Space

 
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    Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense

  • Taiwan says China starts building first aircraft carrier

    Taipei (AFP) Nov 4, 2009 - Taiwan said Wednesday that its giant neighbour China has started building its first aircraft carrier, a move analysts have said could raise military tensions in the region.

  • GD Awarded Gun System Contract By Raytheon

    Charlotte NC (SPX) Nov 04, 2009 - General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products has been awarded a $17 million contract to produce gun systems for the Phalanx Block 1B Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) and the Centurion Land-Based Phalanx Weapon System by Raytheon Missile Systems of Louisville, Ky. General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products is a business unit of General Dynamics.

  • F-35 looks to be costlier than planned

    London (UPI) Nov 4, 2009 - Several adjustments related to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program could make the plane more expensive for European buyers.

  • Street battles as Pakistan troops advance on Taliban

    Islamabad (AFP) Nov 4, 2009 - Pakistani troops were Wednesday locked in deadly street battles with Taliban fighters, pushing a ground offensive deeper into militant-held territory, the military said.

  • Outside View: Wrong debate in Afghanistan

    Washington (UPI) Nov 4, 2009 - The debate over what to do next in Afghanistan has been politically polarized between those who attack the Obama administration for "dithering" and supporters who believe the president needs ample time to be a "decider." Unfortunately, this is a wrong and false debate. The reason is, as this column has frequently observed, there are no good choices regarding Afghanistan -- only bad and worse ones. No matter what this or any other administration decides, the outlook for Afghanistan is for further tragedy, violence and instability. Hence, quickness of decision is…
 
 
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    About.com Space / Astronomy

  • Elevator To Space

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:47 am
    I can almost here it now: Elevator door opens... "What floor sir?" "Space Station Please." "Yes sir." Sound ridiculous? Well, yeah, it is actually. But, the idea of an elevator to space may be a reality sooner than you might think. The 2009 Space Elevator games are under way, and there have already been some interesting developments. For those of you not familiar the the competition, NASA has put up a $2 million prize for anyone who can construct a prototype elevator capable of taking a heavy payload up one kilometer in the air. In order to qualify for a part of the prize money, a team must…

  • Lunar Landers Take Flight

    3 Nov 2009 | 9:15 am
    After a suspenseful race to the finish, NASA handed out a $1 million prize to Masten Space Systems. The company, based in California, participated in the Northrup Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. The Armadillo team out of Texas earned the $500,000 second place prize. Each team that competed had to design, build and fly a module from one landing pad to another, and then return. They only had 135 minutes to complete the tasks, and were judged based on the precision and accuracy of their landings. The Masten team had difficulty getting their craft ready to fly for their scheduled attempts on…

  • Scientists Detect Most Distance Object Ever Seen

    2 Nov 2009 | 6:09 am
    Only 630 million years after the creation of the Universe a super-massive star exploded in a violent supernova. The energy from this explosion has been traveling across the Universe ever since, more than 13 billion years. This event marks the most distant object ever observed. These types of events, known as a gamma-ray burst or GRB, typically occur at least twice a week on average. However, this is the oldest event ever recorded, besting the previous mark by 150 million years. GRBs are important to understanding the Universe as they allow us to "see" events that occurred billions of years…

  • Latest iPhone App From NASA

    29 Oct 2009 | 4:21 am
    Love space and astronomy? Have an iPhone (I wish)? Well the ultimate geek tool is now available -- a new iPhone app that will allow you to keep up on all things NASA anywhere, anytime! The new free application, developed by NASA themselves, has four functions: Missions, Videos, Images, and Updates. The video and image functions will give you access to NASAs vast archive of, well, images and videos. The mission function gives you access to information about any of NASAs many satellites, shuttle launches, Moon missions, rocket tests... well you get the idea. But if you just want to know what…

  • Ares 1-X Test Launch A Success

    28 Oct 2009 | 4:33 pm
    A prototype of NASA's new rocket, the Ares 1-X, took its first test flight this morning. After being delayed for more than 24 hours due to weather concerns, the launch went as smoothly as could be expected. The flight was designed to test new design and technology features for future NASA rockets. During the two and a half minutes before burn out -- when the rocket engine shuts off -- the Ares 1-X performed several trajectory maneuvers. Ultimately the rocket reached speeds well over twice the speed of sound and soared to more than 22 miles above the Earth. These tests are very important as…
 
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    Space News From SpaceDaily.Com

  • University Celebrates Telescope's 'First Light'

    Salt Lake City UT (SPX) Nov 05, 2009 - The University of Utah will celebrate the initial observations or "first light" of its new $860,000 research telescope in southwest Utah during a Wednesday, Nov. 11, symposium and reception on the Salt Lake City campus.

