Hasta La Gadget!

The International Space Station orbits the Earth at 8 kilometers per second—but it’s tough to visualize just how fast that is. When you think about it in terms of how far the thing moves during the course of a song you know, though, you’ll be shocked.

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Two North California sisters, inspired by a documentary, decided to make a Mars Rover by themselves with help from their dad Robert Beatty. Now, 13-year-old Camille Beatty’s and 11-year-old Genevieve’s remote-controlled replica of the Mars Spirit rover is being exhibited at the New York Hall of Science. Great job kids.

These two sisters have been tinkering with remote-controlled toys for awhile. They are a real dynamic duo and have made around 15 robots. They know what they are doing. Visitors of the exhibit can drive the rover on a simulated Martian surface and search for light-emitting rocks using the rover’s infrared camera, sonar sensors, thermal array sensor and other cool gizmos.

The point behind the project was to get kids interested in science. Well, this is one that will get both kids and adults interested in science.

[Beatty Robotics via Damn Geeky]

NASA has been testing 3D printing in space, and this is an interesting development because this could eventually lead to having the space agency “print” a number of replacement parts. Clearly, when you are in the space station, getting parts shipped to you is more than problematic since a launch to space can cost half a billion dollars. (more…)

NASA 3D-Printing Gets Closer To “Star Trek Replication” original content from Ubergizmo.

No matter how wry your sense of humor or how pessimistic your outlook, you have to give into your human capacity for awe at some point. And it might as well be now because this photo is amazing. The spiral galaxy, M74, consists of about 100 billion stars and is 32 million light-years away if you’re headed toward Pisces. And I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we wish we were.

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We imagine the Air Force is none too pleased that Space Fence might shutter as soon as September 1st due to budget constraints, according to leaked memos obtained by Space News. Space Fence, a powerful system of radars that track satellites and space junk orbiting the Earth, performs 40 percent of the Air Force Space Surveillance Network’s observations. It can detect objects as small as a basketball up to 24,000 kilometers away and can constantly beam info back to the planet with no human input. It’s no surprise then that the airmen called it a “critical defense system” when they tried to save the project in July — an endeavor they failed if this info turns out to be true. Before anyone worries about unmonitored celestial debris hurtling toward Earth, know that a plan to build a more advanced Space Fence replacement exists. The only reason why it’s not in the works is because it has yet to secure funding, leading this editor to think that someone really needs to get started engineering a money tree.

[Image credit: NASA]

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Source: SpaceNews