Hasta La Gadget!

We weren’t aware the moon was a source of “dark power,” but apparently it is. That power has been harnessed in one of Wicked Lasers’ latest creations, the Lunar laser.

There are plenty of cameras out there, but Hasselblad undoubtedly makes some of the most amazing ones out there, including one that was used over 50 years ago in space by NASA astronaut Walter M. Schirra.

Despite looking nothing like it, the Hasselblad Lunar Camera is supposed to pay tribute to the 500C camera Schirra used. Instead of using traditional film, of course, the new camera offers with a 24 MP CMOS digital sensor, and comes with an 18-55mm lens. It also offers advanced image stabilization, which will allow you to capture clear photos without a tripod.

Its available in several exterior styles, including one with Italian-designed luxury materials, like mahogany, leather and gold.

Overall, it looks pretty amazing, but you’ll have to fork over at least $7,000(USD) to get yours.

[via Hasselblad]

Building a base on the Moon poses a rather large logistics problem when all the construction material has to make a 238,900-mile journey. The European Space Agency has proposed packing light: it’s teaming with Foster + Partners to test the possibility of 3D printing not just the tools, but whole lunar buildings. The current method would bind powder in layers to create hollow, cellular building blocks that are both sturdy and relatively light. With an improved D-Shape printer from Monolite, the ESA believes it could finish a whole structure inside of a week — if only we could finish most Earth-bound homes so quickly. There’s no word on the likelihood of any spacefarers using the technique, but it’s easy to see the value of leaving more room for the supplies that really matter.

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Via: CNET

Source: ESA

NASA is no stranger to shooting lasers at spacecraft orbiting the moon (seriously), but it’s now moving beyond “basic” tasks like tracking their location. The space agency announced yesterday that it has successfully demonstrated one-way laser communication with a satellite orbiting the moon for the first time. For that milestone, NASA chose to send an image of the Mona Lisa, which was transmitted to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in a series of laser pulses beamed from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Not surprisingly, that means of communication introduced its share of challenges, including interference from turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere. To compensate for that, NASA used what’s known as Reed-Solomon coding to reconstruct the image (pictured after the break), which is the same process used for error correction in CDs and DVDs. You can find more details from NASA, and a video explaining the whole process, at the source link below.

[Image credit: NASA, Tom Zagwodzki/Goddard Space Flight Center]

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Via: The Inquirer

Source: NASA

The Polaris rover may look a little punk rock, but that mohawk is no fashion statement. It’s for catching solar rays which shine almost horizontally at the Moon’s north pole, a location Polaris is due to explore before 2016. Built by Astrobotic Technology, it’ll be ferried aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to our celestial companion, where it’ll drill into the surface in search of ice. The company, spun out of the Carnegie Mellon University, hopes to identify resources at a depth of up to four feet that could be used to support manned Moon expeditions in the future. The plan is to complete the mission during a 10-day window of sunlight, digging at up to 100 sites over a three-mile stretch. However, if it can live through the harsh two-week-long nights, then it may continue to operate “indefinitely.” NASA is backing the project, providing ice-prospecting gear and money, although Astrobotic hopes to get more cash for its work — over $20 million from Google’s Lunar X Prize. Right now, Polaris is a flight prototype and there are still improvements to be made, mainly on the software side, before it tackles the rough terrain. Check out the short video of its public unveiling below, although we don’t think the soundtrack quite matches the hairdo.

Continue reading Polaris rover will travel to the Moon in search of polar resources, try to survive the long lunar night

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Polaris rover will travel to the Moon in search of polar resources, try to survive the long lunar night originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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