Daffodil Lane

January 28, 2008

Challenger

It's hard to believe so much time has passed! I've talked about Challenger before, but on this day in 1986 the space shuttle Challenger blew up shortly after takeoff. I remember exactly where I was, as many of you probably do as well. It always brings a bit of melancholy to me to think of this, but the crew should be remembered.

Read more at Wikipedia.

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August 24, 2007

Rare dead star found near Earth

Astronomers have spotted a space oddity in Earth's neighbourhood - a dead star with some unusual characteristics.

The object, known as a neutron star, was studied using space telescopes and ground-based observatories.

But this one, located in the constellation Ursa Minor, seems to lack some key characteristics found in other neutron stars.

Details of the study, by a team of US and Canadian researchers, will appear in the Astrophysical Journal.

If confirmed, it would be only the eighth known "isolated neutron star" - meaning a neutron star that does not have an associated supernova remnant, binary companion, or radio pulsations.

The object has been nicknamed Calvera, after the villain in the 1960s western film The Magnificent Seven.

"Near earth" always amuses me when you're talking about such vast distances, but I guess in the grand scheme of the universe this is right next door. A fascinating find!

Found via the BBC.

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August 21, 2007

Endeavour lands safely in Florida

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) -- The space shuttle Endeavour came home a day early on Tuesday after NASA decided to cut short its mission in case Hurricane Dean shut down Johnson Space Center, which directs the shuttle's re-entry and landing.

The shuttle touched down at Kennedy Space Center at 12:32 p.m. ET, 13 days after its departure on a mission to help assemble parts of the international space station.

"Welcome back. You give new meaning to the term 'higher education,' " mission control told the seven-member crew, which includes former teacher Barbara Morgan.

I've been keeping an eye on this mission because I've always liked Barbara Morgan. She finally got her chance to go into space. I just hate that her trip was cut short, but at least it was a good one. Welcome home!

Found via CNN.

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July 24, 2007

Saturn Has A "New" Moon

A new moon has been discovered orbiting Saturn - bringing the planet's latest moon tally up to 60.

The body was spotted in a series of images taken by cameras onboard the Cassini spacecraft.

Initial calculations suggest the moon is about 2km-wide (1.2 miles) and its orbit sits between those of two other Saturnian moons, Methone and Pallene.

The Cassini Imaging Team, who found the object, said Saturn's moon count could rise further still.

The moon appears as a dim speck in images taken by the Cassini probe's wide-angle camera on 30 May 2007.

Professor Carl Murray, a Cassini Imaging Team scientist from Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL), said: "After initially detecting this extremely faint object, we carried out an exhaustive search of all Cassini images to date and were able to find further detections."

Not really "new" in the true sense of the word, but newly discovered none the less. I wonder what else they will find?

Found via the BBC.

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Posted by: Veronica at July 25, 2007 5:38 PM

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June 4, 2007

Altair

Astronomers have captured an image of Altair, the first time anyone has detailed the surface of a star like our own sun.

While astronomers have recently imaged a few of the enormous, dying, red-giant stars, this is the first time anyone has seen the surface of a relatively tiny hydrogen-burning star.

An international team of astronomers captured the portrait of Altair using four of the six telescopes at a facility on Mt. Wilson, CA, operated by the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA).

The CHARA telescopes made the breakthrough observation owing to a novel system that cleaned up some of the distortions from Earth's atmosphere, the Michigan Infrared Combiner. Recent advances in fiber optic telecommunication technology made this new combiner possible.

Using the telescopes as an interferometer, a multi-telescope system, the researchers captured infrared lightwaves like a giant telescope 265 meters by 195 meters (100 times the size of the mirror on NASA's Hubble telescope and roughly 25 times the resolution).

This is a really amazing image of the star Altair that is featured over at Space.com as their image of the day. The star appears to be much like our sun. It's amazing what they can do these days with a few telescopes. The quaulity of the image is astounding.

Read more over at Space.com.

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May 30, 2007

Blue Moon over North America

May 30, 2007: At 9:04 pm Eastern Daylight Time on May 31st, the full moon over North America will turn blue.

