[sunnykerr]

That's oddly specific.. A Burger King wouldn't do?

Anyway, I looked it up on my trusty wikipedia and I guess they haven't look at the surface of Mars too closely as yet. The article says the surface is thought to be principally made up of basalt, which is a sort of volcanic rock.

So, I don't know. Assuming it is mostly made up of a form of rock, which seems to be the accepted theory, I would imagine that makes excavation pretty difficult.

Here on planet Earth, rocks complicate excavations quite a lot, but of course they're surrounded by other things.

[Barstool Prophet]

You know what I mean, like actual evidence of life. Not just evidence of water but like concrete evidence - like the way we found fossils proving that there where dinosaurs. I don't know if I am being clear, I am a big foggy today.

[sunnykerr]

Well, it might be there. But excavation is going to be hard on Mars. Maybe not impossible, but hard.

Probe confirms Einstein effects Nasa's Gravity Probe B has produced remarkable new confirmation of some key predictions by Albert Einstein. The satellite's observations show the massive body of the Earth is very subtly warping space and time, and even pulling them around with it. Scientists were able to see these effects by studying the behaviour of four perfectly engineered spinning balls carried inside the probe. The results are published online in the journal Physical Review Letters. They are significant because they underline once again the genius of the great German-born scientist, but also because they provide more refined tools to understand the physics that drives the cosmos. On a more human level, the findings represent the culmination of an extraordinary odyssey for the leading lights of the mission, some of whom have dedicated more than five decades to the quest. These include Francis Everitt, the mission's principal investigator at Stanford University - a researcher who was there at the inception of the GP-B idea in the late 1950s. "We've completed this landmark experiment, testing Einstein's Universe - and Einstein survives," he announced on Wednesday. Gravity Probe B (GP-B) itself was not launched until 2004, and it has taken since then for the mission team to assess the data and to be sure of its observations. Part of the group's difficulty has been in showing that some fantastically small measurements were real and not biases introduced by flaws in the experimental set-up. For a while, it looked like the venture might not succeed. Gravity Probe B was launched to confirm two important consequences stemming from Einstein's Theory of General Relativity - his description of gravity. The predictions characterise the way space and time will be distorted by the presence of huge objects such as planets and stars. One, known as the geodetic effect, is the amount by which the mass of the Earth will warp the local space-time in which it sits. The other, which physicists refer to as frame-dragging, is the phenomenon that sees the Earth twist local space-time around with it as it rotates. GP-B sought to observe both these effects by measuring tiny drifts in the spin axes of four gyroscopes relative to the position of a star called IM Pegasi (HR 8703). To ensure accuracy, the balls had to be chilled to near "absolute zero" (-273C) and flown inside a vacuum flask to isolate them from any disturbance. Over the course of a year, the anticipated drift in the spin axes of the balls due to the geodetic effect was expected to reveal itself on the scale of a few thousand milliarcseconds. The frame-dragging effect was predicted to be even smaller. "A milliarcsecond is the width of human hair seen at a distance of 10 miles. It really is a rather small angle, and this is the accuracy Gravity Probe B had to achieve," explained Professor Everitt. "For the geodetic effect, the predicted relativity effect is 6,606.1 of these milliarcseconds, and the measured result is a little over a quarter of a percent of that. The frame-dragging we've measured to a little better than 20%." Tech spin-off The idea for the mission was first proposed in 1959, but the project had to wait until the technologies to carry it through could be invented. "GP-B, while conceptually simple, is technologically an extremely complex experiment," said Rex Geveden, the former programme manager on GP-B and now the president of Teledyne Brown Engineering from Huntsville, Alabama. "The idea came about three to four decades before the technology was available to test it. Thirteen novel technologies were created for GP-B. The quartz balls were thought to be the roundest objects ever manufactured. The diametric variation across the spheres is about two-tenths of a millionth of an inch." Innovations from Gravity Probe B have fed directly into improvements in the Global Positioning System (GPS). And a Nasa mission called Cobe that pictured the Universe less than a million years after the Big Bang owed its success to technology developed on Gravity Probe B. Unending tests Some 100 students achieved their PhDs by working on some aspect of the mission during the many years it took to develop, build and then fly the probe. Most of these PhDs were earned at Stanford, and at the universities in Huntsville; and in Aberdeen, UK. More than 350 undergraduate students also worked on GP-B, including one who later became the first female American astronaut in space, Sally Ride. Another was Eric Cornell, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001. "The precession of a gyroscope in a gravitational field of a rotating body has never been measured before today. While the result in this case does support Einstein, it didn't have to," commented Professor Clifford Will from Washington University, St. Louis. "Physicists will never cease testing their basic theories, whether in order to confirm them better or in order to reveal new physics beyond those standard theories. In some realms the only place to do this, to carry out such experiments is in space. This was the case with GP-B."

