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Space Science

Mars Odyssey Completes Aerobraking 169

Posted by michael from the excuse-me-sir-do-you-know-how-fast-you-were-going dept.
Cally writes: "Space.com reports that Mars Odyssey has completed aerobraking and is ready to begin its main science mission. As the spacecraft has already produced exciting results before the start of the science mission proper, interesting data on the quantities of water in the Martian crust may be expected soon - not to mention that Odyssey provides another datapoint in the study of Gamma Ray bursts."
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Mars Odyssey Completes Aerobraking More

Mars Odyssey Completes Aerobraking

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  • Here's the article:

    January 11, 2002

    MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
    JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
    CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
    NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
    PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
    http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

    Mars Odyssey Mission Status
    January 11, 2002

    Flight controllers for NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft sent commands overnight to raise the spacecraft up out of the atmosphere and conclude the aerobraking phase of the mission.

    At 12:18 a.m. Pacific time Jan. 11, Odyssey fired its small thrusters for 244 seconds, changing its speed by 20 meters per second (45 miles per hour) and raising its orbit by 85 kilometers (53 miles). The closest point in Odyssey's orbit, called the periapsis, is now 201 kilometers (125 miles) above the surface of Mars. The farthest point in the orbit, called the apoapsis, is at an altitude of 500 kilometers (311 miles). During the next few weeks, flight controllers will refine the orbit until the spacecraft reaches its final mapping altitude, a 400-kilometer (249-mile) circular orbit.

    "The successful completion of the aerobraking phase is a major milestone for the project. Aerobraking is the most complex phase of the entire mission and the team came through it without a hitch," said David A. Spencer, Odyssey's mission manager at JPL. "During the next month, we will be reconfiguring the spacecraft to begin the science mapping mission." The science mission is expected to begin in late February.

    During the aerobraking phase, Odyssey skimmed through the upper reaches of the martian atmosphere 332 times. By using the atmosphere of Mars to slow down the spacecraft in its orbit rather than firing its engine or thrusters, Odyssey was able to save more than 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of propellant. This reduction in spacecraft weight enabled the mission to be launched on a Delta II 7925 launch vehicle, rather than a larger, more expensive launcher.

    JPL manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Principal investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, operate the science instruments. Additional science investigators are located at the Russian Space Research Institute and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., is providing aerobraking support to JPL's navigation team during mission operations.
    • I don't think you really have to worry about slashdotting NASA. I'm pretty sure they got a hefty amount of bandwidth. And chances are also that its not gunna get that many hits at midnight e.s.t
      • The four machines that are mars.jpl.nasa.gov have handled worse than SlashDot. They survived everybody pounding on it for the Pathfinder mission.

        They have their own tap off JPL's isolation router. Coming into our isolation router are quite a few REALLY fat pipes.

    • I don't like when people get Karma because they think that a site is Slashdotted or that it will be.

      Sometimes a server get a high load and gets offline for 5 minutes and people already consider it slashdotted. I have seen people that copied an article while I could still access the website. Props to the webmasters and system administrators for handling this situation by fixing bandwith and loading problems.

      But, simply 'mirror' a text is not valid for positive karma points. Because you don't need brains to get these points. It's not something that adds up to the discussion. We have a user getting positive karma because he came first.

      It's like if we continue with this, one day we might see instead of First Post! comments, something in the line of:

      First Mirror!
      // Follows text

  • Also note .. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eloquence ( 144160 ) on Sunday January 13, 2002 @11:08PM (#2834806)
    .. the prior story [slashdot.org] about preliminary findings. This is not redundant: It is something that has mostly been ignored by official NASA press releases but has still made it into the mainstream media. I really hope that the failure of NASA to mention that they already have detected "large desposits of hydrogen" close to the surface means that they're waiting to confirm their findings, not that there's some dark conspiracy postponing any serious trips to Mars by decades in favor of sinking money into NMD, ISS and the Shuttle instead.
    • Maybe NASA doesn't broadcast this as big news simply because it is not news. The water ice at the poles of Mars has been known since like forever, and the fact that Odyssey has spotted it only means that the spacecraft's instruments seem to be functional.
      • That is not correct, since the water was found near the poles, not at the poles (which would, indeed, have been a rather obvious discovery). Reuters release:
        On Wednesday, scientists said the first pass by the neutron spectrometer had revealed evidence of hydrogen in the soil in northern regions near the pole.

        [...]

        Significant water ice deposits easily accessible on the surface of the planet would benefit any future Mars mission astronauts and make it much more likely that life might have existed on the planet.

