Re: [esa_general] Stunning new images of Titan!
On Sun, Jan 16, 2005 at 06:13:09PM -0800, Mark Schnitzius wrote: I keep thinking what a shame it is that the best battery technology we could muster could still could This wasn't a radioisotope battery, obviously. It's a damn shame, the next probe may well get lost. 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 blocks the nuclear option, there's not much you can do. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net pgpWB4utVraCy.pgp Description: PGP signature
Fw: This Week in The Space Review - 2005 January 17
- Original Message - From: Jeff Foust Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 2:13 AM Subject: This Week in The Space Review - 2005 January 17 [ If you no longer wish to receive announcements from The Space Review,please follow the instructions at the end of this message. ]Welcome to this week's issue of The Space Review:How Huygens avoided disaster---ESA's Huygens probe successfully landed on Titan on Friday, but the landing could have been spoiled by a communications flaw not discovered until after launch. James Oberg describes the nature of the problem and how engineers developed a solution.http://www.thespacereview.com/article/306/1Beyond the Biodome---Biosphere 2, recently put up for sale, was once hailed as a testbed for technologies that could enable space colonization. Dwayne Day examines how the project devolved into fodder for B-grade movies.http://www.thespacereview.com/article/305/1Night on the lunar railroad---Who needs a lunar elevator? Sam Dinkin takes a wild ride on a slingshot and a night train.http://www.thespacereview.com/article/304/1SpaceX buys into SSTL---Last week SpaceX announced it would buy a minority stake in smallsat manufacturer SSTL. Taylor Dinerman explains why this may be the beginning of many such deals among smaller, emerging space companies.http://www.thespacereview.com/article/303/1---ADVERTISEMENT Call for Papers now open for the 24th International Space Development Conference "Your Ticket to Space" Washington, DC * May 19-22, 2005 Papers being accepted in several categories including exploration, commercialization, science, and more For details visit http://isdc.nss.org/2005/ Abstract deadline: February 1, 2005If you missed it, here's what we published in our last issue:Live from another world---On Friday ESA's Huygens probe will arrive at Saturn's moon Titan, but it will be hours or days before ESA releases any data from the probe. Daniel Fischer explains why ESA is making a big mistake by not turning Huygen's arrival into a live event.http://www.thespacereview.com/article/302/1Telemedicine and distance learning after the tsunami---In the aftermath of the devastating tsunami last month relief workers are turning to spacebased services to coordinate their efforts. Taylor Dinerman describes the role telemedicine is playing in India and elsewhere.http://www.thespacereview.com/article/301/1Tax policy and space commercialization---Advocates of private investment in space ventures have pushed for the government to provide tax credits to investors. A.J. Mackenzie believes this approach won't work because it does nothing to stimulate limited markets for such ventures.http://www.thespacereview.com/article/300/1Fire and brim stone---Project Orion and terraforming are two extraordinary space visions. Sam Dinkin gives two radical cases for technology transfer to achieve energy independence.http://www.thespacereview.com/article/299/1We appreciate any feedback you may have about these articles as well as any other questions, comments, or suggestions about The Space Review. We're also actively soliciting articles to publish in future issues, so if you have an article or article idea that you think would be of interest, please email me.Until next week,Jeff FoustEditor, The Space Review[EMAIL PROTECTED]==This is the spacereview mailing list, hosted by klx.comTo unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the wordunsubscribe spacereviewin the body (not subject) of the message.For more information please visit http://www.thespacereview.com
Fw: Latest News from the Astrobiology Magazine
- Original Message - From: Astrobiology Magazine To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 5:32 AM Subject: Latest News from the Astrobiology Magazine It Came Out of the Skyhttp://www.astrobio.net/news/article1399.htmlIn this excerpt from the new Forward to the paperback edition of "Lonely Planets", planetary scientist David Grinspoon discusses the exciting discoveries unveiled by the twin rovers on Mars.Race for Pale Blue Dot Image Quickenshttp://www.astrobio.net/news/article1398.htmlAstronomers announced the first results of a search for extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs in an unlikely place--the stellar graveyard. A research team found two candidate planets in its survey of 20 dead stars--white dwarfs at distances between 24 and 220 light-years. The research is part of an intense race to take the first "photograph" of an extrasolar planet. Lakefront Landing in Crème Bruléhttp://www.astrobio.net/news/article1397.htmlFor the first time, humans have gotten a close-up look at Titan, the planet-sized moon. Huygens, scientists say, has landed in soil with the consistency of wet sand or clay. The scenery surrounding the landing site resembles a postcard panorama of undeveloped lakefront property, hand-tinted in pastel shades of orange.Titan: Piercing the Foghttp://www.astrobio.net/news/article1396.htmlThe first color-processed images from Titan have beamed down to Earth from over two billion miles away. To complete the sensory exploration of this alien moon, a microphone onboard the probe captured the sounds of rushing air from the atmosphere closest in density to our own.Monday, January 17 For more astrobiology news, visit http://www.astrobio.netTo unsubscribe, send subject UNSUBSCRIBE to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Surface of Titan in color / Scientists elated with quality of Huygens data
