MAIN ARTICLE: China to launch Mars space probe.
Page 2: Spacewalkers Prime Space Station For New Docking Port.
Poll Results: The poll yesterday had an average turnout with the "I believe"ers coming out on top.
Star Trek: In the News. Movie review: Star Trek, The Future Begins.
A view of Star Trek from India.
Yesterday's Comments: "My extraterrestrial ancestors ... exposed" - Meteor Blades
Today's Poll: Weekly Tracking Poll of space funding.
China to launch Mars space probe
"China's first Mars probe has completed testing and is on target for launch, the Shanghai Academy of Space Flight Technology said Friday.
The Yinghuo-1 is to be launched later this year by a Russian carrier rocket and will go into orbit around Mars in 2010 after a 10-month, 236-million mile journey, Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, reported Friday.
Yinghuo -- Chinese for "light from firefly" -- is to study environmental changes in Mar's climate, including the disappearance of water from the planet, said Zhang Weiqiang, a spokesman for the academy. The probe is to conduct its research from orbit and is not designed to land."
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PAGE 2:
Spacewalkers Prime Space Station For New Docking Port
"Two spacewalkers successfully installed a set of antennas on the International Space Station to prepare for the arrival of a new module this fall.
Russian station commander Gennady Padalka and NASA flight engineer Michael Barratt labored for almost five hours outside the station's Pirs docking compartment to attach the antennas. The new equipment will serve as a navigational beacon to guide the attachment of the Mini-Research Module 2, a new compartment and docking port that will be launched toward the station in November.
Padalka and Barratt were able to accomplish all the goals of their spacewalk despite a slow start after a minor glitch with their spacesuits.
Before stepping out of the Pirs docking compartment, the two spacewalkers read measurements of abnormally high levels of carbon dioxide inside their suits. They were both wearing new, updated versions of the traditional Russian Orlan suits used for spacewalking, which had been fitted with different electronic control systems and more adjustability in the leg, torso and arm regions for comfort."
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POLL RESULTS:
Here is what a reviewer from India thought of the new ST movie.
Movie review: Star Trek, The Future Begins
"Star Trek, The Future Begins’, is a prime example of Hollywood’s recent love for backstories, re-jigging the 1966 iconic TV series which spun off a spate of re-runs and ten feature films. This is where it all begins, the classic face-off between young tearaway James T Kirk and the pointy-eared Spock , which develops into uneasy camaraderie and long-standing friendship. A by-product of the growing and learning is their mission to save the world: why else would a Hollywood blockbuster pour so much energy into what is, after all, a sci-fi flight of fantasy?
But, as diehard Trekkies will have you know, this is no ordinary futuristic ramble amongst the planetary system and its inhabitants. ‘Star Trek’, helmed by JJ Abrams, the man who made ‘Lost’ the most watched TV series at one time, is not for those softies who think ‘Star Wars’ was the last word in films featuring sleek spaceships and dark villains. The ‘Trek’ is for those who can handle the hard stuff, at warp speed.
It is the year 2387, and a supernova is threatening to swallow up everything in its orbit. On the side of the good and noble, stand the company of Kirk, Spock, McCoy ‘Bones’ the doctor, Uhura the beauty-with-brains, and a zillions uniformed extras who rush around the ship fiddling with complicated controls and diving into space. "
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YESTERDAY'S COMMENTS:
"It's unlikely because of distances the "virus" would have needed to come from somewhere in the not-too-distant cosmos, a few light years at most, because of the vast distance between star systems in our part of the Milky Way (our local area is relatively lower-density). It's improbable that more distant-origin viruses would both survive the multi-million year journey that it would take to travel at plausible sub-light year speeds to get here, coupled with the random chance to be launched/deflected in our direction from such a distance, given that even pico-scale deviations from the necessary path at the outset would make it impossible to ever come here at all, even for a virtually immortal virus.
Yes, living organisms are ultimately comprised of long-dissipated supernova remnants from the giant, short-lived stars that preceded our sun, whose remnants did travel immense distances (but not all that far on the scale of our local area of space). However, no virus could survive being close to a supernova explosion, so it's unlikely they came from predecessor worlds in our local vicinity either.
Now, Mars IS a possibility, because at an earlier point in the solar system's development, Mars did have a far more life-friendly atmosphere, climate, and landscape (but didn't have the gravity to hold onto it). It may have possessed capability to support life long enough for it to have developed there and migrate here embedded within a meteor chunk from that planet. Before the earth became stably cool enough, the earth was likely a relatively inhospitable place for life, even though we likely did have sufficient precursor constituents here. Life may have originated here, but OTOH it may have been seeded by or else genetically cross-mixed with Martian-oriented primitive life way back at the time the Earth first began to support stably suitable conditions to indefinitely support life." - cmoreNC
"On transpermia I think it occurs infrequently. Imagine for example if the orbits of two life supporting planets brought them together in a massive collission - trillions of tons of matter would be ejected into space containing microbes.
So yes I think it can happen, but I don't believe this was the primary source of life on Earth or most planets for that matter, I believe life develops where the setting allows it, given time." - axel000
"I dunno, viruses are hardy and the most "primitive" viruses are RNA viruses. With the complex material mixing, baking, and various processes that go on in a solar nebula when a solar system is forming, it's not so difficult to imagine that RNA has an excellent chance of forming .. perhaps almost inevitable?
In the end, viruses are just crystals of proteins (capsids) wrapped around genetic material. Their evolution is the simplest imaginable -- no "goal", no "life" -- just self-replicating molecular systems.
I think we might find that the story is more complex than anyone believed. I think it's very possible that pre-biotic RNA rained down and that it was already here before the first viruses and cells -- and also that it was very much more varied than the 4 nucleotides we have today. Perhaps even other complex organic molecules that, had conditions been different, might also have led to complex life not even based on RNA/DNA." - AndyS In Colorado
TODAY'S POLL:
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