        NASA scientists said they were excited by the initial indications of hydrogen deposits, describing the readings sent back as clearer, more definite and much earlier than had been expected.

        "We were expecting that it would take many orbits (to determine the presence of hydrogen)," said Stephen Saunders, a scientist on the Odyssey project. "But we saw it the very first time."

        Also, prior to this discovery, it has been claimed many times that significant amounts of water have never existed on Mars, and that what we are seeing is mostly carbon dioxide (cf. Google search [google.com]) except for some water ice at the poles. These claims should now finally be refuted. Therefore, this is an extremely important discovery, suggesting large amounts of water elsewhere under the surface, given that we already know of the prior presence of an ocean on Mars (it was also debated that what we are seeing are merely the results of carbon dioxide erosion).
    • I'm fairly sure that ISS would place a significant part in any kind of 'serious trip to Mars'. Basically a spacestation is a requirement to it, or atleast required to do it in any reasonable timeframe as we all know how long it takes to build large things in space with the shuttle.

      • Re:Also note .. (Score:2, Informative)

        by MrDolby ( 303452 )
        Wrong, the ISS is not needed nor is it even designed to be a spaceport or deep space launching platform. NASA already has a plan to get to mars "Mars Direct". They just need the funds to implement it. Check out the Mars Society's web site http://www.marssociety.org and read "A Case for Mars" By Dr. Robert Zubrin. The book is a great read for anyone interested in Mars exploration and explains why we don't need tons of space infrastructure to get to mars.
        • The ISS is not the right platform for assembling a manned Mars mission, but neither is Cape Canaveral. Mars Direct just shows that NASA would rather repeat their mistakes than admit their Apollo program was flawed. The "Moon Direct" mission plan came about when the mission turned from true exploration/science into a publicity stunt to be executed as fast as possible. It got two men to the moon in about 7 years, but the work they were able to do was quite limited, and going back more than a few times was too expensive.

          With Mars, let's take our time, and put together a mission that has enough people, equipment, and supplies to really accomplish something. That will be far too big to launch in one piece...
          • Do you even know what the Mars Direct mission is? Its not at all a flag and footprints mission like Apollo. Check out the Mars Direct Home page, http://www.nw.net/mars/ Also check out the technical document http://www.nw.net/mars/docs/nearterm.txt

            The Mars direct Mission calls for a minimal stay of 1.5 years on the Martian surface far greater than the hours spent on the moon in Apollo. With a combustion powered rover which uses fuel produced on mars to allow about 24,000 ground kilometers can be traversed, ranging up to 500 km out from the base. Thus each mission can explore an area of approximately 800,000 square kilometers, which is roughly the size of the state of Texas.
      • Wrong, the ISS is not needed nor is it designed to be a spaceport/drydock or deep space launching platform. Nasa already has a plan to get to mars "Mars Direct". They just need the funds and drive to implement it. Read "A Case for Mars" By Dr. Robert Zubrin, the creator of the Mars Direct Mission. Also check out http://www.marssociety.org

  • hmmmm... (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by 3-State Bit ( 225583 )
    interesting data on the quantities of water in the Martian crust...

    You know, doesn't this mean that all this other searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence [seti.org] is pretty counter-productive? If there's water right there on Mars, chances are there would be intelligent life there within a few billion years too. (It's the initial part of the thing that takes awhile...once you've got cells, the growth is like, exponential man.)

    Instead, we're sending probes up there when we KNOW there's no intelligent life yet. It's like barging into the prenatal ward every few minutes while your wife's about to give birth to say "are you done yet?" Believe me, when she's done, you'll know!

    At this rate, within the foreseeable future we'll have groped every planet capable of sustaining life with these stupid probes. Ever consider that under these conditions, intelligent life won't want to evolve? People like to be left in peace (that's why they get all fussy about the anal probes they constantly imagine aliens violating them with)...don't you think other would-be life might feel the same way?

    This is not off-topic.

    • Re:hmmmm... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by iansmith ( 444117 )
      I am split on the problems with contaminating other planets with bacteria and Earth-based life.

      I don't seriously worry about destroying the possible chance of life evolving in a billion years time (not sure how serious the above poster is either), but I *do* worry about contaminating planets and moons before we have the ability to do a detailed examination.

      That said.. I'd rather send people there than have it sit in pristine condition. Pretty, but useless.

      I'm still sad we don't have a moon base. Oh well, back to Space 1999 reruns...

      • Re:hmmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by 3-State Bit ( 225583 ) on Sunday January 13, 2002 @11:33PM (#2834886)
        problems with contaminating other planets with bacteria and Earth-based life.
        Hello: we already douse all probes [google.com] in Dial antibacterial soap first, to make sure we don't give any other planets weird fungi that we later claim were the first life found on other planets! (Sorry I don't have a non-cached link, the page seems to be down.)