I'm sure Hoagland is already on it. - Original Message - From: Michael Turner To: europa@klx.com Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 1:00 AM Subject: Re: Surface of Titan in color / Scientists elated with quality of Huygens data Hey, I see a face! It looks just like the face of this dessert chef I once knew who could whip up an excellent creme brulee -michael SURFACE OF SATURN'S MOON TITAN REVEALED IN COLORTired and weary after a sleepless night spent sorting through their data,scientists on Saturday unveiled more pictures returned from the EuropeanSpace Agency's Huygens probe that landed on Saturn's moon Titan Friday. http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/050115pic3.htmlSCIENTISTS ELATED WITH QUALITY OF HUYGENS DATA--A missing computer command - apparently the result of human error - causedthe loss of half the pictures taken by Europe's Huygens probe as itdescended to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. But project officialssaid today the 350 pictures that made it back, along with high-qualitydata fromthe spacecraft's other instruments and unexpected measurements byEarth-based radio telescopes, should fulfill all of the mission's primaryobjectives. http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/050115science.htmlMontage of Huygens pictures: http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/images/050115montage.jpg
Re: [esa_general] Stunning new images of Titan!
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 blocks the nuclear option, there's not much you can do. Do or do not. There is no try. Simply assemble the radioisotope reactors on asteroids and pick them up on the way to the outer solar system. Of course the military will go bonkers over the fact that one is assembling concentrated radioactive materials in space but hey that is their problem, not that of planetary scientists whose job it is to explore the solar system. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: europa@klx.com Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: [esa_general] Stunning new images of Titan!
On Sun, Jan 16, 2005 at 06:13:09PM -0800, Mark Schnitzius wrote: I keep thinking what a shame it is that the best battery technology we could muster could still could This wasn't a radioisotope battery, obviously. It's a damn shame, the next probe may well get lost. 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 blocks the nuclear option, there's not much you can do. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net Attachment converted: Macintosh 160 GB HD:Untitled 18 (/) (0009440F) Eugen, There are RTGs (radioisotope thermal generators) that supply power to the Cassini craft. RTGs have a radiation problem that tends to degrade materials around them and especially electronic devices and circuits, so they need to be shielded and/or placed far from other system components (on extendable booms). For the Huygens probe, there probably was a weight issue on the RTG option, although perhaps a political issue as well. The Viking landers had RTGs, although solar was an option for them. At Jupiter distances and beyond, solar is no longer a viable option, so it's either RTG or a short life on batteries. Perhaps a successful life cut short will make the Huygens probe both a hero and an object lesson. Gary == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: europa@klx.com Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Fw: [nh-announce] 17 January 2005 -- Natural Hazards Updates
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 2:10 PM Subject: [nh-announce] 17 January 2005 -- Natural Hazards Updates The following sections were updated since 14 January 2005.-- UNIQUE IMAGERY (1 updated events, 1 new images) --B-15A ICEBERGThe massive B-15A iceberg is blocking sea ice in McMurdo Sound, and may prevent penguins from reaching food in the open sea. The sea ice is also blocking the supply route to science stations expecting the receive supplies this month.* http://naturalhazards.nasa.gov/shownh.php3?img_id=12676 *** MODIS(Terra) image from Jan 13 2005 (Posted on Jan 14 2005 3:17PM)-Natural Hazards is a service of NASA's Earth Observatory. http://naturalhazards.nasa.gov/ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/If you have any questions or comments, please contact: Holli Riebeek [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fw: [esa_general] Titan - view from 10 kilometres high
- Original Message - From: ESA Portal News Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 11:32 AM Subject: [esa_general] Titan - view from 10 kilometres high This picture is a composite of 30 images from ESA's Huygens probe. They were taken from an altitude varying from 13 kilometres down to 8 kilometres when the probe was descending towards its landing site. Full story:http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/SEMA6U71Y3E_0.htmlRaw images at: http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/titanraw/index.htm
Re: [esa_general] Stunning new images of Titan!
