Space

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  • NASA builds unusual testbed for analyzing X-ray navigation technologies

    EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science
    19 May 2013 | 9:00 pm
    (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Pulsars have a number of unusual qualities. Like zombies, they shine even though they're technically dead, and they rotate rapidly, emitting powerful and regular beams of radiation that are seen as flashes of light, blinking on and off at intervals from seconds to milliseconds. A NASA team has built a first-of-a-kind testbed that simulates these distinctive pulsations.

  • Futures imperfect

    The Space Review
    20 May 2013 | 4:58 am
    Science fiction has long offered a variety of visions of what the future of spaceflight might be like. Dwayne Day looks at three movies slated for release later this year that offer differing visions of humans in space.

  • Dealing With Pluto's Debris

    NASA Watch
    Keith Cowing
    20 May 2013 | 4:33 pm
    The PI's Perspective: Encounter Planning Accelerates, JHUAPL "We've now largely completed that work and presented the results to both an independent, NASA-appointed technical review team, led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Keyur Patel, and then to senior executives at NASA Headquarters. Both groups have concurred with our findings..." Keith's note: I would have posted this news earlier but both SwRI and JHUAPL simply refuse to place me on their media distribution lists (yes, I have asked more than once). In addition, NASA SMD has not issued anything on this either. That is not surprising…

  • The mammoth's lament: UC research shows how cosmic impact sparked devastating climate change

    EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science
    19 May 2013 | 9:00 pm
    (University of Cincinnati) Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds evidence of a major cosmic event near the end of the Ice Age. The ensuing climate change forced many species to adapt or die.

  • First Trailer for Sci-Fi Thriller 'Europa Report' Unveiled (Video)

    SPACE.com
    21 May 2013 | 12:00 pm
    A crew of astronauts venture to Jupiter's moon Europa in the new sci-fi thriller 'Europa Report.'
 
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    Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense

  • STRATCOM strives to build coalitions for space operations

    21 May 2013 | 7:54 am
    Offutt AFB (AFPS) NB (SPX) May 22, 2013 Recognizing the value of multinational coalitions for operations in the land, maritime and air domains, officials at U.S. Strategic Command here hope to forge a coalition that shares assets and capabilities in space. The U.S. and its allies are discussing details for the first agreement of its kind promoting combined space operations, Brig. Gen. David D. Thompson, the STRATCOM's deputy dir

  • DARPA Seeks Technology to Radically Improve Dismounted Squad Situational Awareness, Communication Effectiveness

    21 May 2013 | 7:54 am
    Washington DC (SPX) May 22, 2013 Success on the battlefield requires warfighters to know as much as possible about themselves, their surrounding environment and the potential threats around them. Dismounted infantry squads in particular risk surprise and loss of tactical advantage over opponents when information is lacking. While squads use many different technologies to gather and share information, the current piecemeal

  • Kerry to help ink $2.1 bln defense deal in Oman

    21 May 2013 | 7:54 am
    Shannon, Ireland (AFP) May 20, 2013 US Secretary of State John Kerry will help ink a major estimated $2.1 billion proposed deal with Oman to supply a US-made air-defense system to the Gulf nation, officials said Tuesday. One of the main focuses of Kerry's trip to Muscat was to applaud the signing of a letter of intent between Oman and US manufacturer Raytheon ahead of talks on the final contract, they told reporters traveling

  • Raytheon delivers electronic jamming capability for Gray Eagle UAS

    21 May 2013 | 7:54 am
    Marlborough, MA (SPX) May 22, 2013 Raytheon has delivered two electronic attack payloads in support of the U.S. Army's Networked Electronic Warfare, Remotely Operated (NERO) system. The payloads were delivered as part of a contract awarded by the U.S. Navy NAVSEA-Crane in 2012. NERO is utilized on the Army's MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAS (Umanned Aircraft System) as an airborne electronic attack system capable of jamming enemy communicati

  • N. Korea fires sixth missile in three days

    21 May 2013 | 7:54 am
    Seoul (AFP) May 20, 2013 North Korea fired a sixth short-range missile into the Sea of Japan on Monday, defying warnings from UN chief Ban Ki-moon and South Korea after a flurry of similar tests at the weekend. The latest firing was confirmed by the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), who said it was unclear if the North was testing guided missiles or rockets from multiple launchers. "North Korea launched two p
 
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    DID: Department of Defense News, Procurement, Acquisition & Contracting, National Security Policy

  • 2013: Britain Buying Hellfire Missiles

    Joe Katzman
    21 May 2013 | 7:31 am
    British AH Mk.1(click to view full) In April 2013, the US DSCA forwarded Britain’s formal export request to replenish its Hellfire missile stocks, which had been drawn down by the fighting in Afghanistan and Libya. Britain already uses Hellfire missiles on its WAH-64D Apache attack helicopters and MQ-9 Reaper UAVs. The exact missile types they picked for this request are interesting… Britain’s Hellfire Choices RAF MQ-9, armed(click to view full) The AGM-114N variant can be used by the British Army’s AH-64D Apache Longbow (“AH Mk.I”) helicopters. It packs a…

  • Rapid Fire May 21, 2013: Arctic Actors | South American Decision Delaying

    Olivier Travers
    21 May 2013 | 4:30 am
    Why was Xi Jinping quick to chair China’s Central Military Commission (CMC)? Foreign Policy: “Xi, then, has ultimately chosen to defend the Communist Party against internal political threats rather than prepare it to face external military threats. There is little doubt the Communist Party has been sharpening its identity in a post-communist world by defining itself against the West, fanning nationalist fervor, and promising a restoration of China’s ancient grandeur. Xi thus has little choice but to keep pumping enormous resources into a war machine if he is to justify his…

