Hasta La Gadget!

ISS astronaut — and soon to be commander — Chris Hadfield announced on Friday that he’d be conducting a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) on February 17. True to his promise, Hadfield showed up and answered questions from eager minds wanting to know what it’s like to be in space. Hadfield ended up answering quite a bevy of questions, dealing with his fears in space, the dangers involved, and even giving advice to those young ones seeking to be astronauts in the future.

Hadfield says that the scariest thing that he’s seen in space so far was a large meteorite burning up in front of him, which sent a “shiver up [his] back” as he imagined the meteorite coming towards the ISS instead. That’s definitely a legit fear, since Hadfield even said that micro-meteorites hit the station at times, leaving dents and tiny holes on the exterior and the solar panels.

As for the biggest danger living in space, Hadfield says that it’s the initial launch into space where the risk is at its highest, due to “all that power and acceleration.” Once that’s over, though, Hadfield notes that it’s just a “steady threat of radiation, meteorite impacts, and vehicle system failure like fire or ammonia breakthrough.”

Hadfield even was willing to give some advice to young up-and-comers who want to be astronauts when they grow up. Hadfield’s advice? Pretty much what we expected: Eat healthy, exercise on a regular basis, be smart and do your homework, and be trustworthy. Of course, all of this is good advice for anyone, but it goes double for astronauts.

When asked how the Earth looks from space, Hadfield broke out his poetic prowess and explained the experience in as much detail as possible. He says that the world “looks like a carpet of countless tiny perfect unblinking lights in endless velvet, with the Milky Way as a glowing area of paler texture.”

ISS astronaut Chris Hadfield talks fears, dangers, and advice on Reddit is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It seems like only yesterday when the SpaceX Dragon capsule launched its way to the International Space Station for the first time back in May, and now it’s reporting for duty yet again for the third time. NASA has announced that the capsule will be planned to launch on March 1 to bring even more supplies on board the ISS, as well as take back some materials when the capsule returns to Earth.

SpaceX is the work of Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk, who has been in the news himself recently over a debacle with the Model S car and the New York Times. However, he’ll soon be focusing his energy on the third launch of the Dragon capsule in less than a year, which will dock to the ISS, the first private company to accomplish such a feat.

While three times in less than a year may seem like a lot of space flights, SpaceX has signed an agreement with NASA to do 12 re-supply missions to the ISS using the Dragon capsule. The spacecraft itself is a reusable capsule that is able to be reused over and over again many times before SpaceX will have to replace it.

After the launch, and once the capsule starts to get closer to the ISS, astronauts Kevin Ford and Tom Marshburn will use the station’s robotic arm to catch the capsule and bring it in for docking. The capsule is planned to take over 2,300 pounds of experiment samples and equipment back to Earth on March 25.

SpaceX Dragon capsule to make third trip to ISS on March 1 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Today you’re in for a treat if you’re interested in seeing massive hunks of space debris fly past our planet thanks to NASA. The NASA team has put together a live video stream for your enjoyment, showing the Earth flyby in real time today at 2:25 p.m. EST. For those of you wondering – no, there is no chance that this asteroid will be colliding with our planet, so you can rest easy.

The NASA Near-Earth Object Program Office has let it be known that they’ve successfully been able to predict the path of the 2012 DA14 thus far, and have no reason to believe it’ll be changing to a collision course with the planet at any time. On the other hand, this asteroid will be passing so close to the Earth that it will be inside our planet’s massive ring of geosynchronous weather and communications satellites – so if you’ve got any rogue spaceships up there you’ve been meaning to move, you should probably have already done so.

At this point in time – 11:21 AM PST you’ll see the image above showing how NASA puts the 2012 DA14 asteroid at a point closer to the Earth than we are to any of our other planetary cousins. Have a peek at the live stream here as well:

Let us know what you think of this big event and how awesome you feel it is that we’re able to watch the whole thing on the web! This sort of asteroid movement has previously been broadcast on every sort of set all the way back to black and white television, with NASA behind the helm all the way. Have a peek at the timeline below for more information on recent asteroid or meteor happenings as they occurred in our solar system over the past few weeks and months as well!

UPDATE: you can follow the asteroid in a fabulous computer simulation in NASA’s “Eyes on the Solar System” web app as well. It’s a must-see sort of situation – you can ride along with the rock!

Near-Earth Asteroid DA14 live video stream shown by NASA is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In the future American astronauts may make their way into deep space or to the international space station using NASA’s Orion capsule and Orion’s Space Launch System. The first flight for Orion is expected to occur in 2014. That flight will be unmanned and aimed at launching the spacecraft 3600 miles above the surface of the Earth.

If that launch is successful, it would mark the farthest mission from Earth since Apollo 17 returned from the moon in 1972. NASA’s goal with Orion is to put Americans back on the moon by 2021. This week NASA has been testing parachutes and rocket engines for the Orion spacecraft and its launch system. During parachute tests, NASA engineers intentionally kept one of the three parachutes from opening with a test capsule attached underneath.

Rather than being an actual Orion capsule or a mockup, Wired reports that the “test capsule” was a rocket-shaped object of the same mass as the Orion capsule. For the test, the faux capsule was dropped from 25,000 feet above the ground out in Arizona desert. NASA says that even with only two of the parachutes fully functional and the third flapping in the wind, the capsule descendent at a rate that would have allowed astronauts inside to survive.

The test marks the eighth parachute test for the Orion program. Later in 2013 NASA will begin testing the recovery process used to retrieve the Orion capsule and the astronauts inside after they splashed down in the ocean. Rather than using a helicopter to fly the capsule back to a ship as happened in the Apollo era, a recovery ship will be used to fetch the Orion capsule from the water. NASA also plans to continue testing the J-2X engine’s at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. There will be a hot fire test conducted this month to establish performance parameters for the engine and various liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen inlet pressures will be explored.

[via Wired]

NASA is currently testing parachutes and rocket engines for Orion spacecraft is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Late last month, we told you about an asteroid that will fly by the Earth at close proximity on February 15. Essentially, it will squeeze its way in between the Earth and the Moon, which is actually really close, and one company is saying that the asteroid is worth $195 billion in materials, such as metals and propellants. However, others aren’t so sure about that figure.

Deep Space Industries says that they’re willing to pay whoever can go up into space and actually grab the asteroid to mine it for materials, and if that sounds nearly impossible, it probably is at this point. However, Deep Space Industries claim that there are many other asteroids near Earth that would be far easier to catch anyway.

According to DSI, if this specific asteroid contains even 5% recoverable water, that alone might be worth as much as $65 billion in rocket fuel. DSI also explains that the asteroid most likely weighs anywhere from as little as 16,000 tons to as much as one million tons, so the amount of easily-recovered metals, like iron and nickel, could be worth $130 billion alone.

Many people are skeptical about the asteroids worth, though. It’s not to say that the asteroid itself isn’t worth almost $200 billion, but the work that it would take to mine the materials would cost a fortune, as noted by Forbes. Essentially, they argue that since it’s impossible right now to mine asteroids and use the materials in space to build other things, the asteroid is worth nothing until we’re able to actually mine the thing.

[via Network World]

Fly-by asteroid said to be worth $195b in materials is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.