Yes, Phil, but you need to understand the context, here. NASA's "mission statement" has been changed to exclude studying the Earth just at the time when certain political movements (which happen to be in power in Washington at the moment) are trying to silence NASA in re global warming.

Sounds to me like the powers-that-be-for-now want to simply remove Earth observations from NASA's charter so they can avoid the embarassment of NASA telling them that they're wrong about global warming...

-the other Doug

I think we have to stop defining Kuiper Belt objects as automatically comet-like. I can well imagine that the Kuiper Belt is populated with more than one basic type of body (at least in re composition).

Some KBOs are very likely comet-like, in that they contain significant amounts of volatiles, which are fairly easily sublimated when the object gets enough sunlight. But I'd bet that there are any number of KBOs which are of more rocky composition, or of older water ices which, like the moons of the outer planets, have ceased to have much potential for outgassing.

I think it's fair to say that Pluto *is* something like a very large comet, in that we know for a fact that it outgasses. Pluto is too massive for the outgassed material to form a coma, so it forms an atmosphere instead. But there are certainly a lot of volatiles on Pluto which sublimate and outgas during the warmer portions of its orbit -- that is definitely comet-like behavior.

However, from what I can tell from what I've read of the analyses made of Charon and the two mini-moons, Pluto seems to be the only one of the bodies in its little system which exhibits comet-like behavior. The smaller bodies don't seem to outgas, which seems to indicate that at least some KBOs have non-cometary compositions. (Of course, Charon and the rest might just be too small and too far away for us to be able to tell whether they outgas or not...)

-the other Doug

My favorite site to visit would be the rim of Tycho. My second favorite would be the floor of Copernicus. In August of 1969, I was "promised" I would see both before Apollo ended. I would really like to see them before I'm ended...

-the other Doug

This is the specific image of the contact between hillock and ripple that caught my interest...

-the other Doug

I wish! Unfortunately, such a series of rovers would cost a billion or two, and the pictures alone (while they would be very, very gratifying to me and to many of those who frequent this forum) could never justify the cost.

Goldurnit.

-the other Doug

I'm one of the guys who has maintained that the ripples/drifts move and grow in time frames of decades, not millennia. And yet, some of what we're seeing here is making me wonder about that.

Look closely at the base of West Hillock, guys. It looks very much like West Hillock was deposited on top of the existing ripple structure. The ripple that intersects the hillock appears to have been buried -- it does not appear to have been built up to the side of the hillock.

Now, in the overhead imagery, the hillock appears to be a piece of the Victoria apron that has been separated from the main apron by erosion. In other words, it looks like the apron material was emplaced on top of the evaporite base layer, ripples and all, and that as it erodes off of that base layer, the ripples are being exhumed. Which would speak to a much higher cohesiveness and resistance to erosion in the ripple surfaces than in the evaporite or in the apron material.

And that just doesn't make sense. It makes no sense to me that the etched terrain ripples are so old that they pre-date, in their present form and extent, the Victoria impact event.

Maybe I'm just seeing the contact between the ripple and the hillock wrong... but it sure looks like the hillock buries the ripple to me.

-the other Doug

I just want some of you imagery wizards to tell us which of the Twin Peaks is larger, or at least which protrudes more... or are we seeing a rare instance of Nature's perfection, and each mound is exactly the same size?



-the other Doug

Yep -- thirty-seven years and thirty-eight minutes ago (as I type this), Neil Armstrong set his booted foot onto the surface of the Moon.

Seeing as each of the Apollo 11 crew was 38 years old at the time of the flight, each is 75 years old on this date. Kinda makes ya feel old, don't it?

I was 13 and a half years old at the time, myself. I was certain I would see any number of things by the time I reached 50. I haven't seen any of them.

Now, *that* is what really makes me feel old... *sigh*...

-the other Doug

As long as, every day, we can ask "where are we going to go tomorrow, and what are we going to do when we get there," the MER adventure continues.

It's just getting really painful to think of the day when we can no longer ask that question, for either of the girls.

