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Space Science

Astronauts Get Tricoders (Almost) 156

Posted by michael from the dr.-mccoy-was-playing-tetris dept.
AzrealAO writes "Space.com is reporting that The Expedition 9 crew aboard the International Space Station are equipped with HP iPAQ PocketPC's, which they are using as mobile productivity tools to record crew procedures, personal memos, check e-mail and calendars. The crew can also listen to music, view photos from home and read e-books. The iPAQs will be left on the station and reconfigured for future crews, and two additional iPAQs will be sent up on the next flight for a total of four."
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Astronauts Get Tricoders (Almost) More

Astronauts Get Tricoders (Almost)

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  • Cost? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Inominate ( 412637 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @04:13AM (#9092245)
    So how much does it cost to put an ipaq into orbit?

    • Re:Cost? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 08, 2004 @05:31AM (#9092413)
      Certainly not more than sending an entire car to the moon. I wish we could return to that era, instead of the times we live in now, where everyone goes worried about tiny costs that aren't even worth thinking of. Mankind can travel anywhere in space, it's just a matter of how much we want to do it. Apparently, not that much, judging from the health of any space program anywhere.
      • Apparently, not that much, judging from the health of any space program anywhere.

        China. Rather than a car, it sounds like they want to send up bulldozers.

    • Re:Cost? (Score:5, Informative)

      by imag0 ( 605684 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:21AM (#9092641) Homepage
      according to this link it's 5.5K to send a pound up...

      http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/upgrades/goa ls .html

      HP says the h5555 (close enough) weighs 7.29 oz

      these guys will convert shit

      http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert

      been up all night so im probably fulla shit but 7.2 oz is 0.45 pounds (bit less than 1/2 pound?)

      0.45 x 5,500 = $2475 a pop. not including SD card or swanky leatherette carrying case. or extended warranty, for that matter ;)

      Carry on!
      • Extended warranty is probably void when you escape the atmosphere.. They tend to Imply things like that in their warranty claims :)

    • Well since this whole thing reads like a damn ad, perhaps HP sponsored it. or maybe they should ... corporations sponsor expenses of space travel in exchange for good exposure?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @04:15AM (#9092254)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 08, 2004 @04:15AM (#9092255)
    Why don't they take up one of those performance gaming laptops and we can send them new game CDs every now and then. It's not like every man-second up there is worth thousands of dollars.... they can have a bit of fun.

    You'd be pissed if you forgot the battery charger though.

  • connection? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jponster ( 750086 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @04:16AM (#9092257)
    Check emails? view photos from home? what sort of connection do they get in space?
    I remember the trouble I had getting ADSL cos I live in the middle of nowhere, but this is something else - surely they cant be using dialup??

  • Official Press Release (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eluding Reality ( 691589 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @04:19AM (#9092269)
    Right here [hp.com]

  • Aren't Tricorders Sensors?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Blastrogath ( 579992 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @04:20AM (#9092270)
    I thought the whole point of a tricorder was a portible package of a ton of sensors and a little computing power to run analisys of the data. Tricorders are used to measure stuff, not take notes. These things are more like the star trek data tablets if anything.
    • I am pretty sure tricorders had storage capabilities, but I don't think they were used in the respective shows to take written or oral notes. Oral notes would have been easy to tack into the design idea. PADDs were used for taking written notes and reading.

      I'd say, if anything, PDAs can easily become a merging of both the tricorder and PADD idea, especially if someone makes compact flash sensor add-on and makes relevant data logging software. I know there is one Palm that has GPS.
    • Exactly right. These are not Tricorders, but PADDs.
    • I thought the whole point of a tricorder was a portible package of a ton of sensors and a little computing power to run analisys of the data. Tricorders are used to measure stuff, not take notes.

      I was thinking the same thing. They took tricorders to the surface of planets to see what things are made of or to detect enemies approaching. I don't imagine them encountering new substances within the space station. If so, they don't need one for each crew.

      "Who the hell FARTED?....Okay, if you don't tell me,
  • I wrote a paper for school on something like this, and also this [linuxdevices.com] a few years back, pretty interesting stuff.

  • Not a Bad Choice (Score:5, Funny)

    by 10101001011 ( 744876 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @04:22AM (#9092278) Homepage
    While many /.'ers may be crying for a Sharp SL-5600 or CL760 to be on board the ISS, the iPAQ isn't a bad choice. It is fairly rugged (for the every day man) and user-friendly enough.

    My first choice would have been the Dell Axim X5 400MHzsince it can accept CF and SD cards (and PCMCIA is an adapter is purchased) and it costs considerably less with a 512MB SD card and a WiFi card than the current equivilant iPAQ (the iPAQ 5555). Of course they probably need those biometric security features. Wouldn't want some complete stranger (or the owner) to actually be able to access their weekly calendar. God knows, they're doing some topsecret stuff up there....
    • Yeah what if the Klingon stop by and try to download their data from those things!!! Then the biometric security feats will blow their heads of lol. They would be having less a hard time when it has a PCMCIA adapter, they probably got that one too. :) I don't think the funds are ANY problem for NASA. It's all coming from the taxpayers anyway.

