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DailyTech's first International Space Updates for March 2007

On April 26, Stephen Hawking, a world famous British physicist, will take a zero-gravity flight next month from Cape Canaveral, state officials recently announced.  He will fly from the Kennedy Space Center onboard the G-Force One, a modified Boeing 727 jet owned by the Zero Gravity Corp.  The G-Force One flies up to 32,000-foot at a steep angle before immediately diving 8,000 ft. to allow passengers to experience weightlessness.  The main issue with the flight will be the health of Hawking, who suffers from Lou Gehrig's Disease, a degenerative nerve disease.

The New Horizons space probe has been on a mission to Pluto, and received a boost as it swung by Jupiter.  Mission managers said the probe was around 1.4 million miles away from Jupiter when it received a gravity assist, accelerating to more than 52,000 mph.  Scientists said that this is the first stage of the probe's continuing journey towards Pluto and beyond.  The New Horizons has covered 500 million miles so far and should come close to Pluto by 2015, scientists estimate.

Lisa Nowak has been cleared of attempted murder charges, but now officially faces assault and attempted kidnapping charges over a dispute in which she allegedly threatened a fellow astronaut and sprayed chemicals on her car.  She pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges after being arrested in Florida last month.  The judge on the case released her on bail and forced the disgruntled astronaut to wear a satellite tracking ankle device.  

Nowak was scheduled to be a ground communicator with the space shuttle Atlantis crew, but has been relieved of duty at NASA.

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2015
By bigbrent88 on 3/4/2007 12:40:57 PM , Rating: 2
How do we still not have spacecraft that can reach the outer solar system quicker than this? I thought by now maybe we could be using some kind of solar sails or this ion drives that were tested.




RE: 2015
By derwin on 3/4/2007 1:36:48 PM , Rating: 2
there is not capitalist nor military drive for this. Money is made by having satalites orbit the earth. Military operations are improved by having satalites orbit the earth. No body wants to pay the kind of money just to send a vehicle out into space for the sake of "knowledge." I disagree with this philosophy on many grounds, but be that we live in a capitalistic/milit-indust (aka economic driven) soceity, if neither of those needs are satiated, it probably will not happen.


RE: 2015
By bigbrent88 on 3/4/2007 1:40:33 PM , Rating: 2
What if said technologies made it easier to mine/colonize other parts of the solar system to fulfill you capitalist drive?


RE: 2015
By Goty on 3/4/2007 2:18:16 PM , Rating: 2
Think of this for a second: Light takes more than an hour to reach Pluto, if I'm not mistaken. Light, the thing that travels at the celestial speed limit takes more than an HOUR to get to this planet (excuse me, dwarf planet) and you're complaining that it takes us a few years to get something out there? Seriously now.

Oh, and about the ion drives and solar sails, they would take about the same amount of time to reach the same distance because the amount of thrust provided by these methods is minuscule; think blowing on a piece of paper and you'll get the idea. The advantages of these type of propulsion are based on efficiency, not speed (at least in the "short" term of traveling within the solar system).


RE: 2015
By daftrok on 3/4/2007 2:50:56 PM , Rating: 2
I agree. 2015 is actually a lot SOONER than most expected. Thanks for the gravitational boost, Jupiter! Otherwise it would've been around 2020 (or later) when it got close to Pluto.


RE: 2015
By masher2 (blog) on 3/4/2007 4:29:50 PM , Rating: 2
> "Oh, and about the ion drives and solar sails, they would take about the same amount of time to reach the same distance because the amount of thrust provided by these methods is minuscule."

Untrue. While ion drives and solar sails both generate extremely low thrusts, they generate them for very long periods of time. Therefore, the total dV imparted by such systems can be extraordinary large.

A spacecraft accelerating at a tiny 0.001g will reach Pluto in a mere 495 days...that assumes you turn around halfway there and start slowing down. If you accelerate all the way through, you'd reach Pluto in only 350 days...under a year.


