Yes, you do. Also, some really good restaurants. I happened to visit Antwerp several years ago, and stopped at a small mom-and-pop eatery. I had a simple beefsteak and potatoes dinner, but it was covered with a bernaise sauce that I could happily eat with every other morsel of food I consume for the rest of my life...

So, yeah, there would be worse places in the world to gather than Belgium.

-the other Doug

I don't really know that NASA can sell this -- but then again, that's not what they were tasked to do. They were tasked to come up with an architecture that would give America a manned interplanetary capability. This does just that, and it's not as expensive as many other options.

Please don't start the argument that there's no good reason for humans to travel back to the Moon or to other solar system bodies, because I will never agree with that argument. I don't care what the fianancial factors might be. I think it's very bad for the human spirit to stay holed up here, when we have the ability to explore beyond -- in person.

-the other Doug

Have a good one, boss! You deserve it.

Oh, and have I mentioned lately how grateful I am that you set up this site? Great thanks!

-the other Doug

Emily, I'd like to suggest including the artist's representations of the proposed CEV/LSAM combination that, if it gets funded, will take humans back tot he Moon within the next dozen or so years.

They're available at the nasa.gov website somewhere, I'm sure.

-the other Doug

There has been a definite "movement" out there, ever since 1971 and the Mariner 9 testament, of some people who want to find some way (ANY way) to explain the obvious fluvial features in such a way that does not require there to have ever been liquid water on the surface of Mars.

Why? Mostly, I think, because liquid water cannot exist there *now*. To accept the validity of the features as fluvial, you *must* accept the concept of a severe climate change having occurred on Mars.

Whereas, to accept them as non-fluvial, you *must* accept that some Mars-specific process creates features that *look* fluvial, but thata ctually are not.

That's why some people keep barking up the no-water alley. Because, either way you look at it, you have to accept the postulate that something happened on Mars that we cannot easily explain, or understand.

I'm still in the early-water camp, because there are established and understandable mechanisms by which Mars' climate could have evolved from a higher-air-pressure, much wetter environment to its current low-pressure, bone-dry existence. The "contrived" mechanisms that have been proposed to explain relatively small-scale fluvial-appearing features fail (for me) on a number of levels, including the fact that they don't account for how widespread the fluvial and other water-related features (such as the Meridiani sulfate-rich sedimentary deposits) actually are.

So, for me, "Blue Mars" works better than "White Mars." But YMMV.

-the other Doug

"Mir" has more than one meaning in Russian. I think the more applicable one here would best be translated into English as "community."

-the other Doug

And a good Solstice to all you pagans out there!

-the other Doug

I lost the link to this when my machine kept going down a couple of years ago, but in keeping with this thread, there was a small group of engineers who wanted to know what would happen if you ladled a nice big spoonful of LOX onto, say, a charcoal grill.

The guy did it right -- he attached a big scoop to a 3-meter pole. His confederates managed to fill the scoop with liquid oxygen, and the guy maneuvered the scoop over the charcoal grill, and dumped.

The flash was rather brighter than the camera could handle, but as the flash abated, you could see the charcoal grill's legs collapse. The entire metal pan that held the charcoal had literally melted through...

-the other Doug

Actually, Bruce, the way I always heard the story, MR-1 was reflown as MR-1A some weeks later, using the same capsule *and* the same Redstone booster. The Redstone problem was not with the missile itself, but with the GSE power plug that attached to the base of the missile. A technician had filed off a small bit of one of the two prongs on the power plug, to make it fit better, but that resulted in the plug's prongs disconnecting a few milliseconds apart. It happened at the exact time a mechanical sequencer was sampling the voltages on both sides of the power line, and resulted in the Redstone shutdown. But nothing was wrong with the missile, the fins weren't even bent by it settling back down onto them.

However, the Redstone was *almost* rendered unusable that day. Once the 'chutes had been deployed (and, make no mistake, it was the drogue, the main and the reserve main 'chutes, all deployed at once), there was a great concern that winds could fill the 'chutes and pull the Redstone over, ruining both the missile and the capsule. And none of von Braun's men wanted to go out to the rocket and safe it, because it was still fully fueled -- and the Germans had seen what happens when a fully-fueled rocket tips over.

One of von Braun's men started saying something about having a rifle out in his car. The Americans wanted to know what the hell he was going to do with a rifle, so von Braun explained that, back in the V-2 development days, they had a bird on the pad that was dead but fully fueled, so they took a rifle and punctured the tanks from a safe distance, allowing the tanks to depressurize and vent and making the rocket safe to approach.

Von Braun's deputy (I know the name, I just can't remember it right now) had to be actively dissuaded from getting his rifle and forceably depressurizing the tanks. Fortunately, winds stayed light and they were able to get the missile safed (and the chutes gathered up) before anything really bad happened.

BTW -- that whole episode was later dubbed "The Day They Launched the Escape Tower." Funny thing is, the escape tower jett motor was loud and flashy, and the tower took off REALLY fast -- such that the politicians who had been invited to watch were very impressed at just how fast these rockets flew away! They had to be told that the rocket was still on the pad...

-the other Doug

I don't have an image or the footage handy, but there was this early Thor or Delta launch, back in the late 1950s or early 1960s, when the missile lifted off, set on its side, and arced *just* over the Banana River, where it impacted and exploded.