-the other Doug

Yes, Alex, I'll agree with you -- SFX seems to drive the stories, not serve them, in Hollywood these days. There are thousands upon thousands of decent, filmable sf stories out there that languish because they're not big, glittery SFX vehicles. And when someone does try to bring a good sf story to the screen, it ends up being chopped into mush by studios that want to add elements like wisecracking detectives and neat-o morphing robots to a classic tale such as "I, Robot."

No one ever had the guts to film Harlan Ellison's "I, Robot" script -- which was vastly superior to the Will Smith abortion that came out recently. It told the story with beauty and elegance, getting elements of many of Asimov's short stories into it and wrapping up a story of vast scope in a decent 2-hour feature film format. I'm not the world's biggest Harlan fan, but this was a fine script. It, not what eventually got produced, is what deserved to be made.

-the other Doug

In re good old A.C. Clarke -- in some ways, the *only* true sf movie would have to be a faithful adaptation of a Clarke story.

If you apply that standard, only one real sf movie has ever been made -- 2010. That is the only example of faithfully filmed Clarke that has ever been attempted (and it does rather well, overall).

-the other Doug

Just as an addendum, as to the specific paucity of films being made from sf novels -- those that are being made are being made from *old* novels and novellas. Like that Will Smith abortion of an excuse for an Asimov robot story ("I. Robot"), or even the Tom Cruise vehicle "Minority Report" (based on a Phil Dick novella from the '70s).

I think one reason why you don't see many films lately based on *recent* sf novels is due to changes in the printed product over the past several years. For example, let's say you want to film a novel of David Brin's. You have three choices -- you can film "Earth," you can film "The Postman" (which they did -- badly), or you can decide just where and how you want to try and bite film-sized chunks out of his Uplift saga. Do you make a single film out of it? Set up a series of films? Do a regular TV series? Or maybe a series of mini-series specials?

You have the same problem, in spades, if you want to try and film any of Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan saga... way too much story for a single film.

I think that the publishing industry, in pushing book series (three, five, seven, eleven books long -- the longer the better, these days), are making it a lot harder for the format of the feature film to be able to glean much out of the printed genre...

-the other Doug

A few points:

1) You have to define what you mean by a "science fiction" movie. There have been any number of fantasies released in the past 5 years, many of them of the sf variety (but still solidly fantastical -- I include space opera, such as Star Wars, in this category). In terms of "true" science fiction, I think the last film made that qualifies for that title might be "Space Cowboys."

2) Of what is called by Hollywood "science fiction," more than 50% of the films in the last ten years have been based (loosely or otherwise) on works of Philip K. Dick. Now, Phil Dick was an extraordinary writer, I grant you -- but he did not write "hard" sf. He wrote sociological sf more than anything else, which merely uses scientific "gadgetry" to discuss, highlight and define elements of the human condition that are really independent of their technological trappings.

3) There has been quite a lot of "soft" sf in theaters and on TV in the past several years -- everything from the Sci-Fi Channel's big Speilberg project, "Taken," to Ashton Kutcher in "The Butterfly Effect," to an upcoming TV series based on Turtledove's Harry Dresden books (though they change Dresden's first name). There has even been some hard sf ("A.I.," "Mission to Mars," a few others), but I don't think the hard sf has been any smaller a percentage of sf/fantasy films than it ever was... there just hasn't been all that much hard sf, as a percentage of all sf/fantasy, at any time. It's not just today's films that suffers from this low percentage.

4) I think that, as with anything, the presence or absence of sf in the popular media is in the eye of the beholder. Heck, I find a lot of interesting science fiction in nearly every news broadcast I see these days...

-the other Doug

Ummm... you are joking, right, Alex?

-the other Doug

Here's an odd question, I doubt anyone here knows the answer, but it's an interesting point...

