• Engineer Special Study of the Surface of the Moon (1960, 1961)

    Updated: 2010-12-31 17:04:39
    : Beyond Apollo plans for the exploration of space from the age of Apollo and beyond Friday , December 31, 2010 Engineer Special Study of the Surface of the Moon 1960, 1961 The race to the moon began on August 17, 1958, and the Soviet Union won . This isn't the opening line of an alternate history story rather , it is an acknowledgment that more than one moon race took place . The first , with the goal of launching an automated spacecraft to the moon , began with the liftoff of the Able 1 lunar orbiter , a 38-kilogram U.S . Air Force probe subsequently redesignated Pioneer 0. Just seventy-seven seconds after launch from Cape Canaveral , Florida , Able 1's first-stage Thor rocket exploded , ending the world's first attempted lunar . mission A month later , on September 23, 1958, the Soviet

  • Door 31 in the 2010 advent calendar

    Updated: 2010-12-31 16:41:05
    The Planetary Society Blog: Time to open the thirty-first (and next-to-last) door in the advent calendar. Until the New Year, I'll be opening a door onto a different landscape from somewhere in the solar system. Where in the solar system are these dark-rimmed craters? Door 31The image has a resolution of 6.3 meters per pixel and covers an area about 3.2 kilometers square. Credit: NASA / JPL / UMD This view of the pitted nucleus of comet Tempel 1 is composed of many frames ....

  • Briefs: 2010 commercial spaceflight review; KSC review; Space misfires in 2010

    Updated: 2010-12-31 16:27:06
    : Skip to main . content HS Home Space for All Space Transport News Archives About Contact NewSpace Log 10 SFF NewSpace 10 Space Access 10 2009 Review NewSpace Employment Jobs Place your job ad here Further details Bigelow Aerospace Blue Origin Masten Space Scaled Composites The Spaceship Company SpaceDev SNC SpaceX Tethers Unlimited TGV-Rockets XCOR Commercial Human Spaceflight Technical Forum Boulder , Colorado January 12-14, 2011 14th FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference Washington DC Feb.9-10, 2011 2011 Next-Gen Suborbital Researchers Conference Orlando , Florida Feb.28-Mar 2, 2011 2nd Int . IAA Conf . on Private Human Access to Space Arcachon , France May 30-June 1, 2011 Tip Jar Regular readers can support HobbySpace with a contribution via credit : card Support HobbySpace

  • Briefs: 2010 commercial spaceflight review; KSC review; Space misfires in 2010

    Updated: 2010-12-31 16:27:06
    : Skip to main . content HS Home Space for All Space Transport News Archives About Contact NewSpace Log 10 SFF NewSpace 10 Space Access 10 2009 Review NewSpace Employment Jobs Place your job ad here Further details Bigelow Aerospace Blue Origin Masten Space Scaled Composites The Spaceship Company SpaceDev SNC SpaceX Tethers Unlimited TGV-Rockets XCOR Commercial Human Spaceflight Technical Forum Boulder , Colorado January 12-14, 2011 14th FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference Washington DC Feb.9-10, 2011 2011 Next-Gen Suborbital Researchers Conference Orlando , Florida Feb.28-Mar 2, 2011 2nd Int . IAA Conf . on Private Human Access to Space Arcachon , France May 30-June 1, 2011 Tip Jar Regular readers can support HobbySpace with a contribution via credit : card Support HobbySpace

  • Photos: Florida Peninsula As Seen At Night From Orbit

    Updated: 2010-12-31 16:10:16
    A southerly looking night view of the upper two thirds of the Florida peninsula was recorded by one of the Expedition 26 crew members aboard the International Space Station on Dec. 28, 2010. Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center are very well lighted on the left (Atlantic Ocean) side of the peninsula. read more

  • Photos: Florida Peninsula As Seen At Night From Orbit

    Updated: 2010-12-31 16:10:16
    A southerly looking night view of the upper two thirds of the Florida peninsula was recorded by one of the Expedition 26 crew members aboard the International Space Station on Dec. 28, 2010. Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center are very well lighted on the left (Atlantic Ocean) side of the peninsula. read more

