Orbital Sciences has gotten its launch license from the FAA for the first test launch of the Taurus 2 rocket, scheduled for later this year.
This rocket is Orbital’s version of the Falcon 9. It is a new rocket, never before flown, yet after this test it is scheduled to fly the Cygnus capsule on its first flight only two months later. Talk about cutting things close!
Uh-oh! The Russians are considering reducing their participation in ISS. Their government might also take over entirely the private portion of their space industry.
Using Hubble Space Telescope images taken over a 14 year period, a team of astronomers led by Patrick Hartigan of Rice University have produced six very short time-lapse movies, showing the changes that have occurred to a variety of interstellar jets and bow shocks over time. The one below is my favorite. They are all worth looking at, as they illustrate forcefully how the changeless heavens are not so changeless.
We’re here to help you! The federal government, under the Endangered Species Act, is prosecuting a man for shooting a bear to protect his family.
The day of reckoning looms: Twenty-five signs that the financial world is about to hit the big red panic button.
Juno, on its way to Jupiter, took a look back and snapped this picture of the Earth/Moon double planet.
The image was taken by the spacecraft’s camera, JunoCam, on Aug. 26 when the spacecraft was about 6 million miles (9.66 million kilometers) away.
Gives us a glimpse at what our home planet will really look like to future spacefarers, either on they way out or on their way home.
NASA has named an astrophysics fellowship in honor of Nancy Roman, who helped design and build the Hubble Space Telescope.
More details on why the rocket carrying the Progress freighter to ISS failed last week.
Ground controllers successfully replaced a failed circuit box on ISS this weekend, using the two-armed Dextre robot.
Up to now, exchanging the boxes was done by spacewalkers, which always carries a certain level of risk. Dextre was designed to reduce the need for astronauts to conduct spacewalks for routine maintenance, therefore freeing up the crew’s time for more important activities, like conducting science.
Fire them! Police confiscate a woman’s legal guns, then refuse to return them despite admitting they are legally owned.
Her cache [of weapons] somehow caught the attention of Lakewood Police, who paid a visit last September. When they found Rice wasn’t home, they asked an obliging employee of the complex to open up the apartment without her consent. Once inside, they raided the gun rack, making off with 13 firearms worth around $15,000. The only problem: They had no apparent reason to. [emphasis mine]
Not only did the police essentially steal her property, they entered her apartment illegally.
