Hasta La Gadget!

What you are seeing above is the scar left by the Waldo Canyon Fire that ravaged 18,274 acres of land and destroyed nearly 350 homes, killing two people and forcing at least 32,000 residents to evacuate. The photo was taken by NASA’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on July 4. During that day, 90 percent of the wildfire had been already contained. The red color represents the land covered by vegetation while the brown color reveals the exact coverage area of the wildfire. Light brown areas represent slight burning  while the bright red patches of vegetation near Colorado Springs are golf courses, parks, and other irrigated land. The Waldo Canyon Fire was first reported on June 23, 2012 and it is considered as the most destructive wildfire to ever hit Colorado. The Denver Post estimates that the total damages caused by the wildfire could go up to more than $110 million.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Robotic garden could provide food and oxygen in Mars, Blue Origin spaceship design is good to go,

This is the scar left by the terrible Waldo Canyon Fire that burned through 18,247 acres (74 square kilometers) in Pike National Forest, three miles west of Colorado Springs. With 346 homes incinerated, two lives lost and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, it was the most destructive fire in Colorado history. More »

NASA is planning the first test of the new Orion spacecraft for 2014. One of the preparations for the test flight is actually getting the Orion spacecraft to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On Monday of this week, the first of the next-generation Orion spacecraft arrived at Kennedy. Orion is NASA’s first manned spacecraft since it retired the shuttle fleet last year.

Orion is designed to ferry shuttle astronauts not only into low earth orbit, but to nearby asteroids and possibly even to Mars. NASA is using private companies, like SpaceX, that can ferry supplies and astronauts to the ISS. That frees up NASA’s manpower to focus on the goal of getting a human to an asteroid by 2025. NASA also has a goal of getting a human to Mars by the 2030s.

NASA plans for Orion’s first test flight will see the capsule fly 15 times higher than the ISS, to roughly 3600 miles above the Earth’s surface in 2014. That flight test is being called Exploration Flight Test-1 and will use NASA’s next-generation rocket booster dubbed Space Launch System rocket. The Orion capsule is the future of NASA’s manned space program.

[via PC Mag]

First Orion spacecraft arrives at Kennedy Space Center is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Looks like playing games and watching sci-fi flicks didn’t do the University of Iowa’s Jack Scudder any harm. The NASA-funded researcher has been studying elusive magnetic portals connecting the Earth and Sun, and now he’s figured out how to find them. The portals, also known as X-points in Scudder-speak, are born from the mingling of Earth’s magnetic field with incoming solar winds. These astral connections create flux transfer events (we’ve got Doc Brown’s attention) — high-energy particle flows responsible for, among other things, the eerie twinkling of the polar auroras. Off the back of Scudder’s data wizardry, NASA‘s planning the 2014 Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS), sending four craft into the void to observe the portals. Each spacebot is capable of locating them, and when one is found, inviting the others ’round for a study date. Taking a leaf from Scudder’s book, Engadget researchers have tracked down a NASA video detailing the mission, located beyond the fold for your convenience.

Continue reading Now NASA’s thinking with portals (video)

Now NASA’s thinking with portals (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 00:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NASA unveiled its first Orion crew model today, designed to take astronauts into space and the eventual goal to take them to Mars as well. Arriving at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last Friday, the passenger module is still set to undergo quite a bit of development before an initial flight scheduled for 2014.

Although being able to carry four crew members into space, the first two flights by Orion will be unmanned. Once development has been completed, it will be the most advanced piece of spacecraft we’ve ever seen. The first flight scheduled for spring 2014 will be a test for the module’s heat shield, parachutes and other components.

During the unmanned test flight, Orion will reach orbit at a height of over 3,600 miles and circle the Earth twice. To put that into perspective, that’s more than 15 times higher than the International Space Station. Once completed, the Orion will return back to Earth traveling at over 20,000 mph before eventually dropping into the Pacific ocean off the U.S. coast.

NASA has set a target for a manned Orion mission in 2021.

[via Verge]

NASA reveals Orion space capsule with first flight set for 2014 is written by Elise Moreau & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.