This is a WHAT?!

his great pic really brings home just how things have changed....Check out the pic.  Like the article asked - is it a:

• A toaster? Farm equipment? Part of an engine? Wreckage from a destroyed tank?

Nope - amazingly it is a 4k memory module from an early computer.  Like the author said, since the pic is 600+ kbytes, if you wanted to carry this photo around it would take 172 more of these memory modules and a tractor trailer to transport the pic around. 

Cause of Russian Progress Crash Determined

This recent Device article reports that A Russian investigatory commission has discovered that the crash. There was some worry that worry was that a design flaw might be the cause. The commission's findings point instead to something almost as bad. A manufacturing fault.

From the article:

• (The crash was) caused by a clogged fuel line in the third stage engine of the Soyuz rocket. This particular fuel line was driving a turbo pump that pumps fuel into the main combustion chamber, so when the pump failed, the third stage shut down...

This is still a bit problematic. The question is, can we trust the manufacture and assembly infrastructure will be up to the task of finding just where the part failure crept in? The Russian space agency has promised to launch another resupply module and launch some of the backlog of satellites to prove that the Soyuz rockets are still safe before they send up another manned mission to the ISS. But having this all happen before the mid November cutoff deadline for keeping the ISS manned is going to be a tall order.

Abandon Ship!

According to an article in Dvice: NASA may be considering abandoning the International Space Station in November, due mostly to the crash of the Russian Progress M-12M resupply ship in August of 2011. If the malfunction that prevented the Progress from separating from the heavy lift second stage booster then the first half of the crew will have to return in October with the balance returning in January.

Even though the station is capable of maintaining the crew indefinitely, the Soyuz is only rated for 210 days life in which exceeding that limit is strongly not recommended. And neither is a January landing on the Russian Steppes.

ISS Crews NASA and Russian mission control are all holding their collective breathes as technicians try to uncover the cause of the malfunction.