Tomas Reiter launched with Discovery, but stayed on the ISS. Did his Launch and Entry Suit (the orange suit) stay up in the ISS with him, or did it come back aboard Discovery empty? Also, is there a Soyuz suit onboard ISS for him, just in case he has to get a ride home on a Soyuz (for whatever reason)? They suit up for launches and entries in the Soyuz these days, after all. (And it is anticipated that he might need to ride home on a Soyuz -- he brought up a Soyuz seat liner for himself.)

You don't suppose that a guy in a Shuttle L&ES can fit properly into a Soyuz and hook up to the proper electrical and environmental systems, do you?

-the other Doug

Well, NASA TV ran a rather interesting spot right after the JSC landing shift flight director's press conference.

It was a pre-shot piece into which they added a few images from today's landing. It was called an "announcement" from the Coalition for Space Exploration (whatever that is), and was basically a commercial for NASA and the VSE. It starred former Shuttle astronaut Bernard Harris, M.D. and also some old guy most of y'all won't remember -- Apollo flight director Gene Kranz.

The thing only ran about a minute and a half, but it was an interesting take on public relations. It had Kranz up there saying that NASA has now shown it has the guts to begin again exploring outside of LEO. Kranz stressed the leadership and institutional courage demonstrated by NASA in getting the Shuttle off the ground again. He brought it down to very simple terms like "guts" and "will."

Very, very interesting approach...

-the other Doug

Yes, but it wasn't exactly a straight-nominal landing. One of the pitot tubes refused to deploy properly, and only deployed after several manual attempts to do so (and only when the vehicle slowed down to just over Mach 1). Also, a rain shower developed over the end of the runway they were originally planning to approach (literally just a few minutes before they were to land), so they did a re-designate to the other end of the runway right before they entered the HAC. In an unpowered Shuttle, that's a tricky bit of business to attempt that late in the profile.

All ended up fine, no mistakes were made... it was just a little mroe of a character-building landing than normal.

-the other Doug

Everyone is making good points, here.

Don, you're absolutely correct that there needs to be a motivation for human expansion into the solar system that will attract a long-term investment process.

David, you're absolutely correct that people have, in the past (and more and more as time has gone on) *created* destinations where none had previously existed. Destinations that, until they were created, did not posess what anyone would have seen as any intrinsic economic value.

Jason, you're absolutely correct that there have historically been other motivators for colonialism, especially religious grounds. One quick look at a newspaper, or ten minutes watching headlines on TV news, will tell you that modern human civilization is still just as contentious over its varying religious beliefs as it's ever been -- and our level of technology (and sheer numbers) have made the consequences that much more threatening to all of us.

I think that, in the end, it may all come down to a resources issue. We are not really close to running out of most metals on Earth, but we are close to running out of some easily-accessed metals and other materials. I read somewhere that most of the soft iron within easy mining range, across the entire globe, was mined out during WWII. Since then we have been expending more time and energy than before, getting our iron out of harder ores such as taconite.

If we could somehow demonstrate that terrestrial sources of various metals and other useful (or essential) materials will become harder and harder to find, we can begin to convince people (especially those people who control the money) that we will not only require extra-terrestrial resources within a given span of time, we need to start working *now* to develop the technologies needed to make access to those resources economical enough to make their use possible.

The hardest thing about this, of course, is that it requires people to think more long-term than human nature usually pressures us to think. And any plan that starts with the basic tenet that "all we need to do is change human nature, just a little tiny bit..." will *always* fail. No exceptions.

However, if we're gonna utilize extra-terrestrial resources in the future, I think we *have* to start with the asteroids. Energy requirements to get to and from a lot of near-Earth bodies aren't that much more than getting to Mars (and in some cases are less), light-time lags are shorter, allowing more ground control of early robotic probes, you don't have nearly as large a gravity well to climb into or out of to get to, and remove, their metals... and as you end up with manned mining colonies on the larger rocks, you have nice, big rock piles to shield their crews from cosmic rays.

I would much rather see the first manned trip out of the Earth-Moon system to be headed towards an asteroid, rather than towards Mars. But that's just my opinion...



-the other Doug

Thanks, Alan, for all of us impatient types!

