On Mon, 24 Jan 2005, LARRY KLAES wrote:
Astrophysics, abstract: astro-ph/0409220
From: Bryan Butler [view
emailhttp://arxiv.org/auth/show-email/1e326a36/astro-ph/0409220]
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 12:48:16 GMT (1386kb)
Solar System Science with SKA
Authors: B. J.
On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Eugen Leitl wrote:
On Sun, Jan 16, 2005 at 06:13:09PM -0800, Mark Schnitzius wrote:
only give us two hours on the surface, and that was
exceeding expectations.
You want a problem that relates to Europa? There's
a problem that relates to Europa.
If politics
Michael Turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
And I'm going to start with what I think is a pretty reasonable
assumption: Europa may actually fit the profile of a very average,
life-bearing planet in the universe. Most life in the universe
may originate from oceans on planets around gas giants.
On Mon, 8 Sep 2003, Christopher England wrote:
If nano-devices could do this better, I'm for it.
Yes, of course. I think it is an interesting area because I am
not aware of anyone, even Drexler, who has investigated this
(the limits of ion propulsion).
But there is a *lot* of older work on
Ok, the best information I been advised of at this time
(from what I would call semi-authoritative sources)
is that the blueprints for the Saturn V are preserved
on microfilm. However they would be insufficient because
apparently there were on-the-fly modifications made by
the
The recent release of the CAIB report has caused both
hearings in Congress as well as lots of speculations,
e.g.:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/05/1731237mode=threadtid=134tid=160tid=98tid=99
Obviously if we had inexpensive heavy lift capacity today, the
entire debate about
On Wed, 2 Jul 2003, Christopher England wrote:
Ion propulsion is efficient but low in thrust (like ounces of force).
Chemical propulsion will be needed for high thrust needs like fast
orbital capture, landing and takeoff.
Chris, has anyone done an analysis to determine whether one could
On Tue, 4 Mar 2003, Eugen Leitl wrote:
It's one big petri dish. If there's life, it's closely related. If it
isn't, it's a giant data blip that life emerges rather effortlessly, and
that crosscontamination is way harder than we think despite ample material
transport.
Eugen's points are
On Mon, 3 Mar 2003, CHRIS CANTRELL wrote:
No matter how simple the organisms are, it would be nice to get a DNA
(or RNA) sequence just to compare to life here on Earth. That assumes,
of course, that RNA will be the genetic mechanism for Europa too.
Making this argument (seriously) requires
Joe,
I still see issues with what I will call volume of scale.
Agreed. Does one want a larger number of smaller craft with a fair
amount of redundancy or a smaller number of larger craft with perhaps
greater capabilities? And does one deal with the volume of the
Europa ocean better with a
Chris,
The meteor crater in Arizona was formed about 45,000 years ago. I'm not
much on statistics, but an interesting guess might be that such a strike
has a probability of 1/45,000 per year. This strike was a small one.
True, but would you want it to happen in your city?
Zodiacal dust
I'm sure Bruce ends up in print a lot, but I just ran
across this Space Daily piece from a few days ago.
Lost in LEO
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03q1.html
Robert
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(I wrote much of this first to Bruce and John offlist,
but I realized upon re-reading that it might have general
list significance.)
I would tend to agree with John that we may want to simply
let the investigation run its course.
Unfortunately the news media seem to be turning up revealing
On Wed, 26 Feb 2003, H Frank Benford wrote:
Cats don't have the physical capability of opening a jar(paw with
oposable thumb) whereas an Octopus does(tentacles). It took one time
showing my cat how to open a door and my house hasn't been safe since.
Typical example of the linear thinking on
On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, CHRIS CANTRELL wrote:
Depending on how intelligent you mean, civilization (as we know it)
must eventually learn to produce rapid and intense energy e.g. fire in
order to grow technologically.
Strongly agree -- technology is the issue and that would seem to
require fire
On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, adam . wrote:
Personally i think it is very possible for intelligent life forms to evolve
naturally on Europa.
