Space

 
 
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    Defense Industry Daily

  • Rapid Fire: 2010-02-10

    Fred Donovan
    9 Feb 2010 | 8:00 am
    Russia’s top military officer says US missile defense in Europe should be curbed in new arms control treaty. Russia is developing the T-50 stealth fighter to rival F-22, but can aircraft... [summary]

  • $48M to SSI for USAF Space Launch Services

    Fred Donovan
    9 Feb 2010 | 4:34 am
    SSI launch facilities (click to view full) Spaceport Systems International (SSI), a Lompoc, CA-based division of ITT Corp., received a $48 million contract to provide launch services for the Launch... [summary]

  • Rapid Fire: 2010-02-09

    Fred Donovan
    8 Feb 2010 | 12:20 pm
    Russia’s revised official military doctrine to include preemptive nuclear strikes. France expects to decide in the coming weeks whether to sell 3 additional Mistral class amphibious... [summary]

  • BAE Settles Charges With UK Fraud Office, US DoJ

    Joe Katzman
    8 Feb 2010 | 10:53 am
    BAE’s Hawk: over the top (click to view full) The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has spent the last 6 years chasing BAE systems over allegations that bribes were paid to secure foreign... [summary]

  • Russia to Order French Mistral LHDs?

    Joe Katzman
    8 Feb 2010 | 9:19 am
    FS Mistral (click to view full) France mulls approval of 3 more Mistral LHDs for Russia, amidst political pressure from Russia over Georgia, and concern by French allies. (Feb 8/10) In August 2009,... [summary]
 
 
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    About.com Space / Astronomy

  • Hubble Sees Changing Surface of Pluto

    9 Feb 2010 | 6:32 am
    Poor Pluto. Once known as the smallest and loneliest planet in our solar system, it was subsequently stripped of its planet status. And pictures of the tiny world always painted it as a grey, desolate wasteland. There is even a Facebook support group for the little fella. Well not anymore. After four years of computers crunching away on Hubble data, a new image of the icy rock shows that it is much more dynamic -- and colorful -- than once thought. From the image it is evident that as Pluto rotates the color pattern on the surface also changes. At first scientists believed that this might…

  • 3-2-1 Launch... Only 4 To Go!

    8 Feb 2010 | 2:56 pm
    The Space Shuttle Endeavour left the launch pad early this morning and is now in orbit on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). This is the first shuttle flight of the year, and represents the beginning of the end for the aging shuttle fleet. The focus of this mission is to deliver a module to the ISS that will increase the interior space and provide additional living quarters. While the crew will not arrive to the space station until Wednesday, they are busy testing equipment and preparing for the space walks that will be needed to install the new node and research facility.

  • Update on NASA Budget

    4 Feb 2010 | 6:22 am
    Last week I noted that the Obama administration had cut the Constellation Program from the budget, effectively killing the proposed return mission to the Moon and future manned Mars missions. An ancillary effect being that we would not need to rely on our Russian counterparts to complete our obligations to the International Space Station. This news initially angered proponents of the space program, including myself, because of the administration's demolition of our manned space program. However, once President Obama officially released the complete budget and vision for the future of our…

  • The Future of the International Space Station

    3 Feb 2010 | 7:29 am
    As part of the re-invisioning of NASA (more on this tomorrow), the work of the International Space Station will be extended through at least 2020. This will allow scientists to expand the experiments being conducted and, according to NASA, enable "this vital orbiting laboratory to reach its full potential." Sounds good to me. Personally though, I was just psyched about this image that was released along with the announcement. Pretty spectacular, huh? Telll me what you think! Image Credit: NASA The Future of the International Space Station originally appeared on About.com Space / Astronomy on…

  • NASA Has Given Up on Getting Spirit Free

    1 Feb 2010 | 9:04 am
    NASA has announced that it has officially given up trying to free the Spirit Rover from the bed of sand that has been holding it captive. (For a rather funny portrayal of these events, go here.) This does not mean however that it will no longer provide scientific data. Rather, it will study the surrounding martian surface and what lay beneath it. The coming Martian winter is of concern, but NASA hopes that the little trooper will survive. Should the rover live on, scientists hope that it can help answer a question that has plagued them for years: is the Martian core completely solid, or does…
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    SPACEFLIGHT

  • PICTURE: Boeing reveals commercial crew capsule

    9 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am
    Boeing has revealed its capsule concept for NASA's $50 million Commercial Crew Development (CCD) initiative

  • Webbies 2009 - winners and judges comments

    4 Feb 2010 | 11:44 pm
    Eurofighter Typhoon, Amsterdam Schiphol International airport and Things in the Sky blog have triumphed at Flightglobal's annual aviation web awards. The Webbies 2009, now in its second year, celebrate the best and brightest in aviation websites and their social media activities. The Eurofighter website won the Best Aerospace website for its interactivity and games element. Amsterdam's airport triumphed in the Best Airport category for knocking down language barriers, and the judges were impressed with the blog, Things in the Sky for its "compelling visual content". The Webbies 2009 had two…

  • Obama's commercial spaceflight incurs political wrath

    4 Feb 2010 | 3:25 am
    President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget has ended NASA’s 2020 Moon programme while privatising manned spacecraft, incurring the wrath of politicians even before the agency...

