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Buraku wrote:NASA Administrator Michael Griffin
http://www.space.com/news/ap-071003-china-spacerace.html
"I personally believe that China will be back on the moon before we are,'
"I think when that happens, Americans will not like it. But they will just have to not like it.''
Buraku wrote:NASA Administrator Michael Griffin
"I personally believe that China will be back on the moon before we are,'
"I think when that happens, Americans will not like it. But they will just have to not like it.''
Buraku wrote:Mitchell spent 9 hours and 17 minutes walking on the moon as part of the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.
Mulboyne wrote:Mitchell poses a problem for some conspiracy theorists: to accept his views on aliens, they have to accept that the moon landings were real.
kurohinge1 (in 2003) wrote:
. . . humans . . . are the weak link . . .
The Earth is protected from harmful solar radiation by a magnetic field. Not so, out in space. Many astronauts in orbit have reported seeing bright flashes of light from time to time. This was revealed to be the effect of tiny particles passing right through their eyes/retina (and the rest of their body). Down here we're shielded from those particles by the planet's magnetic field. The northern lightsare a visable by-product of this.
On a long trip to Mars, your body would be constantly penetrated by these tiny particles, not that you'd feel anything. However, the effects would likely shorten your life and make you more prone to cancers, etc.
Human muscles, etc, also have a bad habit of turning to jelly if they are without gravity for long periods, although crustaceans are able to regrow limbs and regenerate muscle fibres at will.
Not to mention that whiny humans expect to be fed, toiletted and entertained on their long journey.
So, all we need to do is genetically engineer a generation of crustacean-human crossbreeds, able to hibernate for long periods, and which emit a protective magnetic field around themselves, and you can pack your bags! . . .
AFP - Paris wrote:
Scientists believe they have found a way of protecting astronauts from a dangerous source of space radiation, thus lifting a major doubt clouding the dream to send humans to Mars.
Their breakthrough takes forward ideas born in the golden age of science fiction, including a proton shield used in the TV show "Star Trek," says one of the researchers.
Space weather is one of the greatest challenges facing Mission Red Planet sketched by the United States and Europe for some three decades from now.
Even the shortest round trip -- the distance between the two planets varies between 55 million (34 million miles) and more than 400 million kms (250 million miles) -- would take at least 18 months.
During this time, the crew would be exposed to sub-atomic particles that whizz through space, capable of slicing through DNA like a hot knife through butter and boosting the risk of cancer and other disorders.
. . . British and Portuguese scientists have taken a fresh look at this old concept [of a ship-based protective magnetic field] and say the magnetic field does not, in fact, have to be huge -- just a "bubble" a few hundred metres (yards) across would suffice.
"The idea is really like in 'Star Trek', when Scottie turns on a shield to protect the starship Enterprise from proton beams -- it's almost identical really," Bob Bingham of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford told AFP.
. . . As a result, the researchers have been able to devise a smarter, miniaturised model of magnetic protection rather than the blunderbuss-style field generator that was envisaged in the past.
. . . The force of the magnetic field would replicate that of Earth's but, to minimise any risk to crew close to its source, could be carried in unmanned spacecraft flying either side of the crewship.
. . . It would scatter almost all particles dispatched in "solar storms" -- protons belched out by the Sun, he said.
It would not work against a somewhat less dangerous problem, of high-energy cosmic rays that fly across interstellar distances, but the ship could be swathed with material, like a kevlar bulletproof waistcoat, against that threat.
. . . In 2001, a NASA study found that at least 39 former astronauts suffered cataracts after flying in space, 36 of whom had taken part in missions beyond Earth's orbit.
Separately, the agency has tentatively estimated that a trip to Mars and back would give a 40-year-old non-smoking man a 40 percent risk of developing fatal cancer after he returned to Earth, or twice the terrestrial risk. . . more
[SIZE="5"]Plot introduction[/SIZE]
In the not too distant future, a cold war threatens to turn hot. Colonization of Mars seems to be mankind's only hope of surviving certain Armageddon. To facilitate this, the American government begins a cyborg program to create a being capable of surviving the harsh Martian environment...Man Plus. After the death of the first candidate, Roger Torraway becomes the heart of the program.
In order to survive in the thin Martian atmosphere, Roger Torraway's body must be replaced with an artificial one. At every step he becomes more and more disconnected from humanity, unable to feel things in his new body. It is only after arriving on Mars that his new body begins to make sense to him. It is perfectly adapted to this new world, and thus he becomes perfectly separated from his old world, and from humanity.