        That said, as for your: I'd rather send people there than have it sit in pristine condition
        Why? What's so good about having people there? I say go after the Earth-based problems, and don't do things like spend three percent of our government's money on a trillion-dollar program just to get humans in a place they aren't very suited for being in the first place. When we've got the luxury of having solved most Earth-based problems, then you go after the extraneous stuff like that. Until then, I'm happy if we just do information-gathering type things: for that, you DON'T need people anywhere but in their office-chairs, except for whoever actually has to slingshot the probes into space. (Or have things changed since then? I might be dating myself here....[in a strictly platonic way, of course.])
        • We could wait until all problems on the earth are solved, but who says that will happen?

          Differences in people are what cause problems, and if we really want to foster a diverse world, then we're going to have certain world-views that collide.

          If everyone was the same, there would be far fewer massive problems than right now. But I don't think most people would want to be like the rest of the world just because it would be a nicer place to live. No, the Muslims and Jews won't convert to Christianity to have a nicer place. The Democrats and Republicans aren't likely to get along just so that the world is nicer. VI and EMacs will never get along. Especially when all the above groups have an ideology to defend.

          My opinion:
          The only thing we have that could possibly bring us together is to once again have some sense of wonder about what's out there. Every step we take in the universe is a wonder, and if we wait . . . we're likely to be destroyed by our own differences.

          Of course, that may be the right answer: make sure we don't infect the universe. That's awfully pessimistic, but it might be true. I just hope that through further exploration our differences even out because we realize that, really, Kashmir is just a little strip of land, and that there is a seemingly infinite amount of everything.

          Idyllicly (I know that's probably misspelled), exploring and usage of space will allow us to have the material things that we desire and think we need, so that there are less things to fight about, and thereby solving problems.

          Haves versus have-nots. It's all kind of pointless when you see how much is out there, and there is enough for everyone. Three percent of the budget seems rediculously (sp) small for that possibility.

          My opinion, I could be wrong. . .
          • >>That said, as for your: I'd rather send people there than have it sit in pristine condition
            Why? What's so good about having people there? I say go after the Earth-based problems, and don't do things like spend three percent of our government's money on a trillion-dollar program just to get humans in a place they aren't very suited for being in the first place. When we've got the luxury of having solved most Earth-based problems, then you go after the extraneous stuff like that.
            ----
            That argument is not valid. When you think about how much money the government blows on stupid crap, who cares about NASA? The world's problems will never be solved, even if we do get rid of NASA. I think the point of not spending money on space because of the problems here is not valid. Applying the same argument to you, I could say you bought that computer with the money you could of used to save 10 people's lives in Somalia. If we cancel NASA because we have problems here on earth, that would just be dumb.
            A better place to cut the budget would be the department of defense. Remember that the money they spend on a squadron of stealth bombers is as large as the NASA budget. Things at the DOD could be cut down. Look at Afganistan: We sent just an infestimally small percentage of our air force and we still blew the shit out of them. If we cut DOD spending by a third, we'd still be the most powerful country by far and we'd save hundreds of billions.
        • Until then, I'm happy if we just do information- gathering type things: for that, you DON'T need people anywhere but in their office-chairs, except for whoever actually has to slingshot the probes into space.

          I would tend to disagree with that point. I think that by far the best way to do science in space is to send scientists. A probe is limited to detecting whatever phenomenon its instruments are designed to detect, but a human scientist can improvise, notice trends, hack together equipment, go digging in rough terrain, follow a hunch, etc. Overall, a human being is an excellent explorer. Properly equipped, I'm sure you'd get superior science results to a string of probes.

          Don't get me wrong - probes are very important, especially sample-return missions. I'm just saying that we could do MORE with people.

    • Re:hmmmm... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Wombat ( 6297 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @12:06AM (#2834959) Homepage
      Actually, your idea that newly evolved intelligent life will be there in a few billion years is probably a bit off.
      As mentioned in the Odyssey mission objectives, "Mars today is far too cold with an atmosphere that is far too thin to support liquid water on the surface." Not an outright elimination of the possibility of intelligent life, but at least of intelligent life as we know it. The atmosphere is just way too thin, and things may only get worse on the surface from further bleed off without some form of intervention. I think the common view is that if there was higher (i.e., many cellular) life on mars, it was probably when back when the planet was warmer and wetter. Anything that might be left is likely barely eking out an existence in special environments.
      And, in the few billion years you propose for intelligent life to evolve, the sun will have expanded to a red giant, and the surface of Mars will likely be nice and toasty. A bit too toasty perhaps for, again, life as we know it.
      Finally, there's plenty of scientific value in studying Mars whether there's life there or not. The life issue is perhaps the most media friendly, and the one that most captures the pop cultural interest, but there's lots of other stuff to learn from that red rock.