Not really. But it will be the second full moon of May and, according to folklore, that makes it a Blue Moon.

A Blue Moon usually has nothing to do with the color of the moon itself, but generally refers to the fact that two full moons have fallen within the same calendar month. On rare occasions however the moon may appear blue from earth and that is also know as a Blue Moon. Confused yet? You've gotta love astronomy! ;o) So as you gaze up into the sky tomorrow night remember it's a blue moon!

Via NASA and hat tip to my dad for sending me the email. :o)

You can also read more about Blue Moons over at Wikipedia.

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May 11, 2007

Greener Spaceflight?

When you see a title like this and you have to scratch your head. The space program has never been known for their eye toward green living. Then I read that it's about replacing Hydrogen with Methane. For those of you that don't know, Methane is a green house gas that's 23 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. So needless to say I was having trouble buying this argument on the surface. Then I looked at the critical thing you look at when dealing with rocket fuel, energy density. At 286 kJ/mol versus 802 kJ/mol, suddenly you have my attention. Add in the fact that methane is easier to store because it's boiling point is so much higher than hydrogen and this idea doesn't seem so crazy at all. 70.8 kg/m³ versus 464.54 kg/m³ tells you the storage story as well, liquid hydrogen just isn't good about being stored compactly. Then you look at -164 degrees Celsius versus -259 degrees Celsius and it really put it over the top. So let's compare, almost a hundred degrees warmer storage, 2.8 times the energy per mole of fuel, and nearly 6.6 times fuel storage per cubic meter. So why weren't we doing this from the beginning?

And that's where we get into a totally different set of discussions. Rocketry is about running a controlled explosion. It's actually a lot harder than it looks believe it or not. Hydrogen, for all it's issues, gives us quite a few advantages. First of all, we pump it through the nozzle of our rockets to keep them from melting down. Since it's so much colder, it can do stuff like that with few problems. The other big problem is the fact that isn't an auto igniting fuel, which is NASA's excuse, but the reality is that that only becomes an issue in space when you shut the engine off and try to turn it back on. It's good to think that way, because a standardized fuel would be great.

[via EcoGeek]

Read more over at NASA, Discovery, and XCOR.

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May 3, 2007

Astronaut Wally Schirra dies at 84

(CNN) -- Wally Schirra, one of the original astronauts in the Mercury 7 project, died Thursday at age 84, NASA officials said.

Schirra died in California, the officials said. He was the fifth American in space and the third to orbit Earth.

He was the only astronaut who flew in three of the nation's pioneering space programs: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.

NASA selected Schirra as one of the first group of astronauts, along with Gordon Cooper, Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and Deke Slayton.

He flew on the fifth Project Mercury flight, orbiting the Earth six times on October 3, 1962, and was commander of the Gemini 6 flight, which launched December 15, 1965.

Schirra was commander of Apollo 7, the first manned flight of the Apollo spacecraft and the Saturn 1B rocket. He and crew mates Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele successfully checked all the Apollo systems during the 11-day mission that launched October 11, 1968.

The Apollo 7 mission qualified the spacecraft for later moon missions. Schirra retired from the Navy and NASA in 1969.

Our thoughts go out to his family.

Found via CNN.

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April 16, 2007

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees'
navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

It's an interesting theory, but it doesn't hold up to the common sense test. One has to believe that bee keepers that transport their bees across the country would have been early adopters of cell phone technology, meaning that the bees would have been exposed the cell signals for years in advance without showing any of the symptoms listed. So why is it just now is it having an effect? Bees have very short lifespans so it's not like they could build up a problem like a human. Now if you told me that there was a new standard that started to be implemented last year in cell towers all across the country and that it worked on a previously untapped frequency, then I'd be on board with this theory.

The other problem with this is that it's happening in bee hives that don't move across the countryside. And more importantly why don't the scavenger animals enter the hive after it's been abandoned? Are they being effected as well? Seems like a massive chain depending on a lot of things to happen in just the right order. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when did GSM start being supported in the United States? I mean I could buy that argument, that the cell towers are slowly being upgraded to support the new standard and it's now reached a critical mass to start causing problems in the countryside, because who would notice it in a city? There aren't that many bee hives. So I think we need to keep looking for a theory that works to explain every aspect of the problem. The Einstein quote is terrifyingly true, so we need to start working faster to find the problem.

