Second nuclear meltdown likely under way in Japan, official says
More bad news: According to Japanese officials, a second nuclear meltdown is likely under way.
Tag: engineering
Nuclear Meltdown at Quake-Damaged Japanese Plant
This ain’t good: A nuclear meltdown appears to have occurred at the quake-damaged Japanese power plant.
Japan to fill leaking nuke reactor with sea water
Japan to fill leaking nuke reactor with sea water.
Japan’s Third Disaster
Japanese quake disrupts space station operations
The 8.9 earthquake has shut down the Japanese space station mission control center, forcing NASA to take over monitoring Japanese ISS modules.
Fixing the Webb telescope
NASA has concluded that it will cost an additional $30 million to fix the degradation problem on the James Webb Space Telescope’s scientific instruments.
The table saw that cannot cut fingers
An evening pause: The table saw that cannot cut fingers.
Virgin Galactic surpasses $10 million in ticket sales
Virgin Galactic surpassed $10 million in space tourism sales in 2010.
Space Duct Tape Could Confuse Mars Rover
The kapton tape used on the next Mars rover, Curiosity, releases enough methane of its own that it could mess up the rover’s other science.
Putting ISS to use
Putting ISS to use. Key quote:
Under consideration is using the entire station and its six-person crew as an analog for a deep-space human exploration vehicle en route to Mars. An internal team is studying the feasibility and value of such an exercise in the summer of 2012. “We might start with a small window, like a 30-day window, with actual time delays with what we’d expect with a Martian communications system,” Gerstenmaier says. “We may freeze our consumables on station, in the sense of saying that we’ve started our voyage to Mars, and see how well we do in our predictions.”
Russian Satellite Nearly Collided with Korean Weather Satellite
A Russian military satellite nearly collided with a Korean weather satellite earlier this week.
Maiden flight of the space shuttle Discovery
An evening pause:I had played this video as an evening pause back in November, when I thought the last mission of the space shuttle Discovery would be launched. Now that it has finally landed, completing its final mission, I think worthwhile to once again go back in time and watch a film of the shuttle’s maiden flight, launched August 30, 1984, narrated by the astronauts themselves. Note that the female astronaut on this flight is Judith Resnik, who died a little over a year and a half later in the Challenger accident.