      -Wombat
    • The problem with this thinking is that all life must be carbon based and all life must exist the way it does on this one planet. IIRC virii are not carbon based, and IIRC virii do not respirate. They certainly constitute life. But I could be wrong about virii, I'm too lazy to look it up.

      • Don't apply for any biochemistry positions. :)
      • Corollary, Spammers respirate, are carbon based, and do not constitute life.

        man touch finger mount pump fsck yes umount make clean sleep
        • Spammers respirate, are carbon based, and do not constitute life.

          Now you've got me dreaming about the sort of experiments that would have to be performed on captive spammers to confirm the first two claims...
          • Lets start with Miss Cleo. Then my employer.. (But i take no part in the spamming! none! I just run our website! I even refused to set up a spam server!) We can of course fund this operation with low-interest credit cards that i can acquire once i rid myself of this debt i built up buying so many pr0n site subscriptions. We can use X10 cameras to log our experiments.

    • You know, doesn't this mean that all this other searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence [seti.org] is pretty counter-productive? If there's water right there on Mars, chances are there would be intelligent life there within a few billion years too. (It's the initial part of the thing that takes awhile...once you've got cells, the growth is like, exponential man.)

      Although many people believe that life is very common throughout the universe, and will spread rapidly anywhere it gets a foothold, there's no deterministic path towards intelligent life. The prevailing view is that intelligence is an accident, not an end-product, of evolution. Many scientists believe that intelligent life is extremely rare, and that we may be the first intelligent civilization to evolve in the Milky Way galaxy.

      After all, if a large meteor hadn't hit the earth about 65 millions years ago, dinosaurs would still be roaming the earth. Humanity is here due to a freak accident, and in fact we may be very unique.
  • Only a few million more miles until the onboard computer malfunctions and that trippy space sequence starts!
    • Well, there was always the martian defense forces.

      But these seemed to have retreated to the asteroid belt, allowing our intrepid explorer to plant the flag of Earth, and stand guard as a lone sentry against the terrorists of the outer solar system.

      Stand proud, little space probe!

  • By using the atmosphere of Mars to slow down the spacecraft in its orbit rather than firing its engine or thrusters, Odyssey was able to save more than 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of propellant. This reduction in spacecraft weight enabled the mission to be launched on a Delta II 7925 launch vehicle, rather than a larger, more expensive launcher.

    No small feat, there. Too bad they didn't use regenerative aerobraking [nrel.gov]—we might have gotten the spacecraft back.

    • No small feat, there. Too bad they didn't use regenerative aerobraking [nrel.gov]?we might have gotten the spacecraft back.


      They talk about electric car breaking, I can't understand how it could apply to aerobraking. Do you have a better link?

    • I don't see how that would work...

      I mean, you could probably come up with a method of generating some mechanical energy in the process of aerobraking, but it seems to me that we're dealing with a mechanical energy which wouldn't do you a whole lot of good in space -- after all, fuel isn't the problem, it's a lack of something to push against.

      So, am I missing something here, or did you just post that link to look smart?

      • You could save the electricity and use it to power an ion engine to bring the space craft back.

        Perhaps gas can also be collected in the atmosphere so that no extra fuel is needed to brought along with the space craft. Thou, bringing Xenon gas maybe far lighter alternative than the collector that would need to be installed.
    • Is regenerative aerobreaking feasable at our technology level?

      It would have to gather up reachtion mass plus generate power to use it. Perhaps a scoop and long cables to use the planets electro-magnetic field to store up power.

      Nothing we have comes close to pulling off this sort of trick.

      Anyway.. why bother about getting it back? Who would want it? I mean, my last car lost enough resale value in the past few years.. the trade-in value for a vehicle with a billion miles on it would really suck. :-)
    • And just how do you propose to do this??? Your link talks about regenerative braking with electric and hybird gasoline/electric automobiles.

      To do this with a spacecraft, you would have to transform the heat generated by friction in the atmosphere into some form of stored energy. You won't ever be able to do this with anything like 100% efficiency, and the weight of whatever you use to do this conversion will almost certainly make this a losing proposition.

    • Too bad they didn't use regenerative aerobraking...

      Regenerative areobraking? What do you want them to do - put paddle wheels on the probe?