  • Successful Flight Through Enceladus Plume

    Pasadena CA (SPX) Nov 05, 2009 - The Cassini spacecraft has weathered the Monday, Nov. 2, flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus in good health and has been sending images and data of the encounter back to Earth. Cassini had approached Enceladus more closely before, but this passage took the spacecraft on its deepest plunge yet through the heart of the plume shooting out from the south polar region. Scientists are eagerly sifting through the results.

  • Box office boost shows 3D is here to stay

    Los Angeles (AFP) Nov 3, 2009 - Once regarded as a quirky fad for nerds wearing cardboard spectacles, 3D films are enjoying a mainstream renaissance and this time the medium is here to stay, entertainment industry experts say.

  • Professor To Predict Weather On Mars

    College Station TX (SPX) Nov 05, 2009 - Is there such a thing as "weather" on Mars? There are some doubts, considering the planet's atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as that of the Earth. Mars, however, definitely has clouds, drastically low temperatures and out-of-this-world dust storms, and Istvan Szunyogh, a Texas A and M professor of atmospheric sciences, has been awarded a NASA grant to analyze and forecast Martian weather.

  • Early universe supports dark matter theory

    Stanford, Calif. (UPI) Nov 4, 2009 - U.S. and Welsh researchers say they've obtained a detailed picture of the early universe using a telescope in the Antarctic.
 
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    digg.com: Stories / Space / Popular

  • Unusual meteorite found by time-lapse camera observatory

    7 Nov 2009 | 3:40 am
    An unusual meteorite with an interesting orbit has been tracked to the ground using a photographic observatory that records time-lapse images of fireballs traveling across the sky.

  • Some of the Universe's First Galaxies Discovered

    6 Nov 2009 | 11:20 pm
    A new survey has found 22 of the earliest galaxies to form in the universe, confirming the age of one at just 787 million years after the theoretical Big Bang. These and other galaxies from the universe's childhood could help shed light on the conditions that governed the early universe.

  • UFOlogy Hits a New Low With The Fourth Kind [Spoilers!]

    6 Nov 2009 | 11:10 pm
    The Fourth Kind's unconvincing UFOlogy gives this reviewer chills. The movie stumbles directly into the biggest problems facing UFOs debates: missing evidence, too many coincidences, cover-up conspiracies and aliens that, given their high-tech know-how, are just plain dumb. [spoilers].

  • Resurrecting Newton to do away with dark matter

    6 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm
    A review paper in this week's issue of Science looks at the current state of MOND theories, which seek to resurrect Newtonian gravity and are the chief competitors to the ΛCDM cosmological model, which relies on dark matter and dark energy. The verdict, according to the paper, is that MOND is still kicking.

  • 7 Most Massive Single Meteorites on Earth

    6 Nov 2009 | 1:40 pm
    Like fugitives on the run from distant solar systems, meteors hurtle through the earth’s atmosphere, lighting up the eyes of observers on the ground. Often these fireballs of metal and rock burn up in a blaze of glory, and many do not survive their impact with the Earth’s surface. Those that do though start a more settled life here on Earth...
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    Science @ NASA

  • A Tale of Planetary Woe

    Long ago, something calamitous happened to Mars, transforming a hospitable world into the apparently lifeless desert we see today. Many scientists believe the Red Planet lost most of its atmosphere, but how? A new NASA mission named MAVEN is specifically designed to answer that question.

  • Hidden Territory on Mercury Revealed

    The MESSENGER spacecraft's third flyby of the planet Mercury has given scientists an almost complete view of the planet's surface and revealed some dramatic changes in Mercury's comet-like tail.

  • A Mars Rover Named "Curiosity"

    NASA's next Mars rover, a super-capable robot named "Curiosity," will push Mars exploration to a new level.

  • The Sun's Sneaky Variability

    It might not be obvious to the naked eye, but the sun is a variable star. A sensor slated for launch onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory will probe the sun's "sneaky variability" with better time and spectral resolution than ever before.

  • NASA Mission to Study the Moon's Fragile Atmosphere

    NASA is planning a mission to study the Moon's fragile atmosphere--before it's too late.
 
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    Universe Today

  • Early Galaxy Pinpoints Reionization Era

    Nancy Atkinson
    6 Nov 2009 | 11:17 am
    Astronomers looking to pinpoint when the reionozation of the Universe took place have found some of the earliest galaxies about 800 million years after the Big Bang. 22 early galaxies were found using a method that looks for far-away redshifting sources that disappear or "drop-out" at a specific wavelength. The age of one galaxy was confirmed by a characteristic neutral hydrogen signature at 787 million years after the Big Bang. The finding is the first age-confirmation of a so-called dropout galaxy at that distant time and pinpoints when the reionization epoch likely began.

