The competition heats up: One of the teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X-Prize has signed a launch contract with China.
An evening pause: From the youtube webpage:
Alvino Rey is as important to the development of the electric guitar as Les Paul was, but has been criminally uncredited for it–until now. More and more photos, recordings and film clips like these are coming out of the woodwork to show what a genius Alvino was.
This film clip is from 1944 and shows Alvino demonstrating not only his amazing work on the steel guitar, but also his “singing guitar” effect, similar to the Sonovox, manifested in the persona of “Stringy” the talking guitar puppet! Enjoy this and whatever you do, DO NOT TAKE ACID BEFORE VIEWING….we warned you….
The first color image from Curiosity.
And from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, images (scroll down to Update II) showing all of Curiosity’s hardware scattered across the Martian surface. More here.
And here is a good overview of the possible directions Curiosity might roam in the coming days.
The first science images from Curiosity, including nearby Mt. Sharp. More here.
The competition heats up: SpaceShipTwo has resumed glide tests.
Not only was there a test last week, one is expected today. The results will be posted here.
A Russian Proton rocket has failed to put two satellites into their proper orbit.
This failure of one of Russia’s more reliable rockets comes at a very bad time, as the competition with SpaceX and other competitors for commercial launches is right now heating up. As the article notes,
Moscow, which carries out 40 percent of global space launches, is struggling to restore confidence in its industry after a string of mishaps last year, including the failure of a mission to return samples from the Martian moon Phobos and the loss of a $265-million communications satellite. …
“The last failures to a certain extent undermine Russia’s position as a country that provides space launch services,” said industry expert Yuri Karash, a member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics.
Such mistakes strengthen Russia’s competitors, such as Europe’s Arian rockets, Karash said, describing Russia’s space industry, struggling to recover after a generation of brain drain and crimped budgets, as “not in the best condition by a long shot.”
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter last night captured a spectacular image of Curiosity descending by parachute to the surface of Mars.
The first high resolution image from Curiosity.
This image isn’t that different from the first two, showing one of the rover’s wheels and the horizon. This camera is for guiding the rover’s movement and is not one of the cameras that will used for science. Nonetheless, it reconfirms that Curiosity is functioning as expected.
The United States has done it again: Curiosity has landed safely on Mars. Images have already been received, with the first showing one of the rover’s wheels on the ground. NASA has posted those first images. More here.
Tonight at 10:30 pm (Pacific), the new Martian rover Curiosity will hopefully touch down safely on the Martian surface to begin several years of research in the crater Gale.
What has been most amazing to me is the amount of interest in this landing by the press, especially the mainstream press. Normally these outlets don’t care that much for space exploration, a trend that began after the Apollo 11 landing in 1969 when it became trendy in liberal circles to down play space exploration so that “the money could instead be spent solving our problems here on Earth.”
Today, however, I count more than forty news articles on this upcoming landing, most of which come from mainstream sources. It seems that these outlets have finally discovered something that has been obvious from the beginning: the American public is fascinated with space exploration, and if you want to attract readers, it is better to provide coverage of what interests them rather than push a political agenda that few agree with.
Anyway, if you want to follow the landing live, go here for a full outline of options. Or go directly to NASA TV. Most of what you will see will the control room at JPL, with many engineers staring at computer screens waiting to find out if the landing was a success, about twenty minutes after it took place. This is because it will take that long for the communications signals to travel from Mars to the Earth. Essentially, Curiosity is on its own in this landing.
The competition heats up: India’s government has okayed the launch of an unmanned probe to Mars.
An evening pause: What to do when you don’t have matches and all that is left is the nearest Ikea store.
More signs that the Voyager 1 spacecraft is about to enter interstellar space.
For the last seven years, Voyager 1 has been exploring the outer layer of the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. In one day, on July 28, data from Voyager 1’s cosmic ray instrument showed the level of high-energy cosmic rays originating from outside our solar system jumped by five percent. During the last half of that same day, the level of lower-energy particles originating from inside our solar system dropped by half. However, in three days, the levels had recovered to near their previous levels.
A third key sign is the direction of the magnetic field, and scientists are eagerly analyzing the data to see whether that has, indeed, changed direction. Scientists expect that all three of these signs will have changed when Voyager 1 has crossed into interstellar space. A preliminary analysis of the latest magnetic field data is expected to be available in the next month.
Based on this report, expect scientists to announce that Voyager 1 has left the solar system sometime before the end of the year.
Launching a beer can into space. With video! More here.
Curiosity’s journey and upcoming landing, a summary.
It’s official: Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada are the winners of NASA’s commercial crew contracts.
Boeing will receive $460 million, SpaceX $440 million, and Sierra Nevada $212.5. All are planning to launch by 2015.
Alan Boyle at NBC tonight reports that Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada are the winning companies in the competition to provide human ferrying services to ISS, to be announced officially by NASA tomorrow.
The report does not provide dollar numbers. This Wall Street Journal story says that Boeing and SpaceX will be the prime contractors, which suggests that Sierra Nevada will be getting a smaller award.
A new report predicts that the demand for suborbital spaceflight, both manned and unmanned, will likely rise by one third in the next ten years.
You can download the report here [pdf].
The report admits there are many unknowns, and that this prediction could be way off, in either direction.
The Russians have successfully docked their Progress freighter to ISS, using a fast route that took only 6 hours.
The rumors are now official: NASA will announce the winners of the commercial crew contracts on Friday.
Getting to ISS faster: a Progress freighter, launched today, is testing a new rendezvous route that takes only 6 hours to reach the station instead of the normal 48.
The disappearance of the old-fashioned chemistry set.
Here’s what it used to be like, when we lived in a free society:
By the 1920s and 30s children had access to substances which would raise eyebrows in today’s more safety-conscious times. There were toxic ingredients in pesticides, as well as chemicals now used in bombs or considered likely to increase the risk of cancer. And most parents will not need to be told of the dangers of the sodium cyanide found in the interwar kits or the uranium dust present in the “nuclear” kits of the 1950s.
The decision on NASA’s manned commercial crew contracts will be made this week, according to new rumors.
Back to the Moon: China has announced plans to land an unmanned probe on the Moon next year, the first such planned landing since the 1970s.
The Roman Colosseum has been found to be leaning about sixteen inches to the south.
Success: The Russians today successfully redocked their unmanned Progress freighter to ISS, using a new docking system.
Comeback: The Marines have put in an order for 12,000 M1911 pistols, the iconic 45 caliber pistol designed by John Browning more than a 100 years ago and used by the American military for most of the first half of the 20th century.
July 28 has now been set for the next docking attempt by a Progress freighter to ISS to test Russia’s new docking system.
