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NASA

Submission + - NASA Orion Splashdown Safety Tests Completed (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "The 18,000-pound test article that mimics the size and weight of NASA's Orion spacecraft crew module recently completed a final series of water impact tests in the Hydro Impact Basin at the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

The campaign of swing and vertical drops simulated various water landing scenarios to account for different velocities, parachute deployments, entry angles, wave heights and wind conditions the spacecraft may encounter when landing in the Pacific Ocean. The next round of water impact testing is scheduled to begin in late 2013 using a full-sized model that was built to validate the flight vehicle's production processes and tools.

Orion will carry astronauts farther into space than ever before and be the most advanced spacecraft ever designed. It will fly its first flight test, designated Exploration Flight Test 1, in 2014. The spacecraft will travel more than 3,600 miles into space — 15 times farther from Earth than the International Space Station — and reach speeds of more than 20,000 mph before returning to Earth. This unmanned flight test will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Several Orion systems, including the heat shield and parachutes at speeds generated during a return from deep space, will be tested.

In 2017, Orion will be launched by NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy-lift rocket that will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS will enable new missions of exploration and expand human presence in the solar system."
Mars

Submission + - Curiosity Rover To Get Instagram (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "Well not really Instagram but Curiosity will be getting a software upgrade called Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) which will allow her to take on the go photos to save precious time while exploring our red neighbor.

Another interesting feature AGEIS may be able to provide is the ability for Curiosity to call home when it sees something interesting.

It won't be a quick upgrade, AEGIS, which has been used on the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity since 2009, will be installed on Curiosity in the next nine to 12 months, Estlin said in an interview with InformationWeek. The AEGIS software, developed by JPL, was named NASA's "software of the year" in 2011.

JPL developed AEGIS on Linux-based systems, then tested the software on research rovers. Opportunity uses the software to take a wide-angle image with a low-resolution camera, then picks out rocks in the image to see if there's something of interest. If so, it takes a high-resolution image using an on-board science camera that's capable of zooming in on the subject. The software has potential beyond picture taking. Its see-and-react code could be adapted to other instruments."
Medicine

Submission + - Is the Can Worse Than the Soda? (smithsonianmag.com)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "Since the 1960s, manufacturers have widely used the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) in plastics and food packaging. Only recently, though, have scientists begun thoroughly looking into how the compound might affect human health—and what they’ve found has been a cause for concern.

Starting in 2006, a series of studies, mostly in mice, indicated that the chemical might act as an endocrine disruptor (by mimicking the hormone estrogen), cause problems during development and potentially affect the reproductive system, reducing fertility. After a 2010 Food and Drug Administration report warned that the compound could pose an especially hazardous risk for fetuses, infants and young children, BPA-free water bottles and food containers started flying off the shelves. In July, the FDA banned the use of BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups, but the chemical is still present in aluminum cans, containers of baby formula and other packaging materials.

Now comes another piece of data on a potential risk from BPA but in an area of health in which it has largely been overlooked: obesity. A study by researchers from New York University, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at a sample of nearly 3,000 children and teens across the country and found a “significant” link between the amount of BPA in their urine and the prevalence of obesity."
The Military

Submission + - 50 Years of Research and still no Deathray (nature.com)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "The event in Quantico, Virginia, was to be a rare public showing for the US Air Force's Active Denial System: a prototype non-lethal crowd-control weapon that emits a beam of microwaves at 95 gigahertz. Radiation at that frequency penetrates less than half a millimetre into the skin, so the beam was supposed to deliver an intense burning sensation to anyone in its path, forcing them to move away, but without, in theory, causing permanent damage.

However, the day of the test was cold and rainy. The water droplets in the air did what moisture always does: they absorbed the microwaves. And when some of the reporters volunteered to expose themselves to the attenuated beam, they found that on such a raw day, the warmth was very pleasant.

The story is much the same in other areas of HPM weapons development, which began as an East–West technology race nearly 50 years ago. In the United States, where spending on electromagnetic weapons is down from cold-war levels, but remains at some US$47 million per year, progress is elusive. “There's lots of smoke and mirrors,” says Peter Zimmerman, an emeritus nuclear physicist at King's College London and former chief scientist of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in Washington DC. Although future research may yield scientific progress, he adds, “I cannot see they will build a useful, deployable weapon”."
Science

Submission + - Mammoth Tooth Found Downtown San Francisco (sfgate.com)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "A seemingly ordinary day at the Transbay Transit Center construction site became a mammoth day of discovery Monday when a mild-mannered crane operator reached deep into the earth and pulled out a tooth.

