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Science

Name that probe! And 3 more years of duty for Mir 98

Posted by sengan from the old-faithful dept.
Cerb writes "NASA seems to be in need of a few good names for soil-penetrating probes that they plan on launching Jan. 3rd." Unfortunately the pair of people need to be related and dead, which reduces means we can't name them Linus and Alan. In related news, humanity's only tried and tested space-station, which was to be decomissioned this June, will get a new lease of life: an anonymous international investor will provide funds for another 3 years of service. (subject to Russian Gov't approval)
Some comments say Salyut and Skylab were first. True, but they aren't currently functionnal in Space.
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Name that probe! And 3 more years of duty for Mir More

Name that probe! And 3 more years of duty for Mir

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  • No, it really is Louis and Clark, the famous pioneers who explored the wild territory of Newark, NJ; they planted their flag on the snow-covered hill on February 3, 1953. :-)
  • If it was, the Russians would be announcing that the station was being renamed to "The Microsoft MIR(TM) Space Station."

    Plus, he'd insist that all the station's computers be upgraded to use Windows NT 2000(R)(C)(TM). But that'd probably do more damage to the station than that Progress did when it slammed into Spektr...

    Given the choice between accepting BillG's money and decommissioning the station, I would hope the Russians would opt for the Big Slam-Dunk into the Pacific. Not that I wouldn't be sorry to see it go, but it's the principle of the thing, you understand.

    Eric
    --

  • How could you forget John C Holmes?!?!
  • Thank God they're not decommissioning MIR. I mean,
    it seems to me that the way to keep folks in orbit
    safe is to have more places in orbit that they can
    flee to. Decommissioning MIR seems purely
    political, if they can afford and practically keep
    it operating after all.

    The US is just looking to validate the
    overly-expensive ISS. We would have been better
    off spending the money on a Mars mission or
    elsewise going where No One Has Gone Before, and
    the dipshits at NASA know it. $50 billion is way
    too much money for a simple space station.

    Go MIR!

    ----

  • Goodie, now we get emergency use for a while!
  • Why, Lewis and Clark! They were the US's governmental explorers and cartographers.
  • I agree that decommissioning the MIR is a bad idea. Heck, it costs alot of money to get that amount of hardware into orbit. At the very least, the MIR's modules could be used as a subsidiary part of ISS or as a liferaft for the ISS.

    Some may say that using the MIR modules would require significant reworking - true. It would also give us valuable experience in space construction. I'm also in favor of using spent main feul tanks from the shuttle to make section of usable material for station parts. We could use them as raw material for a factory in space.
  • Wells and Burroughs? Kule! Either one could be the digger. HEHEhehehe....
  • Posted by K8_Fan:

    True. I was working for a large non-profit and Microsoft "donated" a whole pile of software. They gave them the software, but rather pointedly did not give them any updates. They had to pay for those retail. So Microsoft was able to write off the whole retail value of the software in question, which of course only cost them the actual expense of the media. And they aquired another customer...one who cannot afford the expense.

    Can you say "drug pusher"?

  • Posted by Windigo The Feral (NYAR!):

    What's funny...I actually DID suggest it, when the link showed up at CNN's website...it seemed appropriate, to me anyways. (Just as a side note--Lewis and Clark actually were surveying the new territory, so it really DOES fit. :)

    Not sure on the 200th anniversary bit, but (oddly enough) the planned new US dollar coin will have Sacagawea on the reverse, which makes it cool in its own way too. :) Lewis and Clark for the little survey probes, and a strong woman on the money to pay for 'em [which is properly silver dollar sized this time :)]. :)

    Now to see just HOW many other folks submit it... :)

  • Mir is not the first manned space station.

    Look at Salyut or Skylab.

    Both of them were up and running a decade before Mir.
  • It was in a degrading orbit and was forced down so that big film vault wouldn't kill someone.

    It came down years after NASA was done with it.

    Yes the Salyut were temporary things...so was Skylab. And someday people will say that Mir was a "temporary thing".
  • I really wonder if the ISS could survive the kind of impact that Mir took in that accident.
  • He was on a radio talk show in California a couple months back, I heard 'em. Hawking new 'n improved "toys".

    --
    rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
  • Wells and Burroughs - what a *brilliant* pair of
    names for tunnelling probes!

    But is there any evidence that NASA scientists have
    a sense of humour?

  • got one (Score:1)

    by dalke ( 1472 )
    How about the first and last name of the English agrarian Jethro Tull who helped invent better ways of, ahem, digging fields.
  • what about lois and clark? the new adventures of superman?
  • Watched a show on sbs http://www.sbs.com.au about MIR and US involvement with sending up astronauts,and the response of the NASA flight engineers was that MIR was a marvel of technology, simple reliable and fixable. But balence that with the cost saving manual docking, irresponsible russian ground controllers. I wouldn't want to be stuck up there in a fire like they had :)
  • I'm familiar w/ the story between the two, but aren't those also the names of the Romulan homeworld and it's sister planet in Star Trek?