  • After the Lunar Industrial Village--- Drexlerian Sails plus Globus AsterAnt Strategy equals Solar Empire

    Updated: 2010-12-31 15:32:40
    skip to main skip to sidebar December 31, 2010 After the Lunar Industrial Village--- Drexlerian Sails plus Globus AsterAnt Strategy equals Solar Empire By Joseph Friedlander Let us suppose that we have an electrical launch facility on the Moon to export mass to the L4-L5 points in co-orbit with the Moon around the . Earth My caption-- the Sun is in the middle of the picture , the Earth is at the 3 o'clock position relative to the Sun , the Moon is in the 2 o'clock position relative to the Earth . Note L4 and L5 at the 1 and 5 o'clock positions relative to the Sun . The Moon's mass makes these gravitational pockets in space stable orbits along the contour , like a steel ball circling a curved horn funnel in a museum display . Even a dumb mass will follow the path of least resistance . As

  • Indian Air Force Seeking Bids for New Attack Helicopter

    Updated: 2010-12-31 15:28:22
    AmericaSpace: Several military aviation companies in the United States have announced their plans to vie for a contract with the Indian Government for the purchase of 22 attack helicopters, according to the India Times. American companies had withdrawn in 2009, causing the Indian Government to cancel the estimated $1.4 billion contract when the only Eurocopter remained [...]

  • Bye bye, Kodachrome, but "Kodak moments" will live on in space

    Updated: 2010-12-31 15:04:18
    The Planetary Society Blog: This week is the end for Kodachrome film. It's a casualty of the digital revolution. Kodak announced in June of 2009 that it would stop manufacturing Kodachrome film, the color film that once captured snapshots and professional color prints alike. Even if you kept some, after Friday, December 31, 2010, you won't be able to get it developed anymore, because the last photo shop that had a supply of the chemicals necessary for its development ....

  • Cheers to 2011!

    Updated: 2010-12-31 14:59:54
    Journey to the Stars: Wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year! Image: The Great Orion Nebula (taken using MicroObservatory Online Telescope last August, 2010) Filed under: Astrophotography, Deep Sky Objects, MicroObservatory, Personal Tagged: 2011, astronomy new year, microobservatory online telescopes, new year greetings, orion nebula Wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year! Image: The Great Orion Nebula (taken using MicroObservatory Online Telescope last August, 2010) Filed under: Astrophotography, Deep Sky Objects, MicroObservatory, Personal Tagged: 2011, astronomy new year, microobservatory online telescopes, new year greetings, orion nebula

  • Mission planned to probe Uranus

    Updated: 2010-12-31 14:54:22
    Home About us What's up tonight How to choose a telescope Front page Space news Sky tonight Stargazing Mars Moon guide Telescope tips Reviews RSS Shop Storm on Saturn visible to amateurs Mission planned to probe Uranus Posted on December 31st , 2010 British space scientists are leading plans to send a probe to explore giant ice planet Uranus . They have put forward a detailed proposal to the European Space Agency to launch a joint mission with NASA to the distant world , 1.8 billion miles from the . sun Uranus imaged by the Hubble space telescope in 1998 NASA ESA It would give scientists their first close-up views of Uranus since NASA’s Voyager 2 flew past and captured fleeting pictures 25 years . ago The 400million mission is designed to go in orbit to study the rings around Uranus and

  • Mount Everest's Sherpas Ring Warning Bell on Global Warming (2010 Top Environment Alert)

    Updated: 2010-12-31 08:15:00
    When sherpas ring the warning bell on climate change the world should listen: Mount Everest is becoming increasingly dangerous to climb because global warming is melting glacier ice along its slopes, according to Apa, a Nepalese Sherpa who grew up... </div

  • Image of the Year - The Himilayas from Space

    Updated: 2010-12-31 08:14:00
    The Himalayas (meaning "abode of snow") separate the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau and includes the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush, and other, lesser, ranges that extend out from the Pamir Knot. The mountain system is the planet's highest and...

  • Rare Images From Inside a Soyuz During Flight

    Updated: 2010-12-30 18:00:56
    Cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev recently arrived at the International Space Station, along with astronauts Cady Colemand from the US and Paolo Nespoli from the European Space Agency. Kondratyev has a blog, which he has been updating regularly and he has included several pictures. Most interestingly, he has quite a few images taken inside the Soyuz after [...]