Read more over at The Independent.

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March 11, 2007

Earthstorm

Let me say first that I usually give the Sci-Fi channel a wide berth on what they show, because they have limited budgets to work with and sometimes they have to cut serious corners to make their TV specials. But somethings you just don't have the ability to take liberties with because they are such glaring errors the average 3rd grader is inspired to call you on it. Take this Earthstorm show, perfectly fine Sci-Fi channel fare. Earth is about to be destroyed by pieces of the moon. A dsperate shuttle mission ensues to try and mitigate the damage on the moon and save the planet from imminent destruction. All fine for a Sci-Fi channel plot, broken moon graphics very cool looking, very realistic. So you've got all the things in place for your story.

Now let's discuss the problems. You launch the shuttle in a hurricane. What?? NASA has a 45 mph wind cut off actually since it takes two days to move a shuttle to the pad from the VAB at maximum speed. And they made this move during a hurricane? Hmmmm...a little weak. Let's assume the best that it was sitting on the pad already waiting to launch. They'd still have to load the payload of nuclear bombs into the cargo bay before launch during a hurricane. So assume now that the shuttle was at the most optimized angle of hurricane force winds that it just didn't fall off the launch pad waiting to launch. Launching the shuttle causes it to sway because the engine force is being held back by the launch pad itself waiting for launch, but assuming that the sway occur in a moment of prefect timing with a few second lull at that point in space and time.

So we are launched into space. The part that totally annoys me is the repeat of the footage where the shuttle discharges both the external fuel tank and the booster rockets at the same time. This never happens. Booster rockets expire first and are released and fall back to the Earth to be reused. A few minutes later at an extremely high altitude the external fuel tank is released. Now this piece of information is also critical for another reason. The Shuttle's main engines (the three that are shown running the entire movie) consume fuel at the rate of a swimming pool per second (17,592 gal/min). Which is why they need to external tank. So ask yourself how do you fly to the moon using the main engines when you have no fuel tank to feed them? The nuclear pulse engines make sense as an engine choice. We've only tested nuclear thermal engine, but you run into the carrying along the fuel for power. But those should have been the only engines running, but then we have the problem in the storyline that they ended up with. They needed more fissile materials so had to dump the engines. But they were able to fly home no problem with the Shuttle's main engines. Just doesn't work.

After all that I like the shuttle footage that they used. I believe they are lifted from Armageddon. I love the metallic thermal-protected panels that they used. These are lifted straight from the SSTO program, but once again if I were running a secret government space program, I wouldn't waste a lot of time not developing the SSTO program, but I've lectured on the SSTO notion ad nauseam, so just read it from the past.

Read more over at IMDB.

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August 24, 2006

Astronomers say Pluto is not a planet

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn't — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

Although astronomers applauded after the vote, Jocelyn Bell Burnell — a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland who oversaw the proceedings — urged those who might be "quite disappointed" to look on the bright side.

"It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called 'planet' under which the dwarf planets exist," she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella.

"Many more Plutos wait to be discovered," added Richard Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The decision by the prestigious international group spells out the basic tests that celestial objects will have to meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite cosmic club.

For now, membership will be restricted to the eight "classical" planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

I've been reading about this for weeks, but I must say them actually downgrading Pluto from planethood is a bit sad. I feel almost as if a part of my childhood has been ripped away. Ah the harsh light of reality!

Found via Yahoo! Science News.

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July 22, 2006

Republicans seek to gut NASA

Well they've been working for 3 decades non stop to slow all scientific progress in this country and now in Republican standard of behavior, we see them attacking the mission statement of NASA. In a few years, when people start complaining about it, they will tell us that protecting the planet was never something that NASA did. Much like they claim that the Pledge of Allegiance always included the term "under God" despite the fact that radicals managed to have it added in the 1950's under the guise of protecting us from communists by attacking religious freedom. Figure that one out, anyway the mission statement used to start out like this:

“To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can.”