Adam, you need to make a better case than simply thinking. I would say
a good place to start is in calculating free energy fluxes. On Earth
one has at least a
On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, Eugen Leitl wrote:
There are not many sources of such utilizable entropy gradients on Europa.
Direct photons are the least important of them, it's probably magnetic
trap proton irradiation and chemothrophy harkening back to the original
molecular nebula.
Put much more
Some of these points may be useful for the list (which is why
I'm posting it there).
On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Gary McMurtry wrote:
The concept that DNA may not be the most efficient or reliable information
carrier is intriguing.
There are days (not many mind you) when I even amaze myself...
On Fri, 21 Feb 2003, Rulx Narcisse wrote:
It is important to know about the origin of life!
When we know our origin, we know ourselves.
Rulx, with all respect, it isn't of much use
to know oneself if one second later one is
extinct. I have a strong drive to know my
origin and know what
I believe that I've read articles that much better heat shielding
materials have been developed since the shuttle tile system was
created. Does anyone know what these materials might be and who
is developing them?
Also, does anyone know the heat tolerance of the tiles on the shuttles is?
On Fri, 17 Jan 2003, Thomas Green wrote:
Yeesh! and I thought I was a pessimist :-)
As far as can NASA do anything useful for $1B and innovate? Get a grip!!
NEAR: total mission cost of $200m
Pathfinder: total mission cost of $260m
Is this unreasonable costs? Inefficient? Seems
On Fri, 17 Jan 2003, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
Starting this program at this particular time strikes me as absolutely
harebrained; but then this administration seems to specialize in the
harebrained, particularly in recent months.
You will get no argument from me with respect to our harebrained
On Fri, 27 Dec 2002, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
[snip]
In short -- though I still
don't know for certain -- I still imagine that there are no differences in
the superconductive ability of the different isotopes of an element.
Bruce -- a quick Google on superconductivty isotope turns up a fair
On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
On Dec 2, 2002, James McEnanly wrote:
Is there a stable plutonium isotope?
Nope -- the highest atomic-number element to have any stable isotopes is
bismuth (# 83).
According to the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics,
the most stable Pu isotopes
On Wed, 25 Dec 2002, Bruce Moomaw wrote, in response to my comments:
It isn't clear to me whether it has been determined that all
of [Pu's] isotopes are superconducting. I would doubt it.
Actually, I imagine all Pu isotopes are superconducting, [snip]
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was
On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
Soyuz 5S/TMA-211, the new CRV (crew return vehicle) docked at the DC-1
compartment, currently has no altimeter (VP) for the terminal landing phase.
[snip]
I've been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to get
word from Sen. Bond on whether he still
Red Freckles On Europa Suggest Lava Lamp Action
http://www.sciencedaily.org/releases/2002/11/02071410.htm
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On Mon, 4 Nov 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
What about rocks??
You have to come up with a scheme to navigate around
the rocks anyway -- you sure aren't going to melt them.
You also may hit patches of salt. That too requires
a lot more energy to melt than ice -- though not as
much as rock.
On Mon, 4 Nov 2002, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
As for mechanical drilling through ice rather than melting; it can be done,
but all the studies conducted over the past few years have concluded that,
on balance, it requires much more energy expenditure than hot-water jet
melting. There might also
On Sat, 2 Nov 2002, Gail Leatherwood wrote:
The original concept proposed motorcycle batteries for the power source,
primarily, I think, because of their small size. How long would they
continue providing enough current to melt the ice enough for the vehicle to
sink?
For about 2 minutes.
On Fri, 1 Nov 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I know some debates have surfaced over batteries. The pro's for
batteries as I see them are:
[snip]
I would strongly urge people to *read* the materials available
on the web about previous cryobot efforts.
You are *NOT* going to get 400+ kW out
In response to my inquiry to Dr. Behar, he provided the following
information:
The 2 20KW generators was for electric power, to run pumps,
controls, computers, etc.
The 480KW was what was calculated to be produced from burning diesel to
heat up the water.
So we are *not* talking a small
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Are we going to have this thing radio controlled or a cable/wire attached to
it?