      Okay, your comment was stupid. You probably just had a twitchy "Submit" finger and wanted to get a comment in there early. I can understand that. What is ridiculous is that at least two morons out there actually thought is was "Interesting" enough to mod it up to +4.

      Would whoever did that please smack the back of their head for me? Thanks.
      • Mmmph. Maybe it was supposed to be funny. In any case, any time you have a heat differential (between the inside of the craft and the outside, heated by atmospheric friction) you can theoretically use that to create power. But unless it's nescessary, adding that ability would only increase weight, which is the problem aerobraking is supposed to be solving in the first place.
      • His post is genuinely funny. It really is very funny if you understand what he's saying and have that sort of humor.

        Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
    • There's obviously no such thing as "regenerative aerobraking." My comment was mainly about the fact that by using aerobraking, they cut a few million off the launch costs. That's going to be invaluable in the future, as science budgets continue to be stripped to the bone.

      Why anyone took the incredibly dry witticism at the end seriously is beyond me. Perhaps I should have used more vermouth.
      • Why anyone took the incredibly dry witticism at the end seriously is beyond me. Perhaps I should have used more vermouth.

        OK, I'll clarify why I took it seriously. There are plenty of total morons who post to slashdot who wouldn't have known that "regenerative aerobraking" is impossible. I'm very glad to hear that you aren't one of them, and I apologize for finding you guilty by association.

      • well, there's always the possibility of magnetic braking - even though it doesn't sound as cool as areobraking. The shuttle did an experiment a while ago where they stuck out a long wire (in a loop) and had it generate so much current that it melted the wire or blew a fuse. Obviously that power came from potential energy from the shuttle's orbit thereby slowing it down or dropping it's orbit. Imagine what all that power could be used for: for the braking phase, the probe could be sending out really strong radio signals if it's transmitter didn't get fried first.

        But then mars doesn't have a magnetic field. Pity. It might be workable for Jupiter or some other magnetic-field-endowed planet though.
        • The experiment you refer to involved a tethered satellite. It was performed on February 25, 1996, and as miles of tether were unrolled, the dynamo current grew just as predicted. The tether was almost entirely unrolled when it broke near the shuttle's end, whipping off into the void. The shuttle crew tracked the satellite by radio for several minutes, then lost contact.

          After the mission, the tether was examined on Earth, and was found to have been melted through. Turns out the core of the cable was a porous material that had atmospheric-pressure air trapped in it during manufacture. The air leaked out through pinholes in the outer insulation and was quickly converted, by the high voltage (~3500V) of the tether, to a plasma far denser and more conductive than the surrounding ionosphere. Instruments indicated that the plasma diverted a full ampere of current (at 3500 volts) through the insulator pinholes, enough to melt through the cable.

          That's why they don't let astronauts EVA any more without gloves.

          OffTopic: That last line was a feeble joke, similar to the one in my original post [slashdot.org]. That post was modded up three points (by those who took "regenerative aerobraking" seriously) before being modded down five (by those who take mismoderation seriously). Is there a record for the number of mod points, both up and down, assigned to a single comment?
    • I'll be chuckling over that for days...

      How about regenerative ferrobraking? Shoot iron slugs from an accelerator at the spacecraft, and have it catch them in a magnetic field and throw them back to the accelerator. No propellant loss, spectacular efficiency, works for starting as well as for stopping. Accuracy is problematic.
    • last time [userfriendly.org] they tried to use degenerative braking they didn't get back their spacecraft as promised. So they switched back to the old scheme.

  • Could anyone explain (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    [This is a serious question, please think before you moderate]

    Could, anyone explain why we are going to Mars? Or, why we are even bothered taking pictures of it? What's the point of going to Mars, when most of the powers in this planet are at the brink of nuclear war? I don't see any short-term necessity to go to Mars. If anyone wish to give constructive remarks contrary, please feel free to do so. I understand the ghist of this site, but should we not worry about the amount of human lives being lost in the name of established religions that dictate nothing but outdated virtue?

    Thank you.

    Javid O'Hare.
    Citizens Commission on Human Rights [cchr.org]

    • Multitasking (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Sunday January 13, 2002 @11:36PM (#2834894) Homepage
      Ah yes, one of the favorite arguements of people who think space exporation is a bad idea.

      Look, spending the resources we currently expend on space travel isn't going to contribute substantially to work peace (nor hunger, nor overpopulation, nor keeping people from being laid off).

      On the other hand, the greatest points of human progress have historically taken place in two times -- exploration and war. Both of them create necessity, which is (of course) the mother of invention. I assume you'd rather avoid war, as would I, so exploration seems like a good investment.