I think one thing to keep in mind was that Huygens was a kind of long-shot sideshow for Cassini. It's piggybacked on something that wasn't a dedicated Titan mission. Huygens is already taking some hits for not really being stunning in its imagery. When I wrote that Huygens exceeded my expectations, I meant it exceeded the expectations developed by reading about what they hoped to accomplish, and in view of all the risks and problems identified. I didn't know about the problems with RTGs. Maybe the next Titan probe should be a blimp, dangling an RTG power source at a safe distance, and dangling a surface science package at a safe distance below the RTG. Titan's atmosphere is 1.5 times denser at the surface than Earth's, while having surface acceleration more like that of Mars, so getting the required buoyancy might not so challenging. Do you use the RTG to provide warm air to the blimp bag? Or to dissassociate hydrogen from hydrocarbon gases? Maybe you start with hot air from the heat of entering Titan's atmosphere (the gas bag doubling as a kind of final parachute stage), then replace it with hydrogen as it cools? Complex engineering questions, with all kinds of trade-offs, I'm sure. Cassini was, as I dimly recall, hugely controversial because it was nuclear powered. For this Titan blimp mission concept, you might be able to keep the power requirements relatively modest. Since Titan's rotation is Saturn-orbit-synchronous, it might be possible to park RTG-powered relay satellites at a Saturn-Titan L4 and L5 libration points (stable, so little station-keeping is required, and providing near-global coverage). That way, the blimp only needs enough power to communicate within the immediate Titan neighborhood, not with Earth, and only needs to periodically reposition its satellite antenna in small increments as it drifts around Titan. The relay satellite only needs whatever power is required for periodic relay sessions. A blimp might simply drift 99% of the time, only using propulsion to offset mild winds when the surface science package is on the surface, taking samples. And then there's my windmill idea - if the blimp can reliably drop anchor at times, it might replenish its gas bag using power from an attached windmill. As well, there might be some ISRU chemical power source, as Gary suggests. All this requires considerable robotic autonomy, but we've got a good planet for experimenting with that, cheaply: our own. -michael turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Gary McMurtry [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: europa@klx.com Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 12:14 AM Subject: Re: [esa_general] Stunning new images of Titan! On Sun, Jan 16, 2005 at 06:13:09PM -0800, Mark Schnitzius wrote: I keep thinking what a shame it is that the best battery technology we could muster could still could This wasn't a radioisotope battery, obviously. It's a damn shame, the next probe may well get lost. 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 blocks the nuclear option, there's not much you can do. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a __ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net Attachment converted: Macintosh 160 GB HD:Untitled 18 (/) (0009440F) Eugen, There are RTGs (radioisotope thermal generators) that supply power to the Cassini craft. RTGs have a radiation problem that tends to degrade materials around them and especially electronic devices and circuits, so they need to be shielded and/or placed far from other system components (on extendable booms). For the Huygens probe, there probably was a weight issue on the RTG option, although perhaps a political issue as well. The Viking landers had RTGs, although solar was an option for them. At Jupiter distances and beyond, solar is no longer a viable option, so it's either RTG or a short life on batteries. Perhaps a successful life cut short will make the Huygens probe both a hero and an object lesson. Gary == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: europa@klx.com Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/ == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: europa@klx.com Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Excitement and puzzlement as Cornell views first Titan images
