Fine Structure

Dragon Grappled to the ISS

2012-05-25T22:45:05Z

Incredible successes for SpaceX continue to flow from this mission. I heard from various news stories that the company was "50/50" on the success of the mission and to have everything go so well is absolutely incredible.

Dragon is now dangling off the robotic arm of the ISS waiting to be pulled towards the hatch. If the rest of the safety checks go well, the dock will be opened before tomorrow morning and the ISS crew will pick up the new supplies from within.

While the Falcon launcher could use a few more cargo launches under its belt before transporting humans, it's great to know that we can already resupply the ISS so soon after the shuttle retirement. Humans on Falcon is probably not that far off!

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/206031352850694144

Awesomely Clear Video of the Annular Solar Eclipse

2012-05-21T22:23:44Z

Yesterday's annular eclipse was captured in fantastic detail by Cory Poole who filtered the light in such a way that one can see the surface of the sun as the moon passes in front of it. Best eclipse shots I've seen from yesterday!

http://kottke.org/12/05/the-coolest-video-of-yesterdays-annular-solar-eclipse

Inside Curiosity’s Shell

2012-05-09T23:14:45Z

Curiosity is well on its way to Mars (landing in 87 days!) and seems to be doing well. Take a look at this blurry image from inside the backshell, it's a current image from 74 million miles away. Only a few lights and shapes are illuminated but it's the spirit of the thing that is impressive!

http://www.universetoday.com/95049/take-a-peek-inside-curiositys-shell/

Planetary Resources Really Aiming for Asteroids

2012-04-24T22:34:18Z

Sounds like some press releases went out a little early. Planetary Resources was previously an unknown company that had an obvious name and a date for their revealing: 10:30am today.

But it's earlier than that and the lid is already blown off this company. They have plans to mine near Earth asteroids for platinum-group metals. If it sounds hard, that's because it is. But hard problems are OK since they're backed by huge names like James Cameron and Google's Sergey and Larry.

Why solve this hard problem? According to the company's estimations, one platinum-rich 500m wide asteroid probably contains as much platinum as has been mined on Earth, ever. So there's some profit to be had here.

The need for platinum group metals is clear in high tech devices. This could really change the market which currently has to go through China to get these metals in any quantity.

And since it's to the benefit of Planetary Resources to know more about all the near Earth objects, part of their business is tracking objects in the sky. This is a huge win for Earth as most of our current asteroid hunting is done by NASA and is severely underfunded. We're talking about a situation that could potentially be a make-or-break for the Human race, it's probably worth it to have some money invested in looking for asteroids.

Watch their real announcement live at 10:30am PST.

http://www.space.com/15395-asteroid-mining-planetary-resources.html

Space Shuttle Discovery's Final Flight

2012-04-19T04:19:47Z

I'd be remiss if I didn't make at least one post about Discovery's final flight on the back of a 747 to Washington DC where it'll live at the National Air and Space Museum for the rest of its days*.

None of the immediate photos I saw of the event really sparked my interest though - they were mostly cell phone photos from rooftops. In Focus produced a fantastic gallery of some of the best images available and this one is most definitely worth seeing.

*unless there is an urgent Amageddon-style disaster movie plot where the shuttles have to be brought back in to service.

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/04/space-shuttle-discoverys-final-flight/100281/

How We Nearly Lost Discovery

2012-04-18T23:16:40Z

Back when Discovery and the rest of the orbiters were grounded after the loss of Columbia, NASA held lots of conferences about how they were finding the problem and they were fixing the tank foam so it wouldn't peel off and damage the orbiter in flight. I recall thinking how strange it was to have three years of "fixing" the problem and then on the first launch have a huge foam piece just barely miss the orbiter.

Wayne Hale was the shuttle program manager during those years and his story about the foam problem is pretty direct, especially considering the huge error involved. Definitely an interesting read for engineers.

http://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/how-we-nearly-lost-discovery/

the sky calls to us

2012-04-11T01:51:00Z

I could watch this animated gif of auroras and city lights passing under the ISS all day long. And I think I might...

http://mlkshk.com/p/EJ1R

Vintage Space Travel Posters

2012-04-05T22:32:17Z

Some very nice vintage-style posters from the Era of Space Travel - you know, the 60s. These designs and more are available as physical posters, iPhone cases and on various other goods.