  • Beyond Patriot? The Multinational MEADS Air Defense Program

    Joe Katzman
    20 May 2013 | 10:00 am
    MEADS: air view(click to view full) The Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program aimed to replace Patriot missiles in the United States, the older Hawk system in Germany, and Italy’s even older Nike Hercules missiles. MEADS will be designed to kill enemy aircraft, cruise missiles and UAVs within its reach, while providing next-generation point defense capabilities against ballistic missiles. MBDA’s SAMP/T project would be its main competitor, but MEADS aims to offer improved mobility and wider compatibility with other air defense systems, in order to create a linchpin…

  • Czech L-159s: Cheap to Good Home

    Joe Katzman
    20 May 2013 | 8:14 am
    Runway Buzz: L-159As(click to view full) Czechoslovakia originally ordered 72 of Aero Vodochody’s sub-sonic L-159A single-seat light attack jets. Their preceding L-39/59 Albatros trainer and light attack aircraft family became the world’s most popular jet trainers during the Cold War, and the L-159A Advanced Light Combat Aircraft was positioned as a modern derivative, offering full combat capability and compatibility with western weapons. The resulting aircraft filled a useful niche for the Czechs, but its overall success always depended on exports. Unfortunately, the Soviet…

  • KF-X Fighter: Pushing Paper, or Peer Program?

    Joe Katzman
    20 May 2013 | 7:06 am
    KODEF ’11 slide(click to view full) South Korea has been thinking seriously about designing its own fighter jet since 2008. The ROK defense sector has made impressive progress, and has become a notable exporter of aerospace, land, and naval equipment. The idea of a plane that helps advance their aerospace industry, while making it easy to add new Korean-designed weapons, is very appealing. On the flip side, a new jet fighter is a massive endeavor at the best of times, and wildly unrealistic technical expectations didn’t help the project. KF-X has progressed in fits and starts, and…
 
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    Space News From SpaceDaily.Com

  • Coming into existence: Quantum Style

    21 May 2013 | 7:54 am
    College Park MD (SPX) May 21, 2013 Entanglement, by general consensus of physicists, is the weirdest part of quantum science. To say that two particles, A and B, are entangled means that they are actually two parts of an inseparable quantum thing. An important consequence of this inherent kinship is that measuring a property of A (say, the particle's polarization) is necessarily to know the corresponding property of B, even if yo

  • Opportunity Rides Into History For Offworld Drive

    21 May 2013 | 7:54 am
    Pasadena CA (JPL) May 21, 2013 Opportunity has set a new off-world driving record for a U.S. spacecraft having surpassed the record previously held by Apollo 17 in the Sol 3309 (May 15, 2013) drive. Prior to that, Opportunity finished off analysis of the 'Esperance' rock target with a full overnight Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) integration of the rock abrasion tool (RAT) hole on Sol 3305 (May 11, 2013).

  • NASA Helps Pinpoint Glaciers' Role in Sea Level Rise

    21 May 2013 | 7:54 am
    Washington DC (SPX) May 22, 2013 A new study of glaciers worldwide using observations from two NASA satellites has helped resolve differences in estimates of how fast glaciers are disappearing and contributing to sea level rise. The new research found glaciers outside of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, repositories of 1 percent of all land ice, lost an average of 571 trillion pounds (259 trillion kilograms) of mas

  • Cosmic Impact Sparked Devastating Climate Change

    21 May 2013 | 7:54 am
    Cincinnati OH (SPX) May 21, 2013 Herds of wooly mammoths once shook the earth beneath their feet, sending humans scurrying across the landscape of prehistoric Ohio. But then something much larger shook the Earth itself, and at that point these mega mammals' days were numbered. Something - global-scale combustion caused by a comet scraping our planet's atmosphere or a meteorite slamming into its surface - scorched the air,

  • Galaxy's Ring of Fire

    21 May 2013 | 7:54 am
    Pasadena CA (JPL) May 22, 2013 Johnny Cash may have preferred this galaxy's burning ring of fire to the one he sang about falling into in his popular song. The "starburst ring" seen at center in red and yellow hues is not the product of love, as in the song, but is instead a frenetic region of star formation. The galaxy, a spiral beauty called Messier 94, is located about 17 million light-years away. In this image from
 
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    Science@NASA Headline News

  • Bright Explosion on the Moon

    16 May 2013 | 5:56 pm
    NASA researchers who monitor the Moon for meteoroid impacts have detected the brightest explosion in the history of their program. It was caused by a small boulder-sized meteoroid hitting the Moon with as much energy as 5 tons of TNT.

  • Planets Aligning in the Sunset Sky

    10 May 2013 | 9:07 am
    Mercury, Venus and Jupiter are lining up for a beautiful sunset conjunction at the end of May.

  • Glow-in-the-Dark Plants on the ISS

    5 May 2013 | 10:05 pm
    Can plants adapt to the novelty of climate change? Researchers seeking to answer this question have sent genetically engineered plants to the ISS for exposure to extreme conditions. To report their stress, the plants have learned to glow in the dark.

  • Gigantic Hurricane Spotted on Saturn

    29 Apr 2013 | 4:20 pm
    NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spotted a gigantic hurricane swirling inside a mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as "the hexagon" at Saturn's north pole.

