Hey but she's getting paid for this one!

And wait anyway she didn't kill Vero, it was the other way around! Poor Selenis, always getting taken advantage of. ;_;

...and that makes this kill so much more moral! :)



Well she planned to kill him if he was worth more dead... she was hired to kill Vero afterall.

The only reason she didn't is because 1) He proved so... 'amusingly' resilient to all the other killers that came after him, 2) He seemed competent in a amateurish fashion, 3) He was lucky enough to survive to the end with her, and 4) She underestimated him in the end and he got the drop on her... when SHE TRIED TO KILL HIM! lol! :)

Poor Vero was just a freebie. I'm sure if she keeps at it... she'll kill all those foolishly nice men out there in the galaxy, eventually. :)

Heck I expect she only wants to keep 'the groper' around so she can convince him to murder her target and leave her scott free to get out of this 'super-secure' facility with no one the wiser!

Added 1 new A* page:

• A* Episode 13, Page 96

Today I happened to stumble across this Yahoo! news blog post about how a Connecticut-based company, Laser Power Systems, is working on a zero-emissions car powered by thorium, a naturally occuring soft metal, named after the Norse god Thor by Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius, who discovered the element in 1815. Thorium is mildly radioactive--the alpha radiation is emits cannot penetrate human skin--and has some useful properties that have led it to being used in things such as gas mantles--the little white baggy things that glow in lanterns--and as "an antireflection material in multilayered optical coatings." On the other hand, it is potentially dangerous in powder (spontaneous combustion in air) or aerosol (increased risk of cancer if inhaled due to alpha radiation damage to internal organs) forms.

Another property of thorium, apparently, is that it produces "heat surges" when heated by a laser, and Laser Power Systems says that eight grams of thorium, laser-heated correctly, with the resulting heat-surges being used to generate steam to power a turbine, could power a car for its entire lifetime.

There are, of course, some technical issues with this scheme, including getting dedicated thorium mining underway. Thorium is three times more abundant than uranium, being found in most rocks and soils, and a number of countries have been considering how to use it as a fuel source in nuclear reactors; there are a number of advantages it could have in that capacity over uranium, aside from its greater abundance; for instance, it's harder to get weapon-grade material from it to turn into nasty nuclear weapons, its radioactive waste decays much more quickly, it doesn't require an expensive enrichment process, and it doesn't sustain a nuclear chain reaction by itself, so a meltdown would be much less likely.