But the Republicans desperate to get NASA out of the business of protecting our planet, dropped the "To understand and protect our home planet" from the mission statement. So now they can move NASA away from doing any significant work on things like Global Warming and other areas where their scientific knowledge has stood in the way of the Republicans agenda of destroying the planet. I imagine they will drop all the efforts to track asteroids and the like so that way we don't have an early warning system in place. You might ask yourself what kind of madmen would do such a thing as leave us defenseless in the face of a global disaster. Well realize the Republican party is filled with people are obsessed with the destruction of humanity and if you read their version of the reality you'll see that:

7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;

9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.

10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

12 And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.

See they view any efforts in space by NASA to advance technology that might let us do something like say, defend the planet from an asteroid or comet (in Neo-Christian Republican hate speak mountains of fire and hails of fires mixed with blood respectively). Their agenda has never wavered for a moment, they've always been working to undermine the American way of life in hopes of bring about an Apocalypse to bring about their eternal salvation. Of course, such efforts are pure lunacy, but it's what we've all come to know as the norm for the Republican party. Night and day they work to damage America in hopes of triggering Armageddon so they can escape. They ignore any sort of sane legislation because they thirst so much for escape from these Earthly bonds. This is all the Republican party is in the end. A bunch of fools suffering from Mass "Religious" Hysteria and they put us all at risk. If you are a Republican reading this and saying this can't be true, then you really need to take look at and actually listen to the voices that lead your entire party, James Dobson and Pat Robertson. Their goals are your goals, if you don't believe in them, you are supporting them anyway by voting for their drones in the Republican party. You're either with America and against the Neo-Christians or you are a threat to America.

Read more over at Think Progress and The New York Times.

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Posted by: Royal at July 23, 2006 9:13 AM

July 17, 2006

Welcome Home Discovery!

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

Space shuttle Discovery and its crew of six returned to Earth through thick clouds Monday, ending an impressive mission that put NASA's space program back on a solid, safer course.

Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center at 9:14 a.m. in only the second shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia disaster.

"Welcome back, Discovery, and congratulations on a great mission," Mission Control told shuttle commander Steven Lindsey after Discovery rolled to a stop.

"It was a great mission, a really great mission, and enjoyed the entry and the landing," Lindsey replied.

I'm glad to see everything went as planned. Good work Discovery team! Welcome home!

Found via Yahoo! News.

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Welcome Home Discovery!

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

Space shuttle Discovery and its crew of six returned to Earth through thick clouds Monday, ending an impressive mission that put NASA's space program back on a solid, safer course.

Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center at 9:14 a.m. in only the second shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia disaster.

"Welcome back, Discovery, and congratulations on a great mission," Mission Control told shuttle commander Steven Lindsey after Discovery rolled to a stop.

"It was a great mission, a really great mission, and enjoyed the entry and the landing," Lindsey replied.

I'm glad to see everything went as planned. Good work Discovery team! Welcome home!

Found via Yahoo! News.

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June 28, 2006

Shuttle launch countdown begins!

At 2200 BST (1700 EDT) on Wednesday, launch team members at Kennedy Space Center in Florida set the clock running ahead of Saturday's planned lift-off.

The shuttle Discovery is set to visit the International Space Station on a 12-day mission to deliver supplies and equipment and test safety improvements.

But Nasa says there is a strong chance of weather delaying the launch.

Thunderstorms and anvil clouds bring the threat of lightning strikes, the agency said, estimating the chance of postponement at about 60%.

I don't think she's going to go on Saturday given the weather, but the countdown has started none the less! Let's hope this mission goes well. I've been reading here and there that if something goes wrong this trip, they are immediately retiring the space shuttle program, effectively grounding our space program until the next phase starts up around 2015. It would be very weird to be a non space faring country again! Let's hope everything goes smoothly!

Found via the BBC News.

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May 1, 2006

Astronaut Eileen Collins leaves NASA

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a space shuttle who also led last year's harrowing return to flight after the Columbia disaster, said Monday she will leave the space agency.