  • Cassini Catches Meteors Hitting Saturn's Rings

    26 Apr 2013 | 6:11 pm
    NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided the first direct evidence of small meteoroids crashing into Saturn's rings and breaking into streams of rubble.
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    Universe Today

  • Giveaway: “Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier” by Neil deGrasse Tyson

    Katrina Cain
    21 May 2013 | 12:00 pm
    Neil deGrasse Tyson’s new book, Space Chronicles: Facing The Ultimate Frontier, at times, reads like an updated version of some of Carl Sagan’s classic work about the history of astronomy and our place in the Universe. You can read our full review of Tyson’s new book here, but we also have two free copies of this book to give away. In order to be entered into the giveaway drawing, just put your email address into the box at the bottom of this post (where it says “Enter the Giveaway”) before Tuesday, May 28 2013. We’ll send you a confirmation email, so you’ll need to click…

  • Book Review: “Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier” by Neil de Grasse Tyson

    Elizabeth Howell
    21 May 2013 | 11:52 am
    For those fans of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, there’s finally a successor volume to that. Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Space Chronicles: Facing The Ultimate Frontier, at times, reads like an updated version of Sagan’s classic book about the history of astronomy and our place in the universe. Like Sagan, Tyson talks about the human perception of astronomy over the years, starting from our belief that everything centered around us and then gradually graduating to the more nuanced perception of the universe that we have today. Find out how you can win a copy of this book here!

  • Astrophoto: Sun Pillar of Fire and Ice

    Nancy Atkinson
    21 May 2013 | 10:29 am
    Recent Sun Pillar seen near Toronto, Canada. Credit and copyright: Rick Ellis. Astrophotographer Rick Ellis from Toronto, Canada recently imaged a Sun pillar against a truly fiery sunset. Sun pillars are a vertical shaft of light extending upward or downward from the Sun, usually seen during sunrise or sunset. They form when when sunlight reflects off the surfaces of high-altitude hexagonal-shaped or flat ice crystals. The crystals are typically associated with thin, high-level clouds, such as cirrostratus clouds. “Fire and ice,” Rick said via email. “Robert Frost would…

  • Carnival of Space #303

    Nancy Atkinson
    21 May 2013 | 10:14 am
    This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by that old cheapskate, Steve Nerlich from Cheap Astronomy. Click here to read Carnival of Space #303, where you can also listen to Steve’s podcast version of the Carnival. 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…

  • Oklahoma Tornado on May 20, 2013 As Seen from Space

    Nancy Atkinson
    21 May 2013 | 8:20 am
    Satellite Image of Oklahoma Tornado. Acquired at 2:55 CT on May 20, 2013, this image from the NOAA GOES-13 satellite shows the storms developing directly over central Oklahoma. One minute later an incredibly destructive tornado touched down in Moore, OK. Credit: NOAA. The massive tornado that tore through parts of Oklahoma on My 20, 2013 left a 32 km (20-mile) swath of destruction and death, with winds approaching 320 km/hr (200 mph). The US National Weather Service said the 3 km (2-mile)-wide tornado spent 40 minutes on the ground in the area of Moore, Oklahoma, outside of Oklahoma City,…
 
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    Space

  • Astronaut Chris Hadfield's Most Excellent Adventure

    18 May 2013 | 2:13 am
    Hadfield just spent 146 days up at the International Space Station, during which time he performed rock concerts and shared his dazzling photographs with nearly a million Twitter followers.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Resetting the Theory of Time

    17 May 2013 | 10:00 am
    Generations of physicists have claimed that time is an illusion. But not all agree. In his book Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe, theoretical physicist Lee Smolin argues that time exists--and he says time is key to understanding the evolution of the universe.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Water Trapped For 1.5 Billion Years Could Hold Ancient Life

    16 May 2013 | 12:03 am
    Scientists have discovered water that was sealed in Canadian bedrock for nearly half of Earth's history. It may contain the descendants of ancient microbes. The discovery could give scientists new insights into early life on Earth and inform the search for life on other planets.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • NASA Says Kepler's Planet-Searching Days May Be Numbered

    15 May 2013 | 3:00 pm
    The mission launched in 2009 to hunt for Earth-like planets circling distant stars may be coming to an end because of a faulty part in the space telescope.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Chris Hadfield: Space Chef In Chief

    14 May 2013 | 11:03 am
    The Canadian astronaut didn't just tweet and sing his heart out during his five months as commander of the International Space Station. He also took time out to show the world what it's like to eat up there.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us
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    The Space Review

  • Those magnificent spooks and their spying machine: The spies help rescue Skylab

    20 May 2013 | 5:00 am
    Forty years ago this month, NASA launched its Skylab space station, only to find the station was damaged during its ascent to orbit. Dwayne Day examines the little-known role played by a spy satellite to help NASA assess the damage to Skylab before launching a repair mission.

  • Kepler's uncertain future

    20 May 2013 | 4:59 am
    Last week a reaction wheel on NASA's Kepler spacecraft failed, putting the future of the extrasolar planet hunting spacecraft into jeopardy. Jeff Foust reports on efforts to rescue or repurpose Kepler, and why, even with the failure, the spacecraft's exoplanet discoveries will continue.

  • Futures imperfect

    20 May 2013 | 4:58 am
    Science fiction has long offered a variety of visions of what the future of spaceflight might be like. Dwayne Day looks at three movies slated for release later this year that offer differing visions of humans in space.

  • Review: Mission to Mars

    20 May 2013 | 4:57 am
    Decades after his historic mission to the Moon, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin remains a tireless advocate for human spaceflight. Jeff Foust reviews a new book by Aldrin that provides his roadmap for how, although not necessarily why, to get humans to Mars by the 2030s.

