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The Planetary Society BlogBy Emily LakdawallaThe 163rd Carnival of Space is here at The Planetary Society BlogJul. 19, 2010 | 11:38 PDT | 18:38 UTC
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up to the greatest show off of Earth! That's right, it's my turn here at The Planetary Society Blog to host the weekly Carnival of Space. It's very timely, because Anahita and I attended the "Greatest Show on Earth" here in L.A. just yesterday! Here she is, making her ridiculous spinny shiny blinky wandy toy (a concession item irresistible, it seemed, to every 3-year-old at the show) do quite a nice impression of Saturn...
First up, the acts from your own backyard, inside our own solar system. The Sun is the star of that show, and at the Chandra X-Ray Observatory's Blog, Scott Wolk introduces the new solar cycle, while Carolyn Collins Petersen describes the Solar Dance. As Brian Wang of Next Big Future explains, en route to Venus is IKAROS, a spacecraft whose recent achievement, the first successful deployment of solar sails, is near and dear to our hearts here at the Society. Bruce Cordell at 21st Century Waves discusses how soon we'll go to the Moon again. Why not go to the Moon? Daniel Sims at Habitation Intention shares his opinions of an article that surveys the most effective counter-arguments to space habitation, and considers how "space cadets" like himself should respond to these arguments. And Robert Pearlman at CollectSpace notes the reunion of the four surviving astronauts and cosmonauts who flew the first international space mission 35 years ago, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. We may not be on the Moon right now, but we're on Mars, and Stuart Atkinson at Cumbrian Sky explains how Opportunity will soon be driving toward Endeavour crater faster than before. Rosetta just flew past Lutetia, which I'll show you is the largest asteroid yet visited by a spacecraft. And on distant Titan, Paul Sutherland at Skymania speculated that aliens on Titan might be facing a hosepipe ban, as new research has revealed that Titan lake levels are dropping fast. Speaking of aliens, James Benford wrote this week on Centauri Dreams about whether we could detect accidentally leaked signals from an extraterrestrial civilization. Then, at Weirdwarp, Chris Dann looks at the opposite side, "How to talk to aliens." (Best line in that one: "Nothing has been heard yet (unless it was filtered into the spam box) and we are still waiting.") But Mike Simonsen will be the first to tell you that there's probably no aliens to be found in the extrasolar planet HD 209458b system, recently discovered to have a comet-like tail. In any case, we may not have to go as far as extrasolar planets to find life; Bruce Leeeowe at WeirdSciences explains panspermia: how bacteria could survive trips into and through space, spreading life across the solar system. Moving beyond the planets, Allen Versfeld attempts an accessible answer to the question "What is a black hole?" over at Urban Astronomy, while Steve Nerlich of Cheap Astronomy presents a podcast on Stellar Archaeology. And Ian O'Neill at Discovery Space cautions us about getting too excited about the recent rumors of the Higgs boson possibly being discovered at Fermilab. Finally, Emma at We Are All in the Gutter discusses one of my pet peeves, the bizarre and tortured acronyms that are popular in astronomy (and indeed science in general) these days and moves on to describe a cool experiment named GADZOOKS!. Oy. That article led me to the absolutely wonderful Dumb Or Overly Forced Astronomical Acronyms Site (or DOOFAAS). Which, despite its length, lacks most of the tortured acronymmy names of recent space missions and their instruments. Thanks for visiting the Carnival of Space at The Planetary Society Blog! Stick around here, or subscribe via RSS, and you can read about ongoing and past missions across the solar system and the beautiful images that they have returned to Earth. I even sometimes give tips on where you can find obscure images and how to process them to make them beautiful. Every week, a different webmaster or blogger hosts the Carnival, showcasing articles written on the topic of space. If you run a space/astronomy related blog, and would like to increase your readership, participate in the Carnival of Space. It's a great way to get to know the community, and to help your writing reach a wider audience. If you'd like to submit an article or be a host for the carnival, just drop an email to info@universetoday.com.
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I am looking for input on several ideas,
one is the use of cryogenic upper stages to enable large mass outer planet missions with out having to resort to RTG's
http://www.facebook.com/LoriGarver#!/topic.php?uid=109555615732469&topic=63
to work properly the solar arrays would have to be stowed behind a aeroshell up in till orbit insertion. Before orbit insertion the upper stage separates from the space craft and perhaps performs a secondary science mission.( LCROSS lives!)
the second idea has attracted attention from the ULA team,
http://www.facebook.com/LoriGarver#!/topic.php?uid=109555615732469&topic=126
This involves the storage and transport of liquid helium in a fuel depot architecture. Senior ULA engineer Bernard Kutter thinks this idea has power to any future crogenicly cooled space telescope mission design team.
fuel depot cryogenes would cool the helium,a tanker would perform a automated transfer to a space telescope. this could be a daunting task
Imagine a Kepler II in a trailing earth orbit,how would you keep the helium cooled in the tanker all the way out to L4 and beyond trying to catch our Kepler II? perhaps this idea makes more since with space telescopes collocated in L1, L2 near the fuel depot.
MR Kutter has made a modification to my idea that he has given permission to share with any decision maker who can order up a AIAA mission design paper or some future PI who might find the idea useful.