Date set for zero gravity beer drinking test
Save that date! November 19 has been set for the first test of beer drinking in zero gravity.
Save that date! November 19 has been set for the first test of beer drinking in zero gravity.
Save that date! November 19 has been set for the first test of beer drinking in zero gravity.
The 123,000 MPH plasma/nuclear engine and the astronaut who is building it.
Two companies who are offering suborbital tourism space flights have indicated that the price per ticket could drop by 2011.
The private race to the Moon, led by the Google Lunar X Prize. Key quote:
The Google Lunar X PRIZE offers a total of $30 million in prize money to the first privately funded teams to land robots on the Moon that explore the lunar surface by moving at least 500 meters and by sending back two packages of high definition video and photos we call Mooncasts. Unlike our first competition, the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE, the Google Lunar X PRIZE isn’t a ‘winner take all’ proposition: instead, we have a $20 million Grand Prize, a Second Place Prize that will award $5 million to the second team to meet all of the requirements, a series of technical bonus missions that can allow teams to earn as much as an additional $4 million, and a $1 million award that will go to teams that make the greatest contribution to stimulating diversity in space exploration and, more generally, in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
The competition operates on a “payment on delivery” model: the prize money is only given to teams after they complete a successful mission, meaning that each team needs to raise all the capital needed to design, develop and conduct their missions on their own. We’re now three years into a fairly long effort: the prize is available until all of the prize purses are claimed or until the end of the year 2015. Last week, we accepted our 24th team into the competition.
The leak on the space shuttle Discovery appears fixed, and NASA managers have confirmed the launch date as Monday, November 1, 4:40 pm (Eastern). This will be Discovery’s last flight.
SpaceX is now targeting November 18 for the second test flight of its Falcon 9 rocket, which will also be the first test flight of its Dragon capsule.
New technology might allow airline passengers to keep their shoes on.
Let’s all sit in a dark room and contemplate our navel! Atmospheric scientists claim that space tourism will cause . . . global warming!
This Aviation Week article outlines in detail the upcoming test flight program for Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo following the first free flight of SS2. Key quote:
[SS2’s first] flight marks the start of the third of a seven-phase test program that is expected to culminate with the start of space tourism and science flights in 2012.
Next week will mark the tenth anniversary of what is now the continuous human presence in space, since the first crew occupied ISS on November 2, 2000.
New results from the LCROSS impact on the Moon’s south pole: It’s cold and wet at the Moon’s south pole.
Update: Other elements detected in the impact plume included silver and mercury.
Benoit Mandelbrot, the mathematician who discovered fractals, has died at 85.
Unsure of the cause of yesterday’s fuel line leak on the space shuttle Discovery, engineers plan to replace a set of seals this week. Whether this will delay the November 1 launch remains unknown at this time.
The private space station company, Bigelow Aerospace, has signed agreements with six different nations — Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, Australia and the United Kingdom — to provide them space on its next orbiting station.
Because of damage sustained during the railroad trip from Russia to Kazakhstan, the Russians are flying in a replacement descent module for the Soyuz capsule scheduled for launch to ISS on December 13.
China is expanding its embargo on exporting rare earth minerals, blocking shipments to Japan, Europe and the United States. Key quote:
China mines 95 percent of the world’s rare earth elements, which have broad commercial and military applications, and are vital to the manufacture of products as diverse as cellphones, large wind turbines and guided missiles. Any curtailment of Chinese supplies of rare earths is likely to be greeted with alarm in Western capitals, particularly because Western companies are believed to keep much smaller stockpiles of rare earths than Japanese companies.
It appears that the fuel leak on the space shuttle Discovery has stopped.
The private space station company Bigelow is beginning the testing of its station life support systems, using human subjects.
Engineers are trouble-shooting a fuel leak on the space shuttle Discovery. At the moment NASA does not expect this to delay the planned November 1 launch.
Swiss engineers broke through the last stretch of rock on Friday to create the world’s longest tunnel, 35.4 miles long!
Two German radar mapping satellites, flying in orbital formation, are now about to produce the first three-dimensional radar imagery of Earth. Key quote:
The combined mission’s data will produce gridded maps with a spatial resolution of 12 meters, or 39 feet. The maps will show elevation with a precision of less than 2 meters, or 6 feet.
United States may outsource lightweight satellite launches to India.
Scientists have found that the color a wind turbine is painted will influence the number of bugs it attracts, which in turn will influence the number of bats and birds killed by the turbine. The least attractive color for bugs: purple!
An evening pause: On October 9, 2010, the Boy Scouts set a world record by launching 3200 model rockets — simultaneously.
Steve Squyres of Cornell University and the project scientist of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity spoke today at an astrobiology symposium in Arlington, Virginia. He described several spectacular planetary missions that might be flown in the coming decade. All are being considered. None have yet been chosen or funded.
Squyres is the co-chair of a committee of the National Science Foundation that is right now putting together a decadal survey for outlining unmanned planetary research for the next decade. This survey is expected to be released in March, which is when we will find out which of the above missions the planetary science community prefers.
Via Clark Lindsey, amateurs have spotted the X-37b again, in what appears to be a lower orbit.
The soaring bypass bridge over Hoover Dam is finally finished, and will open next week.
The last Chilean miner has reached the surface safely. Key quote from one of the miners in answer to a question about their future as media stars:
“The only thing I’ll ask of you is that you don’t treat me as an artist or a journalist, but as a miner. I was born a miner and I’ll die a miner.”
More details about SpaceShipTwo’s test flight, this time from one of the pilots.