  • NASA gets $500 million for commercial crew

    2 Feb 2010 | 4:52 am
    NASA is to get $500 million for its commercial crew transport programme under President Barack Obama's fiscal year 2011 budget request for the agency of...

  • Briefings

    1 Feb 2010 | 4:00 pm
    Russian PowerJet partner NPO Saturn is determined to receive certification for...
 
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    Space News From SpaceDaily.Com

  • US shuttle Endeavour blasts off for space station

    Cape Canaveral, Florida (AFP) Feb 8, 2010 - The US space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of six astronauts blasted off Monday and headed for the International Space Station to deliver a module dubbed Tranquility.

  • US shuttle Endeavor ready for second lift-off attempt

    Cape Canaveral, Florida (AFP) Feb 8, 2010 - The US space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of six astronauts were set Monday to make another launch attempt on a mission to deliver a module dubbed Tranquility to the International Space Station.

  • Poor weather delays launch of US shuttle Endeavour

    Cape Canaveral, Florida (AFP) Feb 7, 2010 - The launch of the US space shuttle Endeavour was delayed by 24 hours early Sunday due to bad weather over the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA officials said.

  • Soyuz 100 Times More Reliable Than Shuttle

    Moscow, Russia (Pravda) Feb 08, 2010 - Richard Garriott, a videogame developer, who once boarded Russia's Soyuz rocket for a space flight said that the Russian-made ship was much more reliable than its foreign analogues.

  • Quasar Pair Captured In Galaxy Collision

    Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 08, 2010 - This composite image shows the effects of two galaxies caught in the act of merging. A Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows a pair of quasars in blue, located about 4.6 billion light years away, but separated on the sky by only about 70 thousand light years.
 
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    Science @ NASA

  • Solar Dynamics Observatory: The 'Variable Sun' Mission

    The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), slated for liftoff on Feb. 9th, will make IMAX-quality movies of solar explosions, peer beneath the stellar surface to see the sun's inner dynamo, and--researchers hope--unravel the mysteries of solar variability.

  • Hubble Sees Suspected Asteroid Collision

    NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust that suggest a head-on collision between two asteroids.

  • Firefly Mission to Study Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes

    There's a mystery in the skies of Earth: Something is producing bright flashes of gamma radiation in the upper atmosphere of our own planet. A new NASA-NSF mission called Firefly is going to investigate.

  • Close Encounter with Mars

    This week Earth and Mars are having a close encounter. On Jan. 27th, the Red Planet will be only 99 million kilometers away and look bigger through a telescope than at any time between 2008 and 2014.

  • Spirit is Now a Stationary Science Platform

    NASA announced today that Mars rover Spirit cannot be freed from its Martian sandtrap. Now the rover will begin a second career as a stationary science platform.
 
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    Universe Today

  • Seven-Year WMAP Results: No, They're NOT Anomalies

    Jean Tate
    9 Feb 2010 | 12:14 pm
    CMB cool fingers, cold spots I and II (red; credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team) Since the day the first Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data were released, in 2003, all manner of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anomalies have been reported; there's been the cold spot that might be a window into a parallel universe, the "Axis of Evil", pawprints of local interstellar neutral hydrogen, and much, much more. But do the WMAP data really, truly, absolutely contain evidence of anomalies, things that just do not fit within the six-parameters-and-a-model the WMAP team recently…

  • Carnival of Space #140

    Nancy Atkinson
    9 Feb 2010 | 8:23 am
    This week's Carnival of Space is hosted by Jason Major over at Lights in the Dark. Click here to read the Carnival of Space #140. And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to carnivalofspace@gmail.com, and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, let Fraser know if…

  • Answer for Last Week's WITU Challenge

    Nancy Atkinson
    8 Feb 2010 | 6:26 pm
    I was late posting last week's Where In the Universe Challenge, and now am even later in posting the answer. But find it back on the original post. Hopefully I'll be able to have a new challenge for you in a couple of days! © nancy for Universe Today, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

  • Caught in the Act! Merging Galaxies Create a Binary Quasar

    Jean Tate
    8 Feb 2010 | 6:14 pm
    SDSS J1254+0846 in x-rays (blue), and optical (yellow) (Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/Green et al Optical: Carnegie Obs/Magellan/Baade Telescope/Mulchaey et al) Excellent teamwork by astronomers working in two different wavebands – x-ray and optical – has lead to the discovery of a binary quasar being created by a pair of merging galaxies. "This is really the first case in which you see two separate galaxies, both with quasars, that are clearly interacting," says Carnegie astronomer John Mulchaey who made observations crucial to understanding the galaxy merger. "The…

