ScienceCasts: Collision Course? A Comet Heads for Mars
A comet is heading for Mars, and there is a chance that it might hit the Red Planet in October 2014. An impact wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of NASA’s Mars program. But it would transform the program along with Mars itself.

via ScienceAtNASA

Lanzamiento del Skylab (NASA).

(Source: astroperlas, via space-pics)

Chris Hadfield and Don Pettit are instrumental in saving the space programme…

(Source: asonlynasacan, via for-all-mankind)

Skylab: America’s Humanity’s First Home in Space Launched 40 Years Ago Today

With all the futuristic talk today about missions to Mars, lunar bases and asteroid mining, it’s easy to forget that man has already been living off of the planet on and off for decades. Forty years ago today, Skylab — America’s Humanity’s first outpost in space — was launched. The three-man orbiting laboratory was designed to conduct scientific experiments in space, such as studies of the effects of weightlessness on man and other living organisms, and observations of the sun.

Here’s a look back at the pioneering Skylab mission, including mechanical failures, an aborted rescue mission, a crew mutiny and an unplanned crash landing on Earth.

View Wired Skylab Gallery

video: NASA, space.com
article: wired.com

In honor of Skylab’s anniversary, here is a documentary worth every second of your time. Educate yourself on the space race and private industry as it concerns us today.

Orphans of Apollo is (description provided by mirforpeace) …the extraordinary true story of a rebel group of entrepreneurs who seized command of the Russian Mir Space Station. It was the pioneering efforts of these brave, free marketeer buinessmen who launched the New Space Revolution, and kick-started the privatization of outer space as we know it today. This is the greatest story never told, and one film you are not supposed to see…

“Orphans of Apollo” is the award winning documentary that has been called the “greatest space story never told.” The film tells the extraordinary true story of a small group of entrepreneurs who felt, ‘orphaned’ by President Nixon’s decision to end the NASA Apollo Moon program and the subsequent years of nominal space activity. This band of brothers took matters into their own hands, and commandeered the Russian Mir Space Station, behind the backs of NASA and the US government. The rebellious, yet pioneering efforts has been credited with launching the new commercial Space Revolution. This is the remarkable untold story of the greatest secret in the new space race.

This dramatic tale chronicles the adventure of the boldest business plan the Earth has ever seen. ‘MirCorp’, the entrepreneurial company ’s vision to transform the Russian space station into an outpost for what was intended to be the first phase of a trillion dollar business. The project was to include mining of asteroids, gravity free laboratories, a space ‘hotel’, and a research facility. MirCorp was the ultimate start-up company, and unlike anything the universe had ever seen.

Join this band of rebels out to change the course of history in space, as they board a private jet, fly to Russia, negotiate one of the most remarkable business deals of the final frontier. Follow this diverse group as they pioneer their way through this new business of space. Listen to the management team as they struggle with issues of branding, finance, technology, and engage in the ultimate slugfest with the most powerful governments and bureaucrats.

Orphans of Apollo is an intimate and compelling epic which eloquently communicates the real origins of the private commercial new space revolution. Now for the first, and possibly the last, time, “Orphans of Apollo” combines archival material from original NASA film footage, Russian archival footage, personal footage, IMAX footage, with interviews and or footage with key players including Tom Clancy, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Rick Tumlinson, Walt Anderson, Gus Gardellini, Jeff Manber, and others. Available via Google, Amazon, Amazon Instant Video

website | blog

Virgin Galactic Hires Former NASA Astronaut as Spaceship Pilot

Just a week after Virgin Galactic made history with its first rocket-powered test flight, the commercial spaceflight company announced that it is hiring two veteran pilots, including a former NASA astronaut, who will help bring space tourists to new heights above Earth.

Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Michael “Sooch” Masucci and former NASA space shuttle commander Frederick “CJ” Sturckow will work out of Virgin Galactic’s Mojave, Calif., location to conduct flight training and testing with the suborbital SpaceShipTwo and its mothership, WhiteKnightTwo, the company said in a statement.

Sturckow is the first astronaut to be plucked from NASA’s ranks by Virgin Galactic. He logged more than 1,200 hours in space over four shuttle missions, including STS-88, the first U.S. launch to the International Space Station in 1998. A retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel, Sturckow also has 26 years of military flight experience under his belt. [Photos: Virgin Galactic’s 1st SpaceShipTwo Powered Flight Test]

“CJ will certainly be missed by the Astronaut Office,” said Bob Behnken, chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “He was a role model for leadership, and his expertise as an aviator and shuttle commander led to the success of the shuttle and station missions. His experience in spaceflight and ground operations will be difficult to replace within our organization. We look forward to his continued contributions to the future of spaceflight as he moves on to the next phase of his career.”

Masucci, meanwhile, is an experienced test and combat pilot who has logged more than 9,000 flying hours in 70 different types of airplanes and gliders.

A suborbital trip aboard SpaceShipTwo promises to bring passengers to the edge of space and back for $200,000 a ride. The flights would not make a full orbit of Earth, but they would allow passengers to experience brief periods of weightlessness and glimpse the planet from space.