India, which "has about 25% of the world's thorium reserves," has already used thorium in one nuclear reactor, and is preparing a line of thorium-based reactors, the prototype of which is scheduled to go online this year.

~~~~~~~~

And speaking of exotic fuels, this ScienceNOW article says that scientists working with the joint Italian, German, Russian, and Swedish PAMELA satellite (that's "Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics") have announced that they've confirmed the existence of antimatter in the Van Allen radiation belt encircling the Earth; since 1978 or so (when researchers came up with the theoretical CRAND ("Cosmic Ray Albedo Neutron Decay") process to describe how this could happen, I think) antimatter has been theorized to form there when high-energy cosmic rays smash into the upper atmosphere; eventually this interaction yields antiprotons, which are then trapped there by the Earth's magnetic field.

PAMELA spent 850 days sampling for antimatter in the belt regions, and succeeded in collecting 28 antiprotons; that doesn't sound like much, but it's apparently 1000 times the estimated galactic norm--"thereby constituting the most abundant antiproton source near the Earth" concluded the scientists in their research paper.

That ScienceNOW article goes on some flights of fancy about how this antimatter source could be harnessed for space flight--antimatter of course being in theory the ideal fuel, with its 100% efficient matter-to-energy conversion rate--but needless to say the amount of antimatter estimated to be in the belt, even if it could be collected and stored somehow for ship fuel, wouldn't amount to all that much; then again, it's still very difficult to manufacture antimatter on Earth, so even that tiny amount might be useful...if someone some day works out a feasible way to store the stuff for more than a split second.

(Thanks to Calamities of Nature, 'cause that webcomic's recent blog entry is where I found the ScienceNOW link.)

Added 1 new A* page:

• A* Episode 13, Page 97

Yesterday I was talking about the PAMELA satellite finding 1000 times the galactic average amount of antimatter in the Van Allen radiation belt (I should have specified, in the *inner* Van Allen belt). PAMELA was able to measure the radiation in the belt from its orbit around Earth because of a peculiarity caused by the way the Earth's magnetic pole is offset from its rotational axis: the magnetic pole is tilted 11 degrees, and shifted (although I couldn't get Wikipedia to tell me why) about 500 kilometers (300 miles) to the north. The combination of this tilt and shift in the axis of the Earth's magnetic field means that the inner Van Allen belt, which forms sort of a torus centered on the Earth's magnetic axis, comes closer to the Earth's surface at an area--whose location varies over time--in the southern hemisphere. This area is called the South Atlantic Anomaly.

Here's a visualization of the Anomaly at an altitude of about 560 km, as seen in X-rays by the German ROSAT satellite in the '90's ("ROSAT" is short for "Röntgensatellit"; "in German X-rays are called Röntgenstrahlen, in honour of Wilhelm Röntgen," who discovered them--and, incidentally, in English articles soon after their discovery they were called "Röntgen rays"; hm and in a bit of current news, an analysis in February of this year found that ROSAT, containing a lot of heat-resistant ceramics and glass, probably won't burn up entirely in re-entry--so chunks up to 400 kg could come crashing violently to Earth when ROSAT re-enters the atmosphere between October and December of this year :o):


image by NASA / Steve Snowden (source)

PAMELA took its measurements for antimatter while its orbit was taking it through the South Atlantic Anomaly. The Anomaly moves and varies in size over time; it drifts to the west at a speed of about 0.3 degrees per year, which may be related to "the rotation differential between the Earth's core and its surface, estimated to be between 0.3 and 0.5 degrees per year" (that would be the Earth's solid, *inner* metal core, which is surrounded by a layer of molten metal, allowing the center to turn independently of the rest of the Earth; it's the convection of the liquid metals in the outer core, though, that is thought to create Earth's magnetic field, which, in case you're wondering, or even if you weren't, is about 50 times stronger at the Earth's core). The Earth's magnetic field fluctuates over time, though, and it is currently weakening, which is thought to be responsible for an observed gradual widening of the Anomaly: "Predictions estimate that by 2240 the SAA may cover approximately half of the southern hemisphere."

PAMELA was made to survive the intense cosmic radiation of the inner Van Allen belt, but a lot of spacecraft just have to avoid the Anomaly altogether, or switch off while passing through it. The International Space Station has extra shielding to allow it to pass through safely, and the Hubble Space Telescope doesn't take observations while passing through.

NASA has a pretty thorough article about the Space Shuttle's five general purpose computers (GPCs), including a section comparing their performance under space radiation--including passing through the Anomaly--compared with more contemporary laptop computers:


That "scrubber" sounds kind of neat. According to Wikipedia's radiation hardening page, "a 'scrubber' circuit must continuously sweep the RAM; reading out the data, checking the parity for data errors, then writing back any corrections to the RAM."

Added 1 new A* page:

• A* Episode 13, Page 98

Thanks to AnsuGisalas for mentioning A* and my recent article with videos of some interesting DARPA projects (hypersonic planes, robotic hummingbirds and dogs, etc) on this TechRepublic article about DARPA's recent somewhat unsuccessful test of their Mach 20 Falcon HTV-2 aircraft. AnsuGisalas kindly referred to me there as an "advanced technophile"--I think "bumbling" would be much more accurate, but the link and the kind words are appreciated nonetheless. :)

~~~~~~~~~~

A little over a week ago I was talking about Spacelab, the modular, largely European-made space science experiment platform carried in the cargo bay on Space Shuttle missions. Well, the know-how obtained from that successful program paved the way for many other space modules--so many, in fact, that it's going to take me at least a couple days to tell you about them!

First, let's talk about the Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules, or MPLMs. They were originally to be built by Boeing, for a never-realized American space station--this was in the late '80s and early '90s--but the Italian Space Agency (ISA) eventually got the job, constructing these cylindrical modules, 21 feet long and 15 feet in diameter, capable of carrying nine metric tonnes of cargo to the International Space Station. Three MPLMs were built: the Leonardo, the Raffaello, and the Donatello.

Here's the Leonardo in the Space Shuttle Discovery's cargo bay in 2001:


image by NASA (source)

And the Raffaello docked to the ISS in 2005:


image by NASA (source)

And a view inside the Leonardo in 2001, with cosmonaut Yuri P. Gidzenko among the cargo, providing a handy scale reference:


image by NASA (source)

The Donatello never flew, but its multi-layer insulation (in which multiple insulated thermal layers help lower heat loss from a spacecraft by reflecting half of the incoming heat back to the previous layer; the more layers you have, the less heat makes its way to the final layer and (half) out into space: "a typical insulation blanket has 40 or more layers") was stripped off, reinforced with Kevlar for micrometeorite protection, and installed on Leonardo when it was converted into the Permanent Multipurpose Module in February of this year--it is now a fixed part of the ISS.