  • Space Junk May Force Crew from ISS

    Nancy Atkinson
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:54 am
    Update #2, 5:30 pm: NASA has now said that after further analysis, the space debris they have been tracking no longer poses any concern or threat to the ISS. Everyone can rest easy tonight! The piece of debris was only 5 cm long, and will not pass within the "pizza box" zone around the station (0.75 x 25 x 25 kilometers) that calls for an alert. A hard-to-track piece of space junk may come within a half a kilometer of the International Space Station later today, and NASA managers are considering asking the crew to board the docked Soyuz capsules as a precaution. The time of closest…

  • Podcast: Planet X

    Nancy Atkinson
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:20 am
    Astronomers have been searching for the mysterious Planet X for hundreds of years. It was the search for a theoretical planet beyond Uranus that turned up Neptune, and then again for Pluto. And even now there are some astronomers who think there's a more distant planet out there. Oh, and there are a bunch of pseudoscience cranks trying to freak people out about the end of the world. Don't worry, we'll make time for them too, but first let's start with some real science. Click here to download the episode. Or subscribe to: astronomycast.com/podcast.xml with your podcatching…

  • Podcast: Pulsars

    Nancy Atkinson
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:17 am
    Imagine an object with the mass of the Sun, crushed down to the size of Manhattan. Now set that object spinning hundreds of times a second, blasting out powerful beams of radiation like a lighthouse. That's a pulsar, one of the most exotic objects in the Universe. Click here to download the episode. Or subscribe to: astronomycast.com/podcast.xml with your podcatching software. Pulsars show notes and transcript. © nancy for Universe Today, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Podcasts, Pulsars Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

  • Answer for This Week's WITU Challenge Now Available

    Nancy Atkinson
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:07 am
    If you are still wondering what this weird object is, find out back at this week's Where In the Universe Challenge. The answer has now been posted. Thanks for playing, and check back next week for another test of your visual knowledge of the cosmos. © nancy for Universe Today, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
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    NPR Topics: Space

  • NASA Launches Mission To Track Polar Ice By Plane

    29 Oct 2009 | 9:24 pm
    Climate scientists are about to lose a satellite that helped show how global warming affects the Earth's polar ice caps. A replacement won't be in orbit until at least 2015, so NASA will use a DC-8 aircraft instead to track whether the process of melting and subsequent sea-level rise is accelerating.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Astronomers Detect Most Distant Object Ever Seen

    28 Oct 2009 | 9:01 pm
    Light from a star that died when the universe was about 600 million years old is only now reaching Earth. The gamma ray burst is 13.1 billion light-years away, and astronomers say it's the most distant object ever seen from Earth.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • NASA Experimental Rocket Launch A Success

    28 Oct 2009 | 1:00 pm
    The unmanned Ares I-X made a spectacular debut as it soared into the sky Wednesday. This next generation manned space vehicle is set to be ready in 2015, but some question the future of the program.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • NASA's New Rocket Lifts Off On Short Test Flight

    28 Oct 2009 | 8:38 am
    After a one-day weather delay, the Ares I-X rocket rumbled away from a former shuttle launchpad Wednesday morning at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. It's the first step in NASA's effort to return astronauts to the moon.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Weather Interferes With NASA Test Flight

    27 Oct 2009 | 3:05 am
    The prototype of a new manned spacecraft was scheduled to launch Tuesday morning from the Kennedy Space Center, but weather delayed the unmanned test flight. The rocket is intended to carry astronauts into orbit after the aging space shuttles are retired.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us
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    The Space Review

  • Boring but important policy developments

    2 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am
    NASA's exploration program has been getting all the space policy attention in recent months, but it's not the only space policy issue of interest in Washington. Jeff Foust reports on a couple of lesser-known, but important, issues that are making some headway in Congress and the White House.

  • Don't forget the robots

    2 Nov 2009 | 7:59 am
    While people focus on the future of NASA's human spaceflight efforts, its robotic missions are also facing a variety of issues. Taylor Dinerman discusses those concerns and potential future budget pressures on those missions.

  • An open letter to President Obama

    2 Nov 2009 | 7:58 am
    The Planetary Society's Louis Friedman calls on the president to take the report of the Augustine Committee and turn it into a blueprint for a bold new space exploration program.

  • Breaking up may be good to do

    2 Nov 2009 | 7:57 am
    DARPA is studying a concept of taking a large spacecraft and splitting it up into several smaller, interconnected components. Jeff Foust reports on the implications this could have not just for spacecraft development but the overall industry.

  • And now we wait

    25 Oct 2009 | 8:00 pm
    For months the space community had been waiting for it, and on Thursday they finally got it: the final report of the Augustine committee. Jeff Foust reports on the reaction and how the report is the next step, but not the last step, in crafting a new space policy.
 
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    Space Politics

  • Flexible paths, flexible deadlines?

