Hasta La Gadget!

Give a national museum a 3D scanner and it’ll archive its entire collection. Give it an X-ray machine though, and it’ll show you the innards of a space suit. As part of its Suited for Space exhibit, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum ran a series of astronauts’ work-wear through a CT scanner. The results (above and below) are more than a little haunting, with all manner of hidden buckles, straps and sensors exposed against ghostly transparent fabrics. Why X-rays? Because according to Wired, the Smithsonian wanted to see how the suits were put together, but deconstructing them without damage wasn’t exactly feasible. Seeing the level of detail required to keep our spacewalkers safe on the job via online pictures is one thing, but scoping it out in person is likely much cooler. If you want an up-close look for yourself, you have until December 1st to make the trip to Washington, D.C.

Filed under: Science, Alt

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Via: The Verge

Source: Wired, Smithsonian

It’s one of the most mundane tasks you probably undertake so, if you’re anything like me, you probably put off doing your laundry until the absolute last minute. But do astronauts do the same in space?

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Thought good old Commander Hadfield already taught you everything there is to know about space livin’? Shame on you—there’s always more to learn. Like about how your skin molts and floats off your body in giant flakes and calluses, for instance.

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Don’t get excited about buying the new robots created by Japanese company Dentsu in conjunction with Toyota and the University of Tokyo — they won’t be hitting stores anytime soon. However, do get excited that one of them, namely the white-helmeted droid Kirobo (shown above, left), will actually be launched into orbit as part of a Japan Space Agency mission to the ISS on August 4th. In fact, he and his backup Mirata were endowed with voice recognition, natural language processing, speed synthesis, realistic body language and facial recognition for that very reason. They’ll be participating in the “world’s first conversational experiment” between people and robots in space, while also mixing it up with kids on earth with educational activities. Hopefully, the astronauts won’t give Kirobo any HAL 9000-like control of the station, though the cute ‘bots seem malice-free, saying they “wanted to create a future where humans and robots live together and get along.” Check it out for yourself in the video after the break.

Filed under: Robots, Science, Alt

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Source: US News

Chris Hadfield—CSA Astronaut, ISS Commander and the human explainer for all things space related—answers another question with his latest video: how do astronauts exercise with that zero gravity and all? Turns out, they do a lot of the same stuff we do: running on a treadmill, deadlifts, squats and more. Only their exercises require being carefully tied down by a harness. Plus, astronauts have to work out 2 hours everyday to maintain bone and muscle mass. More »