I'm seeing several circular features in this swath -- if I didn't know any better (and I don't), I'd say they look like subdued impact features which have been mostly eroded into nothingness. Perhaps overlaid by sedimentary deposits. But I see lots of what really look, to me, like old craters. (Especially near the top of the lower third of the swath, above the obvious large flow feature that trends from bottom to top.)

This is one of the first times I'd say we see what looks like typical cratered terrain anywhere in the Titan radar swaths... even if it's been eroded to near-flatness.

-the other Doug

Let's face up to it -- the days in which a lone inventor could cobble together innovative uses of materials, electricity or applications of basic Newtonian physics, without far more capitalization than an individual is generally capable of generating, are pretty much over. We've simply plumbed the depths of technologies available to those who cannot apply truly expensive technologies in their assistance.

Until and unless a vast paradigm shift makes possible the creation of spacecraft and motive forces capable of delivering them into space using only those odds and ends found around the home, we are limited in terms of new technologies and innovations to what can be created by well-funded corporations and governments.

Well-funded corporations and governments have a remarkably strong antipathy towards innovation.

-the other Doug

Exactly the point I was about to make, John -- that and the morphologhy of the ejecta emplacement is a lot more visible and obvious at a distance (a la in the MOC image) than it will ever be on the ground.

I do have some hopes that Beagle is young enough to provide a drill-hole through the transition between Victoria's visible ejecta apron and the outlying terrain, which *could* have exhumed some primary depositional materials from the much older Victoria impact. That's why I think it's reasonably important to at least get a good mini-TES pan and a good multi-spectral pancam pan from the rim of Beagle.

At the very least.

-the other Doug

When Spirit took a look around, I figured that, if we were very lucky, we might get all the way to the rim of Bonneville. Spend a month or so exploring the ejecta, hopefully find some lacustrine materials to make the mission worthwhile (to its "follow-the-water" goal), and die with a breathtaking view of a decent-sized crater. The hills on the horizon looked enticing, but I figured that, being several km away, there was no way in the world we'd ever actually be able to drive to them. (When they did annouince they were going to try and drive to them, I wished them luck and decided you have to have impossible goals in life... but that's what I thought it was, an impossible goal.)

When Oppy landed and spent sol after sol, week after week, puttering around that tiny little crater, I got distinctly edgy. I figured that, no matter how interesting the sediments in the walls were, we were completely ignoring the possible diversity we would find out on the plains. I was certain that there were interesting things to discover out on the plains -- and I despaired that Oppy would die before she ever got out to look at them! As much as I enjoyed the results we got from the rocks in the walls of Eagle Crater, I felt it was disastrous to spend so much time inside of it, when there were vast plains out there to explore.

I am gratified, to say the least, at how much more each of these brave girls has managed to do than what I expected. May they be like the Energizer bunny, and just keep going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going...

-the other Doug

Betty Jo Bielowksi? I think she's at the Old Same Place... but, you can't get there from here.



-the other Doug

Wonderful! I've made several, probably somewhat desultory, internet searches for Lunakhod science returns over the past several years and have found next to nothing (including very little, as is obvious from my comments, about the actual existence of geoscience sensors on either craft)... it's good to know that something is out there somewhere.

Is there anything in those results that fits poorly with Apollo-based lunar models? Or have they even been analyzed as part of the model-creation-and-maintenance process?

-the other Doug

Well -- depends on the configuration, David. The "Stick" (the Ares-1) might have gone out of control due to the force of the side-jet, but it may have remained within the ability of the nozzle gimbaling to keep the thing under control. The Ares-5 would have exploded, since the secondary plume would erode the SRB attach joint to the fuel tank in the same way and cause a similar catastrophic tank failure.

The difference is that, if an Ares-1 were to start to cartwheel, the crew of a CEV will be able to punch off the stack with their escape tower. You can't easily do that with a winged vehicle -- especially not with the Shuttle. And the Ares-5 isn't scheduled to be man-rated, so if current planning goes through, we'll never have to worry about an Ares-5 Challenger-style accident endangering a manned vehicle.

-the other Doug