  • Beyond GEO, commercially: 15 years... and counting

    13 May 2013 | 5:00 am
    Fifteen years ago today, a commercial communications satellite stranded in a transfer orbit flew around the Moon in a bid to make it to geosynchronous orbit. Rex Ridenoure provides a behind-the-scenes account of the development of that rescue scenario, marking the first -- and, to date, only -- commercial mission beyond GEO.
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    Space Politics

  • Moon versus asteroids on the path to Mars

    Jeff Foust
    21 May 2013 | 7:42 am
    The space subcommittee of the House Science Committee is holding a hearing at 2 pm EDT today on “Next Steps in Human Exploration to Mars and Beyond”. The focus of the hearing, based on the hearing charter, will be whether NASA’s plans to redirect a near Earth asteroid into lunar orbit, to be then visited by astronauts, is a better stepping stone to human Mars missions than human lunar missions currently not in NASA’s plans. “Is the proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM), a lunar landing mission, or another mission better as a precursor for an eventual human…

  • Differing perspectives on commercial crew

    Jeff Foust
    19 May 2013 | 10:29 am
    Speaking at the meeting Wednesday of the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) in Washington, NASA administrator Charles Bolden made another pitch—this time to a rather sympathetic audience—for the agency’s commercial crew program. “If NASA had received the president’s requested funding for this program then,” Bolden said, referring to the rollout of the program three years ago, “we would not have been forced to recently sign a new contract with the Russians for Soyuz transportation.” Those earlier cuts, he said, have…

  • NASA operating plan may reverse Congressional increase in planetary science

    Jeff Foust
    17 May 2013 | 6:55 am
    NASA’s operating plan for fiscal year 2013 will reportedly reverse the increases awarded to the agency’s planetary science program by Congress, according to a report. The Planetary Exploration Newsletter (PEN) reported Wednesday that the operating plan, which details any tweaks NASA plans to make to the final FY13 appropriations passed in March, will return planetary science to the approximately $1.2 billion in the original FY13 budget request. Congress has included $1.415 billion for planetary science (before an across-the-board rescission and sequestration) in its budget, but…

  • Hearings: commercial space today, Mars next week

    Jeff Foust
    16 May 2013 | 3:57 am
    Later today the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on “Partnerships to Advance the Business of Space”. The hearing’s lineup of witnesses include some key people who have been involved in supporting commercial spaceflight in one manner or another, including former shuttle program manager Wayne Hale, former FAA associate administrator of commercial space transportation Patti Grace Smith, Commercial Spaceflight Federation president Michael Lopez-Alegria, and Purdue university professor Steven Collicott, who has been an advocate of using…

  • Revisions to export control lists due out soon

    Jeff Foust
    15 May 2013 | 5:19 am
    Late last year, when Congress passed a defense authorization bill with export control reform language included, advocates of such reform noted that this legislative provision was not the end of their efforts. The language in the bill simply returned to the President the authority to move satellites and related components off the US Munitions List (USML), with exceptions barring export to China and several other countries. It was still up to the Obama Administration to act on that authority. It appears that the administration is about to do so. In a public meeting of the Export Control Working…
 
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    NASA Watch

  • FAA Closer to Allowing Orion To Return to Earth

    Keith Cowing
    21 May 2013 | 8:18 am
    FAA Reentry License to Lockheed Martin Corp. for Reentry of Orion MPCV From Earth Orbit to a Location in the Pacific "In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (NEPA; 42 United States Code 4321 et seq.), Council on Environmental Quality NEPA implementing regulations (40 Code of Federal Regulations parts 1500 to 1508), and FAA Order 1050.1E, Change 1, Environmental Impacts: Policies and Procedures, the FAA is announcing the availability of the ROD to issue a reentry license to Lockheed Martin Corporation for the reentry of the Orion MPCV from Earth orbit to a…

  • FAA Requirements for Crew and Space Flight Participants

    Keith Cowing
    21 May 2013 | 8:17 am
    FAA: Human Space Flight Requirements for Crew and Space Flight Participants "The FAA has established requirements for human space flight of crew and space flight participants as required by the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004. The information collected is used by the FAA, a licensee or permittee, a space flight participant, or a crew member. The FAA uses the information related to public safety to ensure that a launch or reentry operation involving a human on board a vehicle will meet the risk criteria and requirements with regard to ensuring public safety."

  • Remembering - and Honoring - Sally Ride

    Keith Cowing
    20 May 2013 | 5:19 pm
    Sally Ride National Tribute at Kennedy Center Tonight "NASA and Sally Ride Science are inviting journalists to tonight's "Sally Ride: A Lifetime of Accomplishment, A Champion of Science Literacy," a national tribute to America's first woman in space. The special event will be held at the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts." President Obama Announces Sally Ride as a Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom "Today, President Barack Obama announced he will award a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom to Dr. Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut…

  • Dealing With Pluto's Debris

    Keith Cowing
    20 May 2013 | 4:33 pm
    The PI's Perspective: Encounter Planning Accelerates, JHUAPL "We've now largely completed that work and presented the results to both an independent, NASA-appointed technical review team, led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Keyur Patel, and then to senior executives at NASA Headquarters. Both groups have concurred with our findings..." Keith's note: I would have posted this news earlier but both SwRI and JHUAPL simply refuse to place me on their media distribution lists (yes, I have asked more than once). In addition, NASA SMD has not issued anything on this either. That is not surprising…

  • Another NASA Technology Data Dump No One Will Know About

    Keith Cowing
    20 May 2013 | 8:16 am
    Keith's note: NASA just loves to tell everyone about its spinoffs, commercial applications, tech transfer, and the ways that the private sector uses things developed at NASA. As such, you'd think that they'd tell people as soon as they learn of yet another spinoff or tech transfer opportunity. Not at all. NASA's Patent Counsel, Office of the Chief Counsel sits on these things and issues them all at once in one big batch via the Federal Register. Have a look at what they dumped into the Federal Register for 20 May 2013 (below). How long has some of this stuff gathered dust in someone's in box…
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    EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science

  • Building a better team -- on Mars

    20 May 2013 | 9:00 pm
    (Michigan State University) Sometime in the next quarter-century, NASA plans to send the first humans to Mars, a mission that will push the boundaries of teamwork for a handful of astronauts who will spend as long as three years together in a tiny capsule. A Michigan State University project aims to arm the crew with innovative devices to monitor interactions and provide instant feedback when conflict or other issues with team cohesion arise.

