MarsBlog - Part 87

Low-Pressure Gardening

A look at how plants might react to Mars.

Mars on Earth

Wired has an article covering Chris McKay and his associates studying what may be an even more Mars-like environment than Haughton Crater: the sterile wastelands of the Atacama.

Kliper

Mark Wade has a new entry for the proposed Soyuz replacement: Kliper.

Explosion, Fire at ISRO Motor Plant

Fatal explosion rips through India Space Center

“The propellant in the segment caught fire and caused severe damage to the building, in which the operations were going on,” Dar said. The plant makes all the solid fuel needed for rocket boosters.

Dar said the accident would not have any adverse impact on ISRO’s launch programs, as the fuel segment that exploded was a test propellant and not part of any program.

He seems to be contradicting himself there…if it’s the facility where all solid motor fuel is made, how can it not have an adverse impact on ISRO’s launch programs, given the substantial use of solids on PSLV and (to lesser extent) on GSLV?

Muddin’ on Mars

Spirit has followed Opportunity in digging a trench. Interestingly, the material in Gusev appears to be even more “cohesive” than that in Meridiani.

No Flash, Thanks

I was going to link to the MarsQuest site, where they are making available all of the pictures from Spirit and Opportunity. Unfortunately, they REQUIRE one to have a Flash plugin in order to even enter the site. So, I won’t.

Like a surprising number of people, I long ago uninstalled anything Flash-related from my machine. It seems to me that the only thing Flash is good for is as a means for sneaking intensely annoying advertisements past ad-blocking programs — I have yet to see it used for anything useful, nothing that couldn’t just as well be accomplished by Java or just plain old HTML.

I don’t care how cool and intuitive and easy-to-use the MarsQuest interface supposedly is — so long as it involves Flash, I won’t be visiting.

Variation On A Theme

This article in MIT’s Technology Review questions the ulterior motives of the Bush plan in a more thought-provoking manner than the “hoax” rants. The question here seems to be: is the policy really about simply terminating the unproductive (even counterproductive) manned space program for the time being in favor of expanded robotic exploration?

Belt and Suspenders

NASA apparently plans to have a second shuttle at the ready in case anything goes wrong during the next mission.

Astronauts could use the space station as a “save haven” [sic] if there is trouble with the orbiter while it is in space, said Michael Kostelnik, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for the space station and shuttle programs.

“The second vehicle would be able to launch and go to the space station and pick up the first crew if we had a problem with the vehicle and could not bring it down,” Kostelnik said in a briefing from Galveston, Texas.

What if it does? Can they actually dock two Orbiters to ISS? Could two Orbiters with docking adapters mate with each other for crew transfer? (Is the androgynous docking adapter that, uh, “open minded”?)

More info here on Shuttle safety upgrades.

New Nebula Discovered

Europe’s united response to US space plans is apparently a whole lot of self-congratulatory wind about how international and multilateral and cooperative and forward-thinking their space policy is.

O? est le boeuf?

Revising Prometheus

The administration of Prometheus is being split between Space Science and Exploration Systems. Code S will retain control over the JIMO science guidelines and the new power units, and the new Code T will take up responsibility for development of the spacecraft and the propulsion system.

JIMO has the potential to be the biggest and most expensive spacecraft NASA has ever built.

Hmm…methinks they mean “robotic probe” rather than “spacecraft”. Even with nuclear power and a new (scaled up) propulsion system, it’s hard to imagine the thing costing as much as Shuttle. Let alone ISS.

Mills said the spacecraft could easily be 50 meters long when fully deployed — about half the size of the international space station.

It’s going to be a bit tricky to pack that on an Atlas V Heavy (or a Delta IV Heavy), even if it does fold down into a tidy little bundle for launch.

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