  • Photo: A New View of Tethys

    Updated: 2010-12-30 17:34:20
    : Friday , December 31, 2010 About On Orbit Advertise Here Contact Information Feedback Log Out Home Blogs Features Recent Posts Photo : A New View of Tethys Submitted by keithcowing on Thu , 12 30 2010 10:34. Planetary Science A prime objective of the Cassini orbital mission at Saturn is to characterize the nature and evolution of Saturn's extended family of icy satellites . Cassini observations since the beginning of the prime mission in mid-2004 have made possible the first global maps of these diverse bodies . A team of scientists lead by Dr . Paul Schenk http : www.lpi.usra.edu lpi schenk at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston has produced the first global color and topographic maps of these . satellites These two views of Tethys show the high-resolution color at left and the

  • Photos: Testing Dextre on the International Space Station

    Updated: 2010-12-30 17:33:13
    : Friday , December 31, 2010 About On Orbit Advertise Here Contact Information Feedback Log Out Home Blogs Features Recent Posts Photos : Testing Dextre on the International Space Station Submitted by keithcowing on Thu , 12 30 2010 10:33. Gadgets Blog Space Exploration This photo , recorded by an Expedition 26 crewmember on the International Space Station , features two components of the Mobile Servicing System on the orbital outpost . Part of the Station Remote Manipulator System's arm Canadarm2 is visible at left . Dextre right also known as the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator SPDM is a two armed robot . high res 1.0 M low res 68 K This photo , recorded by an Expedition 26 crewmember on the International Space Station , features two components of the Mobile Servicing System on the

  • Space in 2011

    Updated: 2010-12-30 16:27:49
    A couple more space prediction lists for 2011: /-- Predictions for 2011 - Jon Goff/nasaspaceflight.com (via Space Prizes) /-- 11 Things Americans Will Be Doing in Space in 2011 - SPACE.com

  • Space policy roundup

    Updated: 2010-12-30 16:25:08
    Skip to main . content HS Home Space for All Space Transport News Archives About Contact NewSpace Log 10 SFF NewSpace 10 Space Access 10 2009 Review NewSpace Employment Jobs Place your job ad here Further details Bigelow Aerospace Blue Origin Masten Space Scaled Composites The Spaceship Company SpaceDev SNC SpaceX Tethers Unlimited TGV-Rockets XCOR Commercial Human Spaceflight Technical Forum Boulder , Colorado January 12-14, 2011 14th FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference Washington DC Feb.9-10, 2011 2011 Next-Gen Suborbital Researchers Conference Orlando , Florida Feb.28-Mar 2, 2011 2nd Int . IAA Conf . on Private Human Access to Space Arcachon , France May 30-June 1, 2011 Tip Jar Regular readers can support HobbySpace with a contribution via credit : card Support HobbySpace

  • When natural and artificial moons align

    Updated: 2010-12-30 14:00:16
    A few hours before last week’s lunar eclipse started here in the States, the phenomenal astrophotographer (and frequent BA Blog photo contributor) Thierry Legault was in Normandy, France, and got a magnificent picture of a different sort of transit involving the Moon: Wow. You definitely need to click to enlunanate and get the giant version. [...]

  • Antarctica Yields Remnants of a Dwarf Planet from Creation of Solar System (A 2010 Most Popular)

    Updated: 2010-12-30 09:50:00
    Rocks can be many things: they were probably our earliest weapons, they've been ballast on our journeys of exploration, even modern-art pieces. But a pair recovered from Antarctica may be the grandest application yet - tombstones for an entire world....

  • How do We Search for Quantum-Based ETs? (A 2010 Most Popular)

    Updated: 2010-12-30 09:40:00
    On a recent Discovery program on the Universe, Stephen Hawking voiced concern about the dangers, he believes, are posed by aliens who may arrive some day on Earth: "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly...

  • "Asteroid Proof Life": Deep-Earth Microbes Discovered Living on a Geologic Timescale.