  • Adam and Eve...

    think about it, just throwing those names together, would make it an historic smash!

    just hope one of them doesn't stop working...
    heehee

    I hope MIR stays in use, it is a very good project, and i am sort of mad with the folks who are incharge of the international station, because i know that the "captain" of the ISS won't be a russian, even though some of the russian cosmonauts (is that spelt right?) have logged more space time, and have more experience than almost anybody else. Its sick how its international, but americans will be running the show.

    Its true that america will be bearing the finiancial brunt of the station, but if they want to have control of it, they should not call it "international."

    Don't play political games with science...
    The end result will mean doom.

  • Mir has been up for a lot longer than was originally intended. It is a fantastic piece of engineering but it's definately showing it's age a tad - remember the crash? and the fire? and the problems with the computers? and the power failures?

    The ISS is an expensive solution but it is about time the old thing was retired.

    ----
    Megs
  • I can't think of any famous siblings except for the Wright Brothers, or the Curie's, but they were married.

    oh well
  • It is, I saw Contact on HBO last night.
  • They aren't related, but they're great scientists (especially Bohr) and would be good names for the probes, I dunno, we should probably use some explorer's name or some archaeologists or something like that due to the nature of the probes.
  • It spread far faster than any human could hope to, and destroyed those civilizations (70-90% fatalities, IIRC) long before the conquistadores got there. They just picked up the pieces.

    And in the small favors department, at least the Catholics decided the natives were human and merely enslaved them. The Protestants up north decide they were devilspawn, and began a lowkey genocide campaign.
  • 1. Cortez and Pizzaro, both of whom were in
    search of precious metals.

    2. I wish I remembered the name of the 1st serious
    geologist. Name one after him, and the other after
    the canal-obssessed astronomer.
    (blanking out here... )

    3. H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs, the
    first folks to write Mars sci-fi novels?
  • This may be a little off-topic, but I'd just like to point out that Mir is not an abbreviation. Translated from Russian, it simply means Peace.

    ---
  • I'm pretty sure it means peace..
    And yes, I'm aware of the language's grammar, I speak it fluently. :P

    ---
  • Probably you are confusing the cost of a single B-2 with the cost of actually developing the B-2.

    I don't know the numbers so I can't tell.
  • Forgot to take your pills again, huh?
  • Hmm, but you could just as well take the parts up to a station in Earth orbit and assemble them there. It's zero g in orbit just as well as in a L1.
  • I'm not so sure.
    --
  • ... they don't exactly fit the bill.

    Anyhoo, the two names that keep calling me are:

    Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking

    These two were/are definitely pioneers in certain fields of 'space science', so IMHO, they should be the names :-)

    Why must they be related anyway? Seems more fitting if both names came from the (relatively) same field of study.

    -Dude, I flaked.
  • What about Foster(?) Tyrell?
  • The big win in putting a base on the moon is getting the raw materials for space stations. The cost to move processed metals from the Moon to Earth orbit is tiny compared to the cost of launching out of Earth's gravity well. (Of course, you have to have the moonbase first, and that's non-trivial.)

    Another advantage of Luna over Mars is that you're close enough to Earth for a lot of the work to be done using teleoperation (waldoes). You keep the balance of your workers down on earth, and have them remotely operate the machinery using TV links, robot arms, and etc. Mars is way too far away for this to be feasible: the time-lag on communications is too long.

    Lastly, the Moonbase is close enough to Earth that the inevitable problems with getting a self-sustaining biosphere started can be helped out with shipments from Earth in a timely fashion.

    I really don't see what a base on Mars gets you, besides a 50 billion dollar Martian trailer park. The moonbase will give you a real lasting advantage.

    Jon

  • Wright (Score:1)

    by chexc ( 9687 )
    Wilbur and Orville.
    Related and appropriate.
  • I think we should allow MIR to finally die its bloody death. If its kept up too much longer someone is bound to find themselves unexpectantely dead.

    On a different note I think ISS should be placed at L1 instead of earth orbit. If you are unfamiliar with L1 it is a position 1 million miles away where the forces of gravity between the Earth and the Sun are balanced. This would be the perfect place to launch expeditions to anywhere in the Solar System. Just to get there we would have to develop special spacecraft. And if you can get a spaceship to launch off the Earth and then turn around and stop you can go anywhere in our Solar System...all that you would need would be more similar space stations.
  • Its not my theory. If you don't believe me do a short study on the Lagrange 1 point, its not an obscure topic by any means. In fact a few satellites are there right now. And if you weren't aware neither Mercury nor Venus is tangent to this position very often. It just goes to show the power of the Sun's gravitational field being that our bubble of power extends 1 million miles and the Sun's takes the other 92 million. This of course will still be true for Venus and Mercury. Take a simple comparison of Venus and the Moon for example: the Moon is 1/4 of a million miles away. The moon barely affects the Earth at all (you may say the tides are major but if you compare the mass of the oceans to the entire mass of the earth the affect of tides is barely anything at all). Now how is a planet that is 100 million miles away from L1 going to affect the satellite (recall that as the distance between two object doubles, the gravitational field quarters). Btw, those planets compromise less than 1/1,000,000th of the mass of the Sun. If those planets' movement causes a satellite to move even 1 mile per year I would be suprised.

