[extropy-chat] SPACE: news for a day..

[Robert Bradbury]

SpaceX sets new launch date for the Falcon 1 to between March 20-25.
http://www.space-travel.com/reports/SpaceX_Sets_New_Launch_Date_For_Falcon.html

XCOR is teaming up to use Metacomp Tech's software to run fluid dynamics
simulations
on SGI Altix 3000 (supercomputer) for its Xerus space vehicle.
http://www.space-travel.com/reports/XCOR_Aerospace_Enlists_Hi_Tech_Partners_In_Space_Vehicle_Design.html

Zoe, the "I don't need no friggin humans", rover warms up in Atacama as a
prelude for Mars.
http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Mars_Rovers_Robotics_Planetary_Exploration_Atacama_Xenobiology.html

Yet another spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, is 10 days away
from orbital insertion around Mars...
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/mission/tl_moi.html
Rumor has it that it is commented about the crowded environment, having to
make sure it doesn't run into the Mars Global Surveyor or Mars Express
spacecraft...
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/index.html

MRO doesn't get all the limelight however as MGS recently returned a picture
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/gallery/PIA03253.html
of Spirit, one of the "We don't need no friggin breaks yet" rovers plodding
along on the surface.
Having entered their 2nd Mars year and facing yet another winter...
http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Mars_Rover_Update_Preparing_For_Another_Winter.html
the rovers pointed out that if the engineers at NASA and the APL had gotten
their act together to equip Messenger (http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/) with a
moderately large mirror and had launched it a few years earlier they might
not have to spend the next 6 months shivering in the dark.

Meanwhile, Cassini, the "You orbit me right around baby" voyager, having
just yesterday finished its 11th Titan flyby (out of a currently planned
total of 44)
http://spaceweb.oulu.fi/projects/cassini/Titan_flybys.html
is believed to be muttering to itself, "After dropping off Huygens, 'I don't
get no respect'".

And rumor has it early signals coming back from NASA's "New Horizons"
satellite seem to be a continuous loop of, "Lonely days, lonely nights, it
looks like a long long time without a woman."  Engineers are attempting to
determine whether this will interfere with the long term mission goals.

Creates memories of "Days of Future Past" (at least for me).
Robert
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