    Updated: 2010-12-30 08:40:00
    Tiny ancient microbes beneath the sea floor influence the Earth's long-term carbon cycle. Distinct from life on the Earth's surface, these microbes may account for one-tenth of the Earth's living biomass, according to an interdisciplinary team of researchers who looked...

  • Particles from Outer Space Found in Antarctica

    Updated: 2010-12-30 08:30:00
    A new family of extraterrestrial particles, probably of cometary origin, was identified in Central Antarctica. Discovered by researchers from the Center for Nuclear Spectrometry and Mass Spectrometry (CSNSM), attached to the Institut national de physique nucléaire et de physique des...

  • Briefs: Unreasonable COTS tank; Spaceflight 2010 review

    Updated: 2010-12-30 07:01:54
    Paul Breed continues with tests of a really low cost upper stage propellant tank: PET third stage COTS tank - Unreasonable Rocket. === Another 2010 space review: Spaceflight in 2010: A Year of Historic Milestones - SPACE.com.

  • Ariane 5 Rocket Lifts Off for Final Launch of 2010

    Updated: 2010-12-29 22:23:02
    One final rocket launch in 2010 took place as Arianespace successfully launched the Hispasat 1E and KOREASAT 6 telecommunication satellites aboard an Ariane 5 ECA rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. Liftoff was at 4:27 p.m. EST (21:27 GMT). KOREASAT 6 is a commercial telecommunications satellite of the KT Corporation of the Republic [...]

  • Highlights of 2010 from the European Space Agency

    Updated: 2010-12-29 17:41:30
    It has been another great year in space, and the European Space Agency has put together a video highlight reel for 2010. They look at the achievements in different areas, including Earth Observation, Science, Human Spaceflight and Telecommunications. From the launch of Cryosat to the Planck sky scan, from Node 3 Cupola completing the ISS [...]

  • International Space Station on the Moon?

    Updated: 2010-12-29 15:23:59
    From our vantage point on Earth, it takes just a half second for the International Space Station to fly across the face of the Moon, so catching a transit is tricky. But award-winning French astrophotographer Theirry Legault captured an amazingly sharp and detailed transit image that makes the ISS look like it is sitting on [...]

  • Mysterious Ring Galaxy 600-Million Light-Years Distant

    Updated: 2010-12-29 09:00:00
    The mystery is: Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomer Art Hoag discovered this odd extragalactic object. On the outside is a ring dominated by bright blue stars, while near the center...

  • The Solar Systems Largest Impact Crater Yields Clues to Radical Changes in Mars Atmosphere

    Updated: 2010-12-29 08:20:00
    The prehistoric Chicxulub crater left by an asteroid collision in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula could yield clues about what Mars was like billions of years ago, according to NASA planetary geologist Adriana Ocampo, who is studying an ancient impact crater buried...

  • New Singularity Institute Publications in 2010

    Updated: 2010-12-29 07:59:40
    Here’s the source. Basic AI Drives and Catastophic Risks (Carl Shulman, 2010) Coherent Extrapolated Volition: A Meta-Level Approach to Machine Ethics (Roko Mijic, Nick Tarleton, 2010) Economic Implications of Software Minds (S. Kaas, S. Rayhawk, A. Salamon and P. Salamon, 2010) From mostly harmless to civilization-threatening: pathways to dangerous artificial general intelligences (Kaj Sotala, 2010) [...]

  • “Carbon Nanotubes Could Create World’s First Space Elevator”

    Updated: 2010-12-29 06:05:20
    In a December 27th posting on inhabitat.com, the statement was made that “…NASA has pledged $3 million over the next five years to research the idea and is working on scale models…”. No reference to any specific NASA program was made, but my guess is that the author, Mr. Timon Singh, is referring to the $3 [...]

  • Singularity Summit 2009 Featured in Carl Zimmer Article in Scientific American

    Updated: 2010-12-29 05:03:24
    Carl Zimmer wrote this: “Can You Live Forever? Maybe Not — But You Can Have Fun Trying“. This is a very positive, yet slightly skeptical look at the Singularity movement. This article is a follow-up to Zimmer’s earlier article in Playboy, which came out this January. This year, there have been articles on the Singularity [...]

