Hasta La Gadget!

About a decade ago, two of our favorite government entities, NASA and DARPA, paired off to create the robotic astronaut of the future: Robonaut. He had a cool copper helmet and some faux-muscly arms, but ultimately never made it to space. Now, 10 years on, NASA’s back with Robonaut2, created along with General Motors, who hopes to enslave poor R2 in its assembly plants. The details of exactly what has changed in this iteration are slim, but R2 is said to be more dexterous than its predecessor and stronger too, able to lift a 20lb dumbbell without getting all red in the face. It also seems to have lasers in its knuckles for some reason we can’t quite figure out, but we’re digging the look nevertheless. R2 is said to be helping NASA into a “bold new era of space exploration,” and while we don’t know exactly when that bold new era begins (now?), we do have a particularly menacing video of the original Robonaut included below, as well as one two of the fit and trim new model.

[Thanks, Adam]

Continue reading NASA and GM’s Robonaut2 allows human astronauts to feel the fear of obsolescence (video)

NASA and GM’s Robonaut2 allows human astronauts to feel the fear of obsolescence (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It may only represent a smidgen of the multi-trillion dollar annual federal budget, but funding for NASA never fails to stir up debate, and that looks like it’ll be the case more than ever with the Obama administration’s just-announced 2011 budget. While NASA’s budget will actually increase slightly to $19 billion, the big news is that Constellation moon program started by the Bush administration in 2006 (with the goal of returning by 2020) is being shelved amid what amounts to a fairly big change in priorities for NASA. That includes the first phase of more than $9 billion in spending on robotic exploration and heavy-lift rockets and, perhaps most notably, $6 billion in spending to promote the development of commercial rockets and spacecraft — which NASA hopes will eventually be able to transport astronauts into orbit. Turning around a space agency isn’t exactly easy though, and it’ll apparently cost $3 billion over two years simply to end what’s already been started on the Constellation program.

Feeling a little wistful? Then head on past the break for a brief history of NASA’s recent lunar ambitions.

Continue reading Budget puts NASA’s moon program on ice, promises to ‘blaze a new trail of discovery’

Budget puts NASA’s moon program on ice, promises to ‘blaze a new trail of discovery’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Obama Administration’s upcoming budget proposal, to be released on Monday, no longer contains money for NASA’s Constellation program or its upcoming Ares I rocket (pictured), which was supposed to replace the space shuttle, Popular Science reports.

As a result, the budget axes lunar landers, moon bases, and the Ares V cargo rocket, which was supposed to carry fuel and other supplies for American’s return to the moon’s surface. In short, Americans won’t be visiting the Moon again any time soon under the new proposals, the report said.

Instead, NASA would receive money to pursue a “heavy-lift” rocket that could carry humans and robots beyond low-earth orbit, but not until “some faraway, yet-to-be-determined date.” In addition, NASA would receive funding for climate change research, asteroid exploration, and inner solar system monitoring, plus a 2020 extension for the International Space Station, the report said. Stay tuned… (Image credit: NASA)

Researchers may have figured out a way to dislodge dust particles from sensitive equipment on the Moon or Mars using sound waves.

Here’s how it works: by playing back a high-pitched (13.8 KHz, 128 dB) standing wave of sound from a 1.25-inch tweeter, and focusing it on a reflector several inches away, researchers from the Department of Physics and Materials Science Program found it was enough to dislodge dust particles on the reflector’s surface, according to Physorg.com.

Later, the researchers tested this acoustic levitation process, as it is called, on a solar panel that was reduced to just 10 percent of its original power output after being coated with fine dust. The process boosted output back to 98.4 percent of maximum, the report said.

This is especially important since dust particles on the Moon and on Mars are sharper and more abrasive than on Earth, thanks to the thinner atmosphere. The next step: figuring out how to make the process work when actually out in the thin atmosphere; right now it would only work inside a sealed space station. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)

It could be like the 1848 Gold Rush–except for diamond, and on another planet.

Discovery News reports that oceans of liquid diamond, complete with solid diamond icebergs, could be flowing on both Neptune and Uranus. The research, first reported in the journal Nature Physics, found that diamond behaves just like water when freezing or melting, with solid forms floating on top of liquid forms, the report said.

What’s interesting about this is that diamond is very difficult to melt. It’s very hard, and tends to turn into graphite at very high temperatures. That graphite is what melts in the end, the report said. When researchers liquefied the diamond at super-high pressures similar to those found on Uranus and Neptune, and then reduced the temperature later, solid pieces of diamond began to appear that didn’t sink.

Diamond oceans–already theorized numerous times in the past, but even more likely in light of this latest research–could also explain the orientation of Uranus and Neptune’s magnetic fields, the report said. We won’t know the composition for sure without either sending spacecraft there, or simulating the conditions here on Earth; both of which require oodles of money.

And for the record, I was joking about a new Gold Rush. Because that’s all we need: Richard Branson in his SpaceShipTwo flying to Neptune and sticking a flag in its (gaseous) surface.