    Jeff Foust
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:38 pm
    A couple of exploration policy items from Space News: NASA administrator Charles Bolden told the publication that the so-called “flexible path” option of the Augustine report is “attractive to everybody”. That option defers a human return to the lunar surface in favor of missions to lunar orbit, Lagrange points, and near Earth asteroids in the near term, gradually building up experience for eventual human missions to Mars. “If you were to follow a Flexible Path, it affords you the opportunity to do things in one- and two-year centers that would keep the American…

  • Stadd gets probation

    Jeff Foust
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:29 pm
    Courtney Stadd won’t do any jail time after being convicted on ethics charges stemming from an incident in 2005 when he worked at NASA. Stadd, found guilty in August of helping steer $9.6 million in earmarked funds to Mississippi State University, a client of his private consulting practice, was sentenced to three years of probation as well as six months of electronic monitoring and fined $2,500. The government had asked for a one-year prison term, but that was rejected by the judge, who said that prison time “was not needed to protect the public”. As a Space News article…

  • Ares politics gets local

    Jeff Foust
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:18 pm
    Members of Alabama’s Congressional delegation have spoken out in recent weeks in favor of continuing the current Constellation program, including the Ares 1 launch vehicle; now that message is reaching down to local politics as well. As the Huntsville Times reported Friday, Huntsville, Alabama, mayor Tommy Battle says the city needs to support continued development of the Ares 1: Speaking to a sellout crowd of 1,300 people at the Von Braun Center’s North Hall, Battle said the Rocket City has to find a way to keep the Marshall Space Flight Center-managed program alive. Last month,…

  • Now the real budget battle begins

    Jeff Foust
    6 Nov 2009 | 10:20 am
    Yesterday the Senate passed its version of HR 2847, the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill, which includes NASA. The bill funds NASA at $18.686 billion, the same level as requested in the White House budget proposal and more than $480 million above what the House passed earlier this year. This passage was spun in some places, like a Houston Chronicle article, as a vote to “restore” funding cut by the House; however, the Senate had never gone along with the House cut in the first place. Moreover, the final budget still needs to be worked out in conference between…

  • More letter writing

    Jeff Foust
    5 Nov 2009 | 10:07 am
    While Save Space has gone into overtime in its bid to solicit a half-million letters to the White House on space exploration policy, members of Congress are also writing letters, to both fellow members of Congress as well as the White House. The Orlando Sentinel reported Wednesday on the latest effort by Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) to extend the space shuttle past its current retirement in early 2011. Posey’s letter to Congressional appropriators asks them to include language in the final version of the appropriations legislation that funds NASA that would keep the agency from…
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    NASA Watch

  • Close Call For Courtney Stadd

    Keith Cowing
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:41 am
    Former NASA official sentenced to probation, AP "A former top NASA official has been sentenced to three years probation, six months of electronic monitoring and a $2,500 fine for breaking ethics laws. Courtney Stadd, of Bethesda, Md., was convicted of helping a consulting client get nearly $10 million of the space agency's funds." Keith's note: Word has it from people who were in the courtroom today that someone from the JSC IG's office flew up from Houston so that he could be sitting in the front row in the courtroom as Stadd was sentenced.

  • TEDxNASA: An Invitation-Only NASA Meeting - Unless You Are Lucky

    Keith Cowing
    6 Nov 2009 | 7:57 am
    Keith's note: TEDxNASA, openly promoted by its organizers (some of whom work at NASA LaRC) as being sponsored by NASA (NASA LaRC is listed as a formal host), have yet to explain how they will be giving out tickets. The tickets will supposedly available on 14 Nov - less than a week before the actual event. By waiting until the last minute, the organizers have all but precluded anyone from other parts of the country from making travel plans. Apparently, however, a hand-picked select few have been invited - and they are Twittering about it and posting on Facebook. The organizers also refuse to…

  • New FAA Regs for Commercial Reentry

    Keith Cowing
    6 Nov 2009 | 3:41 am
    Office of Commercial Space Transportation; Notice of Availability of a Record of Decision (ROD) for Streamlining the Processing of Experimental Permit Applications "... the FAA is announcing the availability of the ROD for streamlining the environmental review of experimental permit applications for the launch and/or reentry of reusable suborbital rockets. The Federal action selected in the ROD is the FAA's issuance of experimental permits for the launch and reentry of reusable suborbital rockets from both FAA-licensed and non-licensed launch sites using the Final Programmatic Environmental…

  • Senate Votes To Restore NASA Budget Cuts

    Keith Cowing
    6 Nov 2009 | 3:26 am
    Senate votes to restore NASA funding House cut, Houston Chronicle "In a strong show of support for President Barack Obama's vision for NASA and manned space missions, the Senate agreed Thursday to hand over all that he asked for: $4 billion to build cutting-edge spacecraft as part of an $18.7 billion budget. The Senate voted 71 to 28 for a massive spending bill that would restore $670 million cut from manned space exploration by the House in June. The proposed spending still faces a strong test of wills as the Senate and House try to reach a budgetary compromise."