  • Ramez Naam at Singularity Summit 2010: “The Digital Biome”

    Updated: 2010-12-28 23:24:06
    Ramez Naam: The Digital Biome from Singularity Institute on Vimeo. Abstract: Exponential technologies offer the promise not only of changing the human condition, but of radically altering the face of the planet on which we dwell. Within the next 20 years we will have sequenced the genome of every known species on the earth and [...]

  • 2010's 'Most Popular': The 1.8 Gigayear ET Technology Gap

    Updated: 2010-12-28 09:50:00
    Are we the lone sentient life in the universe? So far, we have no evidence to the contrary, NASA's arsenic-based life notwithstanding, and yet the odds that not one single other planet has evolved intelligent life would appear, from a...

  • Will Mars' Ancient Lakes & Seas Yield Fossils of Prior Life?

    Updated: 2010-12-28 08:40:00
    J. Alexis Palmero Rodriguez, research scientist at Planetary Science Institue, has been studying the Martian northern lowlands region, which contains extensive sedimentary deposits that resemble the abyssal plains of Earth's ocean floors. It is also like the floors of other...

  • Milky Way's Twin: The Island Galaxy of Pegasus

    Updated: 2010-12-28 08:18:00
    We bet it does. Spiral galaxy NGC 7331, located 49 megalight years distant in the constellation Pegasus, is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way. When the Daily Galaxy staff views the ethereal beauty of the object,...

  • Image of the Year: Strange Spirals of Mars' Polar Cap

    Updated: 2010-12-28 08:14:00
    Forty years ago, the Mariner 9 spacecraft relayed to Earth the first video images of Mars' northern polar ice cap, revealing a strange pattern of spiral swirls that has puzzled scientists ever since. Using data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter...

  • China Poised to Explore Mars

    Updated: 2010-12-28 08:10:00
    China has drawn up a technical plan for an independent Mars orbiter exploration project, space technology experts said. Based on research conducted by the China Academy of Space Technology, the plan envisions a launch date as early as 2013, Huang...

  • The Leeward Space Foundation

    Updated: 2010-12-28 00:03:41
    John Lee and his Leeward Space Foundation is a sponsor of the Pearson Prize - a prize awarded by the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) each year for the best paper on the yearly ISEC theme submitted by an undergraduate student.  We at ISEC are very grateful for John’s generosity and continuing [...]

  • Stating the Obvious

    Updated: 2010-12-27 23:37:02
    I get the feeling that this is what it’d be like if I had a debate with Hugo de Garis. When people get confused about morality and think in terms of a Great Chain of Being where greater physical/computing power necessarily means better “morality”, they are forced to come to “counterintuitive” (to say the least) [...]

  • Me and Michael Vassar Talk About the Singularity on Supreme Master TV

    Updated: 2010-12-27 19:54:58
    The full version is here and here; only the first part is on YouTube. This is the best introduction to the Singularity Institute for non-English speakers because of the subtitles in many languages.

  • Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) - The 800 Pound Gorilla

    Updated: 2010-12-27 15:56:07
    The most recent issue of Science News (18 December 2010) has the following notes from 17 December 1960: HEAVY SHIELD UNNECESSARY — Heavy shielding as protection for an astronaut against space radiations may not be necessary, at least for trips of less than 50 hours and at distances not greater than 618 miles from earth…. [B]iological [...]

  • Photo: A Flyby of Enceladus

    Updated: 2010-12-27 14:05:59
    This image was taken on November 30, 2010 and received on Earth December 01, 2010. The camera was pointing toward Enceladus at approximately 47,483 kilometers away, and the image was taken using the CL1 and CL2 filters. This image has not been validated or calibrated. A validated/calibrated image will be archived with the NASA Planetary Data System in 2011. read more

  • Transport Nexus III: I Brought My Heart to San Francisco

    Updated: 2010-12-23 21:17:00
    : : skip to main skip to sidebar SCIENCE FICTION FANTASY HISTORY SPACE AND OTHER SPECULATIONS Rocketpunk Manifesto Days of Future Past Thursday , December 23, 2010 Transport Nexus III : I Brought My Heart to San Francisco Truth to be told , in all but the narrowest technical sense driving the car she brought me it was my wife Paula's inspiration and effort that got us here . In any case the move and settling-in process account for the lack of posts here in the last couple of weeks , but now RM is up and running . again In itself all this has nothing at all to do with space travel , but it does inspire some further thoughts about space stations . Recent discussion threads have included noteworthy heresies on this . point In the traditional understanding that we all grew up on , an orbital