Collins, 49, said she wanted to spend more time with her family and pursue other interests.

Named an astronaut in 1990, she became the first female pilot on a space shuttle with the flight of Discovery in 1995, the first to rendezvous with the Russian space station Mir.

She also flew on Atlantis in 1997 and became first female commander in the 1999 Columbia flight.

That mission deployed the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

"Eileen is a living, breathing example of the best our nation has to offer," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in a statement.

"She is, of course, a brave superb pilot and a magnificent crew commander."

I hope she goes on to do more great things. Her accomplishments were amazing for a woman, as we are still pushed to the background in this country. I'm glad that she was able to break through so many barriers in a male dominated field. Congrats Ms. Collins!

Found via CNN News.

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April 18, 2006

NASA Studying the Reuse of Spacecraft Software

That's right folks...with every project NASA uses your tax dollars to reinvent the wheel. The insanity of it all is staggering. Actually they recently started trying to reuse code, but they are currently evaluating it to see if it's worth the "effort". Most corporate programmers have been reusing code for that last 15 years or so. Hell I've been reusing code for that long myself. On one level I can understand why starting with a clean slate helps because you can rethink the problem from the ground up. A blank canvass definitely encourages you to look at your problems in new and creative ways. Sometimes I do that myself...if I were going to code this today with nothing of the past to worry about what would I do? But the reality is the number of those kinds of ground up redesigns are rare. In my entire career I've participated in only one. It's just not the way things are done in the corporate world. I think NASA could be much better served by writing one massive set of functions and use a single set of Spacecraft Software for all crafts going forward. The functionality of this software is ultimately similar from craft to craft. And by having a standard that you work from you could instead spend new software budget money on refining and improving the existing software to make it better.

Read more over at Space.com .

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Posted by: Royal at April 19, 2006 2:51 PM

April 14, 2006

NASA Won't Release DART Mission Report

This raises an immediate red flag for me. Why would a NASA not release a mission failure report?? It's a public institution they have no secrets. Then you see where the mission launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base. For those of you that aren't intimately aware of the US space program, Vandenberg is the military version of Cape Canaveral. So you have a mission launched from a military base that suddenly becomes classified...hmmmm...nothing suspicious there. I can't imagine the military potential of autonomous spacecraft. I just don't get the point of doing something like this is broad daylight, did they not think it was going to work or did they suddenly see some potential they hadn't thought of before?? It leaves a lot more questions than answers.

Read more over at Yahoo News.

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Posted by: Royal at April 15, 2006 9:20 AM

April 12, 2006

25 years of the Shuttle Program

On this day 25 years ago the first Shuttle mission blasted off into space. In 1981 the Shuttle Program represented a quantum leap forward is space craft technology. All of the craft expect for the external fuel tank was completely reusable and the new titles promised a completely new world of space technology. The Shuttle was the last great vestige of the Van Braun era at NASA. The program lacked the technical advancements to make the dream of the Shuttle a reality. The SSTO project of the Venture Star actually showed that the dream could be made into a reality, but the Republicans shelved that in hopes of pushing America backwards. On one level you can consider the Shuttle Program and abject failure, but the reality is that it lived up to many of the goals that it was built to achieve. The tragic accidents that the Shuttle programs suffered, were not technological, they were actually both tragic failures of the management of NASA to grasp the complex technology that the Shuttle program represented. For the hardworking generations of engineers and workers that made this program a reality I send out my whole hearted congratulations at your achievement.

Read more over at Space.com.

