DailyDirt: Making It To Mars

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Traveling to Mars is no simple feat, and it's much more difficult than a relatively short trip to the moon. The atmosphere on Mars is thinner than the Earth's, so it poses a significant threat to any vehicle that attempts to land on the planet. Plus, a trip to Mars could take months depending on how much fuel is used (or what kind of propulsion is used). Still, several projects are making the ambitious journey, and here are just a few examples of Martian missions.

• India's Mangalyaan spacecraft has successfully reached Mars orbit, and this Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) cost just $74 million to accomplish. This wasn't as easy task, as the worldwide record of 30 of the 51 previous attempts to reach Mars have ended in failure and India is the first country to accomplish a successful Mars mission on the first attempt. [url]
• Over 200,000 people have volunteered to go on a one-way trip to Mars in 2023. These folks will be narrowed down to about a group of 40 people selected to do seven years of intensive training. [url]
• The Time Capsule to Mars (TC2M) project aims to send some cubesats to Mars in 2017 containing an assortment of digital media. Will anyone be surprised if some unlicensed music or media sneaks on-board? [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: cubesat, india, mangalyaan, manned missions, mars, mars one, orbit, satellites, space, space exploration, spacecraft, time capsule

DailyDirt: Going For The Gold...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Gold is a unique element that has been almost universally treasured. It's rare, but it isn't the hardest element to find. Gold has a remarkable property of not reacting with its environment, so it doesn't tarnish or burn. There aren't that many practical uses for it, compared to other metals, though, but here are a few links on some gold-related items.

• Microbial alchemy doesn't transmute lead into gold, but it does metabolize gold chloride (aqueous) into solid 24-karat gold. Cupriavidus metallidurans can tolerate highly toxic concentrations of gold chloride and reduce the metal so that it precipitates. [url]
• Gold medalists at the last Olympics didn't receive solid gold for their efforts but mostly silver with a gold coating. So in all those pictures of the athletes biting on their gold medals, that bite test for metal purity had a pretty good chance of failing. [url]
• The Last Pictures project is planning to preserve a visual record of human civilization on a silicon disc encased in gold -- for billions of years. This archival disc will be launched with the EchoStar XVI satellite and should remain in orbit for longer than our planet, as we know it, will exist. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: alchemy, archival storage, bacteria, gold, olympic medals, satellite, time capsule

Guy Sues Apple For $25k Because His Time Capsule Device Died

from the that's-not-how-this-works dept

People will file lawsuits over almost anything these days. Perminder Tung has apparently sued Apple because his Time Capsule device broke and no one at the Genius Bar could fix it. I can certainly understand the frustration here, but it's difficult to see how there's any sort of legit claim. Technology fails all the time. There's nothing that promised this device would work forever. Claiming, as Tung does, that the failure of Time Capsule represents "a fundamental and total breach of contract," seems like a huge stretch. Man. If I could have legitimately sued every time a technology -- especially a backup storage system -- failed without being repairable, I'd have a hell of a lot more money. But we don't do that, because we know that there is no implicit promise when you buy technology that it works forever.

Filed Under: genius bar, perminder tung, time capsule
Companies: apple