  • Comprehensive analysis of impact spherules supports theory of cosmic impact 12,800 years ago

    20 May 2013 | 9:00 pm
    (University of California - Santa Barbara) About 12,800 years ago when the Earth was warming and emerging from the last ice age, a dramatic and anomalous event occurred that abruptly reversed climatic conditions back to near-glacial state. According to James Kennett, UC Santa Barbara emeritus professor in earth sciences, this climate switch fundamentally -- and remarkably -- occurred in only one year, heralding the onset of the Younger Dryas cool episode.

  • Fueling fitness on the final frontier

    20 May 2013 | 9:00 pm
    (Michigan State University) Think keeping in shape is an uphill battle? Try staying fit in space, where living quarters are cramped and prolonged weightlessness withers muscle and bone.

  • NASA builds unusual testbed for analyzing X-ray navigation technologies

    19 May 2013 | 9:00 pm
    (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Pulsars have a number of unusual qualities. Like zombies, they shine even though they're technically dead, and they rotate rapidly, emitting powerful and regular beams of radiation that are seen as flashes of light, blinking on and off at intervals from seconds to milliseconds. A NASA team has built a first-of-a-kind testbed that simulates these distinctive pulsations.

  • The mammoth's lament: UC research shows how cosmic impact sparked devastating climate change

    19 May 2013 | 9:00 pm
    (University of Cincinnati) Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds evidence of a major cosmic event near the end of the Ice Age. The ensuing climate change forced many species to adapt or die.
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    collectSPACE Today In Space History

  • First look at F-1s

    21 May 2013 | 1:00 am
    Before the public is let in on Friday, take a first look at the historic F-1 engines now being conserved at the Kansas Cosmosphere's SpaceWorks facility. Raised off the seafloor by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' expedition team, the Saturn V first stage engines are being stabilized, preserved and documented before they move to museums for exhibit. The Cosmosphere's new observation gallery provides an up-close view of conservators as they work to conserve the F-1 engines for future generations.

  • Pad for rent

    20 May 2013 | 8:00 am
    NASA announced Friday it will begin seeking proposals for the commercial use of Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A in Florida. Use of the pad by industry is hoped to maintain the historic complex while encouraging commercial space activities along the Space Coast. Launch Pad 39A was originally designed to support the Apollo program and was later modified to launch space shuttles. Ninety-two rockets (12 Saturn V boosters and 80 shuttles) launched from 39A between 1967 and 2011.

  • Rolling record

    18 May 2013 | 6:30 pm
    While Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited the moon for three days in December 1972, they drove the lunar rover 22.2 statute miles (35.7 kilometers). That was the farthest total distance for any U.S. vehicle driving on a world other than Earth until this past Thursday. The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity received confirmation Thursday that the rover rolled past the U.S. off-planet road trip record and was within a multi-week drive of beating the international record set by a Soviet lunar rover in 1973.

  • Auction's Apollo adjustments

    17 May 2013 | 8:30 pm
    RR Auction is currently accepting bids through Thursday (May 23) on some 800 lots of space history memorabilia, less three planned pieces. The rotation hand controller, or joystick, from the Apollo 11's command module, the original recording of Neil Armstrong's heartbeat at the moment he stepped onto the lunar surface and a tool kit from the final manned mission to the moon have been withdrawn from the auction to give NASA the time to research the items' ownership history.

  • Shuttle(craft)

    16 May 2013 | 6:05 am
    The original prop shuttlecraft used to film "Star Trek" in 1966 is now being restored by fans for display at Space Center Houston, which serves as the official visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center. If the "Galileo" might seem better suited for a sci-fi museum, consider the somewhat-widely spread suggestion that Star Trek's use of the term "shuttlecraft" led to NASA using the name "space shuttle" for its reusable orbiters. But is this a case of life imitating art, or did the early proposals for real manned spaceflight give rise to Star Trek's shuttlecraft?
 
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    Astroengine.com

  • The British (Astronauts) Are Coming!

    Ian O'Neill
    20 May 2013 | 12:19 pm
    Lucky sod: Major Tim Peake, British astronaut (BNSC) Really, we are. But for the love of god old chap, make sure the first 2015 space station cargo run is packed to the brim with tea bags! Ever since I heard the first UK government-funded astronaut was being trained to join the European Space Agency in 2009, I nearly wet myself. You see, when you’re a kid growing up in the UK, you can say: “I want to be a fireman,” “I want to be a policeman,” or “I want to be a doctor,” (I said the latter, which, as it turned out, wasn’t too far off.) You…

  • Colonists Beware: Don’t Camp at the Bottom of Martian Hills!

