The double helix nebula. (The image uses false colors because the eye is not sensitive to infrared light.) The spots are infrared-luminous stars, mostly red giants and red supergiants. Many other stars are present in this region, but are too dim to appear even in this sensitive infrared image. Robots break Asimov’s first law
And so it begins
By: Nick Farrell Wednesday 15 March 2006, 08:20
SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems) robots are equipped with either the M249, machine gun which fires 5.56-millimeter rounds at 750 rounds per minute or the M240, which fires 7.62-millimeter rounds at up to 1,000 per minute.
They are still connected by radio to a human operator who verifies that a suitable target is within sight and orders it to fire. Then the robot has the job of making sure lots of bullets are sent towards the target.
The bots are modified Talon robots that have been used by the military for at least four years, but apparently they are better at shooting than human soldiers.
Later the US plans to replace the control system of the bots with a "Gameboy" type of controller hooked up to virtual reality goggles. There are some pictures here.
However, they are in gas giant orbits and too cold for water, thus, under current understanding, too cold for life. Apparently, their stellar systems did not have enough gas to allow the planets to coalesce into gas giants as seems to be the norm in extra-solar systems. However, I believe that a number of gas giants have been located orbiting in Venus/Earth/Mars orbits. Current theory says that when gas giants orbit that close to their stellar parent, there can be no earth-like planets present in that system. See http://www.novacelestia.com/space_art_extrasolar_planets.htm
The Dalai Lama is one smart dude. Buddhism and Western Psychology and Cognitive Science meet at many levels. Read the book, "The Art of Happiness" Buddhism and the Interdisciplinary Study of the Mind.
Cole worked over the past several years in the Propulsion Research Center at Marshall supporting several advanced propulsion concepts and experiments, and is now reassigned to support work for NASA's Crew Launch Vehicle.
Regarding new propulsion ideas, Cole said there's room for surprises. He said that novel concepts presented at STAIF are the by-products of people wanting to help move humans beyond Earth's environment out into the solar system.
If we ever want to get to the stars … we can't do that with chemistry," Cole told Space.com.
Similarly, there are also drawbacks to nuclear systems, even fusion concepts, Cole said, for pushing humanity outward toward the stars. "If you are going to do that in a reasonable amount of time, something exotic has got to be found," he advised.'
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GE says its new machine could make the hydrogen economy affordable, by slashing the cost of water-splitting technology."
GE claims that using cheaper materials in manufacturing the electrolyzers used for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen could soon reduce the cost for hydrogen from $8 to $6 per kg. in the near future. It is said that this translates to roughly $2/gallon gasoline for fuel cell cars.
GE is claiming that it is "Going Green". Maybe so . . . as Willie Sutton the bank robber said when asked why he robbed banks, 'because that's where the money is'. Green is where the money is if done right. However, many companies have gone down the green drain. Perhaps GE is big enough to pull it off.
Note that in the discussion section of the MIT Technology blog from whence this article came, someone asks the question about the cost of electricity into the process to produce this cheap hydrogen. I assume that GE considered that in claiming the cheap cost. However, I could not find any specifics on the GE research website. I did find, however, a reference to a pdf document on the use of solar energy to produce hydrogen that projected gasoline equivenlent costs 10-25 years in the future. However, I don't know if they meant using the new materials or the traditional methods. That document is at:
http://www.crd.ge.com/04_media/news/20041117_hydrogen.shtml
Also, see http://www.energycooperation.org/bioproductionH2.htm
for Biological Production of Hydrogen FuelA Cheap, Unlimited Hydrogen Production Method For the Third World Is Discovered "These hydrogen-producing bacteria are everywhere. You go outside, grab a bucket of soil, and they're there. You don't need some specialized bacterium or genetically engineered bacterium in some science professor's lab."
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has begun its final approach to the red planet after activating a sequence of commands designed to get the spacecraft successfully into orbit.
The sequence began Tuesday and will culminate with firing the craft's main thrusters for about 27 minutes on Friday -- a foot on the brakes to reduce velocity by about 20 percent as the spacecraft swings around Mars at about 5,000 meters per second (about 11,000 miles per hour). Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, are monitoring the events closely.
"We have been preparing for years for the critical events the spacecraft must execute on Friday," said JPL's Jim Graf, project manager. "By all indications, we're in great shape to succeed, but Mars has taught us never to get overconfident. Two of the last four orbiters NASA sent to Mars did not survive final approach."
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will build upon discoveries by five successful robots currently active at Mars: NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity, NASA orbiters Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, and the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. It will examine Mars' surface, atmosphere and underground layers in great detail from a low orbit. It will aid future missions by scouting possible landing sites and relaying communications. It will send home up to 10 times as much data per minute as any previous Mars mission.
First, it must get into orbit. The necessary thruster burn will begin shortly after 1:24 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday. Engineers designed the burn to slow the spacecraft just enough for Mars' gravity to capture it into a very elongated elliptical orbit. A half-year period of more than 500 carefully calculated dips into Mars' atmosphere -- a process called aerobraking -- will use friction with the atmosphere to gradually shrink the orbit to the size and nearly-circular shape chosen for most advantageous use of the six onboard science instruments.
"Our primary science phase won't begin until November, but we'll actually be studying the changeable structure of Mars' atmosphere by sensing the density of the atmosphere at different altitudes each time we fly through it during aerobraking," said JPL's Dr. Richard Zurek, project scientist for the mission.
Additional information about Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is available online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/mro
The mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft.
John Karas, Lockheed Martin vice president for space exploration, made the announcement in Cape Canaveral, Fla., in front of an audience of state and local officials including Florida Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings.
“Lockheed Martin’s proposal to do final assembly and checkout of the Crew Exploration Vehicle — CEV for short — reinforces what we believe is the absolute advantage Florida has to offer as a location as we look toward the maturing of our nation’s space industry,” Jennings said."
There was a young lady named Bright,
Whose speed was far faster than light;
She set out one day,
In a relative way,
And returned home the previous night.
See Nature Magazine's article about superluminal velocity!
" This is an image of the galactic X-ray background superimposed on an image of infrared sources. The X-rays, shown as white contour lines, were detected by NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. The infrared background (everything else) was detected by NASA's COBE mission in the 1990s. The white knots reveal very bright X-ray sources, mostly from black hole and neutron star activity. Most of the X-rays in our galaxy, however, come from millions on relatively dim sources that cannot be imaged. These are the thin, white, wavy lines throughout the galaxy. These appear to be almost entirely unseen white dwarfs and stars with active coronas, a surprise discovery. (Credit: NASA/RXTE-COBE/Revnivtsev et al."
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| "NASA's Next Leap in Mars Exploration Nears Arrival | 02.24.06 |
| As it nears Mars on March 10, a NASA spacecraft designed to examine the red planet in unprecedented detail from low orbit will point its main thrusters forward, then fire them to slow itself enough for Mars' gravity to grab it into orbit." NASA release about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter nearing it's goal. | |