RE: 2015
By trex1000 on 3/4/2007 5:36:24 PM , Rating: 3
There are a few different technologies which have proven to be alot faster and more efficient than current technologies in use. Most of these technologies involve some sort of nuclear propulsion and are obviously not being used for political reasons. There is one in particular called nuclear thermal propulsion which in theory can allow a craft to reach mars in a few days by super heating a gas, and can also be used to power a rover by using any gas "atmosphere" to propel itself from site to site. Nasa already has a working model of this. Sadly these types of technologies may take an eternity to ever be used, especialy when considering all the political boundaries when concerning nuclear energy.


RE: 2015
By masher2 (blog) on 3/5/2007 9:50:34 AM , Rating: 2
I'm a big fan of nuclear propulsion, even the simplistic "pulse-fission" variety which Nasa originally contemplated for the Apollo mission. There just isn't enough energy in chemical reactions for space travel, it limits you to tiny payloads and long travel times.


RE: 2015
By Goty on 3/5/2007 3:21:53 PM , Rating: 2
While ion propulsion may present a continuous acceleration and the ability to turn around a decelerate, the solar sail provides you with no such benefits. The realistic attainable speed would be limited to the maximum velocity at which you would like to orbit whichever object you were approaching (assuming you were not just doing a flyby).


RE: 2015
By masher2 (blog) on 3/5/2007 10:34:34 PM , Rating: 2
> "While ion propulsion may present a continuous acceleration and the ability to turn around a decelerate, the solar sail provides you with no such benefits"

Eh? A solar sail does provide continuous acceleration. As for deceleration, its possible, though more complex than "turning around and braking". Reverse gravity slingshotting and aerobraking both allow you to shed velocity as needed.


Oh god, not the chemicals!
By Soviet Robot on 3/4/2007 12:20:02 PM , Rating: 1
I should be careful next time I use Febreze in my car, or I might be charged with spraying teh chemicals on a vehicle!!

Jesus christ, it's pepper spray, it doesn't kill you. Sure this wacko needs to be dealt with, but attempted murder? feh to you.




RE: Oh god, not the chemicals!
By SunAngel on 3/4/07, Rating: -1
RE: Oh god, not the chemicals!
By Pjotr on 3/5/2007 3:56:25 AM , Rating: 2
She was also carrying a knife with her, which is a deadly weapon.


RE: Oh god, not the chemicals!
By Captain Orgazmo on 3/5/2007 7:01:10 AM , Rating: 2
I occasionally wear steel toed boots. You can kill a person with steel toed boots in less than a minute. Would I be carrying a deadly weapon then? Or driving in a car? I could kill someone with my car very easily. Just because you are able to kill someone with an object doesn't make it a "deadly weapon". There are people who can make anything deadly, from a spoon to their schlong, to their bare hands. What if she was carrying the knife to cut up a kiwi fruit? You can't prove that she wasn't. On the other hand, it would be pretty hard to convince a judge the pepper spray was for seasonings.


RE: Oh god, not the chemicals!
By masher2 (blog) on 3/5/2007 9:09:03 AM , Rating: 4
Are you serious? She secretly drives 900 mile wearing a wig, trench coat, and dark glasses, using cash to ensure she doesn't leave any paper trail and even wearing a diaper so she won't be seen entering any public restrooms. When she arrives, she attacks her victim with pepper spray...and when police arrive, they find her car contains not only a knife, but a BB gun, a brand new steel mallet, rubber tubing, several large garbage bags, and latex gloves so she wouldn't leave any prints. Oh, and a map to her victim's house as well.

The law demands evidence beyond any reasonable doubt. Do you actually doubt she was intending serious bodily harm? A murder case might have been hard to stick....which is why the police wisely choose attempted kidnapping instead.


RE: Oh god, not the chemicals!
By Seemonkeyscanfly on 3/5/2007 9:53:48 AM , Rating: 3
Maybe she was going to be a clown (need for wig, coat, glasses and diapers) at a surprise birthday party, to be held at the victims house (need for map). She needed to bring some party games, (need for bb gun, stell mallet, rubber tubing and large garbage bags). The Knife is for cutting cake of course and she likes spicy food and pepper spray is spicy and taste good. Now for the latex gloves, come on, who does not want to wear a pair of latex gloves to a party???