This was no ordinary tooth. The 10-inch-long brown, black and beige chomper, broken in two and missing a chunk, once belonged to a woolly mammoth, an elephantine creature that roamed the grassy valley that's now San Francisco Bay 10 to 15 thousand years ago in the Pleistocene epoch.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Mammoth-tooth-found-at-Transbay-dig-3861381.php#ixzz26RHWlcZI"
Space

Submission + - How Does the Tiny Waterbear Survive in Outer Space? (smithsonianmag.com) 1

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "The humble tardigrade, also known as a “waterbear” or “moss piglet,” is an aquatic eight-legged animal that typically grows no longer than one millimeter in length. Most tardigrades (there are more than 1,000 identified species) have a fairly humdrum existence, living out their days on a moist piece of moss or in the sediment at the bottom of a lake and feeding on bacteria or plant life.

In 2007, a group of European researchers pushed the resilience of this extraordinary animal even further, exposing a sample of dehydrated tardigrades to the vacuum and solar radiation of outer space for 10 full days. When the specimens were returned to earth and rehydrated, 68 percent of those that were shielded from the radiation survived, and even a handful of those with no radiation protection came back to life and produced viable offspring.

How do the little tardigrades survive such a harsh environment? Although amateur tardigrade enthusiast Mike Shaw recently made waves by postulating that the animals may be equipped to survive in outer space because they originally came from other planets, scientists are certain that the creatures developed their uncommon toughness here on earth.

A tardigrade curls up into a dehydrated tun, allowing it to survive for years without water.
It turns out that the adaptation that allows tardigrades to live through these trying conditions is their ability to enter a dehydrated state that closely resembles death. When encountering environmental stresses, a tardigrade curls up into a dry, lifeless ball called a tun, reducing its metabolic activity to as low as .01 percent of normal levels. In order to do so, tardigrades produce trehalose, a special protective sugar that forms a gel-like medium that suspends and preserves the organelles and membranes that make up the animal’s cells.

The creatures are also capable of other types of transformations that allow them to survive in difficult conditions. If the oxygen content of their water medium drops too low for them to extract enough of the gas for respiration, they stretch out into a long, relaxed state, in which their metabolic rate is also reduced but the relaxation of their muscles allows as much water and oxygen to enter their cells as possible. If the temperature of a tardigrade’s environment falls below freezing, it forms a special cold-resistant tun, with molecules that prevent the formation of large ice crystals that could damage cell membranes.

This remarkably wide range of survival techniques leads to an obvious question: If tardigrades aren’t from outer space, just what barren environment did they actually evolve in? Although the exact placement of tardigrades in the evolutionary tree of life is still debated, scientists believe they are most closely related to arthropods, a phylum of animals with hard protective exoskeletons and that includes insects and crustaceans.

It is likely that the tardigrade evolved to survive intermittently freezes and droughts, and as a result they are able to survive the vacuum of space."
NASA

Submission + - NASA Voyage to Explore Link Between Sea Saltiness And Climate (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "A NASA-sponsored expedition is set to sail to the North Atlantic's saltiest spot to get a detailed, 3-D picture of how salt content fluctuates in the ocean's upper layers and how these variations are related to shifts in rainfall patterns around the planet.

The research voyage is part of a multi-year mission, dubbed the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS), which will deploy multiple instruments in different regions of the ocean. The new data also will help calibrate the salinity measurements NASA's Aquarius instrument has been collecting from space since August 2011.

SPURS scientists aboard the research vessel Knorr leave Sept. 6 from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass., and head toward a spot known as the Atlantic surface salinity maximum, located halfway between the Bahamas and the western coast of North Africa. The expedition also is supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation.

The researchers will spend about three weeks on site deploying instruments and taking salinity, temperature and other measurements, before sailing to the Azores to complete the voyage on Oct. 9.

They will return with new data to aid in understanding one of the most worrisome effects of climate change — the acceleration of Earth's water cycle. As global temperatures go up, evaporation increases, altering the frequency, strength, and distribution of rainfall around the planet, with far-reaching implications for life on Earth."

