"The Finnish invention would use long, positively-charged tethers to ride the solar wind, without the need for any sort of fuel or propellant."

"Two solar panels would power an electron gun that keeps the spacecraft tethers charged, creating propulsion from the similarly charged solar wind pushing against the sail. Researchers are looking into aluminum or copper alloy wires for the tethers."

The current plan is to test this rig using 5 mile long tethers in high Earth Orbit. The test will determine the force of the solar wind. The plan for this Finnish solar sail is to use a 'turbo' mechanism that increases the thrust of the sails. The turbo will use radio frequency electron heating to heat the solar wind particles. This is a theoretical idea at the moment.

If successful, the solar sail idea would provide a less expensive alternative for moving material around the solar system.

I'm still trying to let my schedule settle back to a more regular pace so I can post my regular insightful articles. Unfotunately today is not that day. But I've got a few links I've been saving.

AP News -- 'Robots take on social tasks', an article about the current hopeful market for robotics; Moving from the Roomba to more advanced household and hospital helpers.

MSNBC put together a list of the 'strangest' things in space. It's not going to blow your mind, but it's interesting none-the-less. Personally, I'm a little worried about the giant penis (pictured above) that seems to be flying through the galaxy.

An experiment launched last year came back to earth with evidence that the bacterium Salmonella becomes more virulent when exposed to the ravages of the extraterrestrial climate. The bacteria spent 12 days exposed to the radiation of space, and the zero gravity of aforementioned space. The experiment was carried out by Arizona State University. The pathogen raised in space was more than three times likely to kill test animals than a control strain of the same bacteria kept on earth.

There was another experiment launching this year that will test similar ideas. It is a student experiment from Russia. At least I think it was this year. My quick search for a news link turned up very little definitive information on that particular experiment, but it did show that many similar experiments with bacteria and fungi have been tried in the past.

The orbiting satelitte that sends images from the rovers back to earth went down briefly Monday. The stoppage was due to a reboot caused by a software glitch. The Rovers are continuing their descent into Victoria Crater.

NASA said that it hopes to open up part of the International Space Station to other researchers, including private sector research. The space station should be completed by 2010. Once completed, the International Space Station should have about twice as much onboard research area as NASA intends to use. Allowing private companies and other government agencies to use space aboard the station isn't likely to reduce 1.5 billion dollar yearly upkeep costs of the station. However, it will spread the cost of flights to the station, because private companies will need to pay transportation costs for their equipment.

Earlier this year, news surfaced about a planet or three that orbit the star Gliese. Three planets were found to be orbiting that star which lie within the 'Goldilocks Zone' of the star. The Goldilocks Zone is the area around a star which is the correct distance to maintain liquid water. The liquid water is thought to be an important indicator for potential extra-terrestrial life. One of the planets most cited was Gliese 581c, it was thought that greenhouse effects on that planet plus it's proximity to the star Gliese would have formed a temperature range and atmospheric conditions similar to those on Earth. According to a recent report, however, that information seems incorrect. New calculations show that Gliese 581c is probably similar to Venus - which a runaway greenhouse effect that keeps the planets temperatures about 100 ° C.

Infosthetics put up a little post about the 'Mars and Beyond' Mars space colonization documentary from Disney circa 1957. There are 6 videos in the series.

The remaining 5 videos are in the full text of this post.

The Mars Spirit Rover has been investigating the Gusev Crater on Mars. It recently found that the crater is 'unusually rich' in silica deposits. This concentration of silica is though to only form under the presence of water. Ergo, there must have been a great deal of surface water on Mars at some point. I think this contradicts a theory from earlier this year that Mars' water has always been under the surface - although I don't have the time to look it up this morning. I had to get a job last week, following the near collapse of my auto accessories business. You'll probably find some great deals on my stuff through Amazon, too (search by merchant name).

From Planet Pride on Myspace, via ESA.


This is an artist's impression of a Jupiter-sized planet passing in front of its parent star. Such events are called transits. When the planet transits the star, the star’s apparent brightness drops by a few percent for a short period. Through this technique, astronomers can search for planets across the galaxy by measuring periodic changes in a star’s luminosity.



The first class of exoplanets found by this technique are the so-called “hot Jupiters,” which are so close to their stars they complete an orbit within days, or even hours.

The Phoenix probe has been delivered to NASA by Lockheed Martin. The Phoenix probe is the next generation of scientific probe scheduled to study Mars. This particular Martian mission is dedicated to looking for, and possibly testing, water under the surface of the planet. The probe is set for launch in August.