    • Re:Not a Bad Choice (Score:3, Informative)

      by WARM3CH ( 662028 )
      Well, I have a few Pocket PCs at home and work, including Dell Axim X5, iPAQ 3970, iPAQ 1940 and iPAQ 2210 and frankly, I like X5 less than any others. I think the best solution is iPAQ 2210 that has both CF and SD card, internal bluetooth, 400MHz Xscale, replacable battery. It has a powerfull IR diode usefull to control any device remotely (using the program Nevo that comes with iPAQ). In many benchmarks iPAQ2210 is significantly faster than X5 and personally I think the build quality of iPAQ is much highe
      • Easier to say it this way.

        Dell builds cheap shit. if it's a sheap knock off it's a Dell.

        I don't even like the Ipaq, and I would take one before another Dell

    • Re:Not a Bad Choice (Score:5, Funny)

      by moonbender ( 547943 ) <moonbender AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday May 08, 2004 @05:13AM (#9092381)
      Thank god it's rugged. Wouldn't want to ship up a new one if one of those thoughtless astronauts drops his iPaq off a table or something, now would you? ;)
    • Although I own a Pocket PC and like the range of available software, the Palm OS has always been less hassle. Windows Mobile has many of the weaknesses of Windows on the desktop.
    • <i>it costs considerably less</i>

      ehhmmm.. I don't think that's really an issue here.
    • and user-friendly enough

      You do understand we're talking about rocket scientists here...
    • The one iPaq (really a string of three of them - more later) I've had experience with was anything but rugged. In fact, the damn thing was so fault-prone the iPaq alone was all the convincing I needed to quit even thinking about switching away from Palm.

      A bud of mine bought his iPaq about a year and a half ago. Twice since then, the iPaq has gone completely kaput - wouldn't turn on, couldn't be revived. He got it replaced both times, but a device that fails after 7 or 8 months of normal use isn't exactl

  • Imagine... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Bishop, Martin ( 695163 )
    Imagine a floating beowulf cluster of these!
    Sorry, I just had to do it.

  • Another article. (Score:4, Informative)

    by modifried ( 605582 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @04:23AM (#9092283) Homepage
    Can be found here:
    http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/333/C2797/ [mobilemag.com]

  • keeping in touch (Score:5, Insightful)

    by acceber ( 777067 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @04:25AM (#9092287)
    The crew will also be able to listen to music, view photos from home and read e-books, allowing them to have some of the comforts of home on their journey.
    Considering that the Expedition 9 crew are spending almost 6 months aboard the International Space Station, this is a great way of keeping in touch with family and civilisation as a whole.

    The iPaq being used in space is another example where the benefits of technology can be felt as it would reduce the effects of "asthenia" where astronauts experience phases of fatigue, low motivation, hypersensitivty and irritability with the change in environment and lack of social communication. The iPaq obviously aims to provide a solution to that problem to a great extent.

  • Does it make the funky beep beep whirr that Spock used to get it to do?

  • Ah, the self-delusion of fiction-tech-desperate (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dupper ( 470576 ) * on Saturday May 08, 2004 @04:26AM (#9092290) Journal
    Geeks. A personal organizer is no more a Tricorder than my interstellar spacecraft is the Enterprise.
  • I got an online chat through ICQ to one of them.

  • Uh, I can't really remember (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dupper ( 470576 ) * on Saturday May 08, 2004 @04:38AM (#9092315) Journal
    A tricorder doing a single one of those things, and I've seen every episode of Star Trek more times than is healthy. Tricorders are tools, not personal organizers and media players. They are universal, trekno-magically flexible sensing tools, that could be deus-ex-machina'ed by a stupid fucking Voyager writer to Van Eck what background applications you have running from three sectors away.

    They may have such functions as this PDA, but they'd be so far below the level of a tricorder's usual function that they wouldn't be worth mentioning, and, being tools for work, never be used as such.

    • Re:Uh, I can't really remember (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is what I hate about Trek, the acting is crap so you look to the the storylines for solace and what do you get? more crap.

      *new sector

      *something mysterious that needs investigation

      *the CAPTAIN (the last person you'd send..) and the THREE next most important people go to investigate.

      *some crazy alien civilization in trouble, happen to speak english

      * plot thickens, somehow captain or crew member has sexual tension with a princess of fugly alien race.

      *they have to leave the planet after solving the p
      • then through something uniquely *human* (courage, freindship, cunning) they win the day despite beging owned in any rational assesment of the situation.

        What pissed me off when I watched ST as a kid was that it's not something human, just something adult... every alien race suffers from being emotionally immature and acting like a 7-year-old up past his bedtime on a sugar high... and Kirk always struggles:

        Kirk: ... if ... I ... could ... just ... get through ... to them ... to .. SHARE .. their toys ...
    • That's why they should be compared to PADDs, not tricoreders.

      The PADD was he ST PDA.

    • Tricorders were envisioned at a time before technology started converging. PDAs are more like a merger of Tricorders and Datapads. Add cell functions and it adds a communicator the mix. What would make PDAs more Tricorder like is using external sensors that have BlueTooth connectivity. Even on TNG they had Tricorders with specialized medical remotes. PDAs have the potential of being a far more flexible device than Tricorders ever would be.