The thing was supposed to be an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM). However, that flight was re-designated an IBRM -- for the one and only deployed Inter-Banana River Missile.

-the other Doug

This just in -- a Federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that a school district there does *not* have to teach ID as a scioentific theory. The judge who ruled was a Bush appointee, by the way.

He he he he he...

-the other Doug

Hmmm... perhaps these clays are lacustrine in origin, at least at the Gusev site? Especially if they are derived from a deep underlying layer...



-the other Doug

Okay, Joe -- I wasn't sure whether you were using your own trajectory simulator or whether you were using some third-party software. If it's your own code, you're fine to publish -- but you will, indeed, need to provide enough detail about the code to generate confidence in its trajectory predictions.

I guess I was becoming somewhat confused between your trajectory sims and those run by some others using the freeware Orbiter program. Sorry 'bout that.

-the other Doug

Yeah, kids love Pluto -- and somehow they never question why Goofy can talk and Pluto can't, even though they're both dogs...



-the other Doug

"...alcohol compounds with a trace of fusile oil..."

-the other Doug

As far as Joe's work is concerned, let's look at the sources he's used:

1) Albedo maps of Enceladus based on officially released PDS Voyager data (created by Steve Albers). No problems there, though, of course, Albers would have to be cited for his contribution.

2) The existence of ice-particle plumes. Details of the plumes' origins and trajectories are not "officially" available, but their existence is official. So, distribution of plumes observed emanating from the south polar region will have to wait for official PDS release.

3) The existence and location of the tiger stripes. These features were hinted at in Voyager imaging, but are not well enough defined in the Voyager data to locate them well. Correlations between plume sources and tiger stripes will have to wait for the PDS release.

4) The simulator used to predict the trajectories of plume particles. Any peer review will require enough detail on the constraints and limitations of the simulation techniques to provide any kind of confidence in the validity of Joe's findings. This might require more information about the simulation programming than Joe has proprietary rights to provide.

So, it would seem like Joe could write up his paper, leaving blanks for the identifiers he will get from the PDS release, but assuming that the PDS data will not vary significantly from the data he already has at his disposal. As soon as the data is released to the PDS, he can verify it as it relates to his paper, insert the appropriate identifications in the placeholders he's left, and submit it.

However, he's going to have to deal with 4) above, regardless. If the calculations performed by the simulation software are proprietary and he can't demonstrate their validity (and state error margins), then no matter how valid his conclusions are, it'll be hard to get them published...

-the other Doug

One reason Martian craters are hard to see from Earth-based telescopes is that, as with most cratered bodies, they aren't very obvious except near the terminator. And we very, very rarely see much in the way of a terminator on Mars. Most of the Mars views from Earth are nearly full-disk, the terminator fuzzed by being viewed through the maximum amount of Mars atmosphere it's possible to have between us and the Martian surface, and by foreshortening.

The human eye has far better naked-eye resolution of the Moon than we had of Mars through telescopes for hundreds of years, and even so, lunar craters weren't really identified as such until people started looking at the Moon through telescopes. And we get very good terminator views of the Moon from Earth. So, even if we were able to see Mars with a terminator crossing mid-disk through cratered terrain, it wouldn't be surprising if we missed craters...

-the other Doug

Well, certainly such things are of interest to me, and I'm sure to many people who visit and post to this forum. But, then again, I guess we all rather fit the definition of "people like you," Phil.



-the other Doug

Ummm... El Dorado, Bill. Not El Diablo.

Although, maybe El Kabong would have been more appropriate...

-the other Doug

Yeah, I heard a broadcast of the actual comm from Apollo 1 during the Fire (I believe it was during coverage of an ultimately scrubbed launch attempt for STS-2). I had been videotaping the launch attempt, and after listening through the audio a couple of times, I decided to tape over it with the successful launch attempt a few weeks later.

It was the only time I've ever heard the actual tape. I was very interested to see what my own take would be on the actual words spoken, since I've seen several variations in different transcriptions. I satisfied myself that I knew what was said, and then felt somehow dirty... which is when I decided NOT to keep that particular recording for posterity.

As you said, it just felt too private for me to want to revisit it.

-the other Doug

It concerns me that Squyres says in his latest update that, after Comanche, they have time to check out either Allegheny or El Dorado, but not both, before they have to high-tail it over onto the north-facing slope of McCool Hill for the winter.

Does this mean they're NOT going to investigate Home Plate and the Pitcher's Mound?

I don't like the sound of that at ALL...

-the other Doug

Or one of the most haunting...

"Will I dream?"

-the other Doug

Unless there is a significant change in Hayabusa's condition, I have serious doubts that it will last several extra years. I'd like to be wrong, though.

-the other Doug

Oh, come now -- no matter *what* those two might have done, do you really think it was bad enough to exile them to Mars forever?

Then again, maybe...

-the other Doug

This show was telecast on The Science Channel (formerly Discovery Science) on Tuesday, December 13 at 9 pm Central Standard Time. It included a lot of footage from early days (conception, construction, launch and cruise), but it also had a lot of footage, and many interviews, from times right up to maybe a month or so ago.

For example, the Huygens team was talking about the demise of their "creme broulet" model in favor of striking a pebble at impact, and there were very recent images of the plumes from Enceladus' tiger stripes, from the late November plume search. So, this is definitely an updated piece.

-the other Doug