  • Sky on Fire as Endeavour Blasts to Space

    Ken Kremer
    8 Feb 2010 | 1:58 pm
    STS 130 Crew of Endeavour poses for group portrait as they pause to smile and wave to well wishers prior to boarding Astrovan for transport to Launch Pad 39 A. They are dressed in their orange launch-and-entry suits, otherwise known as “pumpkin suits”. From left are Mission Specialists Robert Behnken, Nicholas Patrick, Stephen Robinson and Kathryn Hire; Pilot Terry Virts; and Commander George Zamka. Credit: Ken Kremer (Editor's Note: Ken Kremer is in Florida for Universe Today covering the launch of Endeavour.) Night literally turned to day as shuttle Endeavour roared off the pad…
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    NPR Topics: Space

  • Shuttle Heads To Space Station As Weather Clears

    8 Feb 2010 | 8:09 am
    Space shuttle Endeavour is now orbiting Earth after blasting off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center in Monday's early morning darkness. Weather problems had delayed what might be the last pre-dawn launch for the shuttle program, which is heading toward retirement.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Endeavour Blasts Off On Shuttle's Last Night Flight

    8 Feb 2010 | 2:43 am
    Endeavour and six astronauts rocketed into orbit Monday on what's expected to be the last nighttime launch for the shuttle program, hauling a new room and observation deck for the International Space Station. The space shuttle took flight before dawn, igniting the sky with a brilliant flash seen for miles around.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Space Shuttle Blasts Off On Last Night Flight

    8 Feb 2010 | 1:25 am
    Space shuttle Endeavour is rocketing toward the space station on one of the shuttle program's last scheduled missions. Endeavour and its crew of six blasted off early Monday.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • NASA Fuels Space Shuttle, Weather Better

    7 Feb 2010 | 11:09 pm
    With the weather prospects looking up, astronauts boarded shuttle Endeavour for the second day in a row early Monday in hopes of blasting off on the last big space station construction mission. The six astronauts looked more optimistic than they did Sunday morning, when the launch site was socked in with clouds.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Forget Portholes, Space Station Gets 360-Degree View

    5 Feb 2010 | 10:48 am
    Astronauts aboard the International Space Station will soon get to enjoy "a room with a view." Space shuttle Endeavour is bringing up a dome-shaped observation module with a total of seven windows, giving astronauts unprecedented views of Earth and space.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us
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    The Space Review

  • "Gateway" architectures: a major "Flexible Path" step to the Moon and Mars after the International Space Station?

    8 Feb 2010 | 3:00 pm
    NASA's new exploration plan, as unveiled last week, appears to endorse the "Flexible Path" option in the Augustine Committee report. Harley Thronson and Ted Talay describe some of the studies that have been done on what could be a major element of such exploration.

  • An agency in transition

    8 Feb 2010 | 2:59 pm
    Last Monday the White House released a NASA budget proposal that would make major changes to NASA's human spaceflight programs. Jeff Foust reports on the changes and the reaction to them, and how this could be the beginning of a far more fundamental change for the agency.

  • Maps and buried treasure

    8 Feb 2010 | 2:58 pm
    How can private enterprise and governments cooperate in human space exploration? Bob Clarebrough offers some rebuttals to common objections about such cooperation.

  • Beating a dead space horse (yeah, "Defying Gravity", again...)

    8 Feb 2010 | 2:57 pm
    "Defying Gravity" may no longer be on the air, but fans of the show can watch it again on a newly-released DVD set. Dwayne Day reviews the set, providing an opportunity to revisit the series.

  • Review: Choice, Not Fate

    8 Feb 2010 | 2:56 pm
    NASA's 2011 budget proposal would begin a major redirection of the agency from being driven by destinations to being driven by capabilities. Jeff Foust reviews a book by one space policy analyst who argues that is exactly the right direction the agency should be moving in.
 
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    Space Politics

  • “Snowmageddon” cancels advocacy event

    Jeff Foust
    7 Feb 2010 | 9:59 am
    The historic snowstorm that hit the Washington DC area over the weekend with over two feet of snow in many locations (I measured 24″ as of mid-afternoon Saturday and just got my power back at home after being without it for over a day) has claimed a space advocacy casualty: the Space Frontier Foundation’s “Take Back Space 2010″ lobbying effort (originally, and controversially, known as “March Storm” and later renamed “First Flight”). The Foundation’s Michael Heney notes via Twitter that the event, which was to have a training session today…

  • Briefly noted (Snowmageddon edition)

