Festive Season Space News

Titan Has A Halo



The thick distended atmosphere gives Titan a halo effect.

Images taken using blue, green and red spectral filters were used to create this enhanced-color view; the color images were combined with an ultraviolet view that makes the high-altitude, detached layer of haze visible. The ultraviolet part of the composite image was given a purplish hue to match the bluish-purple color of the upper atmospheric haze seen in visible light.

Small particles that populate high hazes in Titan's atmosphere scatter short wavelengths more efficiently than longer visible or infrared wavelengths, so the best possible observations of the detached layer are made in ultraviolet light.

The images in this view were taken by the Cassini narrow-angle camera on May 5, 2005, at a distance of approximately 1.4 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Titan and at a sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 137 degrees. Image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel.

So that's the Cassini update of the month. A picture.

These Are The Rules
The rules for Space Tourism, that is.

More than 120 pages of proposed rules, released by the government Thursday, regulate the future of space tourism. This don't-forget list touches on everything from passenger medical standards to preflight training for the crew.

Before taking a trip that literally is out of this world, companies would be required to inform the "space flight participant" — known in more earthly settings as simply a passenger — of the risks. Passengers also would be required to provide written consent before boarding a vehicle for takeoff.

Legislation signed a year ago by President Bush and designed to help the space industry flourish prohibits the Federal Aviation Administration from issuing safety regulations for passengers and crew for eight years, unless specific design features or operating practices cause a serious or fatal injury.

"This means that the FAA has to wait for harm to occur or almost occur before it can impose restrictions, even against foreseeable harm," the proposal says. "Instead, Congress requires that space flight participants be informed of the risks."

Physical exams for passengers are recommended, but will not be required, "unless a clear public safety need is identified," the FAA says in the proposed regulations.

Passengers also would have to be trained on how to respond during emergencies, including the loss of cabin pressure, fire and smoke, as well as how to get out of the vehicle safely.

Pilots, meanwhile, must have an FAA pilot certificate and be able to show that they know how to operate the vehicle. Student or sport pilot licenses would not qualify.

Each member of the crew must have a medical certificate issued within a year of the flight, and a crew member's physical and mental state must "be sufficient to perform safety-related roles," the rules say.

The FAA also would require each crew member to be trained to ensure that the vehicle will not harm the public, such as if it had to be abandoned during a flight emergency.

The legislation that Bush signed last year tasked the FAA with coming up with rules to regulate the commercial space flight industry, which has been slowly getting off the ground.

Laws governing private sector space endeavors, such as satellite launches, have existed for some time. But there previously has been no legal jurisdiction for regulating commercial human spaceflight.

In 2001, California businessman Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist when he rode a Russian Soyuz capsule to the international space station. Mark Shuttleworth, a South African Internet magnate, followed a year later on a similar trip, also paying $20 million for the ride.

Last year, in a feat considered a breakthrough for the future of private spaceflight, Burt Rutan won the $10 million Ansari X Prize by rocketing his SpaceShipOne to the edge of space twice in five days.

Two months ago, Greg Olsen, who made millions at a Princeton, N.J., technology company, became the world's third paying space tourist, also on a jaunt to the international space station.

The 123-page proposal was published Thursday in the Federal Register, the government's daily publication of rules and regulations, and will be subject to public comment for 60 days, through Feb. 27.

Final regulations are expected by June 23.

Anyway, you have to be a millinaire at this point to indulge in space tourism.


Galileo Satellite Launched



I've been slack with the festive season. The ESA has luacnhed its Galileo GPS satellite using Russia's Soyuz rockets.

The launch marked the start of Galileo, €3.8 billion ($A6 billion) European challenge to the monopoly of the US military-based Global Positioning System.

GPS is the only worldwide system offering services ranging from driver navigation to aid for search-and-rescue missions. But the GPS service offers civilians less precision than for military or intelligence purposes, and it is controlled by the US military, which has the power to degrade or switch off the signal.

Galileo will be a highly accurate civilian system, run by a private consortium. It is expected to go into operation in 2010.

Because it has a more penetrating signal that can work indoors (which GPS rarely does), offers better coverage of northern Europe and assesses its own accuracy, supporters believe it will usher in a new range of safety-critical services, such as aircraft and emergency vehicle guidance systems.

Galileo, which can pinpoint positions to within a metre, is designed for a host of new satnav applications, including ones from mobile phones. With the help of Galileo, it will be possible to find local theatres, shops, restaurants and cash machines on a mobile.

Tourists will be less likely to get lost with multimedia maps and directions delivered to their phones. Other services may locate children separated from their parents.

Galileo will also improve air traffic control and it could pave the way to nationwide road tolls.

Backers say it could create more than 140,000 jobs in Europe by 2013. But there are doubters, with one sceptic famously dubbing Galileo the "common agricultural policy of the sky".

The most important items in the rocket's payload are two rubidium atomic clocks and a navigation signal generator capable of transmitting codes and frequencies to be used by the 30 satellites that will eventually make up the Galileo network.

Great. More ways to extract tolls from moving around.