Richard Leis

Month: March 2006

  • This Essay Breaks the Law: Michael Crichton pleads for patent reform

    Next week the Supreme Court will hear arguments in LabCorp versus Metabolite, an interesting case that visits the patent controversy in the United States. Are test result correlations patentable? Michael Crichton provides his opinion. Digg Description: “It means that if a real estate agent lists a house for sale, he can be sued because an…

  • Orbit Obtained: MRO Makes it to Mars

    Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) performed a flawless engine burn today in a successful bid to enter orbit around Mars. The event, known as Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI), is a risky one for robotic visitors to the Red Planet. Now that MRO is safely in orbit, the spacecraft will soon begin several months of aerobraking to…

  • From Giotto to Stardust – 20 Years of Comet Exploration

    The modern robotic investigation of comets began with a spacecraft from the European Space Agency (ESA) named Giotto. Giotto captured in 1986 the first close-up images of a cometary nucleus and a wealth of other data. ESA is marking the 20th anniversary of Giotto’s successful flyby of Comet Halley on the eve of a NASA…

  • Potential Liquid Water on Enceladus

    Cassini-Huygens mission scientists discovered last year that plumes of ice erupt from the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, but the mechanism for the this process has not been fully explained. Now a review of competing theories and available data implicates the more unlikely source: pressurized liquid water pools or an ocean near the moon’s surface.…

  • HiRISE Presentation

    Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is scheduled for Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI) on Friday, March 10, 2009. Confirmation of success should arrive around 3:15 pm MST. Below is a link to a presentation I gave one of my classes today about the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on board MRO, the highest resolution camera every…

  • The Transhumanist Responsibility

    With transhumanism under fire in Missouri, I recently discussed the issue with family members. I wrote a couple things that summarize the difference between the beliefs of transhumanists and their critics: “[M]y only respect and support is for life, sentient or not, physically immortal or not, technologically enhanced or not. I have rarely been patriotic…

  • Web 2.0 Test

    I have not jumped into Web 2.0 all that much. For all my talk about cybernudism, I wonder what expressing your opinion and sharing your entire life story in cyberspace really accomplishes. It is expression with no end point, which very well may be just fine and healthy. Until I can gather my thoughts on…