    Jeff Foust
    5 Feb 2010 | 3:42 pm
    As Washington hunkers down for a snowstorm of epic proportions (20-30 inches of snow forecast through Saturday), some reading material to help you to put off the shoveling: When word came yesterday that Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) had placed a hold on all current Obama Administration nominees awaiting Senate confirmation, some wondered if this was a hardball tactic to overturn the administration’s plans to cancel Constellation, given his outspoken opposition to the budget proposal immediately after it was released. Not so: Shelby is instead protesting the bidding process for the KC-X…

  • Nays (and a cautionary yea) in Congress about NASA’s new direction

    Jeff Foust
    4 Feb 2010 | 3:48 am
    Yesterday’s House hearing about “Key Issues and Challenges Facing NASA” wasn’t explicitly about the FY2011 budget proposal and the changes it makes to NASA’s human spaceflight programs, and much of the discussion was on other topics. However, the hearing did give members an opportunity to express their opinions on the budget, with most—but not all—opposed to or at least concerned about the plan. Some committee members, like Reps. Ralph Hall (R-TX), Pete Olson (R-TX), and Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), had already spoken out against the plan’s core…

  • Today’s NASA “Key Issues and Challenges” hearing

    Jeff Foust
    3 Feb 2010 | 4:22 am
    A reminder that the space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee will host a hearing today at 10 am on “Key Issues and Challenges Facing NASA: Views of the Agency’s Watchdogs”. The hearing is not explicitly about the FY2011 budget proposal issued Monday, and the hearing charter states that “Separate hearings are planned to address NASA’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request as well as the administration’s human space flight strategy after they are announced”, although one would expect that questions about the change in course for the agency will…

  • Nelson vs. Orszag on NASA

    Jeff Foust
    3 Feb 2010 | 4:05 am
    The first opportunity for members of Congress—well, one member of Congress—to grill the administration about NASA’s new direction came Tuesday at a hearing by the Senate Budget Committee about the FY2011 budget featuring OMB director Peter Orszag. (The video of the hearing is available on the committee’s hearing page; skip ahead to about the 68:40 mark.) Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) told Orszag that “I want to ask you a friendly question, and I want to ask you an unfriendly question.” The first question—the “friendly” one—dealy with…
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    NASA Watch

  • NASA 2010 PM Challenge is Under Way

    Keith Cowing
    9 Feb 2010 | 12:01 pm
    Keith'snote: The NASA 2010 PM Challenge is underway today and tomorrow. According to NASA: "The PM Challenge is one of NASA's premier training events. It brings together the best speakers, discussion panels, case studies, and networking opportunities in program/project management, systems engineering, safety & mission assurance, team building, business management, and many others." Participants are Twittering from inside the event. You can follow their Tweets here.

  • Where Next?

    Keith Cowing
    9 Feb 2010 | 7:57 am
    The New Space Race, Paul Spudis "Although it is not currently popular in this country to think about national interests and the competition of nations in space, others do not labor under this restriction. Our current human spaceflight effort, the International Space Station (ISS), has shown us both the benefits and drawbacks of cooperative projects. Soon, we will not have the ability to send crew to and from the ISS. But that's not a problem; the Russians have graciously agreed to transport us - at $50 million a pop. Look for that price to rise once the Shuttle is fully retired. To understand…

  • Space Policy: Lack of Details and Lots of Differing Opinions

    Keith Cowing
    9 Feb 2010 | 5:54 am
    JSC chief 'anxious' about facility's future, Houston Chronicle "Coats and NASA administrator Charles Bolden met with reporters after Bolden spoke with Johnson employees in Houston. "The workers are hurting," Bolden acknowledged. Bolden said he could not say what new programs the Houston space center will attract in the wake of Constellation that may account for some of the jobs lost. "We're at the very beginning of trying to understand what this really does mean," said Bolden, himself a former astronaut. "We can't give any answers until we find out what the follow-on programs will be, and…

  • One Last Night Departure

    Keith Cowing
    8 Feb 2010 | 12:25 pm
    The Last Shuttle To Leave Earth at Night, SpaceRef "An hour after the orange glow of Endeavour's liftoff lit the Kennedy Space Center press site on Feb. 8, NASA officials beamed at the bit of bright news illuminating an otherwise tough couple of weeks. The smooth countdown for STS-130 and the relatively few technical problems -- a bit of foam loss, but nothing judged too serious -- shifted the tone of the press conference to one that joked about workers missing the Super Bowl. "While I was getting evil glares for making them come in -- I don't know why it was my fault -- they were happy with…

  • Non-televised Press Briefing with Bolden

    Keith Cowing
    8 Feb 2010 | 12:04 pm
    NASA Administrator, JSC Director Set Media Roundtable Today at JSC "NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Johnson Space Center Director Mike Coats will be available for a roundtable discussion with media at 2:30 p.m. CST today, Monday, Feb. 8, at the Johnson Space Center. Bolden and Coats will discuss the fiscal year 2011 budget request and bold new developments in the nation's civil space effort. Media planning to attend should contact the JSC newsroom at 281-483-5111 no later than noon CST. The event will not be broadcast on NASA Television. For more information on NASA and its programs,…
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    Open NASA

  • nasa.gov/open

    Skytland
    9 Feb 2010 | 6:56 am
    As @bethbeck mentioned yesterday in her post “Ideas on How to Open NASA?  Spill!” - We’ve deployed a cool idea-sharing tool to let you give input, comment on input of others, and vote ideas up or down. Your ideas will feed into NASA’s Open Government Plan. You need an account first, but that’s as simple as adding your e-mail and a password. We are looking forward to your ideas! P.S. If you are interested in visiting the Open Initiative websites of other government agencies, Sunglight Labs has a great tracking site setup.  I’ve also included a list of all the sites…

  • Ideas on How to Open NASA? Spill!