    In conclusion: No, neither Venus nor Mercury will have any considerable affect upon a space station at L1.
  • Hey man.. I think the Wright brothers are the right idea. No one believed in them until they flew. No one believes the Russians are going to keep MIR going unless someone pitches and helps. That's what the Linux community is all about, isn't it?. Helping other people out. Someone can't get the code done or is having problems. Someone else pitches in and helps out. That's what someone has done for the MIR. (I'm not sure I want to know who it was in this case, but I'm sure it was for a good cause) I'm sure the Wright brothers had their doubters, but some one backed them up and, guess what... they flew!

    Of course.. If you want to be paranoid, just think what kind of damage a satellite would do to a city. Especially considering if it was loaded with anthrax. Hmmmm... Iraq? Anyone? Keep it in air for just a little bit longer to control where it lands, and bye bye major American city. (Just in time for the year 2K crisis when America doesn't have any capital to spend on it.)

    "Mr. President -please don't forget about that."

    (The sounds of major re-arming can be heard in the background)

    I'm serious Mr President! If you fuck this one up *we* all go down with you, and I'm not sure you really want that, do you?

    (sorry) off-topic post. preacherism. shoot me. I'll come back.


  • They're dead.... *giggle*
  • Hmmm, just a wild speculation here.. If we killed Linus and Alan, would NASA allow us to use their names? :)

    Then again.. why kill gods when we could murder Bill Gates and pair him up with Satan? (They're related, aren't they?) :) :) :)
  • Two reasons...

    1. We can make air, water, and fuel on Mars out of the Martian atmosphere. The materials required for this simply aren't present on the moon, but are abundant on Mars
    2. Lifting items to Mars via the moon is pointless. You would essentially be launching it twice (Earth to moon, moon to Mars). The fuel difference between Earth/Moon and Earth/Mars launches is actually small (it would require more energy to launch it twice)

    How did Zubrin put it..."The moon is like a beautiful siren beckoning the unwary explorer toward her rocky shore". If you read up on it, that is a very accurate statement.
  • ...are not a theory. They exist.

    Think of them as gravitational eddies where the gravity wells interact and produce a 'dead spot'. As for other planets, yes they do have an effect on the actual location of the Lagrange points, but they don't nullify them. The actual L points (theres more than one) tend to float around a bit as the gravity wells shift in relation to each other. Objects located in those points only require occasional thrusts to keep them centered in the phenomena.
  • How about the Brontë sisters? Cain and Abel? Michael, Jackie, Marlon, Jermaine, Tito, LaToya and Janet Jackson? Click and Clack (Tom and Ray Magliozzi)? The Marx brothers -- Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Karl? The Hansons? Elayne, Galad, and Gawyn? The Everly Brothers? The Allman Brothers? The Chemical Brothers?

    I could go on forever.
  • NASA's stated that the goal of this mission is to "follow the water", looking for water on the surface, subsurface, and polar regions of Mars. How about "Lewis" and "Clark"? (My U.S. history isn't up to snuff... what were their full names?)

    The only thing I'm wondering is their human rights record... anybody going to object? (What was their relationship with Native Americans?)

  • How about those wonderful folks who gave us
    Shoemaker/Levi-9, tragically killed while
    searching for impact craters in Australia.
    He was after all a member of NASA and USGS.
  • Unfortunately, the ice discovered on the moon is thinly dispersed through the soil, making it very difficult to extract. Add to that the energy expense of separating the oxygen and hydrogen (remember, when you recombine them you only get back what you put in to separate them, minus some pretty big efficiency losses) and the moon isn't terrific as a fueling base. It does, however, seem better than an orbital space station for many purposes, largely because you don't run the unnecesary risk of more flying crap.

    Perhaps someday if we set up a Skyhook, we can more efficiently lift material into orbit, from where they can be sent to the moon to be assembled and launched cheaply. :)
  • Ehh... Why would you want a spaceship to stop once it has left Earth, if it is meant to go somewhere else after the initial stop? It's much better to use the momentum the ship already has, and use the gravity of the other planets as a slingshot. Otherwise you have to have fuel for a whole lot of extra acceleration and braking...

    I don't see how a space station placed at a Lagrange point would help either. It isn't any easier to reach from earth. And if you launch from a station in Earth orbit instead, you get the benefit of easily using Earths gravity to accelerate.

  • Captain Garland and Prokhor Zakharov, for example.
    They are related, Garland will be dead by March for sure and I kill Zakharov virtually every single day.

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