Comment Re:You have to give it to the engineers (Score 4, Interesting) 226

by DevotedSkeptic (#41233369) Attached to: 35 Years Later, Voyager 1 Is Heading For the Stars
You are definitely correct. It is amazing to think that technology from 35 years ago is still operating and sending back data. We generally don't keep cars around for 35 years let alone computers, phones, or even kitchen appliances. Now there is a world of difference between these things i mentioned and the tight tolerances that went into Voyager, but it still absolutely amazing what we as humans have accomplished. Carl Sagan would have been excited with the current Mars Rover, along with all of the other projects that we have successfully launched, but I think he would be a bit saddened by the state of the manned programs.
Mars

Submission + - NASA's Mars Menu (altoonamirror.com)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "The menu must sustain a group of six to eight astronauts, keep them healthy and happy and also offer a broad array of food. That's no simple feat considering it will likely take six months to get to the Red Planet, astronauts will have to stay there 18 months and then it will take another six months to return to Earth. Imagine having to shop for a family's three-year supply of groceries all at once and having enough meals planned in advance for that length of time.

"Mars is different just because it's so far away," said Maya Cooper, a senior research scientist with Lockheed Martin who is leading the efforts to build the menu. "We don't have the option to send a vehicle every six months and send more food as we do for the International Space Station."

Astronauts who travel to the space station have a wide variety of food available to them, some 100 or so different options, in fact. But it is all pre-prepared and freeze-dried with a shelf life of at least two years. And while astronauts make up a panel that tastes the food and give it a final OK on Earth before it blasts off, the lack of gravity means smell — and taste — is impaired. So the food is bland.

On Mars though, there is a little gravity, allowing NASA to consider significant changes to the current space menu. That's where Cooper's team comes in. Travel to Mars opens the possibility that astronauts can do things like chop vegetables and do a little cooking of their own. Even though pressure levels are different than on Earth, scientists think it will be possible to boil water with a pressure cooker, too.

One option Cooper and her staff are considering is having the astronauts care for a "Martian greenhouse." They would have a variety of fruits and vegetables — from carrots to bell peppers — in a hydroponic solution, meaning they would be planted in mineral-laced water instead of soil. The astronauts would care for their garden and then use those ingredients, combined with others, such as nuts and spices brought from Earth, to prepare their meals.

The top priority is to ensure that the astronauts get the proper amount of nutrients, calories and minerals to maintain their physical health and performance for the life of the mission, Cooper said.

The menu must also ensure the psychological health of the astronauts, Cooper explained, noting studies have shown that eating certain foods — such as meatloaf and mashed potatoes or turkey on Thanksgiving — improve people's mood and give them satisfaction. That "link to home" will be key to astronauts on the Mars mission, and there are currently two academic studies looking further into the connection between mood and food. Lacking certain vitamins or minerals can also harm the brain, she said.

One of the biggest obstacles, at the moment, may be the budgetary constraints. President Barack Obama's budget proposal in February canceled a joint US-European robotic mission to Mars in 2016, and the rest of NASA's budget has also been chopped."
NASA

Submission + - 35 years later, Voyager 1 is heading for the stars (ajc.com)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "Thirty-five years after leaving Earth, Voyager 1 is reaching for the stars.

Sooner or later, the workhorse spacecraft will bid adieu to the solar system and enter a new realm of space — the first time a manmade object will have escaped to the other side.

Perhaps no one on Earth will relish the moment more than 76-year-old Ed Stone, who has toiled on the project from the start.

"We're anxious to get outside and find what's out there," he said.

When NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 first rocketed out of Earth's grip in 1977, no one knew how long they would live. Now, they are the longest-operating spacecraft in history and the most distant, at billions of miles from Earth but in different directions.

Wednesday marks the 35th anniversary of Voyager 1's launch to Jupiter and Saturn. It is now flitting around the fringes of the solar system, which is enveloped in a giant plasma bubble. This hot and turbulent area is created by a stream of charged particles from the sun.

Outside the bubble is a new frontier in the Milky Way — the space between stars. Once it plows through, scientists expect a calmer environment by comparison.

When that would happen is anyone's guess. Voyager 1 is in uncharted celestial territory. One thing is clear: The boundary that separates the solar system and interstellar space is near, but it could take days, months or years to cross that milestone.

Voyager 1 is currently more than 11 billion miles from the sun. Twin Voyager 2, which celebrated its launch anniversary two weeks ago, trails behind at 9 billion miles from the sun."
Space

Submission + - Nuclear Powered LEDs for Space Farming (forbes.com)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "The nearside of the Moon will never resemble your Granddad’s back forty, but agriculture remains the key to living and working off-world. All the mineral ore in the solar system can’t replace the fact that for extended periods on the Moon or Mars, future off-worlders will need bio-regenerative systems in order to prosper.