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March 31, 2006

U.S. Losing Unofficial Space Race

This is what I love about Republicans...things are never a problem until they get their heads out the sand and realize it's a problem. Well yeah you stupid fools, most of us that actually can read and write have been aware of the problem for quite a while now. It's so amusing how quickly the America hating Republicans went about dismantling the space program. For years they've encouraged it to be devalued and neglected. They've used it as a demonstration of government waste. And they've made sure the most incompetent and mentally weak leaders were put in charge of the organization. They have harassed and cajoled the great minds working at NASA hoping to drive them out. The Republican party has done everything within it's power to undermine the American presence in space. And now suddenly they realize that the future is where it has always been...in the stars. And our opponents are going to get there way before us. I wonder who's fault that could be???? Sort of like Bush screaming at us that America's addicted to oil. You think crackhead?? Whose fault could that be?? Republicans have been mismanaging the government in one way or another for the last 30 years, you think that could have had anything to do with it? Do you think the continuous attacks on anyone that tried to fix things, could have anything to do with it? You do think the trillions of dollars you've poured into the think tanks to put out pseudoscience attacks on people who were trying to help this country could have anything to do with it?? We are losing the race all right, on every single front. There is only one solution. Removal of every Republican from every level of our government. Then we need to start cleaning up science and the media of their taint and sinister influence. After we do all that, we might have a chance not to become a second rate third world country.

Read more over at Space.com

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February 25, 2006

China Space Walk, Docking Planned

The Chinese are making very good progress with their space program. I don't know a polite way to put this, but has anyone else noticed the fact that their plans have them landing on the Moon a year before our brain-dead CEV project does? I bring this up because of the fact that the Chinese are taking baby steps in their space program, while we have decades of experience with our space program, but to see how the Republicans are screwing up our progress you'd never know it. I mean do the Republicans really plan on outsourcing the Mars mission to China, because they seem to be more serious about exploring the Universe than we do. It's literally a disgrace that the nation that finally won the space race is being shown up by the newbie on the street. Von Braun is probably spinning in his grave because of how badly the Republicans have screwed up his dreams for the Space program.

Read more over at Space.com and Wikipedia for the moronic CEV program.

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Posted by: mums at February 25, 2006 3:58 PM

February 1, 2006

Remembering Columbia

On Feb. 1, 2003 the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during reentry from damage sustained to the orbiter during take off when a piece of foam insulation left a small hole on the skin of the shuttle. It doesn't seem like it's been three years, it seems as if it were just yesterday. Columbia was our second shuttle lost and today we remember this crew and their families.

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January 28, 2006

January 28, 1986

I still remember that winter morning all those years ago. We were out from school on a snow day and I was in the 7th grade. We were watching the Challenger launch on TV and didn't realize anything had happened at first and then reality set in. It's hard to believe it's been 20 years.



Crew memeber included Commander Dick Scobee, Pilot Mike Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnik, Ron McNair, Greg Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe.

Read more at CNN.

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January 23, 2006

Spacecraft skin 'heals' itself

Now that's what I'm talking about! No it's not one of those fancy Nano-machine repair systems that most of us video game players are used to. This system is filled with glass cylinders that have either epoxy or the activating chemical in them. When the skin of the spacecraft takes damage the chemicals mix together and create an immediate patch. Those Scientists over at the ESA are putting in the overtime! This is a second time in as many weeks they've put out something really cool for spacecrafts. Now I know what you're thinking...why on Earth would you need something like this? Well the short answer is pollution. Over the years the space programs of the space faring nations have been dumping debris into orbit. Now in space once something has inertia it takes forever to get rid of it. Which means our space crafts are launching into a shooting gallery of space junk. So what happens is that you get a chip of paint trying to cut a hole in your spacecraft. And it can at those speeds. Last week there were all the news stories about the problem. We've known this was going to become a problem but it was being ignored. Now it's getting to the point that it's becoming a serious possibility that we are going to have a craft damaged by ignoring the problem. The self healing skin is a good idea, but once again there is the "decade of testing" statement. A decade?? Put it on the new Ion Engine and test it now.

Read more over at New Scientist and Yahoo News.

