Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known
Founder: Joseph Barone
Contributors: crookedindifference, bumerangue, propagandery, rocketmagic, rostenbach
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
India plans to send craft to orbit Mars next year
India plans to send a spacecraft to Mars next year on a scientific mission critics say shows the governing party’s skewed priorities when people lack electricity and safe drinking water.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the 4.5 billion rupee ($82 million) mission during a speech Wednesday marking the 65th anniversary of India’s independence from British rule.
“This spaceship to Mars will be a huge step for us in the area of science and technology,” he said.
Just a few shots from my day yesterday at Johnson Space Center Building 9, the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. We’ve got the Orion Mission Simulator, and then a working SEV (Space Exploration Vehicle), intended for getting us around on the Moon, asteroids, and eventually Mars and its moons.
Get your own simulated Robonaut!
Now you can have your very own Robonaut to work with, just like the astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
The Billionaires’ Mystery Space Venture and the Finer Points of Asteroid Mining
Looks like there’s going to be a new player in the space game pretty soon. On Tuesday, during a press conference at the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Planetary Resources will come into existence.
Behind the mystery venture are Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Google, director James Cameron, Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Charles Simonyl, Google Board of Directors member K. Ram Shiram, and Chairman of the Perot Group Ross Perot, Jr.
The cryptic press release didn’t give any details save a name and vague description of the company’s goals. It will “overlay two critical sector – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP.” It goes on the say that the innovative startup will “create a new industry and a new definition of natural resources.”
It may be convoluted, but it’s enough information to give some scientists a pretty clear idea of what Planetary Resources might do. It’s likely an asteroid mining company. That’s really the only thing in space that we need on Earth and could redefine natural resources.
A comparison of NASA’s rockets puts SLS to scale with existing vehicles as well as the Saturn V and the shuttle. Image credit: NASA
Does SLS Have a Future?
At first look, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) looks like the perfect rocket: heavy lifting launch vehicle that promises to be more versatile, powerful, and durable than anything that has preceded it. But there are major threats hanging over the rocket stacking the odds against it ever leaving the ground.
5 Horrifying Facts You Didn't Know About the Space Shuttle
“Criticizing the Space Shuttle is like punching America in the face. After all, it’s been a symbol of national pride for thirty years. But many of my friends and I are celebrating yesterday’s piggy-backed final flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum…because a museum is where the shuttle belongs.”
Running Mars and the Moon With Suitcase-Sized Nuclear Power Plants
In Space, nuclear power may be our best bet at survival.
Above: Saturn V Rocket, Hubble Telescope and Skylab.
Boeing Workers Will Fly to ISS Aboard Their Company’s New Spaceship
This is the best job perk we’ve seen in some time: Work for Boeing, go to space.The aerospace firm is planning to send its own employees to the International Space Station on the first crewed mission of its CST-100 ship, the company said Friday. Apparently internal interviews are already ongoing, because Boeing wants its astronauts to help drive further development of the space capsule.
Riding nuclear rockets to Mars will get us there incredibly fast, but is it craziest, most irresponsible idea ever?
Getting to Mars is not easy, particularly when the interplanetary journey is measured in months instead of days. For robotic missions, the transit time poses no great challenge; as long as the batteries keep the mechanics from freezing, a robot doesn’t mind the wait. But a manned mission is another story.The fastest transit to Mars is currently in the neighborhood of 180 days or six months. That’s a long time for humans to sit and wait patiently. It’s not an easy job to keep men alive and in good health outside the cocoon of the Earth’s magnetic field for that long. There is one alternative, however. A faster rocket.
Click image for larger version.
Source: Globaia.org.
This isn´t exaclty about space science but it concerns all of us.
The Anthropocene is a recent and informal geologic chronological term that serves to mark the evidence and extent of human activities that have had a significant global impact on the Earth’s ecosystems. The term was coined by ecologist Eugene Stoermer but has been widely popularized by the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, who regards the influence of human behavior on the Earth’s atmosphere in recent centuries as so significant as to constitute a new geological era for its lithosphere (Wikipedia).
The image above, made by Globaia.org, is a map of global transport systems and urban areas. It gives us the idea of how big is the impact of human activities on the surface of Earth.
Click image for larger version.
The inside view of a liquid hydrogen tank designed for the Space Shuttle external tank, viewed on February 1, 1977. At 154 feet long and more than 27 feet in diameter, the external tank is the largest component of the Space Shuttle, the structural backbone of the entire Shuttle system, and is the only part of the vehicle that is not reusable.
Source: NASA
Death in Space
The U.S. has plans for a manned visit to Mars by the mid-2030s. The ESA and Russia have sketched out a similar joint mission, and it is claimed that China’s space program has the same objective. Apart from their destination, all these plans share something in common: extraordinary danger for the explorers. What happens if someone dies out there, months away from Earth?