    Beth Beck
    8 Feb 2010 | 8:35 am
    Are you someone who knows exactly what it takes to make NASA the best agency possible? Do you doodle ideas on cocktail napkins and mail them to a NASA Center? Do you wake up early in the morning to watch Space Shuttle launches (like this morning’s 4:14 a.m. EST STS-130 launch) or stay up all night for mission coverage of Space Station? Do you wish you could wear a NASA badge and sit in a cubicle somewhere in the bureaucratic maze at a NASA installation? Have we got a job for you! Get your creative juices flowing. Capture all your ideas. We’re listening. You have until March…

  • Social Media + Open Government

    Skytland
    6 Feb 2010 | 8:08 am
    Yesterday, Amiko Kauderer (@amikokauderer), Joel Walker (@joelwalker), James McClellan (@jbmccl) and I (@skytland) had an opportunity to attend the Houston Social Media Club breakfast at the Houston Zoo to talk about NASA’s experiments in social media.  I wanted to share the presentation with the openNASA community and also invite you to the Houston Zoo’s next event!  So, if you are in Houston on Friday, February 26th, make sure to check out the “Tweets in Space” event at the Houston Zoo to meet some “twittering astronauts”!  Here’s some…

  • The times they are a changing…

    Lsarmiento
    4 Feb 2010 | 8:27 pm
    I, like many others here at NASA, have spent the past few days reading and thinking about the new plan the president has proposed for NASA and what it really means. I work in science research, so part of this new plan makes me happy. But other parts of this plan were harder to digest. Since its inception, NASA has always had a vision to achieve the impossible and push the boundaries. I feel that hasn’t changed with the new proposal. But I can see why people think it has.   Two years ago, I was fortunate enough to be a part of the group that came up with the 20 year vision for JSC. It…

  • Looking back…

    Madi
    4 Feb 2010 | 7:42 pm
    A few days ago, I woke up, half-dreading the 6-mile run I needed to complete in preparation for the half-marathon I’m signed up to run in just under two months. Whenever runs get torturous, or I’m having a terrible day and just don’t want to get out there, I tell myself that this is all in preparation for one day achieving my ultimate goal of becoming an astronaut. Somehow, that provides some internal inkling of motivation that gets me going every time. For many months, perhaps a year now, I’ve had a secret desire to run the internal perimeter of JSC – from gate to gate to gate…to…
 
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    White Label Space

  • Special Seminar - Professor Yoshida in the Netherlands

    8 Feb 2010 | 10:19 am
    3pm-4.00pm, Saturday, 27'th February 2010,White Label Space HQAOES Building, Noordwijk, The NetherlandsThe Lead Rover Designer for the White Label Space GLXP team, Professor Kazuya Yoshida, from Tohoku University, Japan will present plans for the team's lunar rover. Details and Registration:Registered attendees only. Please register by email to events@whitelabelspace.com. Location and agenda details will be provided by email to registered attendees. Deadline for registration: Thursday, 25th of February.***

  • How Many Super Bowl Ads would a Moon Mission Cost?

    6 Feb 2010 | 2:26 am
    With the Super Bowl coming up tomorrow White Label Space did a quick check on the price that advertisers are paying this year for a 30 second timeslot during one of the most watched sporting events in the world. According to the CBS news piece embedded below, the answer is $3 million. (Note also the interesting discussion about trademark ownership at the end of the news piece.) Wow! It costs $1 million per 10 seconds of superbowl air time. Now, our team's cost engineers have predicted that our Google Lunar X PRIZE mission will cost around $50 million. That's equal to 500 seconds (8.3 minutes)…

  • WLS Presents at University of Tokyo

    17 Jan 2010 | 12:43 am
    Yesterday, in the team's first major event in Japan, two of the technical leaders in the White Label Space team presented their latest plans for the Google Lunar X PRIZE.Professor Kazuya Yoshida, the lead engineer of the Rover and Dr Andrew Barton, lead engineer for the Lander, presented to a crowd of over 50 including many prominent members of Japan's space industry. Also sharing the podium was Misuzu Onuki, CEO of NewSpace Consultants and prolific space 2.0 author explained the benefits and challenges of private space exploration with a particular emphasis on increasing Japan's involvement…