  • These don't scan (unless they have a digital camera), I would think this is more like a padd from the shows. A nice handy little data storage and display device.
    Now I'll be really impressed if they can replicate the function where you can control the entire station from one padd (theoretically).
  • that the RIAA, MPAA and Microsoft have formed an alliance to go after the X-Prize.

  • Damn it, Jim (Score:2, Funny)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 )
    we need warp engines, and photon torpedoes!
  • But I run Familiar Linux [handhelds.org] on my iPaq.

  • Sensationalize much? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @05:15AM (#9092384)
    Jesus Christ, that's one of the stupidest headlines ever to appear on this site. First, it's spelled wrong. It's "Tricorder" and not "Tricoder."

    Secondly, these things are not anything even resembling the functions of a tricorder. I read the headline and was instantly thinking, "Wow, a handheld scanning tool. That should be cool." But no, I read on to find it's a stupid unmodified iPAQ. They don't do sensing, they don't take readings, and they don't scan anything. It's not a tricorder, and it's not ALMOST a tricorder. It's a goddamned PDA.
    • Yeah... but... it _could_ be a tricoder! Star Trek Gadgets and Star Trek Uhura give me wood, so leave my fragile world alone.
    • I totally agree with parent and don't understand why in the hell this submission was submitted with a falsified headline.

      It's really a big let down to see "OMG A TRICORDER WOW" and find out it's a PDA.

      *sigh*

      Another article that should have been rejected due to falsified info, or edited.
  • ...can they detect some sort of energyfield of an unknown kind?
  • ok, think about it, they are bringing only 2 of them up there, and they have to leave it there. If they have the money to build a rocket and other research materials, why not just give each of the Astronote an iPaq. I am pretty sure the iPaqs cost nothing compare to the space shuttle itself.

    are they trying to cut back the cost? makes me wonder.

  • Calendar? (Score:5, Funny)

    by 6Yankee ( 597075 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @06:01AM (#9092471)

    Monday: Float about and do stuff

    Tuesday: Float about and do stuff

    Wednesday: Float about and do stuff

    Thursday: Float about and do stuff

    Friday: Float about and do stuff

    Saturday: It's the weekend! Float about and do stuff

    Sunday: Float about and put next week's calendar in

  • TOS has taught me that one can never underestimate the power and many uses of the Mark II phaser.

    Tricorders are for all those Next Generation do-gooders. Hand me a hand phaser, and I'll explore space the Kirk way.

    One dead alien at a time.

  • Too advanced (Score:5, Funny)

    by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Saturday May 08, 2004 @06:31AM (#9092516) Homepage Journal
    While they don't have a full complement of sensors, the practical limit being perhaps sensing some coded IR signals, their display technology far outstrips any tricorder's. HP should rework them into a version where the TFT display is removed, and replaced with a random assortment of LEDs and bargraph displays which convey information via flickering coded signals.
  • Good, now maybe they can scan the structural integrity of the ISS to find out exactly what part of it is falling apart and detaching into space or perhaps what the loud metallic noise [slashdot.org] is.

  • RIAA? (Score:2, Funny)

    by dimss ( 457848 )
    What? They will listen to mp3s? Will RIAA raid ISS for pirated music?
  • but they're more like padds than tricorders aren't they?

  • Biggest problem with PADDs (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Stavr0 ( 35032 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @08:54AM (#9093101) Homepage Journal
    Most PocketPC have their "My Documents" folder in main memory (volatile RAM). If an crewmember forgets to dock their PDA or a battery fails, they may lose all their documents. There is a secondary battery, but it's not perfect.

    Workarounds:
    1. Stock each PDA with a 1GB mem card
    2. Dock early and often (automatic backup on docking)!
    3. Wifi to the ISS servers.

    Finally an obligatory Trekkie comments: They're more like PADDs [wikipedia.org] not Tricorders, you insensitive p'tahks!

  • I'm sure they'll develop a good appreciation for their use as an ebook (as explored in this recent discussion [slashdot.org]). Why boost a bunch of cellulose into space when you can beam it up?

  • The iPAQs will be left on the station and reconfigured for future crews

    Note to self: delete pr0n before leaving station!
  • Something the fileshare networks haven't considered... orbital filesharing (nice big sat with a big nasty raid, lots of shielding), outside the jurisdiction of - well - everyone excepting the military.
  • This has to be the most over-embellished headline that I have ever seen.

  • Pocket PC's? Really??

    Or is this because the Space Station is actually funded by Microsoft and is just a floating Exchange server with the world's most efficient cooling system?

  • ...This [thermo.com] is a tricorder...

    I did R&D on its mercuric iodide-based predecessor in the early 90's, although that was more of a "luggable" xrf analyzer...
  • I do not remember.

    man, they make my b/w palm look quite primptive in comparison. These things are more like a real pc.

    THank you palm for destroying your marketshare by not innovating. Sadly I hate ms but they have the better beast. A windows pocketpc can even run dvd divx's!

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