  • 'The Daily Galaxy' Holiday Classics - The Best of 2010

    Updated: 2010-12-23 16:21:37
    During the coming Christmas and New Year's holidays, we'll be posting several of 2010's most popular Daily Galaxy posts that were featured on NASA, Twitter, Facebook, Huffington Post, and other news sites.

  • A Holiday Card from the International Space Station

    Updated: 2010-12-23 14:23:18
    Commander Scott Kelly of NASA and Flight Engineers Cady Coleman of NASA and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency send all of us on Earth some Christmas and New Years wishes. Sweet, but they don't look very merry up...

  • A new Space Elevator Song

    Updated: 2010-12-21 06:09:05
    I was recently contacted by Tris Lucas of galaxyswan, letting me know that they have created a new Space Elevator song (titled, creatively enough, “Space Elevator”) and posted it on the web. The vocals remind me a little bit of Julie Miller (of Buddy & Julie Miler fame) and I think it is a very worthwhile [...]

  • What’s Happening Magazine

    Updated: 2010-12-18 06:57:03
    ISEC’s own Dr. Martin Lades has written an introductory article about the space elevator for the the online What’s Happening Magazine. It’s a good primer on what a space elevator is and what it can be used for. Money quote from the article: …Getting material from the ground to Earth orbit is tough. To reach a real orbit [...]

  • What are the Odds?

    Updated: 2010-12-17 04:22:18
    Someone at NASASpaceflight.com dug up the predictions thread for 2010 that I apparently started on New Year’s Eve a year ago… http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=19960.0 Here were my predictions: What I think will likely happen in 2010: 1- ISS will be extended to 2020 and Shuttle only to 2011 (with one added flight) 2- Ares-I will be canceled, but in order to buy [...]

  • Happy Birthday Sir Clarke!

    Updated: 2010-12-16 19:44:04
    Had the great man continued to be with us, today would have been Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s 93rd birthday. I found this video of him (thank you Universe Today) from 1964 as he tried his hand at prognosticating.  Nothing about Space Elevators or anything like that, but he predicted the demise of cities because of the [...]

  • Lunar Eclipse, the Moon’s Interior, and the Holy GRAIL

    Updated: 2010-12-15 21:47:36
    In addition to the awesome views they offer, lunar eclipses have always provided scientific clues about the moon's shape, location and even surface composition.

  • Space Show Appearance This Afternoon

    Updated: 2010-12-13 20:35:37
    Just a last second reminder that I’m going to be on The Space Show this afternoon (2-3:30pm PST), talking with Dr. Livingston about my new company and what we’re up to (including info about our SBIR award).  If there’s extra time, we may talk about propellant depots and other space business or space technology topics [...]

  • The Unspecified Drive

    Updated: 2010-12-12 18:35:00
    : skip to main skip to sidebar SCIENCE FICTION FANTASY HISTORY SPACE AND OTHER SPECULATIONS Rocketpunk Manifesto Days of Future Past Sunday , December 12, 2010 The Unspecified Drive Deep space propulsion is , unsurprisingly , a major concern of this blog . I regularly specify the performance of interplanetary craft fitted with some form of high specific impulse drive . Sometimes I describe it as a nuclear electric or solar electric drive , sometimes simply as electric , often not even that much . Sometimes , especially when discussion takes us to the wide open spaces beyond Jupiter , I allude to . fusion Since I got myself in a bit of hot water , or some more exotic and much hotter coolant , by some snide remarks about fission power plants , a few comments on deep space propulsion are in .

  • Notes from Josh Hopkins’ LM “Plymouth Rock” Presentation (8 Dec 2010)

    Updated: 2010-12-12 07:06:15
    A couple of weeks back, I got an invitation from Josh Hopkins (a friend of mine from Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Programs group) to attend a colloquium he was going to be presenting at up at SwRI’s Boulder office. It turns out the colloquium ended up right in the middle of SpaceX’s COTS 1 mission, [...]