  • Jon Oxer to Present at linux.conf.au

    11 Jan 2010 | 12:14 am
    Jon Oxer, member of our open source partner Lunar Numbat, will present at linux.conf.au, (the Linux Conference of Australasia) on Thursday the 21st of January in Wellington, New Zealand.In his talk Jon will discuss Lunar Numbat's progress and also some of the technical challenges they are facing in their support of the White Label Space GLXP mission.Jon Oxer is a member of the Lunar Numbat build team and is currently working on the throttle control system for the White Label Space lunar lander. He has written four books, and along with Hugh Blemings, and the latest called Practical Arduino…

  • The Most-Likely-to-Happen-Factor

    19 Dec 2009 | 3:56 pm
    Similar to the well known KISS principle ("Keep It Simple Stupid"), the Most-Likely-to-Happen factor is a way for engineers to evaluate the feasibility of particular design option. I first heard of the Most-Likely-to-Happen factor about 7 years ago from Mark Blair of the Australian Space Research Institute whilst I was working on the AUSROC 2.5 project. Mark credits the concept to a gentleman by the name of Andrew Cheers (whom I have not met).When working on aerospace projects it is inevitable for engineers to get carried away with exotic design solutions which, at least in the head of the…
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    EurakAlert!: Space

  • Conservation from space: Landscape diversity helps to conserve insects

    6 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm
    (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology) Rugged, hilly landscapes with a range of different habitat types can help maintain more stable butterfly populations and thus aid their conservation, according to new findings published today in the journal Ecology Letters. The research, carried out by scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Butterfly Conservation and the University of York, has implications for how we might design landscapes better to help conserve species.

  • Prof. Stephen Hawking to visit Perimeter Institute and provide TV lecture across Canada

    4 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm
    (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics) Dr. Neil Turok, Director of Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, is pleased to announce that Prof. Stephen Hawking will visit the institute in Waterloo, Ontario, this summer to conduct scientific research and participate in a televised outreach event.

  • 4 ORNL researchers selected for Recovery Act early career funds

    3 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm
    (DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Four Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are among the 69 scientists that will receive five-year research grants as part of the US Department of Energy's new Early Career Research Program.

  • Forming the present-day spiral galaxies

    3 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm
    (ESA/Hubble Information Centre) Using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have created a demographic census of galaxy types and shapes from a time before the Earth and the sun existed, to the present day. The results show that more than half of the present-day spiral galaxies had peculiar shapes only 6 billion years ago, which, if confirmed, highlights the importance of collisions and mergers in the recent past of many galaxies. It also provides clues for the unique status of our own galaxy.

  • Cyclone Oli reaches category 4 strength on its way to open waters

    3 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm
    (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Oli has exploded in strength and as of February 4 it was a Category 4 cyclone with peak sustained winds of 132 mph (115 knots/213 km/hr). NASA's Aqua and TRMM satellites observed Oli's clouds grow colder and rainfall become heavier over the last day. Residents of French Polynesia should watch for local weather advisories.
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    collectSPACE

  • Night flights' last blast

    8 Feb 2010 | 6:29 am
    For what was very likely the last time, shuttle Endeavour lifted off into the darkness of the pre-dawn sky on Monday at 3:14 a.m. CST, leaving just four daytime launches remaining for the 29-year space shuttle program to fly in 2010 before retiring. The STS-130 mission off to a brilliant start, the flight delivers the Tranquility module and its adjoining observation portal, called the Cupola, to the International Space Station (ISS) and includes three extravehicular activities to install them.

  • Canceled, but still space-bound

    4 Feb 2010 | 4:05 am
    NASA's Constellation program to land astronauts on the Moon may be scrubbed, but it -- or more accurately, its logo -- hasn't been grounded. Space shuttle Endeavour, set to launch the STS-130 mission next week, is poised to loft 25 lapel pins bearing the red, white and blue program emblem. The pins are stowed in the Official Flight Kit (OFK) alongside many other mementos flying to the International Space Station.

  • Houston, we have a Blu-ray disc

    3 Feb 2010 | 5:05 am
    To mark the 40th anniversary of the mission and 15 years since of the debut of the film, "Apollo 13" will be released by Universal Studios for the first time on 'Blu-ray Hi-Def' on April 13. The "15th Anniversary Edition" includes the previous DVD bonus features -- including audio commentary by the real Jim Lovell and his wife Marilyn -- as well Universal's new U-Control options that offer Apollo-era history and science and technology explanations while the movie is playing.

  • Constellation canceled for a new plan

    1 Feb 2010 | 4:02 pm
    The White House on Monday released its fiscal year 2011 budget proposal for NASA calling for the Moon-focused Constellation program to be canceled. In its place, the President's plan commits to operating the International Space Station through 2020 and investing in commercial crew and cargo spacecraft and "game-changing" technologies intended to put the nation on a sustainable forward path into space.

