May 2007 - Posts
Did you hear the one about the astronaut who threw up in his spacesuit? Or about the cosmonaut who had to get medical treatment in space after walking into a floating glob of antifreeze? Or the astronaut who became so despondent after his orbital experiment failed that his colleagues feared he would blow the hatch on the space shuttle?
Former NASA flight surgeon Jon Clark has heard them all, and he says the adverse experiences from nearly a half-century of spaceflight hold lessons for a new generation of private-sector space fliers.
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NASA / JPL / SSI |
The wonders of Saturn and its rings may be the main event for the Cassini orbiter, but the planet's moons are far more than a sideshow. The imagery coming back from the three-ton, bus-sized probe is as varied as an honest-to-goodness three-ring circus.
Here's a small-scale sampling of the recent attractions, with links to larger pictures:
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NASA / ESA / STScI / AURA |
The galaxy M81 looks much like our own Milky Way galaxy would from afar.
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The Hubble Space Telescope has sent back the best view yet of a picture-perfect galaxy known as M81 or Bode's Galaxy, resolving single points of starlight as well as star clusters and glowing regions of fluorescent gas.
"The amazing detail in this image took our breath away," Andreas Zezas, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a news release unveiling the image. "We can see individual stars like tiny grains of sand."
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NASA / JPL |
More than three years into its mission on Mars, NASA's Opportunity rover is gearing up for what could be the journey's climax: a descent into 230-foot-deep Victoria Crater to read the pages of what the mission's top scientist calls "a geologic history book." The update from Cornell University astronomer Steven Squyres, principal investigator for NASA's Mars rover missions, was just one of several new turns in the saga of Red Planet exploration.
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When space entrepreneurs get together, rumblings of future announcements fill the air: about takers for multimillion-dollar flights to the international space station or around the moon, about the competitors for NASA's lunar lander contest, about what the operators of future spaceships are up to. Here's a quick preview of what's just over the horizon for private-sector spaceflight, based on what people have been talking about at the International Space Development Conference in Dallas:
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Spaceport Singapore |
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This is one concept for an integrated visitor center and spaceport in Singapore.
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The most popular destinations for space tourism won't be in outer space itself, but right here on Earth. Already, an estimated 1.5 million people stream through Kennedy Space Center's visitor complex every year, and that rate is expected to tick upward after today's opening of the Shuttle Launch Experience, the center's virtual space ride.
In the years to come, a new generation of space-themed attractions could morph into working spaceports - where crowds of tourists can watch real-life space fliers as they train for the trip of a lifetime.
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When it comes to private spaceflight, the future always seems to be two years away. In 1997, suborbital space trips were due to start in 1999. In 2005, it was 2007. Now 2009 (or maybe 2010) is the start date for commercial space tours. As space entrepreneurs converge on Dallas for the annual International Space Development Conference, here are the latest timetables offered by four players in the suborbital space tourism game:
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Is that a radiation shield in your shorts, or are you just glad to see me?
A Swiss clothing company has generated a buzz in the blogosphere by coming out with a line of underwear beefed up with silver threads to protect a guy’s private parts from cellphone radiation.
This comes in the wake of controversial research reporting a correlation between higher cellphone usage and lower sperm counts. But don't be too quick to send your $24 to Switzerland: The researcher behind one of those studies says wearing radiation-proof undies is a rather silly idea.
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They weathered the worst that hackers could throw at them, and still kept their computer network running strong. Fueled by pizzas and pop, 19 teams of high-school students pulled an all-nighter over the weekend, during a computer security competition aimed at rewarding kids for being the good guys rather than the bad guys.
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As you click through "Cosmic Sightings," our regular roundup of the greatest hits in space imagery, you might be asking yourself where you can get bigger versions of those pictures to use as computer wallpaper or do-it-yourself wall posters. Well, you've come to the right place. Here are Web links for much of the freely available imagery that went into the latest batch of Cosmic Sightings:
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UP Aerospace |
The recovery crew kneels behind the UP Aerospace rocket's payload section at its New Mexico landing site. From left to right: Bobby Bixter (flight engineer), Roger
Bodwell (pilot), Jerry Larson (president. UP Aerospace), Ed Levine (Merlin Systems),
and Todd Miller (White Sands Missile Range).
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The rocket payload containing samples of cremated remains from "Star Trek" actor James Doohan, pioneer astronaut Gordon Cooper and 200 other dearly departed has been found in a surprising place, more than two weeks after its rise to - and fall from - outer space.
Connecticut-based UP Aerospace, which launched the payload on its SpaceLoft XL rocket on April 28, had been looking for it in remote mountainous terrain within New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range. But it turned out that the payload actually came down in a flat area of the range, less than a mile from the rocket's aim point, said Jerry Larson, the company's president and a leader of the search team.
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Where did global scourges like AIDS, smallpox, cholera and the black plague come from? Most of them got their start in other animals, then made the cross-species jump to infect humans. If only we could have spotted the malicious microbes when they were just beginning to make that jump.... That's exactly what three prominent researchers are proposing we do, by establishing a global "early warning system" for infectious diseases.
The system would involve periodic testing of people who come in close contact with wild animals, ranging from zoo workers to hunters. One of the scientists says such a system could have changed the course of the global AIDS crisis ... if only it had been in place 40 years ago.
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The launch of Bigelow Aerospace's second prototype for a future space station has been delayed again, from late this month to late June, due to continuing Russian qualms about the rocket that would be used for the launch.
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After months of preparation, a venture that uses outer space to generate random numbers is finally in the midst of a soft launch. You might think that there's nothing new under the sun when it comes to picking lucky numbers. But Yuzoz, a British-based company, is using data from the sun and other celestial objects to add some out-of-this-world twists to the seemingly simple exercise.