And yes, those are the names ("Raphael" was spelled slightly differently) of three of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And in fact the official MPLM logo features a space-suited Ninja Turtle, in a rather unique cooperation with Mirage Studios, who owns the Turtles IP; you can see that logo here.

~~~~~~~~

Also made in Italy, this time by the ESA, were the Harmony, Columbus, and Tranquility modules of the ISS. They follow the same basic design principles established for Spacelab and the MPLMs, and were carried into space in Space Shuttle cargo bays. Here's Harmony, which provides data, power, and a connection hub for the station, being attached to the ISS in 2007:


image by NASA (source)

It's attached to the Boeing-built Destiny lab module, incidentally; Destiny, also of a similar diameter, as it was carried up in the Space Shuttle Atlantis' cargo bay in 2001, has a nifty telescope-quality 20-inch glass window--it's the window often used by astronauts to capture high-quality views of the Earth below. A manually operated shutter protects it when not in use; here it is open for viewing in 2001:


image by NASA (source)

(You can see the labelled shutter lever above the window there.)

But back to the Italian-built modules! After Harmony in 2007, Columbus was added the next year, attaching to the side of Harmony, like so:


image by NASA (source)

Columbus is a lab module, packed with instruments and experiments. Here's a handy diagram showing the layout:


image by ESA (source)

and a nice view taken by a spacewalking astronaut in May of this year, with the Space Shuttle Endeavour there, docked to Harmony; Columbus is on the right:


image by NASA (source)

Shiny!

Module madness continues tomorrow!

Added 1 new A* page:

• A* Episode 13, Page 99

A super-big "you are awesome" to the guys at BurntWeiners.com ("A Comic Book Review & Discussion Podcast From Guys Who Know Less About Comics Than You Do!") for not only writing up a really nice review of A*, but also for spending about eight minutes of (note: contains lots of (im)mature language in amusing banter form!) their most recent podcast discussing it. :) I always love to see (or hear!) what other people think of A*, and this is, like, the most people have had to say about it in one go before, and certainly some of the most well-articulated things that have been said about it, so that was really nice to get to listen to.

But also check out that podcast if you just have any interest in other webcomics whatsoever, because they really did come up with a large number of very interesting ones. And if you enjoy that, their earlier webcomics podcast, from last October, is a good listen as well.

~~~~~~~~~

All right, time to continue the space module coverage I started yesterday!

I already talked about the Italian-made Harmony and Columbia modules of the International Space Station, so today I'll start off with the most recent one: Tranquility, made by the ESA (European Space Agency) and ISA (Italian Space Agency), was lifted up to the station in February of last year by the Space Shuttle Endeavour; Wikipedia has this really fantastic photo of the module being transferred from Endeavour to its spot on the ISS:


image by NASA (source)

Tranquility has "the most advanced life support systems ever flown in space," recycling waste water, generating oxygen, and monitoring and cleaning the air in the station. It hosts a bathroom, and is also used for "exercise, storage, and robotics work in connection with Cupola."

I talked about the 20-inch window in the Destiny module yesterday, but Tranquility's Cupola is the largest window ever flown in space: about two meters in diameter, consisting of seven panes, each with a shutter that can be closed to protect the pane from micrometeorites and space debris. It also just looks really cool, so now I'm going to roll in a bunch of photos of it:


image by NASA/Tracy Caldwell Dyson (source)

^ A self-portrait! She did a pretty good job setting this one up, I'd say--not only getting the rim of the Earth just right, but also keeping her considerable hair out of the way!


image by NASA (source)

^ The Sahara Desert seen through all seven windows.


image by NASA (source)

^ Doug Wheelock working inside the cupola; here you can see the various positions of the protective shutters.


image by NASA (source)

^ Nicholas Patrick, removing the last of the insulation and launch restraint bolts from the newly installed Cupola in February 2010.

Tranquility gained a good deal of notoriety in the year before its launch, when popular television comedian Steven Colbert had viewers of his "The Colbert Report" show stuff the ballot box of the naming contest NASA was holding for the module. "Colbert" won, with nearly 20% of the 1.2 million votes--40,000 votes ahead of the runner-up, the NASA-provided name "Serenity." In the end, though, NASA I guess decided they'd better overrule that outcome, and decided on "Tranquility" in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing in the Moon's "Sea of Tranquility." But to show they were (sort of) good sports, they named the module's exercise treadmill "Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill," or "C.O.L.B.E.R.T." for short. One of their best acronyms so far, you'd have to say!

