

Now I’m for private enterprise having a go too - & I certainly wouldn't exclude or discourage them - but, IMHON, they’re no substitute for good old fashioned, national public space agencies. A nice complement to them maybe and perhaps with time their significance will grow but private space groups are certainly not a replacement for public organisations like NASA that benefits the entire planet and not just a small bunch of shareholders and CEO’s.

Besides, I'd rather the first words on Mars weren't something like :

“I claim this planet for Fizzy Soda, I come to boost sales for only my soft-drinking kind! This mission brought to y’all by fast food joint A, shoe company B & tampon manufacturer C. Land on Sunday, sell on Monday ..” I mean yeck. I suppose if that’s what's really needed to get us there (which I doubt very much.).. but .. yeck. :-(

So what do others here think?

1) Is NASA criticised too harshly & too often?

2) Are NASA's critics guilty of considerable ingratitude and disrespect?

&

3) Is the excessive criticism ideologically driven by "free (but not fair) market" corporate fundamentalists?

This is something that's really bugged me for quite a while now and that I feel quite strongly about which is why I thought I'd vent it here & see what y'all think & if you agree or not.

---

* Yes that's 'Observatory' not just 'Telescope' because there's a lot more than one instrument aboard that's working as the BA pointed out in one of his "ten facts about" article.

PS. Tried to get this with & as a poll as well - alas, I messed up the first time so am trying again - if I can't replace the first one with this with the accompanying poll, please can the mods do it & avoid a double post / thread? ]]> Space Exploration StevoR http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96432-nasas-critics-overly-harsh-ideologically-biased-ungrateful.html http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96381-moon-mars.html Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:24:43 GMT It seems like Mars is the destination of choice for the community while I am a big fan of returning to the moon before we start looking at a manned Mars mission. To me it seems like a manned mission to Mars would require a considerable jump in technology while the technology to establish a semi-permanent facility on the moon is on the shelf. For manned spaceflight I think our priority should be to determine if water ice is available on the Moon and what would be required to extract it. If subsurface water ice exists I think development of a Lunar facility should be priority one. For manned interplanetary missions the largest hurdle is getting mass into orbit. A Lunar fuel cracking station would be invaluable for further expansion into space. My fear is that any mission to Mars will be stripped to a pure “plant the flag” trip due to budgets. The scientific aspects of a manned mission to Mars will be stripped away due to the associated cost because the reason we are going to Mars is…going to Mars. It seems like Mars is the destination of choice for the community while I am a big fan of returning to the moon before we start looking at a manned Mars mission. To me it seems like a manned mission to Mars would require a considerable jump in technology while the technology to establish a semi-permanent facility on the moon is on the shelf.

For manned spaceflight I think our priority should be to determine if water ice is available on the Moon and what would be required to extract it. If subsurface water ice exists I think development of a Lunar facility should be priority one. For manned interplanetary missions the largest hurdle is getting mass into orbit. A Lunar fuel cracking station would be invaluable for further expansion into space.

My fear is that any mission to Mars will be stripped to a pure “plant the flag” trip due to budgets. The scientific aspects of a manned mission to Mars will be stripped away due to the associated cost because the reason we are going to Mars is…going to Mars. ]]> Space Exploration Turboswede http://www.bautforum.com/space-exploration/96381-moon-mars.html