/. Aglassis writes “It appears that NASA is not backing down from their nuclear space initiative. Project Prometheus has recently started a new web page (under JPL) and NASA is finishing up a period of public comment (last session today). Currently Northrop Grumman is contracted to begin preliminary design of the spacecraft until 2008 for NASA (the reactor will be built by the Department of Energy’s Division of Naval Reactors–the folks who control all US submarine and aircraft carrier nuclear reactors). Early specs are that it will be 60 meters long, have a 30,000 kg mass, use a 100 KW reactor using Brayton cycle gas turbines, be powered by ion thrusters with a 7000 second specific impulse, and have a science payload of 1500 kg. Early mission plans for Prometheus 1 (Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter) indicate that the spacecraft would orbit Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa individually, and perhaps have a lifespan of about 20 years.”

Slashdot | Update on Project Prometheus

This obviously reminds me of my recent idea, to bring the wonders of Open Source into other fields such as Astronomy, Science and ofcourse Robotics.. read on and enjoy the future of open science & technology..

[/.] thgreatoz writes “While attending Penguicon 3.0 in Novi, MI, I came across an interesting project. Matt Switlik of Swittech aims to do for robotics what the GPL did for Open Source Software – a completely open robotics platform. Dubbed the Open Robotics Peripheral Platform, or O.R.P.P, Switlik and his partner Jason Hunt have taken a completely modular approach to robotics, with the goal of making robot development as easy as homegrowing a PC. Will we see fleets of ORPP robots plowing our streets and mowing our lawns in the future?”

Also see: Cylon Robot Project

Slashdot | Open Robotics Debuts at Penguicon 3.0

[/.] Nicholas Roussos writes “Wired reports about four skydivers who decided to give the Nintendo DS wireless capabilities a try while they were freefalling. ‘The four sky divers proved that an ad hoc network set up using the wireless functions of a Nintendo DS works perfectly at distances of nearly 400 feet while falling 120 miles an hour,’ states the article.”

Slashdot | Nintendo DS Wireless in Freefall

Get an introduction to ECMAScript for XML (E4X), a simple extension to JavaScript that makes XML scripting very simple. In this paper, the authors demonstrate a Web programming model called Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) and show you how some new XML extensions to JavaScript can make it very simple.

AJAX and scripting Web services with E4X, Part 1, Part 2

ECMAScript for XML (E4X) has been introduced in the beta builds of Mozilla Suite 1.8. It is an extension to the ECMAScript standardized scripting language, and allows the use of native XML primitives/objects, in other words it is no longer necessary to embed XML as Strings.

Check out my latest E4X Examples at the Codepit.