    Ian O'Neill
    8 May 2013 | 12:38 am
    Trails of Mars rocks that have rolled down the slope of a crater rim as imaged by the HiRISE camera. Credit: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona. It’s always fascinating to see evidence of active geological processes on Mars. And with the help of the armada of robots in orbit and roving the Red Planet, there are plenty of opportunities to see the planet in action. Take this recent image from the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) for example. In this striking scene — which is a little over one kilometer wide…

  • About Those ‘Habitable’ Exoplanets (RT America Interview)

    Ian O'Neill
    24 Apr 2013 | 11:44 am
    On Monday, I appeared on RT America’s live news broadcast to talk exoplanets — particularly the three small (possibly rocky) worlds that orbit the stars Kepler-62 and Kepler-69. It was a lot of fun discussing ‘Goldilocks Zones’ and the possibilities of extraterrestrials. Enjoy! Discovery News coverage of Kepler-62: Kepler-62: A Star System With Two Earths? Kepler-62 is a Ripe SETI Target How Habitable Are Kepler’s New Worlds?

  • We Are The 4.9%

    Ian O'Neill
    11 Apr 2013 | 10:51 pm
    The AMS attached to the space station’s exterior (NASA) This month is Global Astronomy Month (GAM2013) organized by my friends Astronomers Without Borders (AWB). There is a whole host of events going on right this moment to boost astronomy throughout the international community, and as a part of GAM2013, AWB are hosting daily blogs from guest astronomers, writers, physicists and others with a background in space. Today (April 11) was my turn, so I wrote a blog about the fascinating first results to be announced on the International Space Station instrument the Alpha Magnetic…

  • The White House Approves NASA’s ‘James Bond’ Asteroid Bagging Mission

    Ian O'Neill
    10 Apr 2013 | 8:54 pm
    Screengrab from the NASA “Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization Mission” animation (NASA LaRC/JSC) It’s been a looooong time since I last updated Astroengine.com, so first off, apologies for that. But today seems as good a time as any to crank up the ‘engine’s servers as the White House has rubber-stamped a manned NASA mission to an asteroid! However, this isn’t what the President originally had in mind in 2009 when he mandated the US space agency with the task of getting astronauts to an asteroid by the mid-2020′s. In a twist, it turns out that NASA…
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    The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel: Sci, Space, Tech

  • "The Google Brain" --Are Humans Entering a New Epoch of Evolution?

    dailygalaxy.com
    21 May 2013 | 8:05 am
    In June of 2012, The New York Times reported that inside Google's high-tech R&D "X" laboratory the search giant has been creating a simulation of the human brain. And rather than teaching it programs, Google's staff have been exposing it to information from the Net so that it learns organically, a little like the way we humans do. It's built by hooking together 16,000 processor cores with over one billion interconnections, in a model of the around 86 billion neurons in a typical adult human brain. In the past decade, we’ve examined our Solar System’s orbit through the Milky Way to ask…

  • Astronomers Probe 1st Large-scale Structures Produced by Dark Matter

    dailygalaxy.com
    21 May 2013 | 6:57 am
    Numerical simulation of the density of matter when the universe was one billion years old. Galaxies formation follows the gravitational wells produced by dark matter, where hydrogen gas coalesces, and the first stars ignite. CIBER studies the total sky brightness, to probe the component from first stars and galaxies using spectral signatures, and searches for the distinctive spatial pattern seen in the image below, produced by large-scale structures from dark matter. “The first massive stars to form in the universe produced copious ultraviolet light that ionized gas from neutral hydrogen.

  • "Quantum Weirdness" --New Insights

    dailygalaxy.com
    21 May 2013 | 4:20 am
    Entanglement, by general consensus of physicists, is the weirdest part of quantum science. To say that two particles, A and B, are entangled means that they are actually two parts of an inseparable quantum thing. An important consequence of this inherent kinship is that measuring a property of A (say, the particle's polarization) is necessarily to know the corresponding property of B, even if you're not there with a detector to observe B and even if (as explained below) the existence of that property had no prior fixed value until the moment particle A was detected. To create such…

  • Complex Biochemistry Possible at Origins of Life on Earth

    dailygalaxy.com
    20 May 2013 | 3:00 am
    A new study shows that RNA is capable of catalyzing electron transfer under conditions similar to those of the early Earth. Because electron transfer, the moving of an electron from one chemical species to another, is involved in many biological processes – including photosynthesis, respiration and the reduction of RNA to DNA – the study’s findings suggest that complex biochemical transformations may have been possible when life began. The study was sponsored by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, which established the Center for Ribosomal Origins and Evolution (Ribo Evo) at Georgia Tech.

  • Giant Elliptical Galaxy Harbors Largest Known Black Hole in Universe

    dailygalaxy.com
    20 May 2013 | 1:00 am
    The black hole at the center of the super giant elliptical galaxy M87 in cluster Virgo fifty million light-years away is the most massive black hole for which a precise mass has been measured -6.6 billion solar masses. Orbiting the galaxy is an abnormally large population of about 12,000 globular clusters, compared to 150-200 globular clusters orbiting the Milky Way. The team theorized that the M87 black hole grew to its massive size by merging with several other black holes. M87 is the largest, most massive galaxy in the nearby universe, and is thought to have been formed by the merging of…
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    Icarus Interstellar » Blog

  • Announcement for 2013 Icarus Interstellar Starship Congress attendees: Special room rate still available at the Dallas Hilton Anatole Hotel

    John Moltzan
    21 May 2013 | 11:05 am
    The award-winning Hilton Anatole has kindly provided a discounted room rate for Starship Congress participants, valid between August 12 and August 20, 2013, allowing our guests to come early and leave late to spend a few days exploring Dallas and nearby attractions. You can sign up for the special rate and get all of your accommodation-related questions answered at this link: https://resweb.passkey.com/Resweb.do?mode=welcome_ei_new&eventID=10633347 Please book early, we only had a block of 50 rooms reserved at this rate, and many have already been taken. The newly renovated hotel has…