The success of the Martian mission spurs similar cyborg programs in other space-faring nations. It is revealed that the computer networks of earth have become sentient, and that ensuring humanity's survival will guarantee theirs as well. In the end, the network is puzzled...it appears that something else was behind the push to space, a mystery even to the machines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Plus
Iran said on Tuesday it has launched its first home-built satellite into orbit, raising fresh concerns among world powers already at odds with Tehran over its nuclear drive.
"Dear Iranians, your children have put the first indigenous satellite into orbit," a jubilant President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on state television after a launch coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
"With this launch the Islamic Republic of Iran has officially achieved a presence in space," he said.
The Omid (Hope) satellite was sent into space on Monday evening carried by the home-built Safir-2 space rocket, local news agencies reported.
In the first foreign reaction, France expressed concern because the technology used was "very similar" to that employed in ballistic missiles.
"We can't but link this to the very serious concerns about the development of military nuclear capacity," foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said in Paris.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the satellite programme could "possibly lead to the development of ballistic missiles."
"That's of great concern to us," he said.
In London, British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell voiced "serious concerns" over the launch.
"This test underlines and illustrates our serious concerns about Iran's intentions," Rammell said in a statement issued by the Foreign Office, adding that Britain was still carrying out technical analyses.
The launch comes at at time when Iran is defiantly refusing UN Security Council demands to freeze sensitive nuclear work.
The West suspects Iran of secretly trying to build an atomic bomb and fears the technology used to launch a space rocket could be diverted into development of long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Iran vehemently denies the charges, saying its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes and that it has the right to the technology already in the hands of many other nations including its archfoe the United States.
Ahmadinejad said the satellite carried a message of "peace and brotherhood" to the world and dismissed suggestions that Iran's space programme had military goals.
"We have a divine view of technology unlike the dominating powers of the world who have Satanic views," he said.
In Addis Ababa on the sidelines of an African Union summit, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the satellite would enable Tehran to receive "environmental data," adding that "the technological capacity of Iran is meant to meet the needs of the country."
Ahmadinejad has made scientific development one of the main themes of his presidency, asserting that Iran has reached a peak of progress despite international sanctions and no longer needs help from foreign states.
The state news agency IRNA said the satellite would take orbital measurements and would circle the Earth 15 times every 24 hours.
Iranian aerospace expert Asghar Ebrahimi said Omid has an elliptical orbit of minimum of 250 kilometres (156 miles) and maximum 400 kilometres.
The launch comes on the eve of a meeting in Germany on Wednesday of senior diplomats from six world powers who are are due to discuss the Iranian nuclear standoff, with Tehran still defying calls for a freeze on uranium enrichment.
New US President Barack Obama said last month shortly after taking office that he was willing to extend the hand of diplomacy to Iran, after 30 years of severed diplomatic relations.
Iran sent its first Safir rocket into space in August. It is about 22 metres (72 feet) long, with a diameter of 1.25 metres (a little over four feet) and weighs more than 26 tonnes .
Iran's most powerful military missile, the Shahab-3, has a diameter of 1.30 metres and measures 17 metres in length. It has a range of 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) -- putting archfoe Israel and US forces in the region within reach.
Last year Iran triggered concern in the West when it said it had sent a probe into space on the back of a rocket to prepare for a satellite launch, and announced the opening of its space station in a remote western desert.
Iran has pursued a space programme for several years, and in October 2005 a Russian-made Iranian satellite named Sina-1 was put into orbit by a Russian rocket.
Reza Taghipour, head of the Iranian space agency, said Iran would launch another satellite carrier by the end of the Iranian year on March 20, Fars said.
The $4.5 billion Jupiter tandem mission is still being studied by a team of international scientists, but NASA and European Space Agency officials decided it is the most "technically ready" mission to the outer planets, beating out competing probes that would have visited Saturn's hydrocarbon-rich moon Titan.
"Europa is just a tremendously exciting water world.
It has an underground ocean with probably more water in it than the Earth does," said Jim Green, director of the planetary science division at NASA headquarters.
"Ganymede is indeed the largest moon in the solar system, larger than Titan and significantly larger than Mercury," Green said.
...
Japan has expressed "major interest" in adding an additional orbiter to launch with Laplace for magnetic field studies at Jupiter, but there is no formal agreement yet, Green said.
The Node 3 naming contest attracted nearly 1.2 million votes, with other write-in suggestions also coming in strong. "Myyearbook" placed third behind "Serenity" with 147,637 votes, while "Gaia" finished fourth at "114,427."
"We haven't decided on a name yet, but we're certainly not going to ignore more than 230,000 'Colbert' votes from the public," Yembrick noted.
Takechanpoo wrote:Kimchese steal advanced technologies not only in Japan but also all over the world as their national policy. And after that, they insist "Our proud Kimch techieque is most advanced in the earth nida!".
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