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CBS Paramount |
The latest additions to the Robot Hall of Fame don't fit the usual industrial mold for mechanical manipulators - and one of them would strongly object to being included in the club. Nevertheless, there he is: Lieutenant Commander Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," a fictional character who said, "I am an android, not a robot."
The other inductees, announced today at the RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition in Boston, include the Raibert Hopper, a one-legged research robot; the NavLab 5 self-steering minivan; and the LEGO Mindstorms robotic toy kit.
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UP Aerospace |
More than two weeks after being launched and lost, a capsule containing mortal remains from "Star Trek" actor James Doohan, pioneer astronaut Gordon Cooper and 200 others has been located, more or less, in the rugged mountains of southern New Mexico. Tracking experts are converging on the site for a beefed-up recovery effort due to start Wednesday.
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Sunday was a big day - and not just because of Mother's Day: It also marked the fifth anniversary of Cosmic Log's founding.
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Where do the presidential candidates stand on technological innovation? Questions like that tend to get lost in the shuffle - while the Iraq war, abortion and religion get much more of the spotlight. However, it's not too early to start paying attention to what the candidates are saying about science, technology and engineering, for two big reasons.
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NASA |
Some astronomers would be delighted if a super-bright supernova blast like the one reported this week were to occur in our own galaxy. One says it could be "the best star-show in the history of modern civilization." But if the blast was pointed right at us from close quarters? Well, that would be bad.
How so? And how bad? For the answers to those questions, you can turn to some cool Web sites, a few good books ... and a couple of bad movies.
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Two years after it was created as a NASCAR-style venture for open skies, the Rocket Racing League is still revving up for its first honest-to-goodness race. But the past couple of days have brought a roller-coaster sequence of downs and ups: On Monday, the first team to sign up for the league said it was pulling out. Then, to balance that bad news, the league announced the formation of a team that it will own and operate, complete with a corporate sponsorship and a pilot.
Reflecting on the good and the bad, the league’s president and chief executive officer told me today that his venture is on track to demonstrate its rocket-powered Mark-1 X-Racer and run its first races next year. “We’re about five or six months behind where we thought we’d be … but that’s a great margin of error,” Granger Whitelaw said.
So when can we expect the league’s first flame-spitting, kerosene-fueled rocket plane to make its debut?
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Generating cleaner energy and producing cleaner water are among the grand challenges facing engineers over the next century, according to the leaders of the profession. Over the next few months, experts will draw up an official list of Grand Challenges for Engineering - following in the footsteps of projects ranging from the Manhattan Project and the Apollo moon effort to the Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight and the DARPA Grand Challenge for autonomous vehicles.
Although the list isn't yet fully set, it's becoming clear that the grandest challenges ahead will be as hard as those past challenges - not just because they're technically difficult, but also because they require societal shifts as well.
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The nation's best and brightest engineers are gathering in Washington this week to figure out how to add some youthful zing to a profession that makes many kids think of slide rules and pocket protectors. As a result of their efforts, engineering's image will be getting a marketing makeover in the months ahead.
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Scientific American: Mathematicians devise invisible tunnel •
Science News: Sensor sensibility •
BBC: Native American DNA found in U.K. •
The New Yorker: Crash course
What does a Y-chromosome sound like? Now you can answer that question for yourself, using a novel molecule-to-melody conversion scheme that could open up new frontiers in biomedical research as well as computer-generated music.
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Whenever we come up with a fresh slide show of space sights, users generally want to know where the pictures come from - and some want to know where they can get bigger versions of the images. Now that our latest installment of "Cosmic Sightings" has made its debut, here are links to some of the sources we've used:
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Discovery.com: Space tether put to test •
Scientific American: South America's missing mammals •
New Scientist: Russian speakers get the blues •
BBC: Gladiators' graveyard discovered
Simon & Schuster |
Walter Isaacson’s 704-page, 2.4-pound biography of Albert Einstein may not provide a solution to the great question that nagged the physicist to the day he died – but thanks to Isaacson's access to a treasure trove of letters released just last year, "Einstein: His Life and Universe" provides the most definitive word yet on Einstein's personal puzzles.
You'll get the latest take on the inner sources of his genius, the "triangular geometry" of his sex life and the ambiguities of his religious beliefs. And you just might learn something new about relativity, too.
Read on for a Q&A with the author of America's best-selling biography.
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Nature: Human ancestors went underground for dinner •
Science Daily: Quantum dots may spark solar-panel progress •
Wired's Danger Room: Binoculars that tap the brain•
The Guardian: You only live twice (via
Daily Grail)
Linden Lab |
Virtual-reality rocket-builder Jimbo Perhaps takes Rocketeer students to his secret
Second Life hangar to show them a space shuttle under construction.
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"Can anyone tell me what is the rocket equation," the teacher asks. "That's a hard one," one of the students says. Then the teacher starts giving hints: "I use force to power my rockets. Force depends on the mass of the rocket."
Finally, another student types out the answer: "Thrust equals dM/dt (-vrel)."
I can tell I'm already out of my depth. Thank goodness that most of the class time is taken up in rocket rides, launch-pad tours - and levitating from one cool spaceship to another. Levitating is the easiest way to go on a class field trip when you're in the virtual world known as Second Life.
During today's first class, Second Life's most prolific rocket-builder showed us many of his computer-generated creations - including a space shuttle taking shape at his secret hangar - and taught us a little real-life rocket science along the way.
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• Science News: The science of flotsam
• N.Y. Times (reg. req.): Can coral make a comeback?
• Physics Today: The physics in your fork
• Discovery.com: Why supercontinents self-destruct