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan05/Huygens.landing.deb.html Excitement and puzzlement as Cornell views first Titan images by Larry Klaes At 2:55 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 14, the first image of the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, taken by the Cassini-Huygens space probe, was shown to the world. Taken from an altitude of 10 miles as the saucer-shaped Huygens probe parachuted through the murky orange atmosphere, the raw, unprocessed image showed what appeared to be drainage channels flowing into a dark, featureless region. "Mudslides!" was among the verbal reactions from those present in the third-floor Spacecraft Imaging Facility (SPIF) conference room in the Space Sciences Building. Indeed, it was hard not to imagine that the scene depicted rivers flowing into a large body of liquid, complete with shoreline and nearby islands. "This high-altitude photo looks a lot like the runoff channels we have seen on Mars," offered astronomy graduate student Britt Scharringhausen. The comments amid the frissons of excitement as new images from above Titan and then on its surface came up on the screen via NASA-TV lasted for much of the day as members of the campus community and the general public who crowded into the building--courtesy of the Department of Astronomy and Rick Kline, SPIF's data manager--shared the rare experience of seeing a totally alien world for the first time through the electronic eyes and instruments of Huygens. The open house, which had been widely publicized, brought parents and children, students, faculty and even President Jeffrey Lehman to witness the historic unveiling of images from Titan. Also occasionally present, and inevitably bombarded with questions, were some Cornell members of the science team for the Cassini spacecraft, which went into a Saturn orbit on June 30, 2004. Team members include Joseph Burns, the Irving Porter Church Professor of Engineering, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, professor of astronomy and Cornell's vice provost for physical sciences and engineering; Joseph Veverka, professor and chair of the Department of Astronomy; astronomy professors Steve Squyres, Peter Gierasch and Philip Nicholson; and Peter Thomas, senior researcher in astronomy. Cornell's contributions to the Cassini mission are the two main cameras that take wide and narrow angles of Saturn and its rings and moons, and the composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS), which measures the thermal radiation of the object being examined. During the morning, the European Space Agency (ESA), which is largely responsible for the Huygens probe, officially announced that the 700-pound vehicle had successfully landed on the moon's bitterly cold surface. Huygens then returned data for nearly two hours from the ground via the Cassini probe orbiting Saturn, much longer than the three to 30 minutes originally anticipated. The images traveled across 750 million miles of interplanetary space in more than an hour to reach eager scientists on Earth. The first image from Titan's surface, a black-and-white picture showing rounded ice boulders extending across a relatively flat surface to the horizon, surprised some Cornell watchers. "Titan's surface seems to have similar qualities to what we have seen on the surface of Mars," suggested Justin Wick, a Cornell graduate student who wrote the software for the mission planning lists of another space mission with Cornell involvement, the Mars rover mission. Researcher Burns later noted that the Huygens images gave further evidence that Titan has a "totally bizarre landscape. Titan's surface is made up of totally different materials in a very dense atmosphere. The surface appears mundane, but it is actually spectacular." As more images of Titan were scheduled to be shown at 5 p.m., the open house crowd became so large that the presentation was moved to a larger room on the first floor, which quickly filled up. "This is a testament to the ability of people around the world to join together in a collaborative venture," said Lehman after seeing the images. "It opens an entirely new window of scientific understanding into the nature of the universe that we all share." Matt Hedman, a post doctoral researcher who has been working with Burns on the images from Cassini, summed up in two words what most people were thinking about the images from Titan: "Happily confused." More information on the the landing is at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=530.