      Besides, its our nature to do this sort of thing. That's why people weaved reed boats, why they sailed before they could figure their position with any certainty, why we, as a race, have always struggled to see what's over the next hill.

      The small-minded idea that you could solve disease, hunger and war by supressing the instinct to explore and becoming universal xenophobes is both juvenile and foolish -- at no time in history has anything like this proven true. Indeed, the worst times tend to be those where we stopped being curious -- dark ages, anyone?

      I don't mean to be too brutal, but your half-thought-out assertion in this area offends me.

      • Look, spending the resources we currently expend on space travel isn't going to contribute substantially to work peace (nor hunger, nor overpopulation, nor keeping people from being laid off).

        World peace and hunger are not technological problems; they are entirely political. The only way to solve them is to eradicate all bullshit republics and regimes from planet Earth. This isn't a matter of spending; it is a matter of political will. To accomplish this, we must stop granting sovereignty to these bullshit regimes, declare self-determination to be a fundamental human right, and make all soverign nations sign a mutual-defence pact with the U.N. (in part as a condition of sovereignty). This would legally allow and require the U.N. to interdict if, for example, a coup was made against the government of Afghanistan (such as in 1996). When all nations are signed on, this would be the end of war.

        We could feed everyone on Earth today if we really wanted to (or at least, we'd be able to within a short number of months). Mostly, it's bullshit regimes, war, and third-world political corruption that prevents this.

        Overpopulation seems to me to be linked to general poverty. Industrialized nations naturally curb the birth rate, as it seems that only the poor can afford to have children. I'm guessing that a higher standard of living is realized in an industrialized nation without or with very few children, and with lots of children in third-world countries (since, if they live, they are your retirement security). Your retirement security in the first world is your career savings, if you manage to save, and public welfare if you don't.

        "People being laid off" is a very vague description of a problem. People are laid off for many reasons, normally, of course, because they are not actually doing something that is profitable (or even break-even-able). Preventing layoffs by subsidization is a waste of money and keeps people making unimportant things for no reason that people don't want, instead of having them do something actually useful. Basically, it's micro-scale communism, and communism succeeds best at equally distributing poverty.

        [After reading the whole of your message, I guess the highlighted idea is from someone else.]
        • Actually, I would normally agree that "layoffs" were due to un-profitable areas. Unfortunately, in today's economic climate, layoffs are used to bolster bottom lines (temporarily) to increase stock price. Witness the airlines latest disaster. They receive billions in "Federal Welfare" to offset their losses with the ostensible purpose of preventing layoffs, but instead, the first thing they do is layoff most of their workforce. We could argue that the "workers" were not doing anything profitable (the airline industry was in a slump over safety concerns), but those "workers" were already paid for by OUR tax dollars. Had the airlines not received a bailout, I'd have said "yeah, lay em off". However, they DID get a bailout, like so many of our American corporations. And now, those same airlines are frantically hiring back those workers, who have been without pay for 2-4 months once they realized that their "slump" was no where near as severe as it was thought to be. What's more bullshit? That millionaire CEO's lay off tens of thousands while keeping their 7 digit salaries AND pocketing government subsidies, or that poor Joe Schmoe working the ticket counter who just lost his house because that same CEO would rather show his "profits" to his shareholders to bolster his own worth rather than keep Joe on for a few months to build business back up? Please, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say "Kill the Evil Corporation," but rather, kill the "Short Term Planning" frame of mind that depends on government (tax funded) bailouts that makes "Short Term Planning" feasible. Let corporations who can't stay in business fail. And, most certainly, don't allow corporations who RECEIVE government bailouts to fire their front-line, unskilled workers (many of whom are trying to go to school, raise families, etc) just so their stock values will increase, (just to turn around and hire those positions back with new employees with no seniority for less pay).

          As for "self-sovereignty", I suggest you also rethink that. Where do you draw the line? We yell and scream about "exclusionist" Turks oppressing Kurds, "exclusionist" Iraqi's doing the same, "exclusionist" taliban (who are more multi-ethnic than the "northern alliances") oppressing others, I mean, where do you draw the line and how? Whom gets the pie? States based upon RACE and FUNDAMENTALISM should be frowned upon and not supported, as both are intolerant of just about every other group except their own. Do we foster racism at the expense of *freedom*? Because that's exactly WHAT we are fostering when we support Israeli and/or Palestinian statism. Jews vs. Arabs. If I'm not mistaken, Israel has a very "exclusionary" government that prohibits native Palestinians from participating in the government process, hell, I'd be pissed, too. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, they want to create a sovereign nation to exclude JEWS (many of whom have been in the region for centuries) from the political process. Get rid of religious fundamentalism and refuse to support racist regimes (including those that advocate slave labor), quit giving them our money, quit building slave labor factories or contracting to slave labor factories, and you dry up their wells. Money is the factor here, as much as I sometimes hate to admit it. People, regardless of what they say, are greedy bastards. Anyway, this is waaay to involved for a slashdot posting, so I'll leave it at that.
    • Take a good look around this parent's thread and ask yourself: Do all of the anonymous cowards sound a little similar?