“Viewing the Earth from space is such a unique and unforgettable experience,” Sturckow said in a May 8 statement. “I’m excited to be a part of the Virgin Galactic team that is revolutionizing access to space, making this opportunity a possibility for all.”

Virgin Galactic, founded by the British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, held its latest, and 26th, test flight of SpaceShipTwo on April 29 at California’s Mojave Air and Space Port.

The vehicle was brought into the air by the carrier WhiteKnightTwo. After it was released, SpaceShipTwo went on to reach a maximum altitude of 56,000 feet (17,000 meters) before it flew back to Earth. In a first, the space plane also fired its rocket engines during the flight, which propelled the vehicle to a supersonic speed of Mach 1.2. (Mach 1, the speed of sound, is about 762 mph, or 1,226 km/h, at sea level.)

Virgin Galactic officials have said that SpaceShipTwo could carry passengers as soon as this year or 2014. More than 500 people have signed up for the flights, which will be run out of Spaceport America in New Mexico once the testing phase is complete.

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Stay Curious! Watch Black Sky : The Race For Space about Space Ship One, and how a small team backed by Paul Allen achieved human suborbital spaceflight and win the Ansari X Prize. The documentary provides insight about how the rocketplane was built, the challenge they faced when they flew it, the vision of Burt Rutan about the future of this technology (tier two and three), and his thoughts about NASA and government. [x]

Galaxy Collisions: Simulation vs Observations

The folks over at NASA apod just put up an awesome galaxy collisions, simulations and observations video for the public. I made a little gif set to go along with the video which can be found here.

What happens when two galaxies collide? Although it may take over a billion years, such titanic clashes are quite common.

Images Credit: NASA, ESA; Visualization: Frank Summers (STScI);

Simulation: Chris Mihos (CWRU) & Lars Hernquist (Harvard).

Since galaxies are mostly empty space, no internal stars are likely to themselves collide. Rather the gravitation of each galaxy will distort or destroy the other galaxy, and the galaxies may eventually merge to form a single larger galaxy.

Expansive das and dust clouds collide and trigger waves of star formation that complete even during the interaction process. Pictured above is a computer simulation of two large spiral galaxies colliding, interspersed with real still images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Our own Milky Way Galaxy has absorbed several smaller galaxies during its existence and is even projected to merge with the larger neighboring Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years.

(Source: ikenbot)

Skylab: America’s First Home in Space Launched 40 Years Ago Today

With all the futuristic talk today about missions to Mars, lunar bases and asteroid mining, it’s easy to forget that man has already been living off of the planet on and off for decades. Forty years ago today, Skylab — America’s first outpost in space — was launched. The three-man orbiting laboratory was designed to conduct scientific experiments in space, such as studies of the effects of weightlessness on man and other living organisms, and observations of the sun.

Full Article

(Source: spaceplasma, via spaceplasma)

The sky is /not/ the limit - Col. Chris Hadfield

(Source: quotesfield, via asonlynasacan)

X-ray vision tracks lightning bursts

Blink and you’ve missed it. Researchers in the US have captured the world’s first X-ray images of lightning, by creating a special camera that can capture radiation at 10 million frames per second. They presented their new findings at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco and they say that this new view of lightning could help to solve some of the mysteries of this spectacular natural phenomenon.

The research was carried out at the International Center for Lightning Research and Testing, located in Florida. It is one of the few sites in world where lightning is initiated and studied under controlled conditions. By firing rockets with trailing wires into thunder clouds, scientists are able to generate electric fields that are large enough to trigger bolts of lightning, which then propagate back down towards the rocket launch tower.

Joseph Dwyer and colleagues at the Florida Institute of Technology became interested in the fact that lightning emits X-rays as it propagates through the air, a phenomenon that was only noted in the past decade. But given that X-ray sources in lightning travel through the Earth’s atmosphere at velocities approaching the speed of light, it is difficult to catch them on camera before they disappear. In addition, they cannot be imaged with standard mirrors and lenses because huge amounts of material are required to prevent X-rays and gamma rays from entering through the sides of a camera.

Dwyer’s team has created a customized camera that has 30 detectors made from a combination of sodium iodide and photomultiplier tubes, each measuring 3 × 3 inch. The device, which is approximately the size of a standard refrigerator, is also equipped with a 3 inch pinhole aperture, and can record X-rays at 10 million frames per second. “This is actually a very old technique for making images, like that seen in a camera obscura,” Dwyer says.

During July and August this year, Dwyer’s team studied four rocket-triggered lightning flashes at the Florida test site. Each flash lasted for approximately two seconds and the resulting sequences of images revealed that X-rays emerged primarily from the vicinity of the lightning tip as it propagated towards the Earth. As the lightning crashed into the control tower it also triggered large bursts of gamma radiation, which were also captured by the camera.

“For the first time we’re catching a glimpse of lightning in the X-ray emission,” says Dwyer. “We’re seeing lightning as Superman would see it with his X-ray vision”.