  • Picking the patch for shuttle's end

    1 Feb 2010 | 4:56 am
    After almost three weeks polling its employees, NASA has identified the "People's Choice" for their insignia commemorating the end of the space shuttle program, targeted for later this year. The favorite patch received nearly 30 percent of the workers' votes, but ultimately differed from the choice ranked highest by fans voting in collectSPACE's unofficial public poll conducted over the same period. Space shuttle program managers will consider the People's Choice when they choose the winning design to fly onboard Atlantis.
 
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    Spacehack

  • CSTART

    Ariel Waldman
    21 Jan 2010 | 3:49 am
    The Collaborative Space Travel and Research Team (CSTART) is a non-government, non-profit, collaborative space agency whose mission is is to organize and finance the efforts of space enthusiasts around the world who are interested in using collaborative design, volunteer labor, innovative, low-cost technology and open data sharing to further the cause of manned and unmanned space exploration and research. Participation is encouraged for anyone who wishes to contribute in any small or large, but meaningful way. CSTART creates open source plans for space travel and research projects, ranging…

  • NASA Great Moonbuggy Race

    Ariel Waldman
    30 Nov 2009 | 5:52 pm
    (NASA/MSFC) The 17th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race will be held April 9-10, 2010 in Huntsville, Alabama, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. Participating students will design a vehicle that addresses a series of engineering problems that are similar to problems faced by the original Moonbuggy team. Each Moonbuggy will be human powered and carry two students, one female and one male, over a half-mile simulated lunar terrain course including “craters”, rocks, “lava” ridges, inclines and “lunar” soil. Moonbuggy entries are expected to be of…

  • TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit

    Ariel Waldman
    27 Nov 2009 | 11:44 am
    Build and launch your own satellite into space! One of the primary missions at Interorbital is to provide satellite hardware and launch support for the experimental and commercial satellite community. Planet Earth has entered the age of the Personal Satellite with the introduction of Interorbital’s TubeSat Personal Satellite (PS) Kit. The new IOS TubeSat PS Kit is the low-cost alternative to the CubeSat. And, best of all, the price of the TubeSat kit actually includes the price of a launch into Low-Earth-Orbit on an IOS NEPTUNE 30 launch vehicle. Since the TubeSats are placed into…

  • INSPIRE Project

    Ariel Waldman
    26 Nov 2009 | 3:54 pm
    A non-profit scientific, educational project whose objective is to bring the excitement of observing natural and man-made radio waves to high school students. Underlying this objective is the conviction that science and technology are the underpinnings of our modern society, and that only with an understanding of science and technology can people make correct decisions in their lives, public, professional, and private. INSPIRE (Interactive NASA Space Physics Ionosphere Radio Experiment) also is an innovative, unique opportunity for students to actively gather data that might be used in a…

  • Stardust@Home

    Ariel Waldman
    25 Nov 2009 | 3:01 am
    Together, you and thousands of other Stardust@Home participants will find the first pristine interstellar dust particles ever brought to Earth. Nestled within the Stardust spacecraft’s capsule in 2006 were precious particles collected during its dramatic encounter with comet Wild 2 and something else, even rarer and no less precious: tiny particles of interstellar dust that originate in distant stars, light-years away. They are the first such pristine particles ever collected in space, and scientists are eagerly waiting for their chance to “get their hands” on them. Before…
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    Astroengine.com

  • The Real Inspiration Behind “Project M”

    Ian O'Neill
    7 Feb 2010 | 12:05 am
    The Project M android... haven't I seen you somewhere before? As you know, I’m highly dubious about this “Project M” that has just surfaced on the intertoobs (I strongly suspect it’s a hoax). But doubts aside, I kept looking at that android throwing stones on the lunar surface thinking I’d seen that guy somewhere before. At first, I thought C3PO from Star Wars… but no! It’s this guy: It's uncanny! Bender from Futurama explores the lunar surface (NASA/20th Century Fox/Ian O'Neill). I think Futurama’s Bender would do a fine job exploring the moon.

  • “Project M”? Let’s Not.

    Ian O'Neill
    6 Feb 2010 | 5:19 pm
    Doing for NASA what Star Wars did for sci-fi, send C3PO to the Moon! Huh? OK, so I have little idea about this project because there’s not much information circulating, but I hope it’s not real. It looks like NASA’s Johnson Space Center is heading up a robotic mission to the Moon. No big surprises there as that plan is pretty much in alignment with the “Flexible Path” for the future of space exploration for the U.S. space agency. Also, now the Constellation Program has bitten the dust, we’re not going to see man return to the Moon any time soon. So…

  • P/2010 A2 Was An Asteroid Collision (Says Hubble)