  • Lunar Lander Challenge Prizes Awarded

    Keith Cowing
    5 Nov 2009 | 6:55 pm
    X PRIZE Foundation and NASA Award $2 Million in Prizes to Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace "Today, the X PRIZE Foundation along with NASA hosted an awards ceremony to culminate the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X PRIZE Challenge (NGLLXPC). Masten Space Systems, led by David Masten, was awarded the top $1 million prize, while Armadillo Aerospace, led by id Software founder John Carmack, took home the second place prize of $500,000. The NGLLXPC was a partnership with NASA funding the $2 million in prize money as part of their Centennial Challenges program while the X PRIZE…
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    Open NASA

  • Blah Blah Blah - Why We Should Care About Social Media

    Skytland
    5 Nov 2009 | 12:10 pm
    I had an opportunity to participate in a workshop hosted by the JSC Social Media Working Group at NASA Johnson Space Center today and thought I’d share the presentation I gave.  What’s interesting about this presentation is not so much how NASA is currently using social media, but how it might use social media in the future.  NASA has really embraced social media and is making great strides at engaging people in the NASA mission.  What I’m interested in, is how can NASA use social media in the future to further it’s mission. I posed this question to the audience…

  • Ideas at Work

    Skytland
    5 Nov 2009 | 6:25 am
    How many times have you been to a conference where it feels like the only thing that changed was the venue and location. The speakers are the same, the attendees are the same, the topics are the same! That’s been one of my frustrations with space conferences over the past few years, so I wanted to let you all know about an event coming up in Houston on December 2-3rd that’s going to be a little different. The American Astronautical Society is having their annual conference in Houston, just like they do every 2 years. However, this time, the only thing that will be the same is the fact…

  • The Economics of Space

    iMensah
    26 Oct 2009 | 12:39 pm
    With the economy being in the current shape (aka, not a good one), many people are noticeably, and understandably, nervous about long-term investments; especially those that don’t return in the same form or currency as the initial buy-in.  With the same trepidation, people are wary about spending more money on NASA, particularly the human spaceflight aspect of NASA.  Sure, folks seem not to mind sending satellites, probes and robots to explore the vast stellar reaches, but talk about putting a human into space, and some people get noticeably weak in the knees.  They talk about risks,…

  • Staying the Course

    iMensah
    26 Oct 2009 | 11:46 am
    Anyone who pays half cent’s worth of attention to national news these days will know that NASA is getting more airtime than it normally does.  Generally, NASA and it’s employees are content to remain in the national background where they go about their daily professional lives with minimal intrusion from curious outsiders.  This is both blessing and curse.  While they are allowed a relatively quite environment to go about their brainy work, most people outside of NASA have little to no clue what goes on inside NASA. It’s funny how being at a crossroads will change things…

  • Reflections On a Business Trip in Huntsville

    John Benac
    25 Oct 2009 | 12:28 am
    I’m sitting in front of a rusty gate closed by a chain and padlock. Birds are chirping behind me and I hear crickets in the woods on both sides. I feel a peaceful serenity and solitude at the end of this torn up road. In the distance in front of me, beyond the gate and a row of low trees rise two towers of steel webbed girders, adorned with propellant and oxidizer tanks and cranes that look as if they have been caught in a spider’s web waiting to be consumed and sucked dry. I can not see the base of the towers; they are obstructed by different kinds of trees. A low pitched whirr…
 
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    White Label Space

  • Nano-Spacecraft Specialist Christos Merkouris Joins Team

    21 Oct 2009 | 6:21 am
    It is widely believed that space exploration is set to experience a revolution due to nanotechnology, and Christos Merkouris has joined White Label Space to advise the team on how best to take advantage of the new technologies that are becoming available in this area.Christos is a Master of Science candidate at the Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of Surrey in the UK, and is also an experienced spacecraft test and verification engineer. In his university research Christos has been investigating the state of the art in nano-spacecraft systems, particularly focusing on the…

  • How to Build a Radar Altimeter

    7 Oct 2009 | 3:26 am
    If you are interested in how to build a low-cost radar altimeter for a lunar lander, then keep an eye on the work being done by Lee Begg from Lunar Numbat, our open design partner down under.Lee's work is an open design, published for all to see on the Lunar Numbat Twiki site. He also started some radar design calculations on the github site. The calculations are in the form of python scripts and Lee plans to implement these in a breadboard demo of the radar altimeter, probably based on a Blackfin processor. Below is a block diagram of the concept.Lee Begg lives in Wellington, New Zealand,…

