The Japanese Venus probe Akatsuka might have failed, but its partner, the solar sail Ikaros, continues to function, and remains in contact with its ground controlers, even at a distance of 45 million miles. (The google translation of the daily blog is sometimes spotty (” I will go home ε ₯Rita bath. It will fit your feet smell.”) but still worth reading,)
The largest commercial antenna reflector ever flown in space has successfully deployed in orbit.
The first inspection of Hayabusa’s inner chamber revealed no visible asteroid particles. A microscopic search will follow however, as was done for the outer chamber, where 1500 asteroid particles were found.
An evening pause:
This is how tyrants respond to democracy: Violence erupts in Rome after the head of Italy’s center-right government survived a no-confidence vote. Though the article does not tell us much about the political views of the protesters, this quote gives a strong hint that they might be leftwing:
The protesters were mostly students but also included workers and immigrants.
Scientists have used data from Cassini to identify what they think are ice volcanoes on Titan. The two volcanoes, each about 3000 feet high, are located near the equator and appear to resemble the volcanoes on Earth, with a central crater on top of cone-like peak and finger-like flows coming down the sides from the crater. The lava here, however, is not molten rock, but water.
Science discovers the obvious! Researchers at the University of Colorado have found that the post-9/11 security efforts — such as the TSA — do little to increase security and much to turn society into a police state.
The Library of Congress has posted a collection of over 700 Civil War portraits to Flickr.
Why Arkansas? Since September 20, the small town of Guy, Arkansa, has experienced a swarm of 487 measurable earthquakes.
The TSA makes us all feel safer! “He said there was something suspicious hanging from between my legs.”
In competition with the Orbital/Virgin Galactic proposal I mentioned yesterday, Boeing has submitted its own proposal to provide crew and cargo ferrying service to ISS.
Considering the federal budget debt and the political winds for reducing that debt, I have great doubts the subsidies for these proposals will ever arrive. Nonetheless, with the end of the shuttle program and nothing to replace it, the United States has a serious need for a system to get crew and cargo into space. And in a free society, fulfilling that need means profits, which is why these proposals are beginning to appear, and will get built, regardless of whether Congress funds them up front or later buys the services.
