onet - Slashdot User

Comment Shared effort between US and Europe (Score 1) 127

by onet on Saturday June 05, 2010 @04:56PM (#32470882) Attached to: US Climate Satellite Capabilities In Jeopardy

There is an agreement between ESA/EUMETSAT on the European side and NASA/NOAA on the American side that the burden of Earth observation is shared.

For operational polar satellites, Europe takes care of the morning orbits and the US does the afternoon orbits. Both sides share (or intend to share) all data in Near Real Time (NRT).

Also sensors/instruments are exchanged and mounted on platforms (read: satellites) from the other partner in the agreement. This can mean that a sensor built in the US can be flown on a European satellite.

Nowadays the aim at space agencies/operators is to avoid duplication of sensors and share what there already is. In this way a reduction in funding for Earth observation can be achieved. However, it should not drop below the minimum required to keep your end of the agreement and also needs to be enough to keep the knowledge 'current'.

Comment Re:Demand alone isn't going to cut it ... (Score 1) 355

by onet on Saturday January 03, 2009 @02:42PM (#26312971) Attached to: Linux In 2009 — Recession vs. GNU

FOSS is not demand-driven unfortunately, ...

If you interact with the developers and submit feature requests, or even better, pay someone to contribute to the project to implement your needs then FOSS actually is demand-driven.

Scientists Offer 'Overwhelming' Evidence Terran Life Began in Space 556

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @02:22PM from the we-are-all-made-of-stardust dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Using data from recent comet-probing space missions, British scientists are reporting today that the odds of life starting on Earth rather than inside a comet are one trillion trillion (10 to the power of 24) to one against. That is, we're not originally from around here. Radiation in comets could keep water in liquid form for millions of years, they say, which along with the clay and organic molecules found on-board would provide an ideal incubator. 'Professor Wickramasinghe said: "The findings of the comet missions, which surprised many, strengthen the argument for panspermia. We now have a mechanism for how it could have happened. All the necessary elements - clay, organic molecules and water - are there. The longer time scale and the greater mass of comets make it overwhelmingly more likely that life began in space than on earth."'" jamie points out that the author of this paper has many 'fringe' theories. Your mileage may vary.

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