RE: Oh god, not the chemicals!
By masher2 (blog) on 3/5/2007 10:00:40 AM , Rating: 2
You have a bright future as a defense attorney.


RE: Oh god, not the chemicals!
By Seemonkeyscanfly on 3/5/2007 11:41:07 AM , Rating: 2
I thought you'd enjoy my reply. Thanks for kind thoughts for my financial future, but morally I just could not be a defense attorney. :)


RE: Oh god, not the chemicals!
By Ringold on 3/5/2007 4:13:48 PM , Rating: 2
Psh. Morals never made anybody a dime. ;)


Hawking
By EODetroit on 3/5/2007 10:22:50 AM , Rating: 2
Stephen Hawking has lived longer with Lou Gerhig's disease than just about anyone. He's almost died from it numerous times already, only to make semi-miraculous recoveries. Maybe this is a plan to finally open up his seat at Cambridge for relevant physicist instead of just a famous one.




RE: Hawking
By Goty on 3/5/2007 3:22:47 PM , Rating: 2
How is hawking not a "relevant" physicist? As far as I know, his research is still ongoing.


RE: Hawking
By EODetroit on 3/5/2007 4:49:38 PM , Rating: 2
When physicists were asked to name the most important among their peers, Hawking was ranked last of the 20 names listed, and only 1 person even gave him a vote. He possibly shouldn't have even been on the list.


RE: Hawking
By masher2 (blog) on 3/5/2007 6:16:11 PM , Rating: 3
Err, I think you've misremembered the details. I once saw a poll of active physicists that put Hawking in "last place" ...but the poll was top physicists of all time , living or dead. The top 16 spots were all taken by those already deceased. The highest living physicist was Hans Bethe, who received a grand total of 3 votes. Hawking received one vote, which puts him in pretty good company.

There aren't many people alive who have done ground-breaking research in physics. Hawking is one of them. Trust me, he deserves his position at Cambridge.


RE: Hawking
By Ringold on 3/5/2007 10:09:38 PM , Rating: 2
I read a physics book by Lawrence Krauss a year or so ago and it more or less reaffirmed my decision to study economics rather than physics.

Bottom line? There's enough results that dont match models, enough things that physicists result to fairy-tale models to explain, and enough things that they obviously have no idea how to make sense of that it's fairly obvious to me that everything's a bloody shot in the dark and it's rather interesting we can come up with equations that at least give us good enough approximations we can play some cool tricks like, for example, CPU's, and attempt to fathom more spooky things, such as quantum entanglement.

That Hawking even tries to make progress in a field that Krauss woefully suggests hasn't had much in a decade or more deserves some merit, especially in his current condition. Plus, for his Cambridge seat, there's also something to be said for distinction. As someone that skipped physics in high school, I have no idea who this 'Hans Bethe' fellow is, but I and everyone else knows who Hawking is. Indirect benefits surely flow Cambridge's way from that. There will be plenty of time to replace him once he ultimately succumbs, sadly..


RE: Hawking
By Goty on 3/7/2007 3:53:07 PM , Rating: 2
Ok, so half of that post doesn't even make sense.

If the results don't match the models, then the models will be changed. That's why it's a model. Also, just because you can't understand the mathematics or visualize the theories behind the current fields of physics doesn't mean they're "fairy-tale models".

We use the word "spin" to define a property of electrons, for example. Does it matter that the electron doesn't actually spin? Hell no, it only matters that it works in a classical picture that our pathetically inadequate brains can comprehend.

Oh, and if physics is nothing but a bunch of shots in the dark, then explain why quantum mechanics works so well, tell me why relativity has been experimentally proven many times, tell me why we can make calculations so precise that we can send spacecraft all the way across the solar system and have them captured by an object that we wouldn't even know existed without physics.

Physics is the closest thing to a complete science that we as the human race have. You calling it all a bunch of hooey (for lack of a better term) just shows your ignorance.


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