    Ian O'Neill
    3 Feb 2010 | 11:52 am
    What you see here is something mankind has never seen before, the aftermath of an asteroid collision. This conclusion comes after the Hubble Space Telescope was commanded to take a closer look at a strange comet-like object pottering around in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. “The truth is we’re still struggling to understand what this means,” said David Jewitt, a planetary physicist from UCLA. “It’s most likely the result of a recent collision between two asteroids.” After P/2010 A2 was discovered in January, Jewitt managed to get…

  • Mars Rover Spirit Becomes “Mars Base Spirit”

    Ian O'Neill
    30 Jan 2010 | 2:30 am
    Sorry Spirit, you're not coming home (see the full xkcd comic strip). As far as space missions go, you couldn’t find a better epic tale than that of Mars Expedition Rover Spirit. Designed to last 3 months, roved for six years; lost the use of a wheel, turned it into a nifty trench-digging tool; nearly died, came back to life; had memory problems, shrugged them off… the list could go on for ever. However, it’s now official, this is one challenge the little wheeled warrior couldn’t beat; she’s stuck in the sand and there’s nowhere to go. Mars Rover Spirit is…

  • Could P/2010 A2 be the First Ever Observation of an Asteroid Collision?

    Ian O'Neill
    18 Jan 2010 | 9:58 pm
    Something rather bizarre was observed in the asteroid belt on January 6. Ray Villard at Discovery News has just posted an exciting article about the discovery of a comet… but it’s not your average, run-of-the-mill kinda comet. This comet appears to orbit the Sun, embedded in the asteroid belt. Comets don’t usually do that, they tend to have elliptical and inclined orbits, orbits that carry them close to the Sun (when they start to heat up, creating an attractive cometary tail as volatile ices sublimate into space, producing a dusty vapor). They are then flung back out into…
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    The Daily Galaxy - Great Discoveries Channel -Your Daily Dose of Awe: Science, Space, Tech

  • Saturn's Enceladus Joins Earth & Titan With Discovery of Water

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    9 Feb 2010 | 1:30 am
    Detecting salty ice and negatively charged water ions in the ice plume of Saturn's moon Enceladus, which primarily replenishes Saturn's ring with material from discharging jets, hints that it could harbor a reservoir of liquid water -- perhaps an ocean -- beneath its surface. And, where's there's an ocean of liquid water, there's a higher probability of finding some form of life. "The original picture of the plumes as violently erupting Yellowstone-like geysers is changing," said Frank Postberg, Cassini scientist for the cosmic dust analyzer at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in…

  • "Einstein's Telescope": Zooming In On the Dark Side of the Universe

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    9 Feb 2010 | 1:00 am
    “Such stunning cosmic coincidences reveal so much about nature.”~ Leonidas Moustakas, Jet Propulsion LaboratoryThe Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a never-before-seen optical alignment in space: a pair of glowing rings, one nestled inside the other like a bull's-eye pattern. The double-ring pattern is caused by the complex bending of light from two distant galaxies strung directly behind a foreground massive galaxy, like three beads on a string. The foreground galaxy is 3 billion light-years away, the inner ring and outer ring are comprised of multiple images of two galaxies at a…

  • Image of the Day: The Tango of Galaxies in Collision

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    9 Feb 2010 | 12:24 am
     NGC 6872 and IC 4970 are two galaxies in the process of undergoing a collision. IC 4970 is the small galaxy at the top of the image that, thanks to Chandra and Spitzer data. New images show IC 4970 has stripped cold gas from NGC 6872 and is using it to feed its growing supermassive black hole. The galaxies and black holes co-exist, inextricably linked in their evolution. To better understand this symbiotic relationship, scientists have turned to rapidly growing black holes - so-called active galactic nucleus (AGN) - to study how they are affected by their galactic environments. The latest…

  • "WOW!" The Famous 1977 'ET Signal' -A Look Back

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    9 Feb 2010 | 12:20 am
    August 15, 1977: the night before Elvis Presley died, at 11:16 p.m. an Ohio radio telescope called the Big Ear recorded a single pulse of radiation that seemed to come from somewhere in the constellation of Sagittarius at the 1420 MHz hydrogen line, the vibration frequency of hydrogen, the most common molecule in the universe -exactly the signal ET-hunters had been instructed to look out for. The signal was so strong that it pushed the Big Ear's recording device off the chart. Jerry Ehman, the young Columbus, Ohio volunteer man who spotted it in the computer printout, scrawled the now…

  • NASA Sends Life Into Space

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    9 Feb 2010 | 12:16 am
    NASA scientists hope to better understand exactly how and why plants grow differently in space in an experiment named Tropi so that astronauts may be able to grow plants as part of life support systems on long-duration space missions to the moon or Mars."There's only one way to determine exactly why plants grow differently in weaker gravity environments, like on the moon and Mars, than on Earth - and that's by using the microgravity environment in spacecraft orbiting Earth," said John Z. Kiss, Tropi principal investigator and a professor at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. "Studying the…
 
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