I look at the Soviet plans to go to the Moon and I wonder if they secretly contracted the Marx Brothers to design it. I guess it’s easy to say that with hindsight—look at the Apollo program—but couldn’t they really see that this was not a very smart option? More »
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
Alternative energy projects powered up around the globe this week as Inhabitat showcased a series of solar pyramids designed to energize Abu Dhabi and the Netherlands rolled out plans for a bike path paved with photovoltaics. Meanwhile India announced that it will launch a series of solar-powered cellphone towers this year, and a 19-year-old American teenager created a parabolic solar death ray — and promptly proceeded to burn down his garden shed.
In other news, Tesla jolted the auto world with plans to launch its upcoming Model X in 2013, and a team of researchers from the University of Illinois discovered that the same plant that produces Tequila actually yields a pretty potent biofuel as well. We also learned that Toyota plans to power its upcoming hybrids with lighter, more powerful Lithium-Ion batteries, and we were impressed by the streamlined classic stylings of Mitsuoka’s electric Himiko car.
Finally, this week we washed away the winter blues by shedding light on 15 green lamps that bathe your interiors in energy-efficient illumination. We also shared 6 green lighting tips that will help you cut your energy bills and 5 tips for home renovations that will keep your house cozy in the worst winter weather.
Inhabitat’s Week in Green: solar pyramids in UAE, Tequila turns to biofuel, and green lamps galore originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Feb 2011 22:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Super Bowl pre-game shows may not be known for catering to the gadget geeks out there, but this year, Fox has a surprise for you. Their pre-game coverage of the big game will feature a humanoid robot, built in a partnership between NASA and General Motors. Robonaut 2, which is scheduled to be launched into orbit on the Space Shuttle Discovery on Feb. 24, is already known (at least on this blog) for going on a date with MSNBC reporter Stephanie Pappas. was filmed interacting with host Howie Long at a car dealership in Dallas last week. No word on exactly what the robot plans to do on the show (here’s to hoping “announce plans for world domination” isn’t in the cards), but when it reaches space, the machine is designed to be a robotic assistant for astronauts on the International Space Station.
One thing the robot won’t be doing is kicking field goals. The design is only humanoid from the chest up, with arms, fingers and a head but no legs. NASA engineers say that they hope to one day build on Robonaut 2 to allow the machine to move around the ISS and, potentially, outside of it for spacewalks.
If you want to get a little taste of the future with your football, the pregame show starts at 2 p.m. Eastern on Fox.
[via Space.com]
You may or may not have heard about NASA‘s project to build the most sustainable federal building in Moffett, California. The project began about two years ago, and will supposedly be finished this May. The experimental, earthly ‘space station’ cost $20.6 million to build, and includes 50,000 square feet of work space on two floors. The building also includes radiant ceiling panels, heating panels on walls, and radiant concrete flooring. When completed, the Sustainability Base will use 90 percent less potable water than a regular office building of the same size, and it will be able to create 22 percent more energy.
NASA’s Sustainability Building, the government’s greenest building, opening in California this year originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
This week we saw new horizons dawn for green transportation as NASA’s Nanosail-D became the first solar sail spacecraft to orbit the earth and President Obama issued a call for one million electric vehicles in his State of the Union Address. We also test drove the recently released electric Mini Cooper and took a look at several transportation breakthroughs that could clean up car emissions – researchers have developed an air pollution-fighting road treatment and Cella Energy claims to have created an emission free gas that costs $1.50 per gallon.
In other news, this week Qatar showcased designs for 9 sustainable stadiums for the 2022 World Cup and BIG unveiled plans for a plant-wrapped waste to power plant that doubles as a ski slope. Super cities are on the rise in Asia as China announced plans to construct a mega-city the size of Switzerland and SOM unveiled a masterplan for a cutting-edge green tech city for Hanoi. On the other hand, Dubai’s architecture of excess is fading fast as a report revealed that the emirate’s world-shaped archipelago of islands is sinking into the sea.
We also showcased the latest in portable tech as we brought you a brilliant Fire Department iPhone app that stands to save lives, and we rounded up our five favorite phone-charging green gadgets. And if you’re looking for a case to carry it all in, check out these chic quilted iPad bags – just the thing to keep your kit cozy and protected during this month’s blizzards.
Inhabitat’s Week in Green: the power plant you can ski, and NASA’s orbiting Nanosail-D originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Jan 2011 21:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Twenty-five years ago today, the nation watched as the most diverse space crew in history took off into the sky. But after just seventy-three seconds that journey turned into a technological catastrophe like none we had ever seen before. More »
If you think Star Wars took place in a galaxy far, far away, you should probably prepare to have your perceptions of distance rocked. NASA astronomers believe they’ve laid their eyes what appears to be the most distant object ever spotted by humans… in the history of mankind, no less. The galaxy was first peeked back in 2009, but NASA has just confirmed (via that trusty Hubble contraption) that what it saw is actually the oldest known galaxy in existence. At a distance of 13.2 billion light years away, this galaxy is a staggering 150 million years older than the previous record-setting collection of stars. The cluster of blue stars is just a tiny galaxy, though — NASA says you’d need hundreds of these little groups to make up our Milky Way. Head past the break for a closer shot of the constellation, otherwise known as a nondescript red pixel.