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January 18, 2006

Super-powerful new ion engine revealed

Very, very cool. As we all know Ion engines are electric engines used to propel spacecraft with very little fuel. Rather than depending on primitive and dangerous chemical engines, Ion engines use very little in the way of fuel to make massive propulsion potential. To give the third grader version of it for you, chemical engines depend on explosions of the fuel to push the rocket through space, but using the formula F=MXA we know that the higher the acceleration the less mass you need. By using electricity to ionize a gas, it can reach massive accelerations, allowing the smaller mass of fuel to generate an equal amount of force. A third grader could understand all that right? Really just simple physics. What ESA did was add another electrical plate into the system to accelerate the the ions with a slightly different voltage. This gave them a 10 fold improvement over current ion drives and a 4 fold increase in power for the ones that are currently on the drawing board. To give you a frame of reference in chemical rockets, the Apollo rockets that went to the moon traveled at a top speed of 11 kilometers/second. This new engine will allow speeds of 210 kilometers/second. So nearly 20 times that speed. What I always hate about this kind of technological advancement is the comment that it needs a decade's worth of testing before we will see it in a mission??? Excuse me? The Voyager space probes were sent out at chemical rocket speeds and sped up using planetary gravity wells and these engines are 10 times faster than they are traveling now. Cutting exploration times of deep space from decades to years. The same scientists that actually designed the crafts might actually still be working on the project when it gets where it's going. Wild idea I know, but it will allow massive streamlining of our space exploration. More importantly we will be able push our technology forward even faster.

Read more over at New Scientist.

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January 9, 2006

Space probe breaks laser record

Very interesting stuff to say the least. A NASA space probe operating around Mercury about 15 million miles away has contacted NASA Goddard here in Maryland with an onboard laser which was answered by Goddard, which is the longest ranged attempt to use this technology. Lasers are able to pack a lot more data into a transmission than traditional communications technologies. The description of moving from dial-up to broadband I think is a fair assessment of the improvement in amounts of data. I'm not sure how much I like the analogy of laser tag in space though.

For those of you don't know a radio transmission normally goes out like a rock dropped in a pool. It gets weaker the further out it goes. A laser on the other hand is like shooting a bullet, a very narrow range of effect. On our world this means very little but when your trying to hit a target 15 million miles away, there is a bit more effort that has to go into your math because if you miss by more than a few centimeters you can't hear the communication at all. I think the problem is pretty great, but I think that we could solve a lot of our problems just by moving our receivers off the Earth and into orbit. There was an attempt to do something like this with the Shuttles, but the fourth Satellite was destroy with the Challenger so we still have communications down times in orbit. I think as we move forward that we will have to set these kinds of systems in the orbit around all the planets that we travel near so they can act as relay stations of data when we are out of line of sight contact.

Of course all of this is merely academic exercises until we get quantum entangled electron communication systems, which will provide instant communications across any distance with massive uninterceptable data flows. I would try to explain that to all of you, but anyone that tells you they understand Quantum Mechanics enough to try and explain it to mortals is lying. Magic happens, enough said.

Read more over at MSNBC.

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January 3, 2006

Nasa team sees explosion on Moon

Nasa scientists have witnessed a rare explosion on the Moon, caused by a "meteoroid" slamming into it.

The blast was equal in energy to about 70kg of TNT and was seen near the edge of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains).

The object that hit the Moon was probably part of a shower of "taurids" which peppered Earth in late October and early November.

Understanding lunar impacts could help protect astronauts when Nasa sends humans back to the Moon.

Meteoroids are small rocky or metallic objects in orbit around the Sun, or another star. One of the astronomers who observed the impact estimates that it gouged a crater 3m wide and 0.4m deep.

Rob Suggs of Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, US, was testing a new 10-in telescope and video camera they assembled to monitor the moon for space strikes.

On 7 November, his first night using the telescope, he observed one.

"People just do not look at the moon anymore," said Dr Suggs, of Marshall's engineering directorate.

"We tend to think of it as a known quantity. But there is knowledge still to be gained here."

I too think there is still a lot to learn from the moon as Dr. Suggs suggested. I just hope we learn and don't destroy, because we've done a pretty good job of that here on Earth. Perhaps we can look at our mistakes here and not repeat them if we do colonize other worlds, but who am I kidding? As long as big business is involved they don't care what they destroy as long as they make a buck in the process, but I digress.

In November NASA was able to capture footage of some meteoroids crashing into the moon. Quite a fireworks show to say the least!

Check it out with pictures. Found via the BBC.

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Posted by: ManDrake at January 3, 2006 1:34 PM