      I've seen astroturfing on Slashdot before, but this is a pretty lame example of such.

    • What's the point of going to Mars, when most of the powers in this planet are at the brink of nuclear war?

      When the world powers are throwing their nuclear pencils at each other, wouldn't it be handy to go somewhere else after the aftermath?

      When you have read the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley-Robinson (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars), you will realise that it is only a matter of time that we start to utilise the resources of space. Mars appears to be the closest candidate for colonization.

      Personally, I'm still waiting for someone to discover the planet Rupert. :)

    • Let's go to venus. It has a really thick atmosphere. Lots of CO2 there too. Drop off a couple of palm trees and contianers of cenapede grass and we got Venusian paradise.

      Probably would be more complicated than that but Venus interests me more than Mars.

      oh well
    • 1. We're going to Mars to do Science.

      2. We take pictures of Mars to do Science, and because it's fun and they look cool.

      3. Astrophysisists are not not much better at politics and foreign-policy than the rest of us, so I say let them stick to their chosen persuit of Science.

      4. Some of us try to look beyond what we may presently believe to be short-term necessities. This has probably saved Mankind's ass many times in the past.

      5. Addressing the proposed problem of lives lost in the name of established religions is (once again) not really a good use of your typical Astrophysicist's time. He or she is most likely to look at you rather quizically and say something like "What do you mean exactly?" while not-so-secretly hoping that you will leave soon.

      There's lot's of folks in the world, so we can (and will) all do lot's of different things. Is that hard to understand?

      You wish it were otherwise? You wish you could enact policy so that we would all have to address 'urgent world issues' as labeled such by folks like yourself?

      Hey, Good Luck to ya!
  • What weird timing... I just finished watching a Nova documentary on the gamma ray bursts just an hour or two ago. They entitled the episode Death Star and PBS has set up a website for it at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/gamma/ [pbs.org]. The short of it is that scientists believe that these bursts are the result of stars about 30 times the size of our sun collapsing (and forming black holes in the process). They referred to this as a "hyper-nova" as distinguished from the smaller "super-nova". The process gives off a tremendous amount of energy - the most of any process that we know of since the big bang, according to the Nova narrator.

    Anyway, PBS tends to re-run Nova episodes quite a bit where I live, so check your local listings - you might be able to catch it again real soon if you missed it the first time.


    • ...a truly excellent hard-SF book, in which a gamma-ray burster plays a major role. The math gets deep at times; just keep slogging through it and your mind will be expanded. (Possibly painfully.)

  • NASA Feels the Heat at Latest Mars Launch (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    After a nearly perfect launch, 2001 Mars Odyssey is on its 400-million-mile, six-month journey to the red planet. The spacecraft will primarily search for water on Mars but it will also seek 19 other chemical elements and measure radiation. NASA, just barely holding the budget-cutters at bay, needs to recover from two previous Mars failures: the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Climate Orbiter. If everything works, Mars Odyssey will spend two years circling the planet while taking measurements and readings. The mission was already providing remarkably sharp and dramatic views before and during lift-off with two cameras attached to the Delta 2 rocket, one facing up and one down.

    NASA: [nasa.gov]
    http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/
    Space.com: Space.com [space.com]

  • exciting results (Score:4, Funny)

    by solitaryrpr ( 199842 ) on Sunday January 13, 2002 @11:40PM (#2834903)
    Actually, the preliminary exciting results would be that it didn't crash into the planet or just disappear.
    • You think it's easy to make space probes that work perfectly?!

      They have to launch these fragile robots through the harsh interplanetary void, always mere inches -- no wait, was it centimeters? maybe cubits... fathoms? -- from disaster...
  • The main goals of the mission are:
    Goal 1: Determine whether Life ever arose on Mars

    Goal 2: Characterize the Climate of Mars
    Goal 3: Characterize the Geology of Mars
    Goal 4: Prepare for Human Exploration

    So they are at least investigating if (and when) human colonisation is feasible.