From the newest blog in my feedreader, It's Okay To Be Smart. Highly recommended and worth flipping through the archives if you're into pop science.

http://www.itsokaytobesmart.com/post/20503686281/vintage-space-travel-posters-from-the-genius-i

MicroThrust Propulsion For Microsats

2012-03-31T01:50:41Z

There have been a few stories floating around about a new ionic fluid propulsion system for sub-100kg satellites but I haven't really found a story that I wanted to link to until now. There's a great infographic about the system on this Verge story which explains the system in some simple terms.

Essentially, this method can propel smaller satellites not by combusting a fuel but simply by throwing it out the back using alternating electric fields. It's difficult to explain just how fast these particles are ejected but consider this: the impressive efficiency of this kind of thruster is due to Newton's third law. The particles are being accelerated so much faster than through standard combustion that they make up the difference between the amount of fuel used.

The second half of the story is the research and manufacturing process for these microthrusters. Check out the EPFL page for details on how the thrusters are designed by simulation and produced by microfabrication. This project is really taking advantage of current technology to produce these thrusters.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/30/2913528/microthrust-satellite-propulsion-system

Solving the Soviet Union's Moon Lander Mystery

2012-03-28T23:31:52Z

We've been seeing some fantastic high-resolution shots from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of the surface of the moon since the spacecraft launched in July 2009 (see Apollo Landing Sites Closer Up).

One of the fascinating things about this imagery is that we can more clearly see the results of failed missions. For obvious reasons, directly investigating failures are typically off limits once they launch. In this article, the LRO spots a failed Soviet lander that impacted the surface of the moon hard but was still communicating to Earth for some time.

As it turns out, the lander tipped over after hitting the surface of the Moon and wasn't able to capture the samples it was supposed to return to Earth.

And an interesting factoid about this same mission: the hard landing and failure occurred while Apollo 11 astronauts were taking their first spacewalk on the Moon. It was such a busy time on the Moon then!

http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/3/27/soviet-russian-moon-mystery-solved-by-nasa-50-years-later

NASA Launches Five Rockets in Five Minutes

2012-03-27T22:35:21Z

Some great shots of last night's multi-rocket launch from Goddard Space Flight Center on Flickr.

The test launched five rockets to the edge of space, each 80 seconds apart. Their chemical trail is supposed to give insight into the atmospheric and electromagnetic conditions at that altitude.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/6874599036/in/photostream/

Orbiter Autopsies

2012-03-24T04:46:23Z

Air & Space Magazine has a great feature right now on the work being done tearing down the old shuttles for display. The focus is largely on inspecting the wear that occurs over the lifetime of the components, some of which have never been removed after a particular shuttle was built.

It's a fairly interesting look at the implications for small implementation details in shuttles, and the article connects the dots back to the aviation industry where components are used continuously without any cost effective method of inspection.

There's a photo gallery as well with a few smallish photos of shuttles being dismantled.

http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Orbiter-Autopsies.html

Fusion Finally on the Horizon?

2012-03-22T05:37:28Z

The National Ignition Facility broke some records this week when firing its fusion-attempting laser with a focused energy of greater than 2 megajoules. It's the most powerful laser of its kind.

The main story here isn't the records though, it's the impressive progress that the NIF has made using a method known as Inertial Confinement Fusion. Most fusion projects over the last 60 years have been magnetically confined and, if you hadn't noticed, that method has run into serious setbacks during the entire time experimenters have been working on it. The famous saying that fusion power is always ten or twenty years in the future is from the high hopes of magnetically confined fusion experimenters.

ICF technology is making big progress in its few short years of existence, and they hope to have basic ignition at the lab by the end of this year. There are a number of challenges still facing the NIL team so we can't celebrate quite yet but if I had to bet on a particular type of fusion achieving net energy first it would be with ICF.

http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2012/03/fussion-finally-on-horizon.html

Neutrino Communication Via Detectors

2012-03-16T07:23:32Z

Scientists using the particle acceleration equipment at Fermilab have sent neutrinos meant for communication to the MINERvA detector. They used timing to send a binary-encoded message to the detector, though the process wasn't that different than how the detector usually works.

Neutrino communication could be a great new piece of technology to work with but so far neutrino detectors rely on size and chance to detect one or two neutrinos out of millions. So far not the greatest method for communication.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/03/neutrinos-shot-through-780-feet-of-stone-spell-out-their-name.ars

Space Shuttle Launch with Enhanced Sound

2012-03-16T03:01:40Z

Wow, I never thought those space shuttle booster videos could get better but apparently all you have to do is remaster the sound and everything feels much more realistic!

This one is also HD so be sure to go fullscreen and turn your speakers up a bit!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2aCOyOvOw5c#!