  • Rover Wheel Traction Testing

    23 Sep 2009 | 2:02 am
    White Label Space team member Farnoud Kazemzadeh recently completed a research project with our Partner, the Tohoku University Space Robotics Laboratory, which has advanced facilities for testing the performance of wheel designs. The topic of his project was the wheel-soil interactions of the rover we are designing for our Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) mission.The interaction of wheels or tracks on loose soil has been well investigated in the field called terramechanics, and understanding it is one of the most crucial steps of designing a new wheel or traction system. Since soil characteristics…

  • Wikipedia Page for WLS

    17 Sep 2009 | 2:01 pm
    Today I finally got around to building the wikipedia page for White Label Space.Check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Label_Space.

  • The GLXP Panorama in One Shot

    11 Sep 2009 | 8:22 am
    White Label Space team member Nathan Britton recently undertook a research project at our Partner the Tohoku University Space Robotics Lab in Japan, on the design of a panoramic camera system for our Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) rover. Panoramic cameras use a curved mirror to capture a full 360 degree image. An example of such a mirror and the image it produces is shown below.This approach is a more mechanically simple configuration than a camera system that incorporates pan-tilt mechanisms. Mechanical simplicity is highly desirable on space missions since it reduces the number of failure…
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    EurakAlert!: Space

  • 'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    (Carnegie Institution) Astronomers, conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang, have found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature at 787 million years post Big Bang. The finding is the first age-confirmation of a so-called dropout galaxy at that distant time and pinpoints when an era called the reionization epoch likely began.

  • German high-school students involved in an astronomical research project

    4 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    (Astronomy & Astrophysics) Astronomy & Astrophysics publishes the results of an unusual research project, by a team involving German high-school students. They present an accurate, long-term ephemeris of the cataclysmic variable EK Ursae Majoris, obtained using a professional remotely-controlled telescope.

  • AGU journal highlights -- Nov. 5, 2009

    4 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    (American Geophysical Union) Featured in this release are research papers on the following topics: "Antarctica warming a regional, not local, trend"; "New model factors storms into shoreline loss"; "Study agrees reservoir contributed to Wenchuan earthquake"; "Much Arctic warming linked to sea-ice, cloud-cover changes"; "Sorting out natural from human influences in ocean warming"; and "Meteoritic impacts may have cooked up life's components."

  • Tackling new Arctic challenges from space

    4 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    (European Space Agency) International scientists, researchers and decision makers met at the Space and the Arctic workshop to identify the needs and challenges of working and living in the rapidly changing Arctic and to explore how space-based services can help to meet those needs.

  • DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory names 6 scientists as 2009 Fellows

    4 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    (DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory) Antoinette "Toni" Taylor, Stephen Becker, Joachim Birn, Lowell Brown, Patrick Colestock and Samuel "Tom" Picraux have been designated 2009 Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows in recognition of sustained, outstanding scientific contributions and exceptional promise for continued professional achievement.
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    collectSPACE

  • Patch preview: Expedition 24

    3 Nov 2009 | 4:28 pm
    While the 24th resident crew onboard the International Space Station will not begin their expedition until May 2010, their increment's emblem is now ready to go. The red, purple and yellow patch depicts the orbiting outpost above the Earth as the Sun rises on the horizon. Six stars represent the six crew members, including Expedition 24 commander Aleksandr Skvortsov and fellow cosmonauts Mikhail Korniyenko and Fyodor Yurchikhin along with NASA flight engineers Tracy Caldwell, Shannon Walker and Doug Wheelock. The only writing on the badge are the roman numerals XXIV spread across the…

  • X-38 drops into Nebraska

    2 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am
    A mockup that flew on drop tests for NASA's once-planned ISS crew return vehicle (CRV) dropped into Nebraska Saturday to be restored and then placed on public display. The X-38 (V-132) arrived by truck on Oct. 31 in Nebraska City from where it had been in storage at Space Center Houston in Texas. It was met by Lt. Governor Rick Sheehy and Nebraska City Mayor Jack Hobbie for a ribbon-cutting ceremony before continuing to the Strategic Air and Space Museum located near Ashland. The mockup, which made three parafoil and parachute-assisted flights after being dropped from a B-52 flying over…

  • DIY I-X

    31 Oct 2009 | 10:57 am
    Prolific author, journalist and comic strip artist Wes Oleszewski realized quickly that he had some work to do as he watched NASA's Ares I-X rocket rollout to the launch pad October 20. A week later, by the time he attended the Ares I-X launch, his flying Ares I-X model rocket kit had been corrected. Pre-flight illustrations had shown the words "United States" stenciled in black along the length of the Ares I-X first stage; in reality, the letters "USA" appeared in red. Oleszewski's kit -- the only one to replicate Ares I-X, flying or not, is now available for those who desire to carry out…