    For the more general question of why NASA is mucking about in space, have a look at some of the FAQs [nasa.gov].
    It seems one of most common questions is 'Can I apply to take a ride on the Space Shuttle?' (A very polite 'No' in case you were wondering. Presumably the Russian Space Agency have a different answer to this one ...)
    • I believe you've slightly misinterpreted the mission's goals. The aim was (and is) to check the feasability of human exploration, not colonisation. What they are talking about here is that potential (ie. unlikely, but not yet entirely ruled out) mission to Mars around 2020. The mission involves a handfull of astronauts, and will presumably cost hundereds of billions, if not trillions, of US dollars.

      NASA isn't interested in colonising Mars, they're a US goverment organisation that has to look reasonably credible in the scientific community, not just some ad hoc space colonisation advocacy organisation a la SSI.
    • It seems one of most common questions is 'Can I apply to take a ride on the Space Shuttle?' (A very polite 'No' in case you were wondering. Presumably the Russian Space Agency have a different answer to this one ...)

      Why the Russians will sell space rides and NASA won't: the Russians aren't worried about being sued if the thing explodes.
    • Goal 5: CowboyNeal

  • The same old space exploration posts... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @01:00AM (#2835079)
    I swear, Slashdot could post the most mundane story about space exploration, and it still draws the same old complaints about this and that, the usual space trolls. I'm just going to respond to them all here for future linkage.

    1.) If you have difficulty understanding exploration for it's own sake then you aren't "all for exploration."

    2.) If we knew of all the ways we could use and develop (insert name of celesial body here), then we wouldn't need to explore it, now would we?

    3.) Yes there are people dying in (insert Third World country here) of (insert Horseman of Apocalypse here). The reasons for these deaths are purely political in nature. Money is not the solution to all problems just as it isn't the root of all evil. If anything it becomes a scapegoat for the real causes of strife. I don't see how not spending the money on space exploration and letting Congress (of all people) spend it on (choice of one or more of the following: junkets, political campaigns, television commercials, Jesse Jackson, economic incentives, UN resolution, Jimmy Carter, "peace-keeping" expedition) to "make the world a better place" is really going to change a damned thing. (Name of two opposing ethnic, religious, or political groups here) need to talk to each other, and dangling money in front of their noses isn't going to get them to do that, it will just get them to chase that money.

    4.) As for education reform, go talk to your state and local governments. If you don't know why you should be talking to them instead of the federal government, then you are an example of how badly we need education reform.

    5.) Do you have any idea how small a percentage of the federal budget is spent on space exploration?

    6.) We are NOT on the verge of nuclear war! At worst, the only countries on the verge of nuking each other are (names of two nuclear powers that didn't sign non-proliferation agreements)! And they aren't the ones sending up these probes, are they?

    7.) With all the problems there are in the world today... why would you want to live in the world today? (name of celestial body) looks like a damned good alternative to me!
    • I would just like to say that I love you. Because now I don't have to go and tell it like it is, and I hate having to type that much over trolls.
    • Wow... I'm surprised that people are still posting replies to the article. Maybe they don't read the comments first :-)

      Anyway, option 7 needs a bit of tinkering. (name of celestial body) might be "Sun", and while that would be a damn good alternative for some people I could think of...
    • Point 5 needs to be emphasized for the idiots who really don't get it. The proportion of money that gets spent on space exploration, compared to the federal budget spent on other things, that it makes every one of their objections sound like self-interested assholes.

    • CAVEAT (Score:2)

      by JJ ( 29711 )
      What you say is absolutely true of space exploration. It is slightly less true of commercial/ military uses of space. I have a problem with the two sharing one budget. Space exploration itself is very cheap, the most expensive probes cost pennies per inhabitant of the Earth. Space commercialization is considerably less cheap. The two do overlap somewhat (launch devices, technology development, etc) but it is high time that we had a seperate, ongoing committed budget for space exploration.

  • Darn.. we missed! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @02:01AM (#2835174) Homepage
    Nasa once again launched a spacecraft at Mars. However, due to inaccurate calculations, the spacecraft missed its target and instead settled in a stable orbit, unable to crash into the planet and achieve its intital objective. A preliminary investigation blames a slight miscalculation due to the improper use of significant digits.

    Mission planners are uncertain how to proceed now that the mission has been officially declared a failure. "We now have a $250 million piece of equipment uselessly orbiting the planet." A small group of scientists has declared the mission "not a total loss" as this might present a rare opportunity to study the planet before the orbiter crashes into the planet naturally at some later date.

    -Restil
  • Didn't Clarke have aerobraking tried for the first time in 2010: Odyssey II? Looks like we're finally ahead of schedule on something.

    *f*

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