  • Starship Congress – Kickstarter Campaign Launched

    admin
    20 May 2013 | 12:17 pm
    Icarus Interstellar has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help raise funds for Starship Congress. “Imagine collectively experiencing the progressive thoughts and unencumbered designs of the world’s leading spacecraft designers, engineers, and astro-theorists. Picture for a moment, attending a forum where scientists, physicists, engineers, researchers, urban designers, representatives from international space programs and present-day commercial space operators, as well as popular and well-known interstellar speakers and space journalists share their visions for how the future of…

  • Dr. Gerald Cleaver Speaks with Hailey Bright About Antiparticle Annihilation for Interstellar Flight

    admin
    17 May 2013 | 12:57 pm
    Dr. Gerald Cleaver, Associate Professor of Physics at Baylor University and member of Icarus Interstellar’s X-Physics Propulsion & Power Project (XP4) team talks with Hailey Bright. Dr Cleaver discusses chiral fermion breaking as an alternative way for creating matter antimatter particles from the quantum vacuum in-situ for propulsion. This is a fascinating area of theoretical research that could have applications for interstellar flight. Watch the full video here. Join Icarus Interstellar at Starship Congress in Dallas August 15th to 18th for a conference on interstellar flight.

  • 2013 Starship Congress Speaker Announcement – Dr. John Hunter: “Jules Verne 2.0 – The Hydrogen Gas Gun: Part of the Interstellar Roadmap”

    John Moltzan
    16 May 2013 | 2:54 pm
    Physicist Dr. John Hunter has been announced as a speaker for Icarus Interstellar’s 2013 Starship Congress, with the following talk:  Jules Verne 2.0 — The Hydrogen Gas Gun: Part of the Interstellar Roadmap. Dr. Hunter obtained a Ph.D. in Theoretical Particle Physics at The College of William and Mary in 1984.  He was the SHARP (Super High Altitude Project) team leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1990 to 1994, where he raised $3 Million and helped design, build and operate the world’s largest hydrogen gas gun (over 400 feet long).  During testing SHARP…

  • 2013 Starship Congress Speaker Announcement – Giorgio Gaviraghi and André Caminoa

    John Moltzan
    16 May 2013 | 12:47 pm
    Architects Giorgio Gaviraghi and André Caminoa have been announced as speakers for Icarus Interstellar’s 2013 Starship Congress, with the following three talks:  Critical Path and Interstellar Routes, Code of Ethics for Alien Encounters, and A Kardashev III Approach to Extra-Solar Planetary System Colonization.  Giorgio Gaviraghi received his Architectural degree in 1968 at the Milan Polytechnic University in Italy. He has since taken part in a number of graduate courses in management, marketing, and design at several major universities. At first as a project architect, then as project…
 
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    Pillow Astronaut

  • Barringer Meteor Crater

    PillowNaut
    21 May 2013 | 5:00 am
    BIG. HOLE. IN. THE. GROUND. I took a photograph of the Meteor Crater years ago from an airplane, but it's something else altogether to stand at the edge of it! (Although, the fact that you can even spot it from a plane is pretty freaking cool.)About 50,000 years ago, an asteroid (or a very significant piece of one) traveling at approximately 42,000 kilometres (26,000 miles) per hour crashed into what is now northern Arizona with the impact of 2+ million tons of TNT, creating a massive crater that would take the average human a couple of hours to walk around.So, naturally, we built observation…

  • ROADTWIP!

    PillowNaut
    18 May 2013 | 11:57 am
    I'm traveling again, and it feels great to be on the open road! Today I'll be exploring Wifi at the many Starbucks Cafes along California's Interstate-5 and Interstate-40. Tomorrow, I'll continue into Arizona. First major destination, Flagstaff!This week, follow @pillownaut and @bauer1701 with hashtag #RoadTwip on Twitter for our Star Trekkie away-team adventures to the Meteor Crater, Apollo Moon Tree, Historic Route 66, Grand Canyon, Lowell Observatory -- and maybe even the cinema eto see the "Star Trek: Into Darkness" film? Should be an epic week, and that's only our first leg in northern…

  • Skylab 40th Anniversary

    PillowNaut
    14 May 2013 | 6:00 am
    Happy 40th Anniversary to SKYLAB, the first American space station! I'm continually amazed at how Skylab Missions, sandwiched between Apollo and the Space Shuttle programs, tends to be the Forgotten Orbiting Tin Can. Compared to modules on other stations, and short-term capsules used in Mercury, Gemini, & Apollo -- Skylab practically had a ballroom!  Most of the best "micro-gravity acrobatics" videos came from this amazing programin the mid-1970s.I was born just as the Moon landing program was revving up; my parents tell me I watched lunar footage on television, though I have no…

  • Tang Pie

    PillowNaut
    13 May 2013 | 4:00 am
    Remember that sugary, orangey-but-not-really-orange drink from our childhoods?!Contrary to urban legend, TANG was not developed by NASA, or created specifically for space missions. In fact, Tang was flown on just a few early trips -- the first orbit of the Earth by John Glenn in 1962, and select Mercury and Gemini trips -- but that was enough to capture public attention, particularly after it was marketed as the "astronaut's drink"!The powdered treat was developed General Foods Corporation in 1957 and marketed as an "instant breakfast" food by 1959. Tang, now owned by Mondelēz International…