  • Astronaut-alumni archives

    30 Oct 2009 | 1:18 pm
    Space shuttle astronauts Janice Voss and Roy Bridges on Wednesday gave over their personal papers and memorabilia to their alma mater Purdue University to be added to the school's flight archives. Bridges' log books, flight notes and photographs together with Voss' childhood report cards and scrapbooks will join the personal archives from fellow astronaut-alumni Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, and Eugene Cernan, the most recent person to do so. Purdue, which has had 23 of its students later become astronauts, will maintain Voss' and Bridges' papers for study through its…

  • Flight kit for a test flight

    26 Oct 2009 | 10:25 am
    Though Ares I-X has no crew onboard, nor an official payload (other than the 700+ sensors recording data during the 28-mile high suborbital flight) that has not stopped NASA and ATK, the prime contractor, from making room for a few commemoratives. Stowed in three shoebox-size packages are mementos for the team who made possible NASA's first test flight of the Constellation program, while both the inside and outside of the rocket is adorned by markings celebrating their work.
 
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    Spacehack

  • NASA ESMD Research Paper Competition

    Ariel Waldman
    3 Nov 2009 | 3:27 am
    Join NASA’s mission to bring us to the Moon, Mars and beyond by submitting a research paper on one of the four ESMD topics listed below. Your research may be used as the solution to current NASA challenges. Open to students who are United States citizens in an undergraduate or graduate studies program. 1. Spacecraft Landing and Recovery Architecture: Historical Approaches and Ideas for the Future 2. Synergistic degradation effects of materials exposed to radiation, micrometeors, thermal sinks and lunar dust 3. Loading of Cryogenic Propellant in Space Launch Vehicle 4. Determination of the…

  • Life and Work on the Moon

    Ariel Waldman
    7 Oct 2009 | 1:51 am
    An art and design contest sponsored by NASA that invites high school and college students to submit their work on the theme “Life and Work on the Moon”. Artists/designers are encouraged to collaborate with science and engineering students. Such collaboration is not required, but would help to ensure that the art is valid for the Moon’s harsh environment. Entries will be accepted in three categories: two-dimensional, three-dimensional, and digital, including video. Entries will be evaluated not only on their artistic qualities, but also on whether they depict a valid scenario.

  • Moon Work

    Ariel Waldman
    27 Sep 2009 | 5:03 pm
    Design tools and instrumentation packages for the next generation manned moon rover. The NASA Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, the Exploration Technology Development Program, and the Advanced Planning and Partnership Office at Langley Research Center encourage college students to get involved with NASA’s return to the Moon by helping to design the tools and instrument pages needed for the next generation manned moon rover.  Student projects will tackle real problems required for a successful manned lunar mission. The contest is open to any student enrolled in an accredited…

  • University Rover Challenge

    Ariel Waldman
    19 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm
    An annual competition for college students to design and build the next generation of Mars rovers that will one day work alongside astronauts on the Red Planet. Former students and community members alike are encouraged to reach out to their alma matters and local universities to help form teams. The 2010 Mars Society’s University Rover Challenge (URC) will be held June 3-5, 2010 at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah.  Teams and their rovers will compete in four events: an equipment servicing task, a site survey task, a sample return task, and an emergency navigation task…

  • TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit

    Ariel Waldman
    9 Sep 2009 | 12:44 pm
    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…
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    Astroengine.com

  • A Bevvy of Doom

    Ian O'Neill
    5 Nov 2009 | 8:10 am
    On the red carpet: John Cusack tells me what he'll be doing on Dec. 21st, 2012. Skiing (credit: Debra O'Neill/Discovery News) Currently sitting in the departure lounge in LAX before I fly out to Washington D.C. to meet up with the Discovery News crew ahead of the launch of our brand new site (keep an eye on Discovery Space, it will soon be integrated into the Discovery News redesign — the beta version looks awesome). Before I fly, I just wanted to post the news that the Discovery Channel will be airing the documentary I was interviewed for by KPI Productions in August. According to my…

  • Spirit Suffers Another Bout of Amnesia. Spirit Suffers Another Bout of Amnesia.

    Ian O'Neill
    1 Nov 2009 | 3:06 am
    NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is suffering from amnesia, again. This is hardly surprising if we consider that the lifespan of Spirit should have been 3 months, the fact that it has lasted 69 months (so far) is nothing short of miraculous. In rover-mission-lifetime years, doesn’t that make Spirit and her twin sister Opportunity 1380 years old? (I decided that a “lifetime” is 60 years, in case you were wondering.) Perhaps that’s not how it works, but for NASA to build a robot that has lived 23 times longer than the mission specified is pretty damn…

  • What Will It Take To Blow Up Pluto?