Here on earth, researchers still debate how best to make those possible, but nuclear-powered state of the art LED (Light-emitting Diode) technology is arguably what will drive photosynthesis so necessary to provide both food and oxygen for future lunar colonists.

Future long-term lunar residents will need to grow their food either in sub-lunar lava tubes or in greenhouses shielded with several meters of lunar surface regolith. With no atmosphere, the moon is regularly exposed to lethal doses of cosmic rays, solar coronal mass ejections and x-flares, not to mention micro-meteorites that would be enough to wreck anyone’s corn.

Although during the two weeks that make up the long lunar day astronauts might be able to funnel refracted sunlight into covered greenhouses or subsurface lava tunnels, they will be left without a light source during the long lunar night.

Current solar-powered battery storage technology isn’t adequate to sustain artificial light sources for two weeks at the time. Thus, the most practical solution is simply to use some sort of Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG), not unlike the one powering the current Mars Science lab, to power the LEDs that will spur photosynthesis in lunar greenhouses.

Cary Mitchell, a plant biologist at Purdue University, says that as lunar light sources, LEDs would be cool, solid state and robust; lasting 50,000 hours at least, or some five times longer than conventional horticultural light sources. He also notes that that they could survive the journey to the lunar surface where they could then be strung inside inflatable lava tunnel greenhouses or in radiation-hardened, solid greenhouses on the surface.

On earth, Mitchell says it takes roughly 50 square meters of agriculture to provide both food and oxygen life to support one human. But, as he points out, who can say how productive plants are ultimately going to be on the moon, in gravity that is only one sixth that of earth?"
Science

Submission + - California to license self-driving cars (tgdaily.com)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "Californian senators have passed a bill that looks set to make the state the second in the US to approve self-driving cars on its roads.

The bill was passed unanimously by state senators, and now hits the desk of governor Jerry Brown, who's expected to sign it into law.

It calls on the California Department of Motor Vehicles to start developing standards and licensing procedures for autonomous vehicles.

"This bill would require the department to adopt safety standards and performance requirements to ensure the safe operation and testing of 'autonomous vehicles', as defined, on the public roads in this
state," it reads.

"The bill would permit autonomous vehicles to be operated or tested on the public roads in this state pending the adoption of safety standards and performance requirements that would be adopted
under this bill."

Until these standards are developed, though, it's unclear precisely under what conditions driverless cars will be allowed to operate. It's pretty certain that a driver will be required to sit behind the steering wheel at all times, as in Nevada.

Google's already been testing its autonomous vehicles on California roads for some time. In a recent blog post, engineering lead Chris Urmson said that the company's cars had now completed more than 300,000 miles of testing without a single accident.

Don't expect to be riding in a self-driving car any time soon, though.

"To provide the best experience we can, we’ll need to master snow-covered roadways, interpret temporary construction signals and handle other tricky situations that many drivers encounter," says Urmson.

"As a next step, members of the self-driving car team will soon start using the cars solo (rather than in pairs), for things like commuting to work. This is an important milestone, as it brings this technology one step closer to every commuter.""
NASA

Submission + - NASA craft to leave asteroid heads for dwarf planet Ceres (mnn.com)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "NASA's Dawn probe is gearing up to depart the giant asteroid Vesta next week and begin the long trek to the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt.

The Dawn spacecraft is slated to leave Vesta on the night of Sept. 4 (early morning Sept. 5 EDT), ending a 14-month stay at the 330-mile-wide (530 kilometers) body. The journey to Ceres should take roughly 2.5 years, with Dawn reaching the dwarf planet in early 2015, researchers said.

"Thrust is engaged, and we are now climbing away from Vesta atop a blue-green pillar of xenon ions," Dawn chief engineer and mission director Marc Rayman, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. "We are feeling somewhat wistful about concluding a fantastically productive and exciting exploration of Vesta, but now have our sights set on dwarf planet Ceres.""

Comment Microsoft, Mac, Linux, I like them all... (Score 1) 371

by DevotedSkeptic (#41186665) Attached to: Windows 8 Is 'a Work of Art.' But It's No Linux
But I really like linux. there is just something about the warm cozy feeling you get when that terminal window opens up and you can customize anything, given enough time and knowledge. I like my windows PC's too and my Mac experiences have been mostly favorable (no darn right click...) There is a community for each of these OS's but the linux community can actually steer the os in ways that most others cannot. Again I like them all, but I love Linux.

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