From the CalTech glaciology website...
For electromagnetic waves with frequencies from 5 to 300 MHz the loss of
energy by absorption in ice is sufficiently small
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Shouldn't we include in our goals a cryobot and hydrobot that could test for
life in a place like Lake Vostok?
The folks from NSF/NASA are working on this. Its been an ongoing effort
for a decade or more. Serious scientists will scream very
On Sun, 27 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
(By the way, the Cryobot does NOT generate hydraulic pressure when it melts
ice -- quite apart from the fact that any such pressure would be in every
direction anyway, remember that water ice is one of the very few substances
that SHRINKS when it
It is worth noting that according to:
http://helios.jpl.nasa.gov/%7Ebehar/AntWebSite/MainPage/documents/JPLAntIceProbe.pdf
Slide #26 of 48, that the Hot-water jet drilling required 480kw of power.
That is *not* a small amount of power (its approximately equal to 24 homes
drawing their full
Robert,
If I understand this correctly, lithium makes lithium hydroxide and hydrogen
after being exposed to water. Could there be a chemical way to revitalize
this process without adding tons of materials? Is anyone on this list a
chemical engineer?
Generally speaking in chemistry you are
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Reeve, Jack W. wrote:
A few miles of light-transmitting fiber spooled out behind the cryobot
shouldn't weigh any more than the proposed transmission pucks. Also, if a
metallic filament were adjacent the optical line(s), it could be
periodically heated to reposition and
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Christlieb, Scott F. wrote:
One grenade would go through the whole cabinet
in a few moments. On a larger scale, could we control and direct this type
of energy to quickly clear a path for Icepick? It would be a fast way to the
bottom of the ice.
The problem is that
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Robert Crawley wrote:
Yes, that should work nicely. Let's see... drop grenade on ice. Wait 30-45
minutes. Drop grenade #2 down the hole. Wait a few minutes before it gets to
the bottom. Wait another 30-45 minutes. Drop grenade #3... this might take a
little while.
Rob,
On Sun, 27 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Two key points: the word 'future', suggests 'someday, when/if we get the
technology, we might do something like this'. Forget it. This is not about
someday. This is about NOW. This is the future. It's 2002. The parts are
out there. They
On Sun, 27 Oct 2002, Gary McMurtry wrote:
Also, why worry about the power source for a demo?
Because if it isn't realistic enough it gets labeled a 'joke'.
Its a no brainer that if I stick a radiative ball on the top
of a glacier connected to an endless supply of steam that its
going to melt
Scott wrote:
Who are the key players?
How can I get involved?
By leaning on NASA to do some out-of-the-box thinking.
I wrote a long letter on Sunday to the NEO search folks and the
NEXT folks (who are proposing the Earth-moon L1 station)
suggesting that they combine their interests.
Leaving
Mickey Schmidt observed:
How will this organization (Mars Institute) do anything that the Mars
Society is not already set up to do? It looks like they are positioning
themselves to divide and dilute the community interested persons who want to
further Mars Exploration, support, and
On Thu, 17 Oct 2002, Gary McMurtry wrote:
What? Dismantle Mars? No way! Some of us like it just fine the way
it is. In fact, let me be one of the first (this week?) to call for
an International Mars Preserve, for science, culture, etc. like we've
done for Antarctica.
Hey Gary, its nice
On Fri, 11 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
One can easily take technological progress and project it.
How? Could anyone living in 1950 have predicted the personal computer?
That isn't relevant. The paper I cited has a graph showing an exponential
increase in telescope collecting area.
On Fri, 11 Oct 2002, LARRY KLAES wrote:
My question is, aside from most of our television programs,
political and religious attitudes, and our general backwards
behavior, what would or could we do to annoy such an
advanced society to the point of earning their wrath?
Well, gee that sounds
On Fri, 11 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I'm not convinced the Drake Formula is complete. After all, presume that
there are 100 billion stars in the galaxy.
I believe the numbers are up to around 400 billion at this time.
Not all of them will be positioned well.