  • GeekChicTees Prize Winner

    PillowNaut
    8 May 2013 | 8:00 am
    Wow, this is like being Jayne in the town of Canton on Higgins' Moon! Talk about a mob scene!  It is with great pleasure that I report, unsurprisingly, that the collaborative T-shirt Giveaway between Pillownaut Blog and GeekChicTees was a rousing success... in no small part to Captain Mal's Wisdom, which has become just about the funnest place on Facebook for Firefly fans!TWEETSTORM! Over a thousand entries poured in through Twitter!  Then a few hundred more through Facebook, Google+, PInterest, Tumblr -- and many asked if they could join for emailing their friends, and/or posting…
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    21st Century Waves

  • Citizen Hearing on Disclosure Supports Maslow Forecasts

    Dr. Bruce Cordell
    5 May 2013 | 7:04 pm
    This week’s Congressional-style inquiry into the reality of ET contact with humans was very significant, both in terms of its content and what it reveals about our societal trajectory. Dr. Jesse Marcel, Jr. — who allegedly examined the Roswell crash debris in 1947 — testified last week at the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Click Running from April 29 to May 3 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the “Citizen Hearing on Disclosure” — while not perfect — hit a genuine homerun. Before I get to the…

  • Are We Entering a Cuban Missile Crisis-like Phase of the Approaching 1960s-style “Critical State”?

    Dr. Bruce Cordell
    27 Apr 2013 | 12:55 pm
    A month ago, when the image of stealth bombers over South Korea (below) graced the front page of the Wall Street Journal, it was hard not to be impressed, although I suspected that — due to the irrational leaders in Pyongyang and the tentative ones in Washington — it would probably backfire. U.S. flies stealth bombers over the Korean Peninsula in a “show of might,” (WSJ, 3/29/13). Click And sure enough, just a few days later Lignet (4/4/13) reported that the Obama administration was “reconsidering” their “decision to stand up to North Korea’s…

  • New at “The Space Show” and in Space Policy journal

    Dr. Bruce Cordell
    10 Apr 2013 | 1:57 am
    Dr. David Livingston has archived my recent (3/29/13) appearance on The Space Show at: http://www.thespaceshow.com/detail.asp?q=1983 After introducing the Maslow Window concept I reviewed my annual summary of space-related trends which highlights the approach of the new international Space Age. For example, the widespread excitement associated with Curiosity rover on Mars is reflected in a recent national poll on human Mars exploration by Explore Mars and Boeing. This type of “early ebullience” — including that associated with Dennis Tito’s proposed 2018 manned free…

  • “One does not need technology of 2010s to place a nuclear warhead half a world away…”

    Dr. Bruce Cordell
    28 Mar 2013 | 6:38 pm
    “… The 50-year old rocket technology from 1960 would suffice,” concludes USC Professor of Astronautics Mike Gruntman in his recent presentation on the North Korea (DPRK) satellite launch. After 4 previous attempts, North Korea successfully launched its first satellite into Earth orbit on December 12, 2012. Click Mike cautions against the derisive tone of many media commentators, Dismissing, denigrating, and jeering at North Korean real achievements is irresponsible, unfair, and consequential. It may lead to dangerous miscalculation by policy makers. Based on tracking data,…

  • Dennis Tito and the Essence of “Ebullience”

    Dr. Bruce Cordell
    27 Mar 2013 | 6:12 pm
    Dennis Tito wants to send humans to Mars, and he wants to do it before 2020, not in the misty, fuzzy future after 2030! Tito and other ebullient leaders point to a rapidly approaching 1960s-style “critical state” where unprecedented space adventures are just around the corner. Tito is a world-class example of what we call “early ebullience.” And NASA agrees (2/27/13), “It’s a testament to the audacity of America’s commercial aerospace industry and the adventurous spirit of America’s citizen-explorers.” Click “Ebullience” — a…
 
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    AmericaSpace

  • Atlantis Takes Flight at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

    Julian Leek
    21 May 2013 | 5:00 am
    Photo Credit: Julian Leek / Blue Sawtooth Studio KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla — With less than a month to go before the doors open on what could be one of the most exciting space exhibits ever, Space Shuttle Atlantis is one step closer to being ready to make her grand entrance. This past week, at [...]

  • Nine-Year-Old Mars Rover Passes 40-Year-Old Record

    NASA
    21 May 2013 | 4:00 am
    On the 3,309th Martian day, or sol, of its mission on Mars (May 15, 2013), NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity drove 263 feet (80 meters) southward along the western rim of Endeavour Crater. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech PASADENA, Calif — While Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited Earth’s moon for three days in [...]

  • NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Drills Second Rock Target

    NASA
    21 May 2013 | 3:00 am
    NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity drilled into this rock target, “Cumberland,” during the 279th Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s work on Mars (May 19, 2013) and collected a powdered sample of material from the rock’s interior. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS PASADENA, Calif — NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has used the drill on its robotic arm [...]

  • NASA and the White House Pay Tribute to Sally Ride

    NASA
    21 May 2013 | 2:00 am
    Photo Credit: NASA WASHINGTON — NASA and President Obama are honoring the life and legacy of Sally Ride on the day a national tribute was held for the first American woman in space. The president announced Monday afternoon Ride will be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom during a ceremony at the White House [...]

  • Britain’s Tim Peake Assigned to Six-Month ISS Mission in 2015-16

    Ben Evans
    20 May 2013 | 10:49 am
    Pictured during training in an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) space suit, Tim Peake will be the first official British astronaut whose mission has been sanctioned and financed directly by the U.K. government. Photo Credit: NASA Four years after his selection as a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut candidate, Britain’s Tim Peake has been formally [...]
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