Credit: James Dacey/physicsworld.com

(Source: spaceplasma, via n-a-s-a)

On June 18, 2009, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket took off from Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying with it the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The LRO’s initial goal was simple exploration of the moon, though after one year it switched to a science phase under the Science Mission Directorate of NASA. On the orbiter are a variety of instruments designed to help NASA better understand the Earth’s moon, including tools for creating day-night temperature maps, detecting UV radiation, and creating high resolution color images of its surface. Although the LRO is capable of collecting a wide range of data about our satellite, there’s an emphasis on learning more about the moon’s polar regions, where constant exposure to sunlight is possible and a chance exists for liquid water to be found in the permanently shadowed regions.

It is hoped that exploration data from the LRO can be used to find better landing sites, paving the way for the return of manned trips to the moon and, ultimately, lunar outposts. As such, the LRO marks the first effort to create a complete map of all of the moon’s resources and geography. Because an outpost would also imply humans spending prolonged periods of time on the surface of the moon, the LRO is being used to identify resources on the moon and determine how the moon’s radiation-filled environment will affect us.

Read more about the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in our latest blog post at http://www.penny4nasa.org/2013/05/13/mapping-the-moon-the-lunar-reconnaissance-orbiter-mission/

(Source: pennyfournasa)

ISS Astronauts Returned Safely to Earth.

“After inspiring all of us on Earth, Commander Chris Hadfield and crew have finally re-joined us here. The Soyuz space capsule landed safely at 10:31 PM EDT in Kazakhstan. Hadfield had spent 144 days on the ISS, 2,336 orbits around the planet and totaled up around 62 million miles. That’s a lot of miles!

The Soyuz capsule landed vertically, which is the preferred position. The crew, which includes Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, are back on Earth and reportedly all feeling good as they re-adjust to the gravity. Marshburn was one of the astronauts who performed the awe-inspiring emergency spacewalk to fix the leak of ammonia coolant two days ago.

The landing of the capsule comes a little over three hours since the capsule undocked from the ISS. It marks the end of the ISS’ Expedition 35 Crew in space. The crew will head over to the medical tent to get all properly tested and fixed for normal Earth life. Or as normal life can be in the eyes of men who were in space.” via Gizmodo

“On Sunday, Hadfield handed over command of the space station to Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov.

As part of his personal farewell to the space station, Hadfield released a video of his version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, which NASA said is the first music video made in space.” via CBC

(Source: thescienceofreality)

NASA Connects Space Station and “Star Trek Into Darkness” Crews

Science fiction and science fact come together for an epic Google+ Hangout live with the Space Station and the director, a writer and some actors in the film “Star Trek Into Darkness.” Join the discussion from noon to 12:45 p.m. EDT, May 16, about how work aboard the International Space Station is turning science fiction into reality. http://go.nasa.gov/13i9DII

(Source: spaceplasma, via spaceplasma)

Astronauts, Space Walks and The ‘Overview Effect’

Nearly everyone is familiar with EVA’s (Extra-Vehicular Activities) or “Space Walks” - activities/tasks performed outside of a space craft by astronauts. However, since watching The Overview Effect when it first premiered, I haven’t come across a segment of interviews such as this.

This is a great tribute to the men and women who have actually stepped out into space and seen the Earth with their own eyes, only a thin sheet of protective material between their organic lenses and the natural beauty of our planet and universe.

Expect more of this. As humans progress above our atmosphere and further out into space, the psychological/neurological effects will become more widespread and unique to each individual, united by awe and humility. I encourage all of you to watch this 20-minute documentary, The Overview Effect, which truly exposes the cosmic perspective for what it is, which is solitary and distinctive to the human species. No one else in history has been able to grasp and articulate this perspective from the height of over 250 miles up from our planet’s surface.

We’ve speculated and verbally interpreted this viewpoint philosophically, psychologically, spiritually, historically and scientifically, but we now are able to share and partake in this human journey - via our ever-advancing technology - with other humans across the globe through multiple media forms; granting others such an experience, which, even for a moment, consumes our consciousness and peels back the layers of our biological, chemical, atomically-interwoven connectivity with all life on this planet and most probably, others.

Also, if you’re unfamiliar with entrepreneur/video game developer Richard Garriott, he is lesser-known as being the son of an astronaut. His father, Owen Garriott, lived on NASA’s Skylab/Spacelab-1 LEO facilities in the 70’s and 80’s. Richard Garriott’s lifelong dream was to follow in his father’s “bootsteps” and journey to space. Garriott underwent astronaut training in Star City where, with his Russian counterparts, he learned Russian (required as he flew abord the Soyuz craft) and via Space Adventures, became the first private citizen to venture into space and perform science experiments on board the International Space Station.

Since then, Richard Garriott has become the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors for Space Adventures and trustee of the X-Prize Foundation, which we are all familiar with. The film not only excites with gorgeous photography/cinematography, but also educates, revealing the cultural significance and processes by which Russian astro/cosmonauts partake and endure along their journey to space.

His mission, from beginning to end, was documented and produced into a film, aptly entitled, “Man On A Mission.” Free up some time to watch this and share it with others. The more humans that venture into space, the more humans we will have returning to Earth (or not) sharing their experience and the importance of spaceflight upon our civilization and our psyche.

Ad Astra Per Aspera.