Clearly true -- the
On Tue, 8 Oct 2002, Gary McMurtry wrote:
In the collection is an
article by Ian Crawford entitled Where Are They?, subtitled Maybe
we are alone in the galaxy after all. I found this article thought
provoking to say the least. Crawford uses the SETI results to date
to suggest that we
On Wed, 9 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED], responding to my comments, wrote:
He suggests that we can't find suns transmitting signals, because those suns
are already cloaked, and pumping energy into vast 'ringworlds'.
Actually, more like sphere-worlds but that is a technical detail.
I'd have
On Wed, 9 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
'Crap, 100 billion tons of ice, and no scotch for 10 billion miles!'
Actually, my brief back of the envelope calculations suggest that
it would be more likely to be ~58 peta-miles (58 quadrillion miles).
I suspect the amount of ice is off by a
On Sun, 29 Sep 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED], commenting on my comments wrote:
A vasculoid system is apparently a concept for the creation of billions of
nanosized platelets, to cover the internal surfaces of every blood vessel in
the human body, and increase the efficiency of blood, by replacing
On Sat, 28 Sep 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Robert, your enthusiasm is astounding. Where are the off-the-shelf
microplate sapphire suits?
Sorry, not here yet. We can't even assemble sapphire at the molecular
level yet. But we do have a design for an internalized sapphire
wet-suit:
On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
Chris Cantrell wrote:
But part of me wishes that I couldn't remember the Apollo days ... I
wish I had been born generations later when it would be possible to take
my passion for SCUBA to the ocean of Europa.
Of course, given the increasing
On Fri, 5 Apr 2002, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
Nevertheless, the flap has begun (this sort of thing always sells
newspapers, after all). I shudder to report that CNN, in its new headline
story on the subject, doesn't even bother to mention that 4 of the spots
were on the spacecraft and so
On Thu, 11 Oct 2001, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
The US currently has enough domestic Pu-238 to fuel any one of these RTGs
(enough for the Pluto probe) -- but not two of them (and Europa Orbiter
by itself would require two).
I assume this is because you are assuming a lander and not just an
On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
From: David M Harland [EMAIL PROTECTED]
INDUSTRIAL SPACE FACILITY
[snip] In reality, however, this revolutionary start-up deal
had its origins in the Reagan administration's July 1984 call for
commercialisation of space operations, and this was
On Sun, 7 Oct 2001, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
NASA believes it has whittled its $4.8 billion shortfall on the Space
Station to about $500 million, but that only buys a three-man crew -- barely
enough to keep the station operating, and woefully inadequate for
'world-class science'.
To my way of
On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Gary McMurtry wrote:
So, we got it. Now, we have the space
station to give the shuttles someplace to go when they're not
launching satellites, fixing telescopes, bore-bore-bore, etc.
I've read someplace, perhaps The Case for Mars, that the space
station was designed
On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Bruce Moomaw wrote:
It's what it has been from the start: some kind of thermionic nuclear
generator converting the heat from Pu-238 into electrical energy. However,
NASA would like to develop a new system more efficient at this conversion
than the current RTGs, thereby
On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, David M Harland wrote:
I disagree, the problem is its functionality has been pared back to
much, it needs to be expanded!
Hogwash. Its real cost was always ridiculously disproportionate to the size
of the scientific benefits it would supposedly produce -- that,
I was under the impression that there was still no solution,
particularly no flight-tested solution to the problem of a
long term radioactive power source.
Has this problem been solved? If so do they plan to test it
in space before they fly it all the way to Jupiter?
Thanks,
Robert
==
You
And isn't sulfides one thing that Europa has in spades? National
Geographic recently had an article about a cave in Mexico that abounds in
strange forms of acid loving bacteria... I'll try to dig up a reference
if anyone's interested.
The book you want to read is Dark Life by Michael Ray
Bruce wrote:
... for the simple reason that MGS' photos have a top resolution of
fully 1.4 meters per pixel -- which means there's no way they could possibly
show the lander as anything more than a speck composed of 2 or 3 pixels,
which would thus show absolutely nothing about its landing
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