  • LASER 2010

    Updated: 2010-12-11 05:06:33
    On November 21st, the Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA) held another of their LASER (Lego bricks Activity and Space Elevator Race) competitions.  Mr. Hideyuki Natsume, a Director at JSEA, informs me that 36 teams with more than 100 people participated and that the competition theme was “payload-juice can”. The LASER website is here and they have [...]

  • Happy Hanukkah!

    Updated: 2010-12-09 21:07:15
    We get a rousing expression of Happy Hanukkah from our box-bound buddies… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8qJCr5h1w8

  • Space Access Gap: Closed!

    Updated: 2010-12-09 16:15:09
    SpaceX’s second successful Falcon 9 launch has just inserted the Dragon capsule into Earth orbit! The Dragon vehicle will perform a series of check-outs over the next few orbits before re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. If all goes well, then this is a major success for SpaceX and NASA’s COTS program – which seeks to contract [...]

  • More on the Falcon 9/Dragon Test Flight

    Updated: 2010-12-09 00:46:55
    * The Falcon 9 rocket performed nearly flawlessly. The roll attitude was solid through the entire flight. The first stage sep was without impingement. * The Dragon capsule entered orbit 301×288 on a targeted 300km circular. * The capsule thrusters were tested on maneuvers similar to what is required for ISS docking. * 4 Cubesats [...]

  • Historic Day for Commercial Space Flight

    Updated: 2010-12-08 20:37:23
    Today, SpaceX became the first commercial company in history to re-enter a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit. SpaceX launched its Dragon spacecraft into low-Earth orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 10:43 AM EST from the Air Force Station at Cape Canaveral. The Dragon spacecraft orbited the Earth at speeds greater than 17,000 miles per hour, [...]

  • 3rd JpSEC conference - JpSEC ‘10

    Updated: 2010-12-07 07:31:47
    And, no sooner than we have wrapped up the Fourth EuroSpaceward conference than it’s time to remind people about the upcoming Japan Space Elevator Conference (JpSEC ‘10) to be held next weekend (December 11th and 12th). I would love to go, but the conference will be all in Japanese and my knowledge of that language is [...]

  • Unchained Goddess: Frank Capra Knew

    Updated: 2010-12-07 00:06:07
    Global warming is not new.

  • Get Your Daily Dose of Awe @The Daily Galaxy Facebook Page

    Updated: 2010-12-06 09:01:12
    Link & Share The Daily Galaxy Facebook Page

  • 2010 EuroSpaceward conference wrapup

    Updated: 2010-12-06 00:05:38
    So, the 2010 EuroSpaceward conference is over - it sure went by quickly.  It was a very enjoyable conference and Markus Klettner, the Executive Director of EuroSpaceward deserves a lot of credit for the work he did in organizing this event.  Dr. Vessilin Shanov remarked to me at the end of the first day that [...]

  • 2010 EuroSpaceward Conference - Sunday afternoon (2)

    Updated: 2010-12-05 16:11:59
    First up is Akira Tsuchida from Japan (here in person!).  Akira headed up the E-T-C (Earth-Track-Controllers) Climber / Power-Beaming team that was in the 2007 competition in Salt Lake City.  He is a long-time believer in the concept of the Space Elevator and has done much to popularize the concept.  He is a member of [...]

  • International SunSat Design Competition

    Updated: 2010-12-03 20:50:56
    SunSat Design is an international competition intended to accelerate the design, manufacture, launch and operation of the next-generation satellites that will collect energy in space and deliver it to earth as electricity. Registration Deadline:  January 10, 1011 Design Submission Deadline:  April 4, 2011 Winners will be announced at the National Space Society’s International Space Development [...]

  • New Coalition for Space Exploration PSA Video

    Updated: 2010-12-03 20:31:05
    The Coalition for Space Exploration, of which the National Space Society is a member, has produced another in its series of short public service announcement videos intended to provide some answers to the question “Why spend money on space when we have so many problems here on Earth?” The new video is called “Think Outside the [...]

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