Source

Man was clearly a genius. I mean, he predicted all of these things before any of it could even be anticipated by science.

[Barstool Prophet]

LINK


CLEVELAND, Ohio - A $2,500 college scholarship is the grand prize at the 4th annual Regional Invention Convention Competition being held Saturday at The Great Lakes Science Center.
As many as 150 inventions in six grade catagories will be judged at the event. The single best invention will receive the scholarship through Ohio's College Advantage 529 Plan. $500 scholarships will also be awarded to the winner at each grade level.
The Science Center convention is the final round of a yearly contest between K-8 students from eight counties around greater Cleveland.
Riley Cebula and Grace Kortan, third-graders at Huntington Elementary School in Brunswick, were hoping to win with their entry called 'Easy Pack Bouncy Basketball' -- a miniaturized basketball free-throw game housed in a large, purple, Rubbermaid storage bin.
"We won over about 20 inventions at our school," said Riley. "I hope we win the money. I want to be famous," added Grace.
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I had no idea this kind of thing existed for kids. I wonder if any of them will get rich of their ideas- or have someone steal the ideas from them..

[sunnykerr]

I didn't know this existed either, but I have a feeling the idea is more to encourage kids to have an interest in science rather than a bona fide search for inventions. Otherwise, you'd think we would have heard about it before now.

[Barstool Prophet]

I think it's such a cool idea.

[sunnykerr]

I think it's awesome.

Anything that gets kids interested in real life and in school is A plus in my book.

[Barstool Prophet]

LINK

NASA Offers $200 Million for Gas Station Demo in Space


Space explorers who need to top off the fuel tanks on the way to the moon or Mars may soon get their orbital refueling stations. NASA has put out the call for a $200 million mission to show how to store and transfer rocket propellants in space.
The idea of space gas stations has floated around – a Canadian company already has plans to launch a flying satellite gas station in 2015. But NASA's latest proposal represents a first step toward supporting future human and robotic missions to destinations such as the moon, asteroids, and Mars, rather than simply refueling satellites in Earth orbit.
NASA wants to look specifically at liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, which have powered the main engines of the space shuttle and several commercial rockets. Its proposal calls for "zero boil-off storage" of liquid oxygen, and at least "minimal boil-off storage" of liquid hydrogen.
To get a sense of that challenge, liquid hydrogen requires storage at minus 423 degrees F. The propellant must be shielded from outside heat sources such as the sun or rocket engine exhaust, lest it expand and perhaps cause a tank explosion.
Anyone willing to take on NASA's challenge must also show how to transfer the liquid propellants in the microgravity environment of low-Earth orbit. [Top 10 Life-Changing Inventions]
Still, the U.S. space agency said it would consider a mission costing up to $300 million, but only if the added cost comes with big benefits. Similarly, it may consider missions priced below the $200 million target if they can still do the job.
NASA's commercial partners may also benefit from such refueling stations.
Private rocket firm SpaceX currently holds NASA contracts to deliver astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, but SpaceX chief Elon Musk has also set his sights upon the moon and Mars.
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This would allow us to go further out in space.

[sunnykerr]

It would... but I thought oil ressources were getting scarce, which is how some justified deep-sea drilling and shale-gas operations.

[Barstool Prophet]

The US has tonnes of oil. They have been stockpiling there reserves forever. They keep buying foreign oil until the day when everyone else runs out, then they will make trillions.

[sunnykerr]

I wonder why they just don't stockpile their own. They're one of the biggest producers of oil after all.

[Barstool Prophet]

You mean the US, because they are or did you mean other countries? I think these other countries are poorer and oil makes up most of thier GDP.

[sunnykerr]

I did mean the United States. It is one of the world's three largest oil-producing countries. To the point where I'm not sure they're not controlling other countries' (particularly poorer ones) oil production.

I know that, for instance, Canada produces a lot of oil as well but many of our exploitation sites have been bought by/given to American companies. So that the United States controls a very large part of our production.

[Barstool Prophet]

Okay I understand what you mean. Nothing made me more annoyed than when I found out what is now Alaska was sold off. I was like what where you thinking?

The one think about the US that you either have to love, respect or hate is their ability to go into other countries and financially benefit from resources and or businesses. Lots of countries allow it, it amazes me.

Foreign ownership never sits well with me.

[sunnykerr]

I really don't like foreign ownership either. But, on the other hand, you can't really blame the corporations for going after the thing that will bring them money.

And we have a really hard time in Canada saying no to money. That's really what we should work on, I believe. Keep our own freaking resources. I bet you oil would be cheaper then, too.