Continue reading Hubble telescope sees furthest galaxy, 13.2 billion light years from Earth
Hubble telescope sees furthest galaxy, 13.2 billion light years from Earth originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 19:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Truth be told, it probably does take a rocket scientist to truly understand the scope of what NASA is currently investigating, but the gist of it isn’t hard to grok. America’s premiere space agency is purportedly examining the possibility of using beamed energy propulsion to launch spacecraft into orbit, and while we’ve seen objects lofted by mere beams before, using a laser to leave the atmosphere is a whole ‘nother ballgame. The reasons are fairly obvious: a laser-based propulsion system would effectively nix the chance of an explosive chemical reaction taking place at launch, and it would “make possible a reusable single-stage rocket that has two to five times more payload space than conventional rockets, which would cut the cost of sending payloads into low-Earth orbit.” We’re told that the study should be concluded by March, but only heaven knows how long it’ll be before we see any of this black magic used to launch rockets. Sadly, we can’t expect any Moon missions to rely on lasers for at least 50 or so years, but we’re guessing that timeline could be shortened dramatically if Sir Richard Branson were to get involved.
[Image courtesy of Jordin Kare]
NASA considering beamed energy propulsion for space launches originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Forget the in-dash car phone. If all goes according to plan in 2011, a group of British scientists will be rocketing an Android smartphone to infinity, and beyond.
Researchers at the University of Surrey and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) in England are developing an Android-powered satellite to be launched into lower-earth orbit.
Dubbed Strand-1 (Surrey Training, Research and Nanosatellite Demonstrator), the 11.8-inch satellite will take pictures of Earth on a mission to be launched later in the year. Included in its control electronics are the guts of a commercial smartphone running Android.
With Strand-1, SSTL researchers want to show off the features and capabilities of a satellite while primarily using relatively inexpensive off-the-shelf components.
“The economic implications of this are really exciting,” mission concepts engineer Shaun Kenyon told Wired.com. “If these phones stand up to the extreme environments we see in space, it’s amazing to think we could eventually leverage low-cost mobile technology to use in satellite production.”
This isn’t the first time scientists have launched phones aboard rockets. Last year, researchers at the NASA Ames Research Center experimented with sending a couple of HTC Nexus One phones 30,000 feet into the atmosphere, attaching each phone as payload in a small rocket. One phone bit the dust hard after the rocket parachute failed, but the other one walked away from its mission unscathed, capturing more than two-and-a-half hours of recorded video on its 720 x 480-pixel camera.
Cost is a big motivation for the experiment. Many of the standard features seen in current smartphones — cameras, GPS navigation, Wi-Fi accessibility — are also found on satellites. But the smartphone components are a fraction of the size, weight and cost of those used in aerospace.
“We want to see if smartphones can actually survive up there, ” Kenyon said, “and we’ll be looking at how phone-specific sensors like accelerometers perform in space-flight conditions.”
SSTL will initially launch the satellite powered by an on-board computer, which will judge how the phone’s vitals are holding up and monitor for malfunctions in the phone’s hardware. After the data on the phone’s basic functioning are collected, the computer will be turned off and the phone will be used to control different parts of the satellite.
SSTL won’t divulge the manufacturer or model of the phone, but says it is indeed powered by the Android OS.
The satellite will weigh just under 10 pounds and come equipped with miniature reaction wheels for general torque and orientation control, as well as GPS navigation and pulsed plasma thrusters for space propulsion. Kenyon estimates the cost of the phone parts used to come in at less than 300 pounds, or just under $500.
SSTL has built and launched 34 satellites since being founded in 1981. The company specializes in smaller, low-cost satellites that often cost much less than those normally associated with space travel. In the past, the company has worked on training and development programs for NASA and the European Space Agency. The smartphone satellite project is being done in conjunction with the Surrey Space Center at the University of Surrey.
SSTL hopes to launch the satellite before the end of 2011.
Photo: Component smartphone parts to be installed within satellite. Courtesy of SSTL.
Updated 4:32 PST to correct the reference to “pulsed plasma thrusters.”
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Something for the budding geniuses out there: NASA is inviting student teams to design and build experiments the agency will fly into the stratosphere, a near-space environment, more than 100,000 feet above the Earth. The second annual Balloonsat High-Altitude Flight Competition is open to student teams in ninth to twelfth grades from the U.S. and its territories. Each team must submit an experiment proposal to NASA by February 11. Experiments can be on a wide range of topics, such as bacteria studies or weather observations.
Once entries are received, a panel of NASA engineers and scientists will evaluate them. The top eight will be announced on March 4. The top four will get up to $1,000 to develop their experiments and travel to the research center. The other four teams will get up to $1,000 to develop their experiment, but will participate via the Internet.
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