There are still a few more descendents of Spacelab's modules to talk about, but there just too many cool photos to make people download in one post--so I'll have another big batch for you on Monday!

Oh and also don't forget to check for a new page of my weekly fairy tale comic, "The Princess and the Giant," this Sunday! Here's a teaser of and link to last week's page, in case you missed it:

Come to think of it, I think if I was looking out through that thing, I'd feel like I was on the Death Star--or in Darth Vader's Tie Fighter, anyway.

:) Hehe...

Spectacular pics!

Edit: Cute Astronaut too.. lol!

Added 1 new A* page:

• A* Episode 13, Page 100

There is a very nice new review of A* on Champion City Comics. Thanks guys!

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I talked about the Destiny module of the International Space Station a bit last week; well, as luck would have it, today the possibly evil Robonaut 2 was just unpacked and switched on in that very module! It could even now be looking down at us through the module's 20" portal window. :o

And to finish up my space module round-up, let's start with the ESA's unmanned Automated Transfer Vehicles ("ATVs"). Their cylindrical design also goes back to the Spacelab modules; these German and Italian-built disposable modules are intended to go up to the ISS every year or so with vital supplies. They launch on the ESA's Ariane 5 rockets from the French Guiana Space Center in French Guiana, South America, possibly looking something like this from the ground (this photo is of an otherwise unrelated Ariane 5 satellite launch there in 2010):


image by Douglasfugazi (source)

and like this from the ISS (that's the Johannes Kepler launching in the far distance, as seen from the station):


image by NASA/ESA (source)

So far there have been two ATV missions to the ISS: the Jules Verne in March 2008, and the Johannes Kepler in February 2011. They fly up, attach to the station, and their cargo is unloaded. Here are some shots of the Jules Verne approaching the station:


image by NASA (source)


image by NASA (source)


image by NASA (source)

They remain attached for four to six months, looking almost like any other station module aside from their X-wing solar panels, and are steadily filled up with the station's waste products. While attached, they can use their thruster to boost the station's orbit. Here's the Johannes Kepler attached (at top, with the X-shaped array of solar panels):


image by NASA (source)

and the Jules Verne (at bottom):


image by NASA (source)

Once they're full of garbage, they detach and fall back into the atmosphere, where they very neatly burn up, like the Jules Verne did in September 2008 just southwest of Tahiti:


image by NASA (source)

Three more ATV missions are planned: the Edoardo Amaldi (named after the Italian physicist) in February 2012, the Albert Einstein in February 2013, and an as-yet-unnamed fifth ATV in February 2014.

And finally, there is the privately-developed American and French Cygnus spacecraft. Funded by NASA, they are unmanned resupply craft like the ATVs, intended to do much the same thing, and once again utilizing the old Spacelab-derived cylindrical design for their cargo modules. The Cygnus' first "demonstration flight" was originally supposed to have taken place last year, but it has been pushed back to December of this year.

And that's everything I know about space modules!

Added 1 new A* page:

• A* Episode 13, Page 101

I came across an interesting "modern noir crime graphic novel" being published for now in webcomic format, caled Running With a Gun. Very neat black and white art.

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Well it was a while back now (I keep coming across other things I want to talk about while looking things up, so now I have a considerable stuff-to-talk-about backlog!) that I was talking about active regions on the Sun--sunspots, for instance. A much cooler-looking active region type, though, are coronal loops: magnetic field lines that emerge and loop back into the Sun, and which are filled with solar plasma caught in the magnetic tube of the field line. Some nifty examples of coronal loops:


image by NASA (source)


image by NASA (source)

Those images were captured by NASA's TRACE satellite ("Transition Region and Coronal Explorer" -- active 1998-2010), whose primary mission was studying coronal loops. To really get a feel for the amazing quality of TRACE's cameras, though, you've got to check out the videos it captured of many loops and solar flares; there are a lot of them, and they are available for download here, mostly in .mov format. I suggest sampling through a bunch of them, but if you just want to check out a few, 57, 84, 85, 103 and 104 are some of my favorites. Oh, and in 96, you can see a coronal mass ejection, where a big part of the surface wells up like a bubble which then bursts, flinging solar material into space.

Here's a mosaic of TRACE images, put together to show the whole Sun; the red, green and blue are false color, from passes at three different wavelengths:


image by NASA (source)

It's worth mentioning though that it was actually the Japanese Yohkoh satellite (that's "Sunbeam" in Japanese) that really kicked off the study of coronal loops. It was active from 1991 to 2001.