    Ian O'Neill
    30 Oct 2009 | 9:49 pm
    “25 billion of your biggest bombs please. I’ll pay credit, thanks!” "I love the smell of venting volatiles in the morning..." The Pluto debate frustrates me, as you may have noticed. It’s not that I have particularly strong views about whether it should be called a planet or a dwarf planet or a plutoid or pygmy planetoid, it’s that I really don’t care; I actually see Pluto’s “demotion” as exciting progress in the field of Solar System science rather than any derogatory gesture aimed at Pluto. Pluto is still Pluto; it hasn’t…

  • NASA, Ur Doin’ It Wrong

    Ian O'Neill
    30 Oct 2009 | 2:15 am
    Although I’ve been neck-deep in Ares I-X launch news today, I’ve had some time to see what else has been going on in the Universe. I really hope I’ll find the time to get to this stack of blog post ideas over the weekend, one of them is a particular peach. But before I turn in for the night, an interesting little debate has been sparked over at Keith Cowing’s NASA Watch. Keith, the ever watchful eye over all things NASA, somehow stumbled across the NASA 360 blog and pointed out that the agency might be trying too hard to be “hip.” I think that one of the…

  • Ares I-X Away!

    Ian O'Neill
    28 Oct 2009 | 9:12 pm
    The Prandtl-Glauert singularity forms as Ares I-X goes transonic (NASA) What’s the cloud surrounding the Ares I-X during its transonic flight? Have a look at my Discovery News Big Pic for the answer… You could say it’s been an eventful day… but you’d be understating the importance of the last 24 hours. We saw the first test launch of the Constellation Program, and it was a success (despite being delayed by a day). Although it’s going to be a while until NASA processes all the data gathered from the launch, I watched that elegant white rocket take to the…
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    The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel

  • Strange Neutron Star Solves Mystery of Milky Way's Youngest Supernova

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am
    Scientists have finally identified the mysterious source of X-ray emissions at the center of our galaxy’s youngest supernova: Inside the remains of Cassiopeia A sits a baby neutron star  surrounded by a thin layer of carbon. Discovered in Chandra's "First Light" image obtained in 1999, the point-like X-ray source at the center of Cas A was presumed to be a neutron star, or pulsar, the typical remnant of an exploded star, but it surprisingly did not show any evidence for X-ray or radio pulsations. Pulsars rank at or near the top of freaky phenomena found in our Universe. In the early 1930s,…

  • Extragalactic Solar Systems: Signals Observed Shining Across Millions of Light Years

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:58 am
    With exoplanets apparently all around us (galactically speaking), a global team of researchers have kicked it up a notch.  Signals shining across millions of light years, from other galaxies, indicate the birth of solar systems - and we can see them.The work is based on spectroscopy, the science of examining what wavelengths of light come in and extracting all kinds of information from it (far more than our eyes, which just say "that's blue" and call it a day).  Every material has a unique emission spectrum (very specific wavelengths they emit) and any intervening material absorbs it…

  • A New African Ocean Emerging with Spectacular Speed

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:18 am
    In 2005 an Ethiopian volcano erupted, tearing a thirty-five mile rift in the country in a matter of days.  That might be slightly slower than the average Michael Bay event but it's still incredibly fast in geological terms - especially since this may well be the first sign of an incoming Ethiopian Ocean.  Nature seems to like keeping us on our toes.It's known that new oceans form as magma forces its way into rifts between tectonic plates, but since every other such system worked - and is now under miles of ocean - we can't actually get down there for a detailed look.  Instead, an…

  • Image of the Day: Einstein's Cross

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:14 am
    The Einstein Cross is a gravitationally lensed quasar that is quadruply imaged, hence its name, Einstein Cross, forming a nearly perfect cross, with the lensing galaxy at its center. The quasar is located about 8 billion light years from Earth, while the lensing galaxy is located at a distance of 400 million light years. Many scientists believe quasars are powered by giant black holes feeding on nearby gas. Gas trapped in the black hole's powerful gravity is compressed and heated to millions of degrees, giving off intense light and/or radio energy. Most quasars lurk in the outer reaches of…

  • "me.exe": Mind Hacking, the Next Tech Frontier

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:10 am
    There is no doubt that brain-computer interfaces will arrive - because they're already here, in simple forms, and we'll have movie-style mind links within a decade at most.  Which makes the movie idea of mind-hacking (as in Ghost In The Shell) an extremely serious problem.  Never mind how you keep all your most important files up there (little things like "me.exe") - if it gets damaged, unless you're a Buddhist there's no Ctrl-Alt-Delete. The risk comes from the combination of the very best of technologized humanity with the worst: when medical experts and mindologists are building devices…
 
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