Robotic arm breakdown adds spacewalk drama
The crash of the computer that runs the station’s robot arm stranded a spacewalking astronaut in space for about 20 minutes yesterday.
Category: Behind The Black
Scientists buy tickets on Virgin Galactic
The Southwest Research Institute has purchased two tickets from Virgin Galactic for its scientists to fly on SpaceShipTwo.
India’s space agency gets a 35% hike for 2011
Not all space agencies (think NASA) have budget problems: India has given its space agency ISRO a 35% hike for 2011.
The sponge-like Saturn moon
The sponge-like Saturn moon. Key quote:
Hyperion measures about 250kms across; it rotates chaotically and has a density so low that it might house a vast system of caverns inside.
Leif J. Robinson, Editor in Chief of Sky & Telescope magazine for 20 years, passed away Sunday
R.I.P. Leif J. Robinson, who served as editor of Sky & Telescope for twenty years, passed away Sunday at the age of 71 at his home in Costa Rica.
Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal
An evening pause: A song about the longing for the end of winter.
Amateur images of ISS and the shuttle
Take a gander at this spectacular image of the shuttle approaching ISS, taken by an amateur astronomer from the ground!
The Beer has Landed: Astronauts4Hire Completes Space Beer Microgravity Test
The beer has landed: The first test of space beer in weightlessness has been completed. Key quote:
Astronauts4Hire Flight Member Todd Romberger was selected to perform the flight research. Todd sampled the beer during 12 microgravity parabolas, each reproducing the weightless conditions of space for 30 seconds at a time, and recorded qualitative data on beverage taste and drinkability as well as biometric data to gain a first look at alcohol effects the body.
Some enchanted evening
An evening pause: The simple, poetic words of Oscar Hammerstein to the music of Richard Rogers, sung by Brian Stokes Mitchell at Carnegie Hall, 2005.
Who can explain it?
Who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons.
Wise men never try.
A private space station by 2016
NASA’s chief technologist admits it will be a decade before Orion flies
This is why I call it pork and a waste of money: NASA’s chief technologist admits it will be a decade before Orion and the heavy-lift rocket mandated by Congress flies.
Shuttle Discovery docks with space station for 13th and final time
The beginning of the end: The shuttle Discovery docked successfully with the space station, its 13th and final visit to ISS.