SPACE

[RedOktober]

What difference does it make? Surely all space toilets are the same?
Damn fools.

[axel000]

hehe maybe he's the one thats been breaking everything. Both broke in the last two months.

[Orava]

What difference does it make? Surely all space toilets are the same?
Damn fools.

Padalka complimented the quality of the US amenities on the space station

Maybe not.

[RedOktober]

Bloody shonky Russian crap, it's probably all made of iron.

[axel000]

Panspermia-hypothesis supports will be celebrating tonight then.

Wired published a nice article on this today, based on a newly released scientific study which concludes that DNA building blocks are likely common across all life, and shaped by thermodynamic forces.

The building blocks of life may be more than merely common in the cosmos. Humans and aliens could share a common genetic foundation.

That's the tantalizing implication of a pattern found in the formation of amino acids in meteorites, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and simulations of primordial Earth. The pattern appears to follow basic thermodynamic laws, applicable throughout the known universe.

"This may implicate a universal structure of the first genetic codes anywhere," said astrophysicist Ralph Pudritz of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

There are exactly 20 standard amino acids — complex molecules that combine to form proteins, which in turn compose the nucleic acids from which the simplest self-replicating structures are built.

Ten were synthesized in the famous 1953 Miller-Urey experiments, which modeled conditions believed to exist in Earth's early atmosphere and volcano-heated pools. Those 10 amino acids have also been found in meteorites, prompting debate over their role in sparking life on Earth and, perhaps, elsewhere.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009 ... amino.html

Scientific paper - A thermodynamic basis for prebiotic amino acid synthesis and the nature of the first genetic code

[merman]

BALLOON!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7990595.stm

(A telescope hung under a balloon has looked back to the early universe. Shame it got destroyed on its second flight, but the instrument it was using will be on ESA's Herschel observatory due to launch next month.)

[axel000]

Splashdown testing underway for Orion (crew module of Aries)

[RedOktober]

A good old fashioned re-entry module. Even the NASA logo looks old fashioned stuck on the side of that thing.

[F-ZeroOne]

Splashdown testing underway for Orion (crew module of Aries)

"Damn it, Wilson! I said we need to make Orion retro rockets, not make Orion a retro rocket!".

Does this mean astronauts will now go back to being carved out of giant sets of steel balls?

[Firefox]

"You splashed down in that thing?! You're braver than I thought!"

[PVB]

Space debris becoming a danger to satellites?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7916582.stm

The image of the earth:



Looks very similar to the cluttered view of Earth in the film Wall*E.

Can't find a decent view of the planet in the film, so here's a closer view:

[F-ZeroOne]

This has been an issue for a while; theres even an anime based around it (Planetes; I haven't seen it but by most accounts its apparently very good). Its one of the reasons everyone was so teed off with China when they carried out that anti-satellite test a couple years back - the debris doesn't just magically go away...

[ElfQrin]

Its one of the reasons everyone was so teed off with China when they carried out that anti-satellite test a couple years back - the debris doesn't just magically go away...

It has to be said that China wasn't the first one to do that, although the Pentagon claimed that debris would have fallen on Earth, in this case.

[F-ZeroOne]

One things for sure, the one satellite that has absolutely nothing to fear over the issue is the North Korean one...

[Darkflame]

Yeah, but it might have smacked into the sea, awakening sleeping martians to reigh terror from the deep